Quantum Electro Dynamics

billybob9
billybob9 Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭
The test in this book is quite simple, Take a mirror and shine a light on it from an angle. where the light reflects put a photon collector ( solar cell ). Then replace that mirror with a clear piece of glass and put a photon collector directly below it ( in line with the light ). Now shine 100 photons at the glass. 96% of the photons will go through the glass and be counted at the collector below the glass. The other 4% will be reflected to the other photon collector. This is like looking through your windshield and seeing the road but also seeing a quarter on your dash board from the reflection. Now take one photon at a time and shine it on the glass at intervals lasting one hour. you'll find 96 photons went through the glass and 4 were reflected. So how did a photon know which way to go? …..When you take time out of the equation they're both the same.

Comments

  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    My understanding of QED is each photon has some probability of taking any possible path, and takes all these paths in proportion to the probability of each path.  The path is a point at each (emitter/collector) end, but the interstitial path exists only as a function of all possible paths.

    So where's my infinite improbability drive :smile:
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  • billybob9
    billybob9 Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭
    Maybe not infinite.       A Photon is a particle and if you believe it became a particle by wave function collapse then it would be a wave before it was a particle. So if you as a consciousness are creating this collapse, then you are a Quantum Machine creating a Universe that is made up of particles that you can understand. The question is are you passive ? Many worlds would say that these collapses or points are already in existence as a universe somewhere. If so can life be in some of these places to be conscious of it. If not does it exist at all. String Theory would change wave to vibration or what ever.
  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    My understanding is a conscious observation is not required for the wave function (superposition of states) to become particle-like.  It's just interaction with a classically observable system (your eye, a p-n junction, knocking stuff about to heat it, etc.)

    The infinite improbability drive is unfortunately a fictional reference, not likely to improve my gas mileage anytime soon.  It builds on the notion that flying is simply the ability to throw oneself to the ground, but miss.  Basically, if there's a non-zero probability (however highly improbable) some part of me might be at some arbitrarily far location from my current position, it's a matter of magnifying that improbability in order for me to be elsewhere :smile:
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  • billybob9
    billybob9 Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭
    I like how you explained improbability drive LOL. Very good. Since the paradox of a dead or alive cat in a box can never be proven either way and Conscious Observation is always needed to determine a test of any kind. I'd have to say your a many worlds guy and I'm still not convinced. To me it just doesn't seem very practical. Do you like Rodger Penrose Stuff ?
  • Estragon
    Estragon Registered Users Posts: 4,496 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I do like Penrose stuff, but my brain melts if I read too much of it.

    The cat in the box analogy stikes me as a bit misleading.  It helps in thinking about something in a superposition of states (alive and dead), but misleads in the sense that we don't need to open the box, or even be present for the cat to "choose" a state.  All that's needed is for the cat to interact in some way with the observable world (in analogy, meow if alive, stink if dead) whether we're there to observe it or not.

    Don't know about the many worlds guy thing, or any test requiring conscious observation.  That starts to get more philosophical than physical (solipsist).  I do, however, think there's a reasonable chance we exist only as characters or simulacra in a future video game :wink:
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  • billybob9
    billybob9 Registered Users Posts: 141 ✭✭
    On the Internet a discussion was going on about schools still teaching "Wave function collapse " and one party said the" many worlds theory " was a better option. The Quantum double slit  experiment will always show an observer making wave function collapse in the end. So like you, a character in a video game is as real as anything else we could think up. That's why I said Passive ( just along for the ride ) or something else.