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Author Topic:   A Proposed Proof That The Origin of The Universe Cannot Be Scientifically Explained
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


Message 166 of 220 (675912)
10-17-2012 12:27 PM


Reality is in the observations, not the electrons.
Dr. Werner Heisenberg, after spending the evening immersed in quantum mechanics:
"I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighboring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?"
Someone once said that anyone who feels they fully understand Quantum mechanics, does not.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

  
Stile
Member
Posts: 4295
From: Ontario, Canada
Joined: 12-02-2004


Message 167 of 220 (675916)
10-17-2012 1:16 PM
Reply to: Message 165 by New Cat's Eye
10-17-2012 12:04 PM


Re: Example Specifics
Catholic Scientist writes:
Stile writes:
However, after interfacing with the barrier, the electron will either be on the "other" side, or reflected back... but not both... and not "half an electron here, and half there."
Fixed it for ya, but yeah.
Thanks for the fix, and the confirmation. I knew this, but I think I had forgotten it...
Catholic Scientist writes:
If you send a packet, I don't think its possible that most of the electrons will tunnel through. You'll only get a minority of them tunneling through, and the odds of the ones that do get through are given by that probability wave. I may be wrong.
I thought that a probability function could be created to describe the tunneling for any 'wave of electrons' into any 'barrier.' But I certainly may be wrong...
I also seem to remember questions on tests specifying "a barrier 1 electron thick"... or something like that... which is why I stress on the thickness of the barrier. I forget the reasoning for it, though.
And, to be honest, I made my way though my electro-magnetism courses by memorizing the method and regurgitating it on tests... not by fully understanding the concepts. Go academia!! (Wasn't by choice, there just wasn't enough time for me to understand such things.. and all my other courses.. within the structured time period).
That's not how I thought it was supposed to go, but now you're having me doubt myself!
Hopefully NoNukes or Son Goku or Dr. Adequate can see this and answer the questions of the peons!

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by New Cat's Eye, posted 10-17-2012 12:04 PM New Cat's Eye has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 171 by NoNukes, posted 10-17-2012 7:31 PM Stile has seen this message but not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 168 of 220 (675919)
10-17-2012 2:14 PM


Tunneling
What encounters and scatters of the barrier is the probability function for locating the electron. Some of this probability goes through the barrier and some reflects off the barrier.
When electron detection equipment is brought into the area of the barrier, the chances of it detecting the electron in a given area is given by the strength of this function. In the gif in post 161, the function is quite weak (has a small value) to the right of the barrier. So there is some chance, but not a great amount, to detect it there. This is as Catholic Scientist said.
The potential can be any potential, electric, magnetic, nuclear force, gravitational, the will all show roughly similar behaviour.
So for example with an alpha particle, some of its probability function will eventually leak outside the nucleus. This means there is now a non-zero chance of detecting it outside the nucleus.
What is important to see here is that what propagates and moves is the probability function of detecting an electron, not the electron itself, which does not have a position until detection.

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 169 of 220 (675950)
10-17-2012 5:37 PM
Reply to: Message 163 by Son Goku
10-17-2012 10:46 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
That was the position we were in until 2011, when a major new paper showed that (2) is just flat out impossible.
What was the paper, please?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Son Goku, posted 10-17-2012 10:46 AM Son Goku has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 170 by Son Goku, posted 10-17-2012 6:24 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


Message 170 of 220 (675951)
10-17-2012 6:24 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by Dr Adequate
10-17-2012 5:37 PM


Re: The Quantum World.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-17-2012 5:37 PM Dr Adequate has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 171 of 220 (675958)
10-17-2012 7:31 PM
Reply to: Message 167 by Stile
10-17-2012 1:16 PM


Re: Example Specifics
I also seem to remember questions on tests specifying "a barrier 1 electron thick"... or something like that... which is why I stress on the thickness of the barrier. I forget the reasoning for it, though.
Your memory is likely correct on this point, but in addition to specifying the thickness of the barrier, most likely, the height of the barrier (expressed in energy units) was also specified.
Son Goku's explanation cleans up some of the sloppiness in my description, but it doesn't sound to me like you are all that far from reaching your own correct understanding.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
Well, you may still have time to register to vote. Even North Carolinians can still register for early voting. State Registration Deadlines

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by Stile, posted 10-17-2012 1:16 PM Stile has seen this message but not replied

  
Larni
Member (Idle past 163 days)
Posts: 4000
From: Liverpool
Joined: 09-16-2005


Message 172 of 220 (675984)
10-18-2012 6:23 AM
Reply to: Message 163 by Son Goku
10-17-2012 10:46 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
Great post.
I think I'm a little smarter, now.

The above ontological example models the zero premise to BB theory. It does so by applying the relative uniformity assumption that the alleged zero event eventually ontologically progressed from the compressed alleged sub-microscopic chaos to bloom/expand into all of the present observable order, more than it models the Biblical record evidence for the existence of Jehovah, the maximal Biblical god designer.
-Attributed to Buzsaw Message 53
The explain to them any scientific investigation that explains the existence of things qualifies as science and as an explanation
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 286
Does a query (thats a question Stile) that uses this physical reality, to look for an answer to its existence and properties become theoretical, considering its deductive conclusions are based against objective verifiable realities.
-Attributed to Dawn Bertot Message 134

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Son Goku, posted 10-17-2012 10:46 AM Son Goku has not replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


Message 173 of 220 (675997)
10-18-2012 9:18 AM
Reply to: Message 165 by New Cat's Eye
10-17-2012 12:04 PM


Re: Example Specifics
If you send a packet, I don't think its possible that most of the electrons will tunnel through. You'll only get a minority of them tunneling through, and the odds of the ones that do get through are given by that probability wave. I may be wrong.
The ratio between transmission and reflection depends on the energy of the electrons, and the thickness and height of the barrier. Even when the energy of the electron is less than the barrier height, there is a finite probability that the electron will be reflected by the barrier.
But it is possible for the probability of tunneling through the barrier to be greater than 50% even though classical physics would predict that the particle cannot penetrate the barrier. See figs. 9 and 10 at the following link.
http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/...g/qmech/lectures/node47.html

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
Well, you may still have time to register to vote. Even North Carolinians can still register for early voting. State Registration Deadlines

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by New Cat's Eye, posted 10-17-2012 12:04 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 177 by New Cat's Eye, posted 10-19-2012 10:40 AM NoNukes has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 174 of 220 (676004)
10-18-2012 10:34 AM
Reply to: Message 163 by Son Goku
10-17-2012 10:46 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
Thanks Son Goku, that was remarkably clear and not at all like the 'phynglish' that I have been reading lately. I appreciate that I have jumped into the deep end of the pool before learning to swim and that is not anybody's fault but mine. I have to find the first thing that I do not understand and work from there. I think that I am working from the false assumption that I can 'really' understand QM without actually understanding each bit. This comes from a lifetime of successfully finding short cuts. I find myself in the uncomfortable position of not understanding it to the point of not even being able to formulate pertinent questions and that I am basically wasting everyone's time while I try to get up to speed.
so if there are any questions please ask.
If I back away from the explanation of why the universe is acausal at some level and accept that it is, at what point and how does the universe change from being acausal to causal? Is this even a valid question? I get the feeling that causality is not even what I think it is as Dr. A seemed to be suggesting.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 163 by Son Goku, posted 10-17-2012 10:46 AM Son Goku has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 175 by Dr Adequate, posted 10-18-2012 11:01 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied
 Message 176 by Son Goku, posted 10-19-2012 9:48 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied
 Message 178 by Alfred Maddenstein, posted 10-19-2012 7:26 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


(1)
Message 175 of 220 (676007)
10-18-2012 11:01 AM
Reply to: Message 174 by Dogmafood
10-18-2012 10:34 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
If I back away from the explanation of why the universe is acausal at some level and accept that it is, at what point and how does the universe change from being acausal to causal?
What happens is that as you look at larger and larger objects, they have a greater and greater probability of behaving in a more and more classical manner.
Correspondence principle - Wikipedia
There's no particular cutoff point between quantum physics and classical physics, classical physics is the limit of quantum physics as the things you're thinking about get bigger.
If you are unfamiliar with the idea of a limit, one example is that a circle is the limit of a regular polygon as you increase the number of sides. No polygon, however many sides it has, is a circle; there is no cutoff point (say, a million sides) where we can say: "anything with fewer sides then that is a polygon, but anything with more sides is a circle", but we can say that as the number of sides increases the polygon gets more and more like a circle.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Dogmafood, posted 10-18-2012 10:34 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied

  
Son Goku
Inactive Member


(2)
Message 176 of 220 (676102)
10-19-2012 9:48 AM
Reply to: Message 174 by Dogmafood
10-18-2012 10:34 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
Hi Dogmafood,
At the end of my last post I detailed four possible pictures of the world which are consistent with the mathematics of quantum mechanics and experimental results. Depending on which view you take to be the real one, the reason the quantum world becomes the classical world is different. Most physicists tend think one of the options (1), (2) or (4) are true. ((3) would be a minority position) (4) is still quite rare though, so mainly (1) or (2).
Dr. Adequate has already explained why quantum effects die off from the point of view of (2), I'll explain from the point of view of (1), the many-worlds.
If you take this view, the reason for quantum mechanical oddness is the interaction of the separate branches of reality with each other.
For example if you roll a fair dice, then the chance of any result is 1/6. The probabilities cannot interfere with each other, a dice roll of 3 cannot effect a dice roll of 2, since only one actually occurs.
However in the many worlds picture, since all the different options actually do play out, they can affect each other. So you get probabilities that appear impossible since they are due to different outcomes interfering with other outcomes. So for an "electron dice" the universe with an outcome of 3 for the roll, could affect the universe with a roll of 2 and decrease its probability.
Now, let's take a measurement to measure the electrons spin, by a piece of apparatus made of ten atoms. If the electron is spin up, the apparatus measures this by having all atoms in it aligned magnetically with each other, if it is spin down, then the atoms are anti-aligned.
So when the measurement is performed the outcome is two worlds:
Spin-up, Apparatus Aligned.
Spin-down, Apparatus Anti-Aligned.
Now the apparatus in each world would not be able to tell the other branch of reality (the other universe)is interfering with it. That would require some other piece of equipment outside both objects.
Now imagine you doing a measurement on the strength of a nut bolt. Billions of universes will result from this (different value of the strengths of the bolt). However you and the bolt are both interacting with and being measured by the atoms of the sun (when light shines on you), the air, e.t.c. That means that the whole system consists of trillions of tons of matter (you, the sun, e.t.c.) To see the interference effects from different universes, something would have to be outside this system to perceive it. Secondly, since the values of the bolt strength are almost identical in each universe (only slight atomic differences) it would be very hard to detect the effect of these interactions. Hence only a massive, extremely sensitive piece of equipment could see it.
For this reason we can't see these effects and so they effectively do not exist for us.
Even in the probabilities interpretation ((2) in the previous post) something like this going on. Since we interact with our environment, the probability you should look at is not:
Probability that I am at point A
but
Probability that I am at point A and my environment is in a state consistent with me being at A.
(For example if you could stand in two spots two meters apart, the choice you make affects the states of quadrillions of photons from the Sun and atomic particles in the ground and the air.)
When you are an even moderately large object (a protein), you interact with enough of the universe that there simply isn't that high a probability of you and the entire environment to which you are connected to jump to another state. In fact the odds are so small, ignoring them is the most accurate approximation in science.
So, the reason you don't see quantum mechanics is because you are constantly interacting with your environment.
Out of interest, this is the problem with quantum computers. Quantum Computers perform a part of the computation in each universe. If you prefer the probabilities interpretation, they perform the computations using the probabilities of each state, rather than the state itself like a classical computer. That is, they don't use 0 or 1, but the chance of observing 0 or 1, this is a lot more information, so a quicker computation.
This is fine if the computer is small, but to be useful, the computer must be reasonably large, a few million atoms at least. However once it is this large, the interactions with the environment begin and quantum effects are destroyed. So the open question in quantum computing is how to shield them from the environment.
Edited by Son Goku, : Typos

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Dogmafood, posted 10-18-2012 10:34 AM Dogmafood has seen this message but not replied

  
New Cat's Eye
Inactive Member


Message 177 of 220 (676109)
10-19-2012 10:40 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by NoNukes
10-18-2012 9:18 AM


Re: Example Specifics
The ratio between transmission and reflection depends on the energy of the electrons, and the thickness and height of the barrier. Even when the energy of the electron is less than the barrier height, there is a finite probability that the electron will be reflected by the barrier.
But it is possible for the probability of tunneling through the barrier to be greater than 50% even though classical physics would predict that the particle cannot penetrate the barrier.
Yes, quite. But that would give us a different animation of the wave, right?
They don't specify the energy or thickness, but given this animation:
We know its not a really high energy and a really low thickness, because most of them don't make it through. And, given that animation, we'd never have most of them make it through. Correct?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by NoNukes, posted 10-18-2012 9:18 AM NoNukes has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by NoNukes, posted 10-19-2012 8:21 PM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Alfred Maddenstein
Member (Idle past 3966 days)
Posts: 565
Joined: 04-01-2011


Message 178 of 220 (676144)
10-19-2012 7:26 PM
Reply to: Message 174 by Dogmafood
10-18-2012 10:34 AM


Re: The Quantum World.
They cheat on you Godmameat. They only pretend that the relation is between physical entities in both cases claiming that on the ordinary scale the objects behave deterministically, or classically as they name it in their jargon, while asserting that the tiny stuff all the determined objects are composed of behaves in an allegedly acausal, probabilistic fashion or what have you for a stupid name.
Don't be fooled by the quacks. Look at the facts. On the classic level objects interact and are strictly determined by the mutual interactions. On the quantum level though the quacks see no objects at all. The objects under their consideration are way to small to be seen individually. What they deal with is only the macro-scale shadow effects. The putatively undetermined objects are pure numbers and those numbers are as strictly determined by their mutual interactions as the full-size objects you deal with every day. That is, when they don't fiddle with the numbers to force data to fit some curves or to straighten some curves to match the data which is what they do half of the time.
Bottom line is: iron necessity reigns throughout on any scale. The rest is all fairy tales the quacks are peddling.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Dogmafood, posted 10-18-2012 10:34 AM Dogmafood has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by Dogmafood, posted 10-20-2012 1:32 AM Alfred Maddenstein has replied

  
NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 179 of 220 (676146)
10-19-2012 8:21 PM
Reply to: Message 177 by New Cat's Eye
10-19-2012 10:40 AM


Re: Example Specifics
We know its not a really high energy and a really low thickness, because most of them don't make it through. And, given that animation, we'd never have most of them make it through. Correct?
Yes, that's correct. The animation is for electrons that have a low probability of being detected to the right of the barrier. And "really high" just means high compared to the energy of the electrons.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead. William Lloyd Garrison.
Well, you may still have time to register to vote. Even North Carolinians can still register for early voting. State Registration Deadlines

This message is a reply to:
 Message 177 by New Cat's Eye, posted 10-19-2012 10:40 AM New Cat's Eye has seen this message but not replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(3)
Message 180 of 220 (676159)
10-20-2012 1:28 AM


Thank you
To Dr A and Son Goku,
It is not that I have nothing to say it is just that I am busy shifting a paradigm here so I will just say thanks for your replies and also for tolerating my glaring ignorance. You teachers make the world(s) a better place.

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by Son Goku, posted 10-23-2012 5:15 AM Dogmafood has replied

  
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