9 ms·

This sounds really interesting but my physics are abysmal. Could someone kindly explain this thread in conceptually simple terms?

Retric 10y ago
> conceptually simple terms? Physics does not seem to operate on conceptually simple terms. Three options, it is simple when approached from some way we have yet to think of. There is some inherent mistake we are making with a huge range of current experiments. Or, as seems most likely the universe operates very differently on different scales making it conceptually difficult to deal with.
- ethbro 10y ago
  The Ptolemaic system was pretty complicated too...
  - wlievens 10y ago
    So that would be option one.
ajkjk 10y ago
It's pretty hard to say anything meaningful about quantum mechanics and above without being precise with the math (case in point, there are so many frustrating examples of people who don't have the math down making statements that aren't consistent with it). Here's a summary, cause talking about this stuff is fun, with the caveat that it won't Quantum mechanics in its usual interpretations involves some randomness, where a measurement can give multiple results with different probabilities. The interpretations tell us that this is truly random; that the values are not known until you measure them, and then afterwards they are known and true everywhere. The obvious objection is "hey, maybe the values were there already, but until we measured them we just didn't know what they were". A theory with this property is called a 'hidden variable' theory. A 'local' hidden variable is one attached to a particle, such as its velocity. If you measured two entangled particles at the same time that are some difference apart, QM shows us that the results of one can be influenced by the results of the other - for example, if you measure one particle as having a positive spin on the Z-axis, the other would have to have a negative spin, in a certain experiment. Excluding superluminal communication (one particle did not send a message to the other), we might guess: well, one had spin up and the other had spin down to begin with, and we were just measuring them to find out which one was which. Bell's Theorem [1] proves (in an experimentally verifiable way) that this is not the case. There is no way that local hidden variables can reproduce the results of quantum mechanics. This is one of the most amazing discoveries of the 20th century, in my opinion. Nonlocal hidden variables still work, which is what Bohmian mechanics is. You're allowed to say "there is a variable accessible to every measurement that determines what the result of a measurement is. In Bohmian mechanics - which is mathematically equivalent to regular QM, just more complex - there is a 'pilot wave' that is computed from the whole configuration of the universe, and then is used to determine what the spin of a particule is. Basically you get to pick between nondeterminism (randomness) and a global function that influences everything that's much more complicated. The theory is appealing to many because it avoids non-determinism. It's unappealing because it's strictly more complicated than the interpretations that don't have this extra object, but predicts nothing beyond them. By Occam's razor it's not as good as the simpler interpretations. It is appealing to people who really don't want to accept the possibility of randomness in the universe, which I have no problem with. Not that it's not worth time investigating it, because it's interesting. (Some people think it's not worth splitting hairs over interpretations over QM, because they don't provide falsifiable predictions and so this stuff isn't science but philosophy. I disagree with this. Finding that one explanation is simpler than another is finding something, and constitutes, in my opinion, valid evidence for that explanation in a scientific sense.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem
- eloff 10y ago
  It's for comments like this that I bother reading the comments here on HN. Thanks for distilling a complex subject into understandable-to-a-layman terms.
  - austinjp 10y ago
    Agreed. I particularly valued this part, which helps me grasp some other content posted here: "Bohmian mechanics [describes] a 'pilot wave' that is computed from the whole configuration of the universe... a global function that influences everything".
- ajkjk 10y ago
  edit for typo since I can't edit the post: * caveat that it's not enough information to let you make any concrete predictions Other afterthought: The pilot wave model is definitely not directly compatible with relativity, since it purports to have a function 'defined everywhere' at once, and the concept of 'everywhere at a moment in time' doesn't work in relativity. There are apparently methods of working around this, and they're apparently very complicated.
  - wuguhwpeiouhg 10y ago
    in his book on QM David Bohm gives a relativistic version of the pilot-wave theory
  - dnautics 10y ago
    that's not entirely true. Non-einsteinian relativity allows for functions 'defined evewyhere' at once. An example is tangherlini relativity, which allows for anisotropy of the speed of light (and is not inconsistent with contemporary observations IIRC)....
  - Natanael_L 10y ago
    Preferred foliation is the term. Ctrl-F it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory
vanderZwan 10y ago
These two Quanta Magazine articles are probably the most accessible-with-least-compromise articles about the subject, and also include a lot of the history behind it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140624-fluid-tests-hint-at-concrete-quantum-reality/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140624-fluid-tests-hint-at-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-gains-experimental-support/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-ga...
kordless 10y ago
There was a philosophical disagreement at the turn of the century where a bunch of ho-hums (including Einstein) decided to speak for everyone by saying everything here in this reality is discrete and isn't affected by anything anywhere else. A lot of work went into proving this over the last 100 years, with mixed results that just led to more and more testing at higher energy levels. With the Higgs, we started thinking we were "stuck" with our current theories. With the EM Drive, we're seeing things that don't fit in that model. Going back to when the original disagreement started, there were a few physicists like Bohm and de Broglie who thought there was more than met the eye going on with discrete particles past a certain size limit. Their theories included a medium, or ether, in which all of this exists. To understand it a bit better, you might want to check out the "two slit experiment". There's one on Youtube that covers doing the experiment with photos, electrons, buckyballs and polarized lasers. Basically, when you understand the experimental results, you understand that matter acts like a wave sometimes and a particle others, even at large scales. Those waves in the two slit experiment are likely responsible for the forces we're seeing in the EM drive. Also, I'm sure I've left out important bits here, but that's the basic idea. To the moon!
- ajkjk 10y ago
  Keep in mind there's no reason not to be hugely skeptical of the 'EM drive' right now.

Retric 10y ago

> conceptually simple terms? Physics does not seem to operate on conceptually simple terms. Three options, it is simple when approached from some way we have yet to think of. There is some inherent mistake we are making with a huge range of current experiments. Or, as seems most likely the universe operates very differently on different scales making it conceptually difficult to deal with.

ethbro 10y ago
The Ptolemaic system was pretty complicated too...
- wlievens 10y ago
  So that would be option one.

ajkjk 10y ago

It's pretty hard to say anything meaningful about quantum mechanics and above without being precise with the math (case in point, there are so many frustrating examples of people who don't have the math down making statements that aren't consistent with it). Here's a summary, cause talking about this stuff is fun, with the caveat that it won't Quantum mechanics in its usual interpretations involves some randomness, where a measurement can give multiple results with different probabilities. The interpretations tell us that this is truly random; that the values are not known until you measure them, and then afterwards they are known and true everywhere. The obvious objection is "hey, maybe the values were there already, but until we measured them we just didn't know what they were". A theory with this property is called a 'hidden variable' theory. A 'local' hidden variable is one attached to a particle, such as its velocity. If you measured two entangled particles at the same time that are some difference apart, QM shows us that the results of one can be influenced by the results of the other - for example, if you measure one particle as having a positive spin on the Z-axis, the other would have to have a negative spin, in a certain experiment. Excluding superluminal communication (one particle did not send a message to the other), we might guess: well, one had spin up and the other had spin down to begin with, and we were just measuring them to find out which one was which. Bell's Theorem [1] proves (in an experimentally verifiable way) that this is not the case. There is no way that local hidden variables can reproduce the results of quantum mechanics. This is one of the most amazing discoveries of the 20th century, in my opinion. Nonlocal hidden variables still work, which is what Bohmian mechanics is. You're allowed to say "there is a variable accessible to every measurement that determines what the result of a measurement is. In Bohmian mechanics - which is mathematically equivalent to regular QM, just more complex - there is a 'pilot wave' that is computed from the whole configuration of the universe, and then is used to determine what the spin of a particule is. Basically you get to pick between nondeterminism (randomness) and a global function that influences everything that's much more complicated. The theory is appealing to many because it avoids non-determinism. It's unappealing because it's strictly more complicated than the interpretations that don't have this extra object, but predicts nothing beyond them. By Occam's razor it's not as good as the simpler interpretations. It is appealing to people who really don't want to accept the possibility of randomness in the universe, which I have no problem with. Not that it's not worth time investigating it, because it's interesting. (Some people think it's not worth splitting hairs over interpretations over QM, because they don't provide falsifiable predictions and so this stuff isn't science but philosophy. I disagree with this. Finding that one explanation is simpler than another is finding something, and constitutes, in my opinion, valid evidence for that explanation in a scientific sense.) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem

eloff 10y ago
It's for comments like this that I bother reading the comments here on HN. Thanks for distilling a complex subject into understandable-to-a-layman terms.
- austinjp 10y ago
  Agreed. I particularly valued this part, which helps me grasp some other content posted here: "Bohmian mechanics [describes] a 'pilot wave' that is computed from the whole configuration of the universe... a global function that influences everything".
ajkjk 10y ago
edit for typo since I can't edit the post: * caveat that it's not enough information to let you make any concrete predictions Other afterthought: The pilot wave model is definitely not directly compatible with relativity, since it purports to have a function 'defined everywhere' at once, and the concept of 'everywhere at a moment in time' doesn't work in relativity. There are apparently methods of working around this, and they're apparently very complicated.
- wuguhwpeiouhg 10y ago
  in his book on QM David Bohm gives a relativistic version of the pilot-wave theory
- dnautics 10y ago
  that's not entirely true. Non-einsteinian relativity allows for functions 'defined evewyhere' at once. An example is tangherlini relativity, which allows for anisotropy of the speed of light (and is not inconsistent with contemporary observations IIRC)....
- Natanael_L 10y ago
  Preferred foliation is the term. Ctrl-F it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Broglie%E2%80%93Bohm_theory

vanderZwan 10y ago

These two Quanta Magazine articles are probably the most accessible-with-least-compromise articles about the subject, and also include a lot of the history behind it: https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140624-fluid-tests-hint-at-concrete-quantum-reality/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20140624-fluid-tests-hint-at-... https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-gains-experimental-support/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/20160517-pilot-wave-theory-ga...

kordless 10y ago

There was a philosophical disagreement at the turn of the century where a bunch of ho-hums (including Einstein) decided to speak for everyone by saying everything here in this reality is discrete and isn't affected by anything anywhere else. A lot of work went into proving this over the last 100 years, with mixed results that just led to more and more testing at higher energy levels. With the Higgs, we started thinking we were "stuck" with our current theories. With the EM Drive, we're seeing things that don't fit in that model. Going back to when the original disagreement started, there were a few physicists like Bohm and de Broglie who thought there was more than met the eye going on with discrete particles past a certain size limit. Their theories included a medium, or ether, in which all of this exists. To understand it a bit better, you might want to check out the "two slit experiment". There's one on Youtube that covers doing the experiment with photos, electrons, buckyballs and polarized lasers. Basically, when you understand the experimental results, you understand that matter acts like a wave sometimes and a particle others, even at large scales. Those waves in the two slit experiment are likely responsible for the forces we're seeing in the EM drive. Also, I'm sure I've left out important bits here, but that's the basic idea. To the moon!

ajkjk 10y ago
Keep in mind there's no reason not to be hugely skeptical of the 'EM drive' right now.