Comments on: Close Your Eyes http://www.humorlessbitch.com/2009/09/close-your-eyes.html/ just another wordpress weblog? yeah, right. sure. fine. Wed, 18 Apr 2012 04:00:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: Philip http://www.humorlessbitch.com/2009/09/close-your-eyes.html/#comment-131 Philip Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:44:08 +0000 http://www.humorlessbitch.com/?p=3066#comment-131 Well, to pick a nit, observations are caused by interactions on its most fundamental level. So, that photon would exist as a probability wave until it hits good ‘ol planet Earth, things around to see it or not — the planet is a perfectly good detector, and is too big to be tucked away under the blanket of probability or interference problems. The fact that a group of probabilistically treated particles collapsing due to interactions with the environment is known as quantum decoherence. Wheeler’s interpretation is problematic in some ways; in particular, his notion of affecting the past doesn’t jive with particle self-interference. It will self interfere, and we can record said interference, until we plop a detector in beam path and suddenly, we just get two lines. On the other hand, even if it did retroactively “fix” the path of the photon, since we didn’t observe it then, what does it matter? The physics all works out at the end, and though it hurts the brain, causality isn’t violated. Oh quantum mechanics. Well, to pick a nit, observations are caused by interactions on its most fundamental level. So, that photon would exist as a probability wave until it hits good ‘ol planet Earth, things around to see it or not — the planet is a perfectly good detector, and is too big to be tucked away under the blanket of probability or interference problems. The fact that a group of probabilistically treated particles collapsing due to interactions with the environment is known as quantum decoherence.

Wheeler’s interpretation is problematic in some ways; in particular, his notion of affecting the past doesn’t jive with particle self-interference. It will self interfere, and we can record said interference, until we plop a detector in beam path and suddenly, we just get two lines.

On the other hand, even if it did retroactively “fix” the path of the photon, since we didn’t observe it then, what does it matter? The physics all works out at the end, and though it hurts the brain, causality isn’t violated. Oh quantum mechanics.

]]> By: Tom Clark http://www.humorlessbitch.com/2009/09/close-your-eyes.html/#comment-128 Tom Clark Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:37:02 +0000 http://www.humorlessbitch.com/?p=3066#comment-128 Well, I always thought the hip bone was connected to the thigh bone; now I know it. If we can shape the past, does that mean we can go back and deal with Mozart's one lone mistake: he wrote ten million notes and got one of them wrong. Can I go back and fix it, you know switch a few protons around so that that damned G-sharp becomes a G-natural? I surely hope so. And maybe I could shave Hitler's moustache while I'm at it. What fun.... Well, I always thought the hip bone was connected to the thigh bone; now I know it.

If we can shape the past, does that mean we can go back and deal with Mozart’s one lone mistake: he wrote ten million notes and got one of them wrong. Can I go back and fix it, you know switch a few protons around so that that damned G-sharp becomes a G-natural? I surely hope so. And maybe I could shave Hitler’s moustache while I’m at it.

What fun….

]]>