What quantum theory actually says about reality?

Date:

2018-09-20 01:45:13

Views:

4197

Rating:

2Like 0Dislike

Share:

What quantum theory actually says about reality? Source:

The Demonstration, which turned ideas of the great Isaac Newton on the nature of light, was incredibly simple. It "can be repeated with great ease, whenever the sun is shining," said the English physicist Thomas young in November of 1803 members of the Royal society in London, describing the experiment, which is now called the double slit experiment. And young was enthusiastic youngster. He came up with an elegant and carefully thought-out experiment, demonstrating the wave nature of light, and thereby disproved Newton's theory that light consists of corpuscles, i.e. particles.

But the birth of quantum physics in the early 1900-ies have indicated that light was composed of tiny indivisible units or quanta of energy which we call photons. The young's experiment carried out with single photons or even with individual particles of matter such as electrons and neurons, is a mystery that raises questions about the nature of reality. Some even used it to claim that the quantum world is affected by human consciousness. But do a simple experiment can demonstrate this?

the

Can consciousness determine reality?

In modern quantum form, the young's experiment involves shooting individual particles of light or matter through two slits, or holes carved in an opaque barrier. On one side of the barrier is a screen, recording the arrival of the particle (say, a photographic plate in the case of photons). Common sense leads us to expect that the photons will take place or through one, or through another slot and accumulate the relevant passage.

But no. The photons fall in certain parts of the screen and avoid the other, creating alternating bands of light and dark. These so-called interference fringes resemble the picture of the meeting of two waves. When the crests of one wave are aligned with ridges of the other, you get constructive interference (bright bands), and when crests are aligned with troughs, you get destructive interference (dark).

But through the device is only one photon at a time. It seems that the photon passes through both slits at once and interferes with itself. This is contrary to the common (classical) sense.

Mathematically speaking, through both slits is not a physical particle or a physical wave, but the wave function is an abstract mathematical function that represents the state of a photon (in this case position). The wave function behaves like a wave. It falls on the two slits, and new wave come out on the other side of the cracks propagate and interfere among themselves. Combined wave function allows to calculate the probability of the whereabouts of the photon.

A Photon has a high probability of being where the two wave functions constructively interfere, and low — where the interference is destructive. Measurement — in this case, the interaction of wave functions with a photographic record leads to a "collapse" of the wave function, its collapse. In the end, she points to one of the places in which the photon materializes after the measurement.

This is obviously caused by the measurement wave-function collapse became the source of many conceptual difficulties in quantum mechanics. Before the collapse there is no way to say for sure where the photon; it can be anywhere with non-zero probability. There is no way to trace the trajectory of the photon from source to detector. Photon unreal in the sense in which a real aircraft flying from San Francisco to new York.

Werner Heisenberg, among others, interpreted this math the way that reality does not exist until observed. "The idea of an objective real world whose smallest particles exist objectively in the same sense in which there are stones or trees, regardless of the fact that we observe them or no, — impossible," he wrote. John Wheeler also used the variant of double slit experiment, to declare that "no elementary quantum phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is registered ("observed", "it is written") phenomenon."

But quantum theory absolutely does not give any clues to what is considered "measurement". It just postulates that the measuring device should be a classic, without defining where that line between classical and quantum, and leaving the door open for those who believe that the collapse causes the human mind. Last may, Henry Stapp and his colleagues said that the double slit experiment and its modern variants suggests that "conscious observer may be necessary" to give meaning to the quantum field, and that the basis of the material world is transpersonal mind.

But these experiments are not empirical evidence of such allegations. In the double slit experiment done with single photons, it is only possible to verify the probabilistic predictions of mathematics. If the likelihood surface in the process of chambering tens of thousands of identical photons through a double slit, the theory says that the wave function of each photon imploded — due to unclear a particular process called measurement. That's all.

In addition, there are other interpretations of the double slit experiment. Take, for example, the theory of de Broglie-Bohm, which States that reality is both wave and particle. The photon is sent to a doublethe cracks at certain position at any point and passes through one slit or the other; hence, each photon has a trajectory. It passes through a pilot wave which penetrates through both slits, interferes and sends a photon in the place of constructive interference.

In 1979, Chris gudni and his colleagues at the College Birkbeck in London modeled the prediction of the theory on the trajectories of particles which pass through a double slit. Over the past ten years, the experimenters confirmed that such trajectories exist, though, and used a controversial technique known as weak measurement. Despite the controversial, experiments have shown that the theory of de Broglie-Bohm is still able to explain the behavior of the quantum world.

More importantly, this theory does not need observers or measurement, or non-consciousness.

Is not needed and the so-called theories of collapse, from which it follows that wave functions collapse at random: the greater the number of particles in a quantum system, the more likely the collapse. Observers simply record the result. The team of Markus Arndt of the University of Vienna in Austria tested these theories, sending larger and larger molecules through the double slit. The theory of collapse predict that when the particles of matter become heavier than a certain threshold, they can no longer remain in a quantum superposition and pass through both slits simultaneously, and this destroys the interference pattern. The team of Arndt sent a molecule with 800 atoms through a double slit and still saw the interference. Search sill continues.

Roger Penrose had our own version of the theory of collapse, in which the higher the mass of the object in superposition, the faster it collapses to one state or another because of gravitational instabilities. And again, this theory does not require the observer and of any consciousness. Dirk Bouwmeester University of California, Santa Barbara examines the idea of Penrose with one version of the double slit experiment.

The Conceptual idea is to not just put the photon in a superposition of passing through two slits simultaneously, but to put one of the slits in a superposition and get to be in two places at the same time. According to Penrose, replaced the gap will either remain in a superposition, or collapses with the photon on the fly, which will lead to different patterns of interference. This collapse will depend on the mass gaps. Boumeester working on this experiment for ten years, and may soon prove or disprove the statements of Penrose.

In any case, these experiments show that we can not yet make any statements about the nature of reality, even if these statements are well backed up by mathematically or philosophically. And given the fact that neuroscientists and philosophers of mind disagree about the nature of consciousness, the claim that it leads to the collapse of the wave functions, it would be premature at best and wrong at worst.

And what is your opinion? Tell us in our

Recommended

What will be the shelter for the first Martian colonists?

What will be the shelter for the first Martian colonists?

Mars is not the friendliest planet for humans While the Red Planet is roaming rovers, researchers are pondering the construction of shelters and materials needed by future Martian colonists. The authors of the new paper suggest that we could use one ...

New proof of string theory discovered

New proof of string theory discovered

Just a few years ago, it seemed that string theory was the new theory of everything. But today the string universe raises more questions than answers String theory is designed to combine all our knowledge of the Universe and explain it. When she appe...

What is the four-dimensional space?

What is the four-dimensional space?

Modeling camera motion in four-dimensional space. View the world in different dimensions changes the way we perceive everything around, including time and space. Think about the difference between two dimensions and three dimensions is easy, but what...

Comments (0)

This article has no comment, be the first!

Add comment

Related News

Gravitational waves have not shown the presence of extra dimensions

Gravitational waves have not shown the presence of extra dimensions

Although last year's discovery of gravitational waves last year, born of the collision of neutron stars, it was awesome, it added extra dimensions to our understanding of the Universe — literally, anyway. the Astronomers at the U...

In Canada found the mummified body of a 50 000-year-old the wolf and the deer

In Canada found the mummified body of a 50 000-year-old the wolf and the deer

In the Cultural center of the canadian town of Dawson city exhibited the mummified remains of a wolf and a reindeer that lived 50 000 years ago. They were discovered in 2016 mining companies and transferred to the researchers. T...

The compound of lanthanum and hydrogen broke the record of superconductivity

The compound of lanthanum and hydrogen broke the record of superconductivity

Superconductors gaining momentum, and the champion may be overthrown at any moment. Appeared immediately two studies on the topic of superconductivity — the transmission of electricity without resistance at temperatures that are h...

Scientists plan to grow a living neural computer

Scientists plan to grow a living neural computer

Will the computers of the future as well as now assembled in factories, or they are literally grown in laboratories like cell culture? This question is so much interested in the team of biologists and computer engineers Lyaskovo U...

Helps stop snoring sleeping on your side?

Helps stop snoring sleeping on your side?

Almost half of all adults snore — if not you, I would have. Loud and constant snoring can be a symptom of sleep apnea, a serious sleep disorders that require medical intervention. They say that you can get rid of snoring, if you s...

Artificial synapses mimic the human brain function

Artificial synapses mimic the human brain function

a Team of scientists under the leadership Myung J. Lee from Intelligent Devices and Systems Research Group at DGIST has developed an artificial synaptic device that simulates the function of nerve cells (neurons) and synapses resp...

AI from MIT teach robots to manipulate objects that they see in the first

AI from MIT teach robots to manipulate objects that they see in the first

Even despite the fact that modern robots are very well know how to deal with different kinds of objects previously in their program need to lay the data about those objects. And if the robot gets something that he's not good – it ...

Of rubidium atoms collected the Eiffel tower, the möbius strip and other shapes

Of rubidium atoms collected the Eiffel tower, the möbius strip and other shapes

the Scientists were able to build individual atoms of the element rubidium in a variety of three-dimensional shapes, including the Eiffel tower. For this they used the laser to keep the atoms, and the method is similar to holograp...

All existing species, including human, will one day disappear

All existing species, including human, will one day disappear

Paleontologists know that in the history of the Earth there are important moments when the rate of extinction increase. For example, scientists have identified five major mass extinctions: five events over the last half a billion ...

Created coating, is not subject to icing. It can be used in the creation of aircraft

Created coating, is not subject to icing. It can be used in the creation of aircraft

Now to prevent icing of power lines, turbines and housings of aircraft used in special chemical substances which reduce the freezing point of water, not allowed to form ice, and so on. But such mixtures are not always effective an...

Created a material that can rebuild itself

Created a material that can rebuild itself

no matter How strong and durable a material it is in any case subject to wear. And it would be great to create a substance that could rearrange its internal structure and change it in the manner of "smart" materials from a science...

Physics CERN experimentally confirmed a new method of particle acceleration

Physics CERN experimentally confirmed a new method of particle acceleration

a New method of proton acceleration of particles was proposed by Russian specialists from the Institute of nuclear physics named after Budker Siberian branch of RAS (BINP). Experimental verification of the method was carried out b...

#news high technology 258 | electric Kalashnikov and smart submarines

#news high technology 258 | electric Kalashnikov and smart submarines

Every Monday in the new issue of «News high-tech» we summarize the previous week, talking about some of the most important events, the key discoveries and inventions. This time we will talk about the electric car "Kalash...

If we create life in a lab, how do we treat it?

If we create life in a lab, how do we treat it?

What is life? Throughout the greater part of the 20th century this question was not were of great concern to biologists. Life is a term for poets, not scientists, believed synthetic biologist Andrew Ellington in 2008, who began hi...

If we create life in a laboratory, as we to her otnositsa?

If we create life in a laboratory, as we to her otnositsa?

What is life? Throughout the greater part of the 20th century this question was not were of great concern to biologists. Life is a term for poets, not scientists, believed synthetic biologist Andrew Ellington in 2008, who began hi...

Can machine learning be put an end to

Can machine learning be put an end to "understand" science?

much To the chagrin of vacationers who are planning a summer picnic, the weather is incredibly Moody and unpredictable. Small changes in precipitation, temperature, humidity, wind speed or direction can change to outdoor condition...

Ghostly neutrino will be able to detect secret nuclear tests

Ghostly neutrino will be able to detect secret nuclear tests

States that want to conduct secret testing of nuclear weapons one day will be revealed with the help of an antineutrino. Nuclear explosions emit huge quantity of light of sub-atomic particles can travel great distance through the ...

In a world of huge problems with the electricity. Back to nuclear reactors?

In a world of huge problems with the electricity. Back to nuclear reactors?

back in 2009, Simon Irish, the investment Manager out of new York, have discovered a method by which, in his opinion, it was possible to change the world. Irish saw that the entire world is in need of enormous number of projects i...

Scientists suspected phonons in the possession of the mass and negative gravity...

Scientists suspected phonons in the possession of the mass and negative gravity...

the Three physicists at Columbia University have made a splash with his new theory of the phonons, they assume that these particles can have negative mass and therefore negative gravity. Angelo Esposito, Rafael Krichevsky and Albe...

The new approach keeps the liquid from freezing at very low temperatures

The new approach keeps the liquid from freezing at very low temperatures

Scientists from the Massachusetts center for the application of technology in medicine (MGH-CEM) has developed a simple method of maintaining of water and solutions on the basis of water in the liquid state at temperatures much sm...