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posted by n1 on Friday May 22 2015, @05:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the no dept.

Owen Maroney worries that physicists have spent the better part of a century engaging in fraud.

Ever since they invented quantum theory in the early 1900s, explains Maroney, who is himself a physicist at the University of Oxford, UK, they have been talking about how strange it is — how it allows particles and atoms to move in many directions at once, for example, or to spin clockwise and anticlockwise simultaneously. But talk is not proof, says Maroney. “If we tell the public that quantum theory is weird, we better go out and test that's actually true,” he says. “Otherwise we're not doing science, we're just explaining some funny squiggles on a blackboard.”

It is this sentiment that has led Maroney and others to develop a new series of experiments to uncover the nature of the wavefunction — the mysterious entity that lies at the heart of quantum weirdness. On paper, the wavefunction is simply a mathematical object that physicists denote with the Greek letter psi (Ψ) — one of Maroney's funny squiggles — and use to describe a particle's quantum behaviour. Depending on the experiment, the wavefunction allows them to calculate the probability of observing an electron at any particular location, or the chances that its spin is oriented up or down. But the mathematics shed no light on what a wavefunction truly is. Is it a physical thing ? Or just a calculating tool for handling an observer's ignorance about the world ?

http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-physics-what-is-really-real-1.17585

 
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  • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Friday May 22 2015, @05:28AM

    by captain normal (2205) on Friday May 22 2015, @05:28AM (#186332)

    In an infinite universe, not only are all things possible, they are probable.

    --
    When life isn't going right, go left.
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  • (Score: 1) by Linatux on Friday May 22 2015, @06:42AM

    by Linatux (4602) on Friday May 22 2015, @06:42AM (#186341)

    But the universe is finite!

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Friday May 22 2015, @06:51AM

      by anubi (2828) on Friday May 22 2015, @06:51AM (#186343) Journal

      But the universe is finite!

      Are we sure?

      The universe seems to grow in size every time we develop technologies that allow us to look further.

      --
      "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by maxwell demon on Friday May 22 2015, @07:08AM

        by maxwell demon (1608) on Friday May 22 2015, @07:08AM (#186347) Journal

        Are we sure?

        No. The visible universe is finite. But that's because of the finite speed of light.

        --
        The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @07:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @07:55AM (#186361)

    In an infinite universe, not only are all things possible, they are probable.

    No. Not even close.

    There is an infinite amount of integers but that does not mean that it is not only possible but probable that one of those integers is an under-watered hydrangea.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @10:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @10:34AM (#186390)

      There is an infinite amount of integers but that does not mean that it is not only possible but probable that one of those integers is an under-watered hydrangea.

      It is impossible to decide whether one of the integers is an under-watered hydrangea, since there is no meaning to the claim. Of course possibility/probability can only be applied to well-defined statements.

      That doesn't mean that the original statement is true, however:

      In an infinite universe, not only are all things possible, they are probable.

      To make a meaningful counterexample: In the infinite set of integers it is neither possible nor probable that there are three primes of the form p, p+2, p+4.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Dogeball on Friday May 22 2015, @11:21AM

        by Dogeball (814) on Friday May 22 2015, @11:21AM (#186400)

        To make a meaningful counterexample: In the infinite set of integers it is neither possible nor probable that there are three primes of the form p, p+2, p+4.

        Like 3,5 and 7?

        How is that a counter-example?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @11:53AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 22 2015, @11:53AM (#186404)

          Well, OK, I fucked up the specific example. But then, the point should be obvious anyway. Just take p, p+1, p+2 instead.

          • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 22 2015, @02:17PM

            by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday May 22 2015, @02:17PM (#186462) Journal

            3,5,7 is the only set that satisfies that condition, and the proof is easy. For all sets of 3 natural numbers of the form n, n+2, and n+4, one of those is divisible by 3. Mod 3 of such a set always yields 0,1,2. Not much different than the observation that 2 is the only even prime number.

          • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Saturday May 23 2015, @12:37AM

            by JNCF (4317) on Saturday May 23 2015, @12:37AM (#186728) Journal

            I get what you're saying, but you're playing a game with numbers and our definitions of subsets of numbers.

            When people say everything is probable in an infinite universe, what they generally mean is that every conceivable arrangement of matter and energy is going to spontaneously occur. Yes, you can still come up with a definition of some abstract-something that is definitionally impossible, but that's not really what we're talking about. We're talking about matter and energy.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @01:36AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 23 2015, @01:36AM (#186738)

              In which case the original statement has lost its original meaning of having no bounds and the new meaning is being derived from the subset that which could make the statement itself correct.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday May 23 2015, @03:10AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 23 2015, @03:10AM (#186755) Journal

        It is impossible to decide whether one of the integers is an under-watered hydrangea, since there is no meaning to the claim.

        Except that the sentence has meaning. A hydrangea is a plant while an integer is a abstract concept. Since abstract concepts aren't plants, the truth of the statement is readily determined. Further, the statement has meaning because it says something non-trivial. If we replaced integers and under-watered hydrangea with other nouns, we could end up with a sentence that was false or even had an indeterminate truth value.

    • (Score: 2) by Yog-Yogguth on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:46PM

      by Yog-Yogguth (1862) Subscriber Badge on Thursday May 28 2015, @06:46PM (#189251) Journal

      There is only one integer: unit. The rest is all about how many of them you have ;)

      --
      Bite harder Ouroboros, bite! tails.boum.org/ linux USB CD secure desktop IRC *crypt tor (not endorsements (XKeyScore))
  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday May 22 2015, @09:24PM

    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday May 22 2015, @09:24PM (#186672) Homepage Journal

    Does infinity actually exist?

    As to the question of weirdness, the Beatles said it best:

    Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going, too. Strawberry feels nothing is real, and nothing to get hung about. Strawberry feels forever!

    --
    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org