Let's talk quantum mechanics....

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:27 pm

A few years ago I was watching an episode of Nova about.... some sort of quantum stuff. Wormholes and such.

They showed an experiment or something..... a light was projected through some sort of device with 3 holes, but 5 beams of light came out the other side (or something like that). The explanation was... in the parallel universe, their opposites are performing the same demonstration on a device with 5 holes, and the light is being shared between universes (or something like that).

It was about 5 years ago. I may be misremembering specifics, but that's the gist.

I didn't sense they were joking around.

Anyone ever heard of this phenomenon?

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:50 pm

There's so much crap they could be insinuating, I'd need to see it in context to get much meaning out of it.

Post by **GORDON** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 11:59 pm

I heard the same sort of cop-out explanation in Crichton's book, "Time Line." Scientist peeps in our universe knew how to send peeps back in time, but we didn't know how to bring them back. But that's ok because peeps in the parallel universe knew how to do it, so they always showed up when they were supposed to.

Crichton... though he has gone Hollywood... is still a PhD and is supposed to know about these things. But I dunno.

I think we need to find this episode of Nova and watch it as a group.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:02 am

GORDON wrote:I heard the same sort of cop-out explanation in Crichton's book, "Time Line." Scientist peeps in our universe knew how to send peeps back in time, but we didn't know how to bring them back. But that's ok because peeps in the parallel universe knew how to do it, so they always showed up when they were supposed to.

Crichton... though he has gone Hollywood... is still a PhD and is supposed to know about these things. But I dunno.

I think we need to find this episode of Nova and watch it as a group.

Wrong type of doctor. He got his MD from Harvard.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:06 am

An any rate, I remember something similar about light/strange properties, etc... but I dont remember it ever involving paralllel universes.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:06 am

What I meant was he typically writes stuff based on real science. Prehistoric DNA to make dinosaurs, nanotech that runs amuck, killer alien microbes that kill peeps, and quantum time travel.

This might be the episode, but I dn't have time to watch it right now. I'll try to get to it within the next few days.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/3014_elegant.html

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:10 am

AMANDA PEET (University of Toronto): People who have said that there were extra dimensions of space have been labeled crackpots, or people who are bananas.

I never really thought of heras smart before.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:14 am

OK, they only thing I could remember was light, when sent through a small hole in dark paper, created wave-like distribution patterns of shadow on the wall, instead of even gradients.

Post by **GORDON** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:16 am

I'm not sure if that's what I'm remembering, or not. I still want to say 3 holes produced 5 beams of light.

No, I'm not confusing this with an episode of Star Trek: TNG.

Malcolm · Post by **Malcolm** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 12:37 am

Crichton. Damn, he needs to stop writing &\or die.

DoctorChaos · Post by **DoctorChaos** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 8:47 am

That experiment demonstrates both the wave and particle properties of light. Something to the effect of, if you assume wave mechanics of light the light will have pattern A. Particle mechanics gives pattern B. Quantum (wave and particle and some other fun stuff) yields a combination of the two. Basically it's confusing as all get out because it looks like it's not following any rules. Then there's the whole, the particle can exist in two places at once because it is not observed but as soon as it is observed it exists in the one place. This is schrodinger's cat.

It is also the principle of quantum computing. Instead of binary (on/off) you have on/off/maybe. How this contributes to speed in some algorithms (like encryption cracking) I don't know.

Man, I wish I had gone further in physics. I forgot how weird it gets.

Post by **TheCatt** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:39 am

In search of Schrodinger's Cat was about as deep as I went into this stuff, and that was 10 years ago.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 9:42 am

GORDON wrote:I think we need to find this episode of Nova and watch it as a group.

Sounds better than that Wrestlemania pajama party you tried to get us to do last year.

Post by **TPRJones** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 10:25 am

Sounds like bullshit to me.

Not the wave/particle duality, that's a well established phenomenon. The three holes / five holes parallel universe machine, though, that's gotta be crap at this point. If you could project light into a parallel universe you could just as easily (and with the exact same magical inter-dimensional transmission equipment) send pictures and other data and establish communication and share knowledge instead of just lighting up a wall with two extra beams of light. So either there's a big cover-up conspiracy going on about our ongoing communications with the 8th Dimension, or Nova decided to spin some bullshit on their show. Guess which one I'm betting is true.

DoctorChaos · Post by **DoctorChaos** » Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:32 pm

Yeah, light leaking into a parallel universe is a bunch of crap. In all observed actions, there is neither the creation of energy/matter nor the destruction of the same. If there was some 'bleed off' into a parallel universe we could somehow harness that and our 'energy crisis' would be solved. It would also negate entropy so the universe would not end in heat death assuming the other parallel universe didn't go first.

Of course this is assuming that the transfer of energy is two ways or we could leech off another parallel universe. Shit, I'm theorizing on bull shit.

Post by **TheCatt** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:07 am

So... is there someone in an alternative dimension that has a pile of trash as their shadow?

Post by **TheCatt** » Wed Sep 26, 2007 11:13 am

And are they both peeing?

Edited By TheCatt on 1190819625

Post by **GORDON** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:50 pm

I think this is what I was originally talking about.

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Post by **GORDON** » Sun May 17, 2009 5:58 pm

Sunday quantum entanglement.

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Post by **TPRJones** » Sun May 17, 2009 11:23 pm

I seem to recall some theory I read somewhere about the universe being made up of one single quark that is oscillating backwards and forwards in time and interacting with itself to make up all the matter in the universe.

Seems unlikely, though, as that would imply that if it were to interact with an anti-quark of the same sort it would obliterate, and take the entire universe with it.

Edited By TPRJones on 1242617050