To anyone who understands (even passingly) the Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser experiment:

[Poll_Blind]

What do you think the results mean? I just managed to wrap my brain around this recently- I'm not a scientist, I'm just a Lay Goof. But while the good ole Double Slit experiment or Quantum Entanglement demonstrations were unsettling, the fact that the detection process isn't causing the collapse of the wave form has been...unsettling.

I'm an atheist and I'm not sure if that plays into just how much I find it disturbing or not.

Anyway, at least with Quantum Entanglement I could fall back on some fuzzy belief that entangled particles were just two slices of the same String. But the DCQE experiments results don't seem to offer any such safe harbor.

Anyone have any thoughts on that? As I said, I'm an atheist and I'm also not into New Age stuff or most anything like that. But this one has me at the entrance to the Woo Bridge.

PB

[Duer 157099]

1. I don't know what that variation is, but

I'm pretty sure it probably will have something to do with this:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19712-evidence-th...

[Poll_Blind]

3. Very interesting, but the DCQE is more about the...

...reason why the wave form collapses on a particle, like a photon or electron. That other story was interesting, though I don't know what to make of it.

PB

[silverweb]

2. It's awesome.

The universe (or multiverse) is weirder and more vast than we can ever possibly imagine. Just when we think we've got something figured out, another new insight or discovery will stand what we thought we knew on its head -- and quantum physics abutting New Age Woo is a whole new realm of curiosities to explore.

If there is a Creator/Creatrix (or group thereof), what greater homage could we give than that we spend our lives pondering, trying to understand, and being in awe of the Mystery of it all?

[Poll_Blind]

5. Indeed!

There will always be a deep sea to explore...

PB

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Well, I wouldn't get unsettled about it

At some point when you were little, you learned that it hurt to bump into hard things, that some things were runny (like water) and that something that you couldn't even see could hold a kite off the ground.

At some later time you found out that lots of very tiny things called atoms and molecules either bounced off each other (to make the air) or slid over each other (to make the water) of stuck together in specific shapes (to make the hard stuff).

Initially, that had to seem pretty weird, right? But it was the same stuff it had always been; you just knew a little more about it. Still hurts to bump into hard stuff, still can't drink air or breath water, etc.

Later you undoubtedly encountered relativity and were told that you wouldn't grow old as quickly if you moved really, really fast! Who could believe such a thing? But we've all accepted that by now.

So there's more weirdness to come (that is, more things that we've lived with but never understood).

It is kind of freaky, but whatever the case turns out to be, it's been that way all along. And once a clear picture of this particular phenomenon emerges, we'll all get used to that, too.

It's great that there's more to discover and it's only unsettling in the sense that we thought we knew all about it and we didn't.

Here's my main takeaway:

In 1989 there was a Nobel Conference entitled, "The End of Science?" to discuss whether we'd learned all there was to know. No-fucking-bel!

And look at all the things that have continued to amaze and confuse us since 1989.

Whenever someone tells you we know it all, stop talking to that person. They will always be wrong.

(P.S. In NO WAY am I suggesting that spirits or mystical forces or god is responsible for any of this!)

[Poll_Blind]

8. Just since I was a child in the 70's and 80's, SO much has changed.

You're right.

PB

[dimbear]

6. Quantum mechanics is an extremely accurate set of predictive rules.

The most accurate known, BTW. Leave it at that. Those who succeed in understanding it inevitably are stark mad.

[Poll_Blind]

7. It's kind of funny you gave that warning because at some point this afternoon...

...I was reading a quote from Feynman which basically said (of Quantum Mechanics) "Worry about what is or what is not. If you start wondering why it's like that, you'll go mad."



PB

[dimbear]

9. I'm by no means sure who first put that idea on the table, seems like maybe

Dirac. His stuff is the first part of QE which is absolutely incomprehensible to common sense. IMHO.

[sofa king]

10. It might have been Feynman himself.

Dirac and Schwinger were the ones who broke parts of QED all the way down to its component algebra, while Feynman ran past both of them to develop his diagrams which allowed for computation and prediction, but much less detailed understanding of the underlying mathematics. Schwinger and Feynman respected each other, but neither liked the other's approach to the same problem.

Of course, as far as I know, Schwinger was not an arhythmic drummer noted for his ability to talk women out of their clothing.