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Thinking up ways to test that quantum cat

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In “New pursuit of Schrödinger’s cat” (Prospect , 21st September 2011) Philip Ball:
“Quantum theory is reliable but fraught with paradox. Philip Ball asks if scientists will now find an object existing in two places at once,”

At some scale, the quantum-ness of the microscopic world gives way to classical, Newtonian physics. Why? The generally accepted answer is the process of decoherence. Crudely speaking, interactions of a quantum entity with its teeming environment act like a measurement, collapsing superpositions into a well-defined state. So, large objects obey classical physics not because of their size per se but because they contain more particles and thus experience more interactions, so decohering instantly.

But that doesn’t fully resolve the issue—as shown by Schrödinger’s famous cat. In his thought experiment, Schrödinger imagined a cat that is poisoned, or not, depending on the outcome of a quantum event. The experiment is concealed inside a box. Since the outcome of the event is undetermined until observation collapses the wavefunction, quantum theory seemed to insist that, until the box is opened, the cat would be both alive and dead. Physicists used to evade that absurdity by insisting that somehow the bigness of the cat would bring about decoherence even without observation, so that it would be either alive or dead but not both.

Ball hopes Darwin will solve the problem.

Comments
21.1 bornagain77 October 3, 2011 at 2:30 pm I don’t recall ever referencing ‘them’ in my original post or any other of my posts.
Here's what you said:
5 bornagain77 October 1, 2011 at 9:06 am the 3:33 minute mark of the video pretty much says it all as far as ‘demonstrating centrality’ i.e. that image at the 3:33 minute mark is definitely not something we would expect
I can be forgiven if by "we" I assumed you meant the mainstream scientific community
If you prefer their explanation to the correct Theistic one
What makes you think I prefer "their" explanation? .cantor
October 3, 2011
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I don't recall ever referencing 'them' in my original post or any other of my posts. In fact only you have ever referenced them and I have merely consistently maintained that their explanation is bunk. If you prefer their explanation to the correct Theistic one, that I have laid out for you, so be it, but I have explained the problems with their model, and laid out the correct solution, to the best of my limited ability, so I am done!bornagain77
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20.1 bornagain77 October 3, 2011 at 10:05 am Exactly what is your point???
My point was and is exactly this: "the 3:33 in your video is not unexpected to them, contrary to what you stated in your original post." .cantor
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And yet it should be at least somewhat 'unexpected' to them from the starting presumptions they are working with, and they don't even realize it, so go figure. Exactly what is your point??? That people can be easily misled??? ,,, Now if you questioned the delayed choice experiment which I have used to solidify my position, empirically, over their position then that would be interesting!,, Myself, I find that the Cosmic Background radiation, which gives the Earth relative centrality, was actually very 'unexpected' to very many people of atheistic/materialistic bent, and for me that established point of history is very interesting:
The best data we have [concerning the Big Bang] are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the bible as a whole. Dr. Arno Penzias, Nobel Laureate in Physics - co-discoverer of the Cosmic Background Radiation - as stated to the New York Times on March 12, 1978 “Certainly there was something that set it all off,,, I can’t think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match Genesis” Robert Wilson – Nobel laureate – co-discover Cosmic Background Radiation http://www.evidenceforchristianity.org/index.php?option=com_custom_content&task=view&id=3594 “There is no doubt that a parallel exists between the big bang as an event and the Christian notion of creation from nothing.” George Smoot – Nobel laureate in 2006 for his work on COBE “,,,the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world,,, the essential element in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis is the same.” Robert Jastrow – Founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute – Pg.15 ‘God and the Astronomers’ ,,, 'And if your curious about how Genesis 1, in particular, fairs. Hey, we look at the Days in Genesis as being long time periods, which is what they must be if you read the Bible consistently, and the Bible scores 4 for 4 in Initial Conditions and 10 for 10 on the Creation Events' Hugh Ross - Evidence For Intelligent Design Is Everywhere; video It is also very interesting to note that among all the 'holy' books, of all the major religions in the world, only the Holy Bible was correct in its claim for a transcendent origin of the universe. Some later 'holy' books, such as the Mormon text "Pearl of Great Price" and the Qur'an, copy the concept of a transcendent origin from the Bible but also include teachings that are inconsistent with that now established fact. (Hugh Ross; Why The Universe Is The Way It Is; Pg. 228; Chpt.9; note 5)
bornagain77
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19.1 bornagain77 October 3, 2011 at 3:16 am cantor, if you are satisfied with their answer, since you seem to be, since you keep trying to defend it, so be it.
Whether or not I am "satisfied" with their answer, nothing I posted could reasonably be construed as "defending" it. You are missing the very simple point which I am making, which is this: even if they are using "shoddy pseudo-science" to reach it, their conclusion is this:
...the observable universe is a spherical volume (a ball) centered on the observer... Every location in the universe has its own observable universe
... and therefore the 3:33 in your video is not unexpected to them, contrary to what you stated in your original post. .cantor
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further note on this reference:
Genesis, Quantum Physics and Reality Excerpt: Simply put, an experiment on Earth can be made in such a way that it determines if one photon comes along either on the right or the left side or if it comes (as a wave) along both sides of the gravitational lens (of the galaxy) at the same time. However, how could the photons have known billions of years ago that someday there would be an earth with inhabitants on it, making just this experiment? ,,, This is big trouble for the multi-universe theory and for the “hidden-variables” approach. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Zoeller-Greer.html.ori
Of course the photons don't know. Yet God, who created the photon, and even time itself, does know. As a interesting side note to this, I fairly recently found this site:
Bible Prophecy Year of 360 Days Is the Biblical 'prophetic' calender more accurate than our modern calender? Surprisingly yes! Excerpt: The first series of articles will show the 360-day (Prophetic) calendar to be at least as simple and as accurate as is our modern (Gregorian) calendar. In the second part of our discussion we will demonstrate how that the 360-day calendar is perfectly exact (as far as our most 'scientific' measurements will allow). http://www.360calendar.com/
Humbling huh? At least it should be for those atheists who claim to have put their trust in 'science' instead of God!
Isaiah 46:9,10: "Remember the former things long past, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning And from ancient times which have not been done, Saying, My purpose will be established, And I will accomplish all My good pleasure."
music:
You Are God Alone-Phillips, Craig, & Dean http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xPzTSpbYmk
bornagain77
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cantor, if you are satisfied with their answer, since you seem to be, since you keep trying to defend it, so be it. Personally, I consider it to be very shoddy science, even pseudo-science, since they have failed, completely, to take quantum mechanics into account for their explanation.bornagain77
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17.1 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 9:51 pm Thinking this comment over:
16 cantor October 2, 2011 at 8:59 pm The point is, it is something we would expect to see, according to the “traditional” (if I may use that term) explanation;
No it is not, for it impossible to maintain centrality for radically different points of observation in the universe using solely the 4-Dimensional space-time of General Relativity as your basis for determining centrality.
So your answer to my original question:
8 cantor October 1, 2011 at 8:55 pm I wasn’t asking you to amend anything. I was asking you if the Wikipedia stuff I quoted is wrong. Is it?
...is "yes". Yes? _cantor
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17 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 9:28 pm Cantor, to quote my original comment in full: the 3:33 minute mark of the video pretty much says it all as far as ‘demonstrating centrality’ i.e. that image at the 3:33 minute mark is definitely not something we would expect to see from a a-priori assumption of the Copernican Principle, i.e. of the Earth inhabiting NO privileged position in the cosmos!!!
I assume that both the Wikipedia author and Professor Margoniner subscribe to the "a-priori assumption of the Copernican Principle, i.e. of the Earth inhabiting NO privileged position in the cosmos!!!", and yet the image at 3:33 is not unexpected in their view, even if you disagree with their explanation. ~cantor
October 2, 2011
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Thinking this comment over:
The point is, it is something we would expect to see, according to the “traditional” (if I may use that term) explanation;
No it is not, for it impossible to maintain centrality for radically different points of observation in the universe using solely the 4-Dimensional space-time of General Relativity as your basis for determining centrality. The main reason why this will not work is that you have finite material resources to work with:,,, i.e. In the language of partial differential equations this means an impossibility of a large data global existence result for all initial data in General Relativity.bornagain77
October 2, 2011
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Cantor, to quote my original comment in full:
the 3:33 minute mark of the video pretty much says it all as far as ‘demonstrating centrality’ i.e. that image at the 3:33 minute mark is definitely not something we would expect to see from a a-priori assumption of the Copernican Principle, i.e. of the Earth inhabiting NO privileged position in the cosmos!!!
The main point being, cantor, is that to someone, who like me, had been told for their whole life that the Earth was nothing but an insignificant speck of dust lost in a vast ocean of space (Carl Sagan; Pale Blue Dot), this centrality of the earth came at a very great surprise to me. To further find that this centrality of the universe is focused specifically on each individual observer in the universe was, and is, a source of great comfort to me, for it let's me know, without a doubt, that the God who created and sustains this universe, as unimaginably awesome as He is, cares for me, and each of us, more than I, or any of us, can possibly imagine right now.,,, As far as disagreeing with what you termed the 'traditional explanation', I would say that the point of disagreement as to the cause of centrality is far from a trivial point of disagreement. Indeed I would say that it is a point of disagreement that reflects either a fairly callous disregard for the truth of Theism or a fairly blatant lack of curiosity to seek the complete truth of a matter.
God of Wonders by Third Day - music http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CBNE25rtnE
bornagain77
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14 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 7:58 pm Yes, but the big caveat being is that it is conscious ‘observation’ that brings centrality in the universe, not the 4-D space-time of general relativity.
In your original comment on this subject you said "the image at the 3:33 minute mark is definitely not something we would expect to see". The point is, it is something we would expect to see, according to the "traditional" (if I may use that term) explanation of both Wikipedia and Professor Margoniner, even if you disagree with their explanation. .cantor
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As to:
In other words, the arbitrary planet Zircon’s position is just as privileged as Earth’s in this regard.(?)
Yes, but the big caveat being is that it is conscious 'observation' that brings centrality in the universe, not the 4-D space-time of general relativity. Conscious observation is usually completely ignored when trying to determine the structure of the universe, such as it was in the video you referenced earlier, and in the wiki article you cited. i.e.
The Cauchy Problem In General Relativity – Igor Rodnianski - Page 429 Excerpt: 2.2 Large Data Problem In General Relativity – While the result of Choquet-Bruhat and its subsequent refinements guarantee the existence and uniqueness of a (maximal) Cauchy development, they provide no information about its geodesic completeness and thus, in the language of partial differential equations, constitutes a local existence. ,,, More generally, there are a number of conditions that will guarantee the space-time will be geodesically incomplete.,,, In the language of partial differential equations this means an impossibility of a large data global existence result for all initial data in General Relativity. http://www.icm2006.org/proceedings/Vol_III/contents/ICM_Vol_3_22.pdf
verses and music:
Psalm 33:13-15 The LORD looks from heaven; He sees all the sons of men. From the place of His dwelling He looks on all the inhabitants of the earth; He fashions their hearts individually; He considers all their works.
Music:
Kirk Franklin - Stomp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0j5YIIFiuM
bornagain77
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11.1 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 4:25 pm The only thing that will change for the observer, wherever they are in the universe, will be that the 3-Dimensional spatial geometry on the entire universe will be drastically contorted to reflect a 13.7 billion year old universe from that observer’s perspective.
So the 3:33 minute mark in the video is definitely what we would expect to see, for a video made from observations from Earth. And at the 3:33 minute mark in a video made from observations on Zircon, we would expect to see Zircon at the center. In other words, the arbitrary planet Zircon's position is just as privileged as Earth's in this regard. .cantor
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from the 'more than you probably want to know' file:
The Mental Universe - Richard Conn Henry - Professor of Physics John Hopkins University Excerpt: The only reality is mind and observations, but observations are not of things. To see the Universe as it really is, we must abandon our tendency to conceptualize observations as things.,,, Physicists shy away from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental universe is to invoke "decoherence" - the notion that "the physical environment" is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in "Renninger-type" experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The universe is entirely mental,,,, The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy. http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/The.mental.universe.pdf
It is also interesting to note that 'higher dimensional' mathematics had to be developed before Einstein could elucidate General Relativity, or even before Quantum Mechanics could be elucidated;
The Mathematics Of Higher Dimensionality – Gauss & Riemann – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6199520/ 3D to 4D shift - Carl Sagan - video with notes Excerpt from Notes: The state-space of quantum mechanics is an infinite-dimensional function space. Some physical theories are also by nature high-dimensional, such as the 4-dimensional general relativity. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VS1mwEV9wA
Of related note; there is a mysterious 'higher dimensional' component that is 'anomalous' to life:
The predominance of quarter-power (4-D) scaling in biology Excerpt: Many fundamental characteristics of organisms scale with body size as power laws of the form: Y = Yo M^b, where Y is some characteristic such as metabolic rate, stride length or life span, Yo is a normalization constant, M is body mass and b is the allometric scaling exponent. A longstanding puzzle in biology is why the exponent b is usually some simple multiple of 1/4 (4-Dimensional scaling) rather than a multiple of 1/3, as would be expected from Euclidean (3-Dimensional) scaling. http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/~drewa/pubs/savage_v_2004_f18_257.pdf “Although living things occupy a three-dimensional space, their internal physiology and anatomy operate as if they were four-dimensional. Quarter-power scaling laws are perhaps as universal and as uniquely biological as the biochemical pathways of metabolism, the structure and function of the genetic code and the process of natural selection.,,, The conclusion here is inescapable, that the driving force for these invariant scaling laws cannot have been natural selection." Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. 78-79 https://uncommondescent.com/evolution/16037/#comment-369806 4-Dimensional Quarter Power Scaling In Biology - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/5964041/
Though Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini rightly find it inexplicable for 'random' Natural Selection to be the rational explanation for the scaling of the physiology, and anatomy, of living things to four-dimensional parameters, they do not seem to fully realize the implications this 'four dimensional scaling' of living things presents. This 4-D scaling is something we should rightly expect from a Intelligent Design perspective. This is because Intelligent Design holds that ‘higher dimensional transcendent information’ is more foundational to life, and even to the universe itself, than either matter or energy are. This higher dimensional 'expectation' for life, from a Intelligent Design perspective, is directly opposed to the expectation of the Darwinian framework, which holds that information, and indeed even the essence of life itself, is merely an 'emergent' property of the 3-D material realm.
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068
Of related interest, this following article is interesting for it draws attention to the fact that humans 'just so happen' to be near the logarithmic center of the universe, between Planck's length and the cosmic horizon of the cosmic background radiation (10^-33 cm and 10^28 cm respectively) .
The View from the Centre of the Universe by Nancy Ellen Abrams and Joel R. Primack Excerpt: The size of a human being is near the centre of all possible sizes. http://www.popularscience.co.uk/features/feat24.htm Scale of the Universe (From Planck length to the Cosmic Background Radiation) - interactive scale http://primaxstudio.com/stuff/scale_of_universe/
bornagain77
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cantor,,, exactly!!! Or even 13.7 billion light years distance. The only thing that will change for the observer, wherever they are in the universe, will be that the 3-Dimensional spatial geometry on the entire universe will be drastically contorted to reflect a 13.7 billion year old universe from that observer's perspective. Same space-time, same mass-energy, drastically different 3-D spatial geometry! And as weird as that sounds, it is, none-the-less, born out by the delayed choice experiment which shows that quantum wave collapse of photons in the universe is completely 'observer-centric'.,,, And yet, as weird at it is, it makes perfect sense when one realizes that the temporal material realm, that we currently live in, is basically at the bottom of the pecking order as far as the 'higher dimensionality' of the other realms we are dealing with are concerned: notes:
Wheeler's Classic Delayed Choice Experiment: Excerpt: Now, for many billions of years the photon is in transit in region 3. Yet we can choose (many billions of years later) which experimental set up to employ – the single wide-focus, or the two narrowly focused instruments. We have chosen whether to know which side of the galaxy the photon passed by (by choosing whether to use the two-telescope set up or not, which are the instruments that would give us the information about which side of the galaxy the photon passed). We have delayed this choice until a time long after the particles "have passed by one side of the galaxy, or the other side of the galaxy, or both sides of the galaxy," so to speak. Yet, it seems paradoxically that our later choice of whether to obtain this information determines which side of the galaxy the light passed, so to speak, billions of years ago. So it seems that time has nothing to do with effects of quantum mechanics. And, indeed, the original thought experiment was not based on any analysis of how particles evolve and behave over time – it was based on the mathematics. This is what the mathematics predicted for a result, and this is exactly the result obtained in the laboratory. http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/basic_delayed_choice.htm Genesis, Quantum Physics and Reality Excerpt: Simply put, an experiment on Earth can be made in such a way that it determines if one photon comes along either on the right or the left side or if it comes (as a wave) along both sides of the gravitational lens (of the galaxy) at the same time. However, how could the photons have known billions of years ago that someday there would be an earth with inhabitants on it, making just this experiment? ,,, This is big trouble for the multi-universe theory and for the "hidden-variables" approach. http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/2000/PSCF3-00Zoeller-Greer.html.ori
and to make this much more 'personal' for the observer:
"It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) from his collection of essays "Symmetries and Reflections – Scientific Essays"; Eugene Wigner laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963. http://eugene-wigner.co.tv/
Here is the key experiment that led Wigner to his Nobel Prize winning work on quantum symmetries:
Eugene Wigner Excerpt: To express this basic experience in a more direct way: the world does not have a privileged center, there is no absolute rest, preferred direction, unique origin of calendar time, even left and right seem to be rather symmetric. The interference of electrons, photons, neutrons has indicated that the state of a particle can be described by a vector possessing a certain number of components. As the observer is replaced by another observer (working elsewhere, looking at a different direction, using another clock, perhaps being left-handed), the state of the very same particle is described by another vector, obtained from the previous vector by multiplying it with a matrix. This matrix transfers from one observer to another. http://www.reak.bme.hu/Wigner_Course/WignerBio/wb1.htm
i.e. In the experiment the 'world' (i.e. the universe) does not have a ‘privileged center’. Yet strangely, the conscious observer does exhibit a 'privileged center'. This is since the 'matrix', which determines which vector will be used to describe the particle in the experiment, is 'observer-centric' in its origination! Thus explaining Wigner’s dramatic statement, “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.”bornagain77
October 2, 2011
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@10 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 11:07 am There are only different points of ‘observational centrality’ within the same space-time.
So if the same video had been produced by the inhabitants of the planet Zircon, 5 billion light-years distant from Earth, it would have shown the planet Zircon, not Earth, at the center at the 3:33 minute mark? .cantor
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cantor, the 3-Dimensional spatial geometry of the entire universe contorts dramatically for radically different points of observation in the universe, as confirmed by the delayed choice experiment. There are no 'overlapping space-times'. There are only different points of 'observational centrality' within the same space-time. The temporal 3-Dimensional material realm gives way to complete spatial flexibility in regards to the higher eternal dimensions of light and especially in regards to the highest transcendent/eternal dimension of information/universal consciousness (i.e. Logos/God)bornagain77
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@8.1 bornagain77 October 2, 2011 at 4:49 am
Wikipedia states:
"the observable universe is a spherical volume (a ball) centered on the observer, regardless of the shape of the universe as a whole" "Every location in the universe has its own observable universe which may or may not overlap with the one centered on the Earth"
Are the above statements wrong? Yes or no. .cantor
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Bornagain. Wow beautiful posts. I would like to correct one thing though where you wrote: "Gödel, of course, did not actually believe in time travel, but he understood his paper to undermine the Einsteinian worldview from within." As you may know Godel went nuts in his later life going in and out of asylum and he DID in fact suspect that time travel could exist for us in our place in the universe. In fact at one point he was getting out star maps trying to calculate some kinds of relative distances etc Godel believed in spirituality but not Christainity. One of the sad ironies of his life is that he spent many years trying to disrove the philosophies of the positivists of his time, and he succeeded, but in the end HE was acting like a positivist injecting his own strange paranoid biases into his work. While he was judging the other positivists for glorifying themselves while being in error, he TOO was in error when Godel tried his hand at the continuum hypothesis- eventually driving him nuts. So while I agree that the theory of QM is more evidence for the anthopic principle, we should not allow this to be misinterpreted as proof for positivism which is usually defined as the belief that "man is the measure of all things"- we are not. Allow me to clearify what I mean and relate my point directly to the cat experiment- My point is this: while it is the observer that determines whether or not the cat lives or dies, the cat still EXISTS alive or dead in both POSSIBLIY and probability. So the world around us still exists whether we observe it or not and therefore man is only the measure of things that he can measure- that is there is a REAL dialectical world that exists beyond and connected us and our choices- and as Godel showed even the things that we CAN measure, there is still some doubt as to how accurate our measurements are and can be. And this is confirmed within QM through the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle etc. Enter Einstin: "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." Enter Christ: "Because thou hast seen... thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed." -John 20:29 But you are right in pointing out how Qm shows how integral and central the role of the observer is in defining any event. hence I agree that is evidence for the anthropic principle.Frost122585
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cantor, I meant nothing insulting to you by the statement, sorry if you felt that way. Einstein himself has a 'ghost of a eternal universe'. The 'eternal universe' was the widely accepted view of the universe, in science, prior to the discovery of the Big Bang. A view in which the 'material' universe had ALWAYS existed. In fact this view of a 'eternal universe' is what led Albert Einstein, himself, into his self-admitted 'Greatest Blunder', in which he, instead of following the implications of his own equation, of a beginning for the universe, added a 'fudge factor' to reflect a static material universe, i.e. to reflect a 'eternal universe', which had always existed. notes: I find it very interesting that the materialistic belief of the universe being stable, and infinite in duration, was so deeply rooted in scientific thought that Albert Einstein (1879-1955), when he was shown his general relativity equation indicated a universe that was unstable and would 'draw together' under its own gravity, added a cosmological constant to his equation to reflect a stable universe rather than entertain the thought that the universe might of had a beginning.
Einstein and The Belgian Priest, George Lemaitre - The "Father" Of The Big Bang Theory - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4279662 "Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html
of note: This was not the last time Einstein's base materialistic philosophy had severely misled him. He was also severely misled in the Bohr–Einstein debates in which he was repeatedly proven wrong in challenging the 'spooky action at a distance' postulations of the emerging field of quantum mechanics. This following video highlights the Bohr/Einstein debate and the decades long struggle to 'scientifically' resolve the disagreement between them:
The Failure Of Local Realism or Reductive Materialism - Alain Aspect - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4744145
further notes: The falsification for local realism (reductive materialism) was recently greatly strengthened:
Physicists close two loopholes while violating local realism - November 2010 Excerpt: The latest test in quantum mechanics provides even stronger support than before for the view that nature violates local realism and is thus in contradiction with a classical worldview. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-physicists-loopholes-violating-local-realism.html Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show - July 2009 Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm
of note: hidden variables were postulated by Einstein to remove the need for 'spooky' actions, as Einstein termed them — forces that act instantaneously at great distances, thereby breaking the most cherished rule of relativity theory, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Further note:
BRUCE GORDON: Hawking's irrational arguments - October 2010 Excerpt: The physical universe is causally incomplete and therefore neither self-originating nor self-sustaining. The world of space, time, matter and energy is dependent on a reality that transcends space, time, matter and energy. This transcendent reality cannot merely be a Platonic realm of mathematical descriptions, for such things are causally inert abstract entities that do not affect the material world. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/1/hawking-irrational-arguments/
============== In conjunction with the mathematical, and logical, necessity of an 'Uncaused Cause' to explain the beginning of the universe, in philosophy it has been shown that,,,
"The 'First Mover' is necessary for change occurring at each moment." Michael Egnor - Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first.html
I find this centuries old philosophical argument, for the necessity of a 'First Mover' accounting for change occurring at each moment, to be validated by quantum mechanics. This is since the possibility for the universe to be considered a self-sustaining 'closed loop' of cause and effect is removed with the refutation of the 'hidden variable' argument, as first postulated by Einstein, in entanglement experiments. As well, there also must be a sufficient transcendent cause (God/First Mover) to explain quantum wave collapse for 'each moment' of the universe. Music:
Brooke Fraser – Lord of Lords (Legendado Português) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkF3iVjOZ1I Revelation 4:11 You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
bornagain77
October 2, 2011
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6.2 bornagain77 October 1, 2011 at 9:10 pm cantor, you seem to have a ghost of the ‘eternal universe’ hanging around in your concepts of space and time.
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean. I was just asking you if the wikipedia article is incorrect. Why does that merit an insulting response?cantor
October 1, 2011
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cantor, you seem to have a ghost of the 'eternal universe' hanging around in your concepts of space and time. Where space was presupposed to be infinite in length, and time was presupposed to be infinite in duration. Yet Einstein showed that space and time are not such rigid entities as was once thought. And indeed he showed that space and time are inextricably wed into a 4-D space-time. Moreover this 4-D space-time, of this 3-Dimensional universe, is shown to be, far from the rigid constructs of old, to be a very 'flexible' construct. Indeed, in this following video, which was put together by two Australian University Physics Professors with a supercomputer, it is shown that the 3-Dimensions of this universe 'fold and collapse' into a tunnel shape, somewhat like a sheet of paper, as the 'higher dimension' of the speed of light is approached!
Traveling At The Speed Of Light - Optical Effects - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5733303/
Here is the interactive website (with link to the math) related to the preceding video;
Seeing Relativity http://www.anu.edu.au/Physics/Searle/
Pay particular attention to the 3:22 mark of the preceding video and note how it matches the 'light at the end of the tunnel' reported in very many Near Death Experiences;
The NDE and the Tunnel - Kevin Williams' research conclusions Excerpt: I started to move toward the light. The way I moved, the physics, was completely different than it is here on Earth. It was something I had never felt before and never felt since. It was a whole different sensation of motion. I obviously wasn't walking or skipping or crawling. I was not floating. I was flowing. I was flowing toward the light. I was accelerating and I knew I was accelerating, but then again, I didn't really feel the acceleration. I just knew I was accelerating toward the light. Again, the physics was different - the physics of motion of time, space, travel. It was completely different in that tunnel, than it is here on Earth. I came out into the light and when I came out into the light, I realized that I was in heaven.(Barbara Springer) Near Death Experience - The Tunnel - video http://www.vimeo.com/29021432 Near Death Experience – The Tunnel, The Light, The Life Review – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4200200/
As well, since we are talking about the flexibility of space, it should be interesting to point out the flexibility of time that occurs as a observer approaches the speed of light:
Albert Einstein - Special Relativity - Insight Into Eternity - 'thought experiment' video http://www.metacafe.com/w/6545941/ "I've just developed a new theory of eternity." Albert Einstein - The Einstein Factor - Reader's Digest http://www.readersdigest.co.za/article/10170%26pageno=3 "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass." Richard Swenson - More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 12 Experimental confirmation of Time Dilation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation#Experimental_confirmation 'In the 'spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it's going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.' Mickey Robinson - Near Death Experience testimony 'When you die, you enter eternity. It feels like you were always there, and you will always be there. You realize that existence on Earth is only just a brief instant.' Dr. Ken Ring - has extensively studied Near Death Experiences 'Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything - past, present, future - exists simultaneously.' - Kimberly Clark Sharp - NDE Experiencer 'There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.' - John Star - NDE Experiencer
Music:
I Can Only Imagine - Mercy Me - Music Videos http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=FBECNNNU
bornagain77
October 1, 2011
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Well Cantor it really is not that hard to understand, and since I have the delayed choice experiment backing me up, I’m very comfortable with what I have previously written and see no reason to amend it one iota in light of what you have just stated!
I wasn't asking you to amend anything. I was asking you if the Wikipedia stuff I quoted is wrong. Is it?cantor
October 1, 2011
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Well Cantor it really is not that hard to understand, and since I have the delayed choice experiment backing me up, I'm very comfortable with what I have previously written and see no reason to amend it one iota in light of what you have just stated!bornagain77
October 1, 2011
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Well cantor, for us to see the Cosmic Background Radiation itself, from our ‘position of centrality in the universe’, represents, for all practical purposes*(see notes), the ability to see the entire history of the ENTIRE universe since the creation of all the mass-energy in the universe, and even since the creation of space-time itself. It simply makes no sense, in the video you linked, when she says in the video, that we “may be able to see ‘more of the universe’ beyond the cosmic horizon”
still trying to understand what you are saying. here are some excerpts from wikipedia. is everything they are saying wrong? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe "...the observable universe consists of the galaxies and other matter that we can in principle observe from Earth in the present day, because light (or other signals) from those objects has had time to reach us since the beginning of the cosmological expansion" "Assuming the universe is isotropic, the distance to the edge of the observable universe is roughly the same in every direction—that is, the observable universe is a spherical volume (a ball) centered on the observer, regardless of the shape of the universe as a whole" "Every location in the universe has its own observable universe which may or may not overlap with the one centered on the Earth" The word observable used in this sense does not depend on whether modern technology actually permits detection of radiation from an object in this region (or indeed on whether there is any radiation to detect). It simply indicates that it is possible in principle for light or other signals from the object to reach an observer on Earth. In practice, we can see light only from as far back as the time of photon decoupling in the recombination epoch, which is when particles were first able to emit photons that were not quickly re-absorbed by other particles, before which the Universe was filled with a plasma opaque to photons.cantor
October 1, 2011
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Of related interest:
Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? - Stuart Hameroff (notes in description) http://vimeo.com/29895068
bornagain77
October 1, 2011
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Well cantor, for us to see the Cosmic Background Radiation itself, from our 'position of centrality in the universe', represents, for all practical purposes*(see notes), the ability to see the entire history of the ENTIRE universe since the creation of all the mass-energy in the universe, and even since the creation of space-time itself. It simply makes no sense, in the video you linked, when she says in the video, that we "may be able to see 'more of the universe' beyond the cosmic horizon", for she is insinuating that we will be able to see past the 13.7 billion year ago circle she has drawn on her graph, but that would entail seeing before the beginning of space-time itself!!! This is more than a slight problem for the interpretation that she seems to be putting forth in the video (at least for the short bit of the video I watched). The universe is not expanding out into anything, as she seems to think, as a balloon might expand in the air, for there simply is not any 'thing' for the universe to expand into before the creation of space-time, mass-energy. Rather space is expanding, at a extremely finely-tuned rate (1 in 10^123), equally well for all 3-Dimensional points in the universe, as time travels into the future for each 3-D point in the universe. i.e. Since space and time have been shown to be inextricably linked by Einstein's general theory of relativity (space-time) this means that space, for lack of a better word, is 'created' at each 3-Dimensional point in the universe as time travels into the future for each 3-D point. What one will see, from a radically different point of observation in the universe, will still be a 13.7 billion year point of centrality in the universe with all the same mass-energy that we now see, yet the 3-Dimensional spatial arrangement of the entire universe will be dramatically altered to reflect the observers new radical point of observation. The only way such dramatic restructuring of the entire 3-D universe is possible is if Quantum Wave collapse, of the entire universe, is indeed focused on each unique point of observation in the universe!! And this is indeed what the delayed choice experiment, as I referenced earlier, has confirmed precisely. *Notes: As well as the universe having a transcendent beginning, thus confirming the Theistic postulation in Genesis 1:1, the following recent discovery of a 'Dark Age' for the early universe uncannily matches up with the Bible passage in Job 38:4-11.
For the first 400,000 years of our universe’s expansion, the universe was a seething maelstrom of energy and sub-atomic particles. This maelstrom was so hot, that sub-atomic particles trying to form into atoms would have been blasted apart instantly, and so dense, light could not travel more than a short distance before being absorbed. If you could somehow live long enough to look around in such conditions, you would see nothing but brilliant white light in all directions. When the cosmos was about 400,000 years old, it had cooled to about the temperature of the surface of the sun. The last light from the "Big Bang" shone forth at that time. This "light" is still detectable today as the Cosmic Background Radiation. This 400,000 year old “baby” universe entered into a period of darkness. When the dark age of the universe began, the cosmos was a formless sea of particles. By the time the dark age ended, a couple of hundred million years later, the universe lit up again by the light of some of the galaxies and stars that had been formed during this dark era. It was during the dark age of the universe that the heavier chemical elements necessary for life, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and most of the rest, were first forged, by nuclear fusion inside the stars, out of the universe’s primordial hydrogen and helium. It was also during this dark period of the universe the great structures of the modern universe were first forged. Super-clusters, of thousands of galaxies stretching across millions of light years, had their foundations laid in the dark age of the universe. During this time the infamous “missing dark matter”, was exerting more gravity in some areas than in other areas; drawing in hydrogen and helium gas, causing the formation of mega-stars. These mega-stars were massive, weighing in at 20 to more than 100 times the mass of the sun. The crushing pressure at their cores made them burn through their fuel in only a million years. It was here, in these short lived mega-stars under these crushing pressures, the chemical elements necessary for life were first forged out of the hydrogen and helium. The reason astronomers can’t see the light from these first mega-stars, during this dark era of the universe’s early history, is because the mega-stars were shrouded in thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. These thick clouds prevented the mega-stars from spreading their light through the cosmos as they forged the elements necessary for future life to exist on earth. After about 200 million years, the end of the dark age came to the cosmos. The universe was finally expansive enough to allow the dispersion of the thick hydrogen and helium “clouds”. With the continued expansion of the universe, the light, of normal stars and dwarf galaxies, was finally able to shine through the thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas, bringing the dark age to a close. (How The Stars Were Born - Michael D. Lemonick) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376229-2,00.html Job 38:4-11 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed my limit for it, and set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!" Hidden Treasures in the Book of Job - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sl0Ln3Ptb8 History of The Universe Timeline- Graph Image http://www.astronomynotes.com/cosmolgy/CMB_Timeline.jpg
bornagain77
October 1, 2011
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the 3:33 minute mark of the video pretty much says it all as far as ‘demonstrating centrality’ i.e. that image at the 3:33 minute mark is definitely not something we would expect
One would expect that the Earth would be at the center of that portion of the universe which is observable from Earth, no? http://youtu.be/GLtNs4HCK1k?t=1m31scantor
October 1, 2011
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to clean up this: mike1962; what is your point? This?:
Excerpt from your link: Second, many physicists and philosophers see the reduction of the wave function as an important part of the Copenhagen interpretation. But Bohr never talked about the collapse of the wave packet. Nor did it make sense for him to do so because this would mean that one must understand the wave function as referring to something physically real.
If you are trying to hold, as Bohr did, that the wave packet is not ‘physically real’, then you are mistaken for the wave packet is now shown to be ‘physically real’ by the fact that we can now encode information into a photon when it is in its wave state:
Ultra-Dense Optical Storage – on One Photon Excerpt: Researchers at the University of Rochester have made an optics breakthrough that allows them to encode an entire image’s worth of data into a photon, slow the image down for storage, and then retrieve the image intact. http://www.physorg.com/news88439430.html diagram of experiment http://cdn.physorg.com/newman/gfx/news/hires/2007/Howell-Device.jpg
Thus Bohr’s interpretation, or the Copenhagen interpretation, for whatever unstated reason you have linked to it, is falsified, at least in so far, for its denial of the wave packet being ‘physically real’!!bornagain77
October 1, 2011
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