Quick quantam physics questions stemming from philosophical discussion

  • Thread starter Thread starter St_Francis
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

St_Francis

Guest
I started a thread about a question re: philosophy and then people started discussing quantam physics, and I really don’t know enough to comment on that, as will possibly be evidenced by my questions 😉

Which is: when they say that the things they observe in quantam physics which change because of the observation, 1. when they say “observe,” do they mean with instruments, or do they include just looking? and 2. How do they know the observed things are behaving differently than they would have otherwise?

Thanks!
 
St_Francis said:
I started a thread about a question re: philosophy and then people started discussing quantam physics, and I really don’t know enough to comment on that, as will possibly be evidenced by my questions 😉

Which is: when they say that the things they observe in quantam physics which change because of the observation, 1. when they say “observe,” do they mean with instruments, or do they include just looking? and 2. How do they know the observed things are behaving differently than they would have otherwise?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
Quantum mechanics is an endlessly fascinating topic which I would like to understand better, too. Have you seen any of the videos on YouTube? There are lots of them on Quantum theory and the holographic universe and so on. Most are fairly easy to understand and answer some of your questions.
 
Thew way Ive come to understand quantum computing is basically something no longer has to be a 1 or a 0, a yes or a no, an action or a non-action, in the quantum world, things can be both, depending on when you look at them.

I dont know if quantum computers are going to be the next big tech leap forward, but if they are and quantum computers are the norm, our world will be MUCH different than it is right now, people could literally do anything.
 
I suppose a simple analogy is the ordinary act of measuring the oil level in the sump of your car.

You pull the dipstick out, and wipe it clean with a rag. You then reinsert it, and pull it out again. You then observe the level, and make note.

But in wiping the dipstick clean, you’ve interfered with the level. So the reading is not what it was when you first pulled out the dipstick.

Observing in the quantum sense always involves equipment. You’re not going to be able to measure quantum changes in any other way.

But what seems to be missing in all this talk about indeterminacy and Schrodinger’s cat and the rest of it is that the overall system seems to be quite predictable in most respects.

The individual air molecules might be heated by individual solar quanta, and the individual atoms in the air molecules might have indetermined spin in their electrons.

But next year around August, when we have what we call the RNA show, you can almost bet your bottom dollar that we’ll get westerly winds, sometimes quite gusty. You could almost set your calendar on that basis.

Despite all the alleged indeterminacy at the quantum level.
 
In an attempt to answer your question as simply as possible, particles exhibiting quantum behavior exist in nebulous states where properties that they exhibit like spin and momentum are not defined discretely (ie they do not have a single value) when the particle interacts with its environment in a way that is measureable only a single value is detected. There are numerous interpretations of this phenomenon, so you want to know which is the correct way to interpret this, however there is disagreement among physicists on this point.
 
St_Francis said:
I started a thread about a question re: philosophy and then people started discussing quantam physics, and I really don’t know enough to comment on that, as will possibly be evidenced by my questions 😉

Which is: when they say that the things they observe in quantam physics which change because of the observation, 1. when they say “observe,” do they mean with instruments, or do they include just looking? and 2. How do they know the observed things are behaving differently than they would have otherwise?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
It’s complicated. It effectively means that you cause a photon (the quanta of light) to interact with what you’re observing. This imparts energy onto the thing which you are observing, which changes the value (or for the value to become definite) from when it was unobserved.

In order to observe something with either your eye or scientific instruments, you need to shine light on it. This causes a photon to interact. This is what is meant by observation.

I’m glad to see some science discussions on these boards. I worry it eres on the side of fundamentalism sometimes and that really worries me.
 
Schrodinger left his pet cat with a physicist friend to take care of while he was on vacation. He left the cat in a box with a cover on top, and told the friend not to open the box or look inside. Upon returning from vacation, he went to his friend’s house to retrieve the cat. “Is my cat dead or alive?” he asked nervously. “Yes,” said the friend. “Yes indeed he is dead or alive. But please don’t opent the box because then he’ll be definitely one or the other.”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top