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Biochemist Dr. Isaac Asimov was joking, of course, when he came up with the substance (it came up in his orals for his doctorate, and it terrified him), but some theoretical physicists have suggested that something similar to Asimov's fictional chemical actually exists at the quantum level.
Phys Org reports that "Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past."
(Phys.org)—Although there are many counterintuitive ideas in quantum theory, the idea that influences can travel backwards in time (from the future to the past) is generally not one of them. However, recently some physicists have been looking into this idea, called "retrocausality," because it can potentially resolve some long-standing puzzles in quantum physics. In particular, if retrocausality is allowed, then the famous Bell tests can be interpreted as evidence for retrocausality and not for action-at-a-distance—a result that Einstein and others skeptical of that "spooky" property may have appreciated.
It's a long and informative article that I found fascinating.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by marcello_dl on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:04AM (1 child)
Retrocausality vs. action at a distance is a problem only for those religious bigots who insist on modeling a mechanically evolving, impersonal, universe based upon traditional models of the macroscopic world. Such models have already been given the death blow by the discovered properties of spacetime (probability based models are not mechanical, and BTW "randomness" is an improper way to call the current inability to "explore" quantum fields), yet in their religion improperly called "science", they keep trying to rationalize. For no real reason, because in their religion "random" is not only allowed but mandatory.
Fact, all rules defining a universe are ultimately conventional, be it there god(s) or not. If retrocausality explains things that action at a distance doesn't, or is a better model, then by all means go for it. Else, keep the action at a distance. How either is implemented, is always beyond your reach
TLDR retrocausality is no more spooky than thermodynamic "laws".
(Score: 0, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @09:44AM
Unconvincing argumentation.No mention to black lives matter, neither to dark energy.
The social aspects have a very weak and pale representation in your argumentation, this letting aside freedom of speech, the rights to bear arms and. last but not least, immigration.
(Score: 5, Funny) by NotSanguine on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:08AM (3 children)
Time flies like an arrow.
Fruit flies like a banana.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:34AM (1 child)
If times fly like an arrow, why can't a fruit fly get its banana back if it gets past the horizon if a black hole?
(if time is reversible in the laws of physics, how come a photon reflected on a mirror beyond a black hole's horizon can never get back outside?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:51AM
The photon keeps falling back unto the mirror. Time dilation (or, gravity) is too big for the photon to escape sufficiently far to reach your eyes (which are on the other side of the horizon). Not sure if time must be irreversible or reversible for that to happen either way.
but .. IANAP
(Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:00AM
I couldn't get time flies to check your first claim, but my fruit throwing experiments at least confirmed your second claim: There's indeed no substantial difference in the flying between bananas and other fruits. ;-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Informative) by butthurt on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:12AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocausality [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:16AM
Yes, please.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:31AM (1 child)
Dick niggas
We aim't never fuck no old pussy
We fuck lotta young pussy
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Gaaark on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:30AM
That's it? That's the best you've got?
Sheeeit.... my momma's got bettah than that.
(Now, i've set you up for a 'momma' joke... can you do something with that?)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:44AM (9 children)
In the article I found "The physicists don't have any experiments lined up to test retrocausality—but as the idea is more an interpretation of observations rather than making new observations, what's needed most may not be a test but more theoretical support."
To be accepted as scientific, a theory must be falsifiable—that is, it must be possible, at least in principle, to empirically disprove it.
k, thanks. Next please.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:33AM
Not with today's science: today, you just say: "It's dark energy....NO, dark MATTER!...... NOOOO!!! Dark chocolate! Yeah, dark chocolate!!"
You don't need to use real science these days.
"It's chocolate rain. That explains it all. Just add 43.5 chocolate rains and Bob's your uncle."
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:55PM
And, isn't this coming down to semantics, anyway?
Whether something is retrocausality or action at a distance would seem to just be two ways of explaining the same phenomenon.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:47PM (6 children)
The problem is when several explanations (in English) match all the available data, and there's no obvious way to create an experiment to distinguish between the "different" explanations, which one you choose is a matter of taste, not science. But it *may* be reasonable to ask whether the English sentences which appear to be saying quite different things are actually saying the same thing.
E.g.: Is there a difference between the EWG multi-world interpretation and the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory? They sure sound different in English, but just TRY to come up with an experiment to differentiate between them. So perhaps the problem is the way we think about what's actually out there. Perhaps. But realize that Solipsism is also consistent with quantum theory...and that seems silly. So is super-pre-determinism. And nobody has been able to design an experiment to differentiate between them.
Personally I like the multi-world interpretation. The math is interpreted in a more straightforward manner. But I acknowledge that it's a matter of taste. And retrocausality is another theory that is equally expressive (unlike Solipsism) and also consistent.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Sunday July 09 2017, @01:13PM (5 children)
Just like Solipsism can be rejected as a scientific fact using Karl Popper's requirement of it being falsifiable is, to me, retrocausality subject to the same principles. I can accept them as soon as they are falsifiable, but not earlier. In contrast was general relativity and special relativity at the time probably equally non-intuitive, but those two are both falsifiable.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday July 09 2017, @02:33PM (2 children)
What in Einstein's theory was falsifiable in 1914? Brand new exotic theories are seldom falsifiable until the technologies to test those theories are available. For example, it was over a century before gravity waves could be confirmed.
A href="http://www.nooze.org/Poe's%20Law.jpg">Poe's Law has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Sunday July 09 2017, @08:01PM
Yes, I don't think we shouldn't try to falsify retrocausality. But absent a method to do so ...
(Score: 2) by dry on Monday July 10 2017, @04:26AM
Mercury's orbit was one of the first tests. Newtons laws never quite worked with predicting Mercury's orbit but Einsteins did. Wasn't long before gravitational bending of light (a star during an eclipse) was observed.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday July 09 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)
When you have several different theories that make exactly the same predictions in every place you can test, how do you choose between them? Retrocausality (IIUC) is one of the legitimate interpretations of quantum theory. As is the Multi-World interpretation. As is the Copenhagen interpretation. I believe there are a couple more. They all make exactly the same predictions in every testable area. This doesn't mean you can just chose any theory you like, but it does mean that there's more than one reasonable alternative...unless, English (and I *think* all other human languages) to the contrary they are actually saying the same thing. Bohm's implicate order isn't actually one of the group, because he does make a claim that may someday be testable. It's just currently indistinguishable. (He claims that there are hidden variables of a non-local variety...but it's not clear how to find them.) Most of the interpretations, however, don't have any prediction that distinguishes them. That's why they are called interpretations rather than theories: They all use the same math.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Sunday July 09 2017, @08:17PM
Interpretations rather than theories: They must all be falsifyable to be accepted as science fact.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @10:59AM (4 children)
So there is perhaps retro causality, but is that such on a timescale larger than a plank time 5e-44 s or less? because such theories I have read before and they seem plausible. But they have also very little impact on practical physics. Even nuclear reactions appear extremely slow in comparison.
It may however affect uncertainty ie randomness and phenomena like single photons pathway choice through a diffraction filter. I'll suspect.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 08 2017, @11:45AM
Due to China [soylentnews.org], yes it it nowadays much larger than Plank time, something like hundred of milliseconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @12:58PM (2 children)
Randomness has always seemed like a cop-out, a way of modeling details that the modeler does not know.
Peel back the next layer of the onion and you get to see why the dice fall as they do.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Saturday July 08 2017, @01:29PM (1 child)
If it takes more energy and mass to compute than exist in the universe it may be we can peel, but not make use of it. It may simple be practically impossible.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:11PM
That is a possible limit, more likely it's just a few orders of magnitude higher than we currently can muster, like the relationship between energy released by 100kg of TNT and 100kg of plutonium...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by UncleSlacky on Saturday July 08 2017, @04:21PM
This looks a lot like Cramer's "transactional interpretation", whereby signals have both a forward- and backward-moving time component: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transactional_interpretation [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 08 2017, @06:42PM
it's easy for humans to notice these retrograde influences, that is when the future influences the past/present
if you know for certain (believe or physical proof) that you CANNOT change the future (outcome) of something,
then you can safely slap the moniker "retrograde" on it.
if you NOW know for sure that you CANNOT change something in the future then this already has influenced the past?
so basically there is a situation in the future somewhere that creates the present laws of physics.
until the time that we change the laws of physics, that future situation has not been reached/witnessed yet?
(Score: 3, Disagree) by wonkey_monkey on Saturday July 08 2017, @08:37PM (4 children)
Haha, yes, of course he was. Sorry, what?
I don't think Asimov's oeuvre has quite pervaded the global consciousness as much as you think it has.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday July 09 2017, @02:36PM (3 children)
Anyone who hasn't read Asimov can hardly consider himself a nerd. The joke was the original article about the fictitious substance that was written as if it was a real scientific paper.
A href="http://www.nooze.org/Poe's%20Law.jpg">Poe's Law has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 3, Touché) by wonkey_monkey on Sunday July 09 2017, @07:55PM (2 children)
Well, maybe not a pompous nerd, anyway.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday July 10 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)
No, if you don't read, you're not a nerd.
A href="http://www.nooze.org/Poe's%20Law.jpg">Poe's Law has nothing to do with Edgar Allen Poetry
(Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday July 11 2017, @03:39PM
Also false, but also not what you said in the first place.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 1) by Zobeid Zuma on Sunday July 09 2017, @02:02PM
I'm no physicist and not expert on this subject, but... I don't understand why it isn't perfectly natural for cause-and-effect to work in both directions. Why is this even a subject of debate?
Here's an example of what I mean: Decay of an unstable isotope. This is usually regarded as a randomly occurring phenomenon, with a statistical likelihood of the atom decaying during a given time frame (as described by its half life). But the decay event itself has no preceding cause. It's spontaneous, right? Yet, if we follow the timeline in reverse, it becomes obvious why the decay had to occur at the point in time and space that it did: because that's where the spray of decay products originated from! It's the point where their paths intersect. Thus, the decay seems to me like a perfect example of an event with its "cause" in the future.