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In addition to the nice biography about a superb scientist, I also found this interesting: > Wu might have been hesitant to discuss evidence of entanglement be
by shusaku 4y ago
In addition to the nice biography about a superb scientist, I also found this interesting:
> Wu might have been hesitant to discuss evidence of entanglement because throughout the 1950s and 1960s, such quantum-foundations work was stigmatized as junk science. Back then, explains David Kaiser, a professor of physics and history of science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the idea of using an experiment to prove or disprove theories about quantum physics or to test for local hidden variables was “not even an inkling” for most physicists. Researchers who explored questions about entanglement often disguised their research because backlash could stymie a promising career.
I suspect their are similar things going on today, like astronomers who want to look for signs of intelligent life but packaging it as something more mundane
- mr_mitm 4y agoSimilar things are for sure still going on. Sean Carroll regularly laments the fact that research of the foundation of quantum mechanics is often actively discouraged.
- kurthr 4y agoWeird, it seems like that's one of the most popular discussions in pop-sci. The real question is more philosophical... does Many Worlds even mean anything scientific (eg is it testable or a usefully simple model). Certainly, it's entertaining.
- lmm 4y agoShouldn't that be "does the Copenhagen intepretation even mean anything scientific"?
- whatshisface 4y agoThe answer to both is "no." It is really obvious that the answer is no, because they lead to the same predictions. There is real work being done in quantum foundations (which is not the same thing as fundamental physics), but it doesn't involve arguing about MWI and Copenhagen. :-)
- wannabedev22 4y agoWhy isn’t debating of the significance of quantum mechanics “real work”?
- whatshisface 4y agoBecause some debates are like, "Given the proposition 'x or not x', is x true?"
- wannabedev22 4y agoI’m not sure about what precisely you’re referring to. There is an entire school of mathematics that dismisses the law of excluded of middle and I’m not sure why that would not be “real work”.
- whatshisface 4y agoThere's no system of logic where 'x or not x is true' implies x.
- j16sdiz 4y agoThe example you gave is not specific enough to guess what you are referring to.
- whatshisface 4y agoI am referring to the fact that it is possible for indeterminacy to be an absolute fact and not a temporary artifact of incomplete development.
- goldenkey 4y agoI can make that an axiom of my system. It'll cause explosion and is a next to useless system but it's still a system.
- slowmovintarget 4y agoHe published a paper with some colleagues on a way to disprove Everettian Mechanics. It falls into the difficult but not impossible category. It involves looking for minuscule energy spikes that would be evidence of some kind of "collapse of the wave function" that would rule out Many Worlds. The Copenhagen Interpretation isn't a theory, it it is an attitude.
- GoblinSlayer 4y agoMWI is confirmed in a sense that it exactly matches the Schrodinger equation and doesn't add anything contradictory or ad hoc hypotheses, and is compatible with the rest of science. And the Schrodinger equation is verified quantitatively. This is as far as verification goes.
- exmadscientist 4y agoAside: both Kaiser and Carroll are above-average speakers and worth your time to see if you have the opportunity. They are professionals giving professional-physicist talks, though.
- wholinator2 4y agoYes, i stumbled upon a reddit thread recently where the conversation devolved into actual hate for people who were curious about studying the "why's" of quantum. The most liked comment and prevailing attitude was, "it doesn't affect my research, so i don't care", which makes sense but those same people were getting upset that _anyone_ might want to make it _their_ research. I'd heard of the hate before but it was so baffling to witness. I left a comment asking for explanations to my above observation and received no replies. As someone who's personally very interested in this type of research, it kinda terrifies me.
- parton 4y agoYou shouldn't pay too much attention to the hate, what you find interesting is intensely personal and few others will ever understand. Foundations is in a much better spot than it was 50 years ago, and you can definitely succeed in it. Having said that, as someone outside the field who peeks in every once and a while, it does seem like a lot of foundations research (that gets noticed at least) is about constructing flashy abstracts out of simple linear algebra. The interesting stuff always seems to belong to another field, like computation, error correction, encryption, etc. Combine this with many physicists' distaste for philosophy, and you'll get the current attitude towards foundations.
- Scubabear68 4y agoThe ideas of lines of research being suppressed is a rich topic in science fiction novels. Usually hidden aliens or secret factions on Earth actively steer scientists away from certain topics, usually that will lead to break throughs in star drives or weapon-of-mass-destruction designs.
- dukoid 4y agoOr the Government, as in Asimov's "The Dead Past"
- overview 4y agoI actively reject conspiracy theories on the premise that they’re conspiracy theories. However, I can’t deny that this one is interesting. What if this is actually happening? Obviously the easiest way to provoke thought within the skeptic is to ask, “If it is within the realm of possibilities for the human race to invent a driver allowing interstellar travel, why shouldn’t an extraterrestrial race also be capable of it?” I would assume someone would counter with the fact that extraterrestrial life hasn’t been discovered. A question to often revisited. For all we know extraterrestrial life surrounds their inhabited planets with strict ingress and egress policies.
- georgeecollins 4y agoI don't think what the OP is suggesting is necessarily a conspiracy. Institutions are wary of people who risk their credibility with claims that catch a lot of attention but may prove to be false. There's some incentive to make claims that capture a lot of attention and the field doesn't want to lose credibility. If you think about how some scientists responded to speculation about Oumuamua you can see how they were nervous about speculation that could be sensationalized.
- overview 4y agoThe general idea, yes. I was pigeon-holing to the idea that aliens are carrying it out.
- 4y ago
- ar9av 4y agoIt is worth pointing out that zero actual information is transferred, it's just an inexact analogy to describe a problem space which lacks terms in plain English to describe it. It's not possible to communicate faster than light with this mechanism. What can be done is to generate same random numbers in two and only two distant places at the same time. That has great application in secure communications because it bypasses the entire need for potentially insecure key exchange mechanisms, but because the numbers generated are truly random they contain no information and this mechanism cannot be used to cause an effect faster than light, it does not violate relativity in any way.
- dclowd9901 4y agoHow are the random numbers generated? Like, what are they generated from?
- simonh 4y agoQuantum wave functions represent a probability distribution for the characteristics of an object in quantum mechanics, such as a particle or photon. When you measure it, that probability distribution resolves to a discrete value. So basically when you measure the spin of a particle, god rolls some dice to determine what it is. That’s one interpretation anyway.
- dclowd9901 4y agoSo you’re talking about the collapse of the wave function. If I collapse the wave function on one entangled particle, is the other entangled particle collapsed as well?
- andreareina 4y agoExperiments upholding Bell's inequalities imply it is.
- dclowd9901 4y ago