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Quantum Weirdness 101:  The Double-Slit Experiment

“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.”–

Neils Bohr

With apologies to Douglas Adams–don’t panic!  Although an understanding of a few basic concepts of quantum mechanics will be helpful in following some of the Millennium Conjectures, it’s actually not that hard to grasp.  No math is needed.  The following video gives a clear and entertaining description of the wave-particle duality of the sub-atomic world.   If you weren’t already familiar with the concept, this should give you what you need to “get it.”   What it won’t allow you to do is come to grips with it, or even believe it.  But you’d better believe it.  Quantum theory is one of the most rock solid, experimentally verified fields in all of science.   And whether you believe it or not, don’t even think of explaining it.  The world’s most brilliant physicists have been debating the implications for decades and are nowhere near a consensus.   If you’d like a little more after the video, including a description of some of the leading explanations, here is a text primer.

 

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Conjecture #1: Infinity (Part One)

June 5, 2012 by 4 Comments

 I conjecture:  The concept of infinity could not exist in a finite universe.

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.”

 Simone de Beauvoir

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Pure philosophy?  It might be.  It’s probably not provable in any scientific manner; but it’s certainly conjecturable.  So let’s discuss the implications, as many of the Millennium Conjectures to come herein presume the universe—or multiverse, if you please—to be infinite in some shape or form.  As most religions require a belief in god as a given, my worldview based on science needs to take a stand on infinity.

As best as can be determined, the ancient Greeks seem to have invented the mathematical concept of infinity.  (Okay—with the possible exceptions of baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet—what didn’t the ancient Greeks think of first?)  So the question begs, did we humans discover infinity or did we invent it?  It’s certainly conceivable that we could have invented it, at least in the mathematical sense.  Let’s look briefly at two other possible dimensions of infinity—time and space.  Of course, Einstein asserted that time and space are a single four-dimensional continuum, but let’s separate the two for the purposes of this metaphysical discussion.

The Possibility of Infinite Time

In 1949, using Einstein’s equations of general relativity, Kurt Gödel provided a proof  that a certain type of rotating universe would be static and spatially finite, but temporally infinite in a rather unnerving form: it would contain closed time loops that would permit time-travel into the past. While evident that it did not exactly describe our universe, which is indeed expanding, Einstein himself admitted it raised disturbing questions about the nature of time in our universe.  Gödel later expressed a philosophical argument that this  proof suggests that time in our own universe does not exist, either as Einstein described it or as we intuitively experience it.1

Kurt Gödel

More recently, philosopher-scientist Julian Barbour has taken complete issue with Einstein suggesting that time is an illusion created by change–that it in fact does not exist at all.  He asserts that time does not flow, but is a series of distinct, static and timeless instants that we experience as “flowing” time.2      David Deutsch, took this once step further in his book The Fabric of Reality, when he asserted that time not only does not flow, but each  instant we experience represents an alternate universe, each deterministic.  He essentially argues that our consciousness moves  from alternate universe to alternate universe and that it is this which is the source of perceived in-determinism and free will.  [For now, don’t worry about the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics if you don’t understand it.  I’ll provide some simple primers on these concepts in “asides” between the main posts.]

So let’s leave it at this: nobody really knows for sure exactly what time is, or if it even exists in anything like the form in which we experience it.  So let’s move on.  Next up is a discussion of space as a possible “infinite” dimension of reality.  And don’t worry–there will be some intervening silliness if only for comic relief.

Notes:

  1.  Gödel universe, The Encyclopedia of Science (online)
  2. Barbour, Julian, The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Physics (1999) Oxford University Press p.9
  3. Deutsch, David, The Fabric of Reality (1997) Penguin Books,  Chapter 11, Time: the First Quantum Concept, pp. 259-288.
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Introducing The Millenium Conjectures

May 28, 2012 by Leave a Comment

“..in reality, scientific theories are not ‘derived’ from anything.  They are guesses—bold conjectures.”

—David Deutsch, The Beginning of Infinity

 

David Deutsch

In his provocative and stimulating tome The Beginning of Infinity, the British astrophysicist David Deutsch describes the role of science as one not so much as describing reality as explaining it.  It does this, he asserts, through conjectures which then may be tested by experiment.   But this leaves substantial problems in today’s complex and technical world, as there are many conjectures about reality which we cannot test, or at least, cannot test yet.  The existence of exo-planets—planetary systems around stars other than our sun—was only a conjecture until the technology existed to actually detect such bodies. Many mathematical conjectures were not provable for centuries until the advent of sufficient computing power to do so.  Many other scientific ideas—from simple speculations to profound interpretations—cannot be tested with today’s technologies; in some cases, we cannot even imagine how ever to test them.  The “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics is one of these.   This is a subject I will deal with specifically in a later post.  But the point is: my concern here is with ideas we cannot yet, or maybe never can prove.

Edge.org

Why bother?  One of the most interesting books I have ever read is the 2005 volume What We Believe but Cannot Prove. Published by edge.org,one reviewer expressed its content quite succinctly:

John Brockman, writer, publisher and events manager for the science elite, has asked a hundred researchers the question, What do you believe is true even though you cannot prove it? The answers are posted at his e-magazine Edge (www.edge.org), and they exert an unquestionable morbid fascination—those are the very ideas that scientists cannot confess in their technical papers.  –JAVIER SAMPEDRO, Madrid,  EL PAIS, February 20, 2005

We all need a worldview.  And while some scientists and philosophers may simply say, “that’s just the way it is, no explanation is needed,” I cannot live with that.  My worldview is based on science, but it needs explanations.

I do not pretend to have any answers.  I don’t even have the viewpoint of a trained scientist.   My viewpoint is the journalistic approach of a layman generalist with a passion for science.  These are, in effect, my own interpretations of what I have read and learned about the present state of human knowledge of physical reality.  In some cases, I may be simply re-stating in my own terms, with my own views of the implications, ideas that may have been put forth or at least hinted at by others. Most of these subjects will involve issues we can’t really test now—maybe never.  I for one need a way of viewing reality that is based on science, but goes beyond what we can absolutely test.  I require explanations, but untestable explanations must seem at least scientifically feasible.  I cannot brook the mystical or supernatural—and yes, in some respects, the religious.  I am a non-theistic existentialist, and this is how I build my world view based on science.

So these are my conjectures.  They are indeed bold guesses.  They are not intended to be absolute assertions of reality—anything but.  They are my suggestions of things that might be true, that I imagine could be true, but that in many cases may not even be provable one way or the other.  What I am doing is asking: what are the implications of this viewpoint?  These are—essentially—what ifs.

UP NEXT:   #1 The Conjecture of Infinity

Text in this post ©2012 Mark Sackler

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