The Non Linear Plasma Reactor

[McBryce]

...next time a barn burns down, or a CAT dies, we'll know who to blame; Mr. Non... What was the guy's name again?

And how are going to know that the cat has died without opening the box? 

McBryce.

[bd139]

Shake it 

[MrMobodies]

I’m not measuring anything. Fuck off until you present at least GCSE algebra…

Seriously stop avoiding and go learn.

Joke: He was not avoiding it was just that he was dreaming.
He must do a lot of day dreaming.

[TimFox]

...next time a barn burns down, or a CAT dies, we'll know who to blame; Mr. Non... What was the guy's name again?

And how are going to know that the cat has died without opening the box? 

McBryce.

Make the box out of glass instead of Bakelite--it doesn't change the physics of the nuclear disintegration.

[AVGresponding]

...next time a barn burns down, or a CAT dies, we'll know who to blame; Mr. Non... What was the guy's name again?

And how are going to know that the cat has died without opening the box? 

McBryce.

Make the box out of glass instead of Bakelite--it doesn't change the physics of the nuclear disintegration.

No, but it does change the measurement process, which is a serious problem in quantum mechanics.

[RJSV]

   I thought 'Z-Pinch' was a cute Frenchman who flirts with your mate, while you sleep down a hangover at the hotel.
   Suggestion (for Moderators):
   It's not so difficult, these days, why not provide / allow posts to have a 'native language' section; French Colombian, Vietnam, Philipines, etc.
Of course might be some lazy ones, but might not be big deal; just require the readable English up front.

[TimFox]

...next time a barn burns down, or a CAT dies, we'll know who to blame; Mr. Non... What was the guy's name again?

And how are going to know that the cat has died without opening the box? 

McBryce.

Make the box out of glass instead of Bakelite--it doesn't change the physics of the nuclear disintegration.

No, but it does change the measurement process, which is a serious problem in quantum mechanics.

The transparent box doesn’t change the measurement process: in the definition of the system a particle detector (e.g. Geiger tube) detects the particle emitted randomly from the radionuclide and then kills the cat.  Using an opaque box is throwing away information that physical theory allows the experimenter to have.  The experiment has the same result if a non-lethal indicator is used to announce the detection of the particle.

An example of what QM does not allow is to identify which of a pair of identical particles (e.g. proton-proton scattering) hit the detector.  In classical mechanics, we can treat different color billiard balls as identical in a collision, but identify the red and green ones.

[Simon]

   Suggestion (for Moderators):
   It's not so difficult, these days, why not provide / allow posts to have a 'native language' section; French Colombian, Vietnam, Philipines, etc.
Of course might be some lazy ones, but might not be big deal; just require the readable English up front.

Well you would end up with small sections no one that could speak English as well would use. Also who's gonna moderate that mess?

[Nominal Animal]

I always thought Schrödinger's Cat was just a descriptive analog of the questions arising from quantum wave function collapse and/or decoherence.  Of particular interest to me (in similar vein as conspiracy theories) are the Von Neumann – Wigner interpretation and the many-worlds interpretation, among the many models of wave function collapse.  That is, entertaining, but not very practical, unless one happens to stumble upon an idea of an experiment that could verify or eliminate one/some of them.

   Suggestion (for Moderators):
   It's not so difficult, these days, why not provide / allow posts to have a 'native language' section; French Colombian, Vietnam, Philipines, etc.
Of course might be some lazy ones, but might not be big deal; just require the readable English up front.

Well you would end up with small sections no one that could speak English as well would use. Also who's gonna moderate that mess?

I'll volunteer to maintain the Finnish section, if we set a rule that only the word "perkele" and its variants are allowed in the posts.

(Perkeleen perkele, I may have dug myself into a hole here.)

[TimFox]

If I remember scientific history correctly, the  "Schrödinger's cat"  thought-experiment was proposed only semi-seriously.
It was noted later that the Geiger tube suggested in the original experiment is the actual measurement, when the quantum stuff turns into an actual observation.

[AVGresponding]

...next time a barn burns down, or a CAT dies, we'll know who to blame; Mr. Non... What was the guy's name again?

And how are going to know that the cat has died without opening the box? 

McBryce.

Make the box out of glass instead of Bakelite--it doesn't change the physics of the nuclear disintegration.

No, but it does change the measurement process, which is a serious problem in quantum mechanics.

The transparent box doesn’t change the measurement process: in the definition of the system a particle detector (e.g. Geiger tube) detects the particle emitted randomly from the radionuclide and then kills the cat.  Using an opaque box is throwing away information that physical theory allows the experimenter to have.  The experiment has the same result if a non-lethal indicator is used to announce the detection of the particle.

An example of what QM does not allow is to identify which of a pair of identical particles (e.g. proton-proton scattering) hit the detector.  In classical mechanics, we can treat different color billiard balls as identical in a collision, but identify the red and green ones.

In quantum mechanics the act of observing/measuring the experiment influences the result.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem

Observing the cat through a transparent box is by definition taking a measurement. Even if you do it in a mirror via a webcam, with one eye closed and standing on one leg.

[Nominal Animal]

I just realized that "wave function collapse" sounds weird.  It is not a particularly good term, because it evokes a picture of change; instead, it just means that everything interacting with the wave function come into a single agreement as to the specific state of the wave function.  So, it is not a catastrophic event of some sort, more like a "clarification" from a fuzzy distribution of possibilities to a single observed/measured one.

Decoherence, on the other hand, just "limits" the possible states to a smaller set, due to entanglement(s) with the surrounding system.

Entanglement is when different wave functions interact, so that if one collapses or is limited to a subset of possible states, the other one is (other ones are) as well.

In a measurement or observation, in a very real sense, we entangled everything from the wave function involved, through to your retina and the rods and cones, to your brain, to agree that that wave function had a very specific state, and therefore the value we measured (an "observable") obtained a specific value.  (I think "collapse" is pretty poor word for describing this!)

The different interpretations of exactly what happens when a wave function collapses, obtains a specific state, is still being discussed and examined.  Some of the interpretations, like the Von Neumann – Wigner one, are quite strange.  (That one states that it is consciousness (whatever that is!) that causes the actual collapse.  The many-world interpretation states that the collapse causes a separation into multiple parallel worlds, into as many as the possible states of the wave function, so that in each parallel world, the wave function ended up in a different state.  Fanciful stuff, but not very practical.  Yet.)

[AVGresponding]

Seems like quantum interference has stolen half of Nominal Animal's post...

The really annoying thing with quantum mechanics is when the results you get differ depending on how you ask the question. The double slit experiment is a real mind-fuck.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

They're not particles, and they're not waves, they're wavicles!

[TimFox]

In the Schroedinger experiment, the measurement is the detection of the decay particle in the Geiger tube.
The radioactive decay event's arrival time is governed by a probability function, which is quantum mechanical.
Everything thereafter is just equipment, which need not involve killing a cat.  Could be ringing a bell so that a dog outside the box salivates.

[bd139]

Seems like quantum interference has stolen half of Nominal Animal's post...

The really annoying thing with quantum mechanics is when the results you get differ depending on how you ask the question. The double slit experiment is a real mind-fuck.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment

They're not particles, and they're not waves, they're wavicles!

I like to think of this as the same argument my ex wife and myself had once. We were sitting there eating our lunch in the car and in the distance was a horse in the field. I pointed it out. She suggested it was a cow. This turned into a 10 minute long argument over what it was. In that time that we were arguing it didn't move at all. Drove past it later and found out it was a large metal cut out of an animal which resembled neither and the reason for it existing was never established.

Ergo both models are good enough at a high enough level of abstraction which includes our ability to observe it with any observation bias we have, but don't make sense at a quantum level. I suspect it gets really interesting where space becomes discrete but I haven't done enough reading on that to form an opinion (yet). Too busy fixing shitty old test gear 

[RJSV]

Try walking your dogs past a couple of LION statues:
   Both dogs cowered, heads down, somehow instinct told them, those big grey cats were bad-ass.  Silhouette of a LION very powerful reaction, off in the distance!

[AVGresponding]

In the Schroedinger experiment, the measurement is the detection of the decay particle in the Geiger tube.
The radioactive decay event's arrival time is governed by a probability function, which is quantum mechanical.
Everything thereafter is just equipment, which need not involve killing a cat.  Could be ringing a bell so that a dog outside the box salivates.

Yes, but the point of the thought experiment is to show the weirdness inherent in the fact that the quantum superposition of states does not collapse into a steady state until the cat is observed to be either dead or alive (EDIT: by using the absurd example of the cat being both dead and alive simultaneously which it obviously can't be. As much as anything it demonstrates the apparent disconnect between the macro and quantum universe).

And no, ringing a bell so a dog outside the box salivates is not equivalent; the dog hearing the bell counts as a measurement.

[Simon]

If I remember scientific history correctly, the  "Schrödinger's cat"  thought-experiment was proposed only semi-seriously.
It was noted later that the Geiger tube suggested in the original experiment is the actual measurement, when the quantum stuff turns into an actual observation.

The point was to explain what reality is like. You have a situation that could be one way or the other, you don't know which, but by testing it to see the situation you affect the situation and thus damage/falsify the true result. I'm sure they had glass back then but the idea of a glass box would ruin the similitude he was trying to portray, it is an opaque box because you cannot see the result unless you interfere with it by opening it.

[TimFox]

Yes, that was the point of the suggested paradoxical experiment, but the fact remains that the relevant “measurement” is the detection of the particle in the Geiger tube.  Prior to that pulse, QM imposes ignorance of the nucleus.  After the pulse, drawing a curtain is willful discard of available information, not imposed by QM.
In the double slit experiment, the state of the particle before it hits the detector is veiled by QM, but known after it hits the detector, which again is the “measurement”.  If you put particle detectors in the slits, that measurement messes up the experiment and changes the result.
On the other hand, if you connect the Geiger tube to an oscilloscope, your viewing the CRT does not affect the measurement done by the Geiger tube.

[Nominal Animal]

The really annoying thing with quantum mechanics is when the results you get differ depending on how you ask the question. The double slit experiment is a real mind-fuck.

The real mind-fuck is that according to several interpretations, it is possible for two observers to see completely different results (essentially, if the observers are not entangled at all).

Yes, that was the point of the suggested paradoxical experiment, but the fact remains that the relevant “measurement” is the detection of the particle in the Geiger tube.

Or, rather, the collapse of the wave functions of the particle and those of the Geiger tube apparatus, is the measurement.

In the intuitive sense, I consider "uncollapsed" wave functions as probability distributions among all the possible states.  Properly, the term is quantum superposition.  Entangled wave functions occur when those "distributions" interact enough to "weed out" most of the possible states, yielding just a few possibilities.  (Generally, entanglement is considered weak if there are many possible states left, and strongest possible if there is just a pair of states left.  When only one is left, then we say the wave function collapsed.)

Thing is, everything is such a wave function, really.  And whenever those wave functions (or, equivalently, the particles or fields whose wave functions we're considering) interact, the number of possible states changes...  To someone like me with a curious but rather limited mind, that thought can be scarier than the worst/best horror story.

[TimFox]

Your careful use of QM nomenclature is correct.
I was replying to the basic question of "measurement effects the result" by pointing out when and where the measurement occurs in this supposed paradox.
On an animated TV show "Futurama", there was a horse race with a very close result.  It was referred to as a "Quantum finish", which had to be judged by an electron microscope (somehow operating ex vacuo).
Of course, the show's scientist objected to the announced winner, claiming the measurement affected the result.
(In real life, "photo finishes" are judged with optical imaging, and the horses' noses are usually farther apart than a few micrometers.)

[AnalogueLove1867]

Your careful use of QM nomenclature is correct.
I was replying to the basic question of "measurement effects the result" by pointing out when and where the measurement occurs in this supposed paradox.
On an animated TV show "Futurama", there was a horse race with a very close result.  It was referred to as a "Quantum finish", which had to be judged by an electron microscope (somehow operating ex vacuo).
Of course, the show's scientist objected to the announced winner, claiming the measurement affected the result.
(In real life, "photo finishes" are judged with optical imaging, and the horses' noses are usually farther apart than a few micrometers.)

Yeah. Unfortunately it is impossible to measure a system without affecting it in some way.  The smaller the level you probe at, the harder it is to obtain meaningful measurements.
All so called "observer" effects are due to energy contamination coming from the measurement system or environment.
It does not mean that your mind can magically change causality just by observation.
The whole Schrodinger cat analogy is not only stupid, but  quoted way too much.

Quantum Mechanics is a bit worrying in how misleading it can be.
For example. The position of an electron isn't a random probability.
We would be able to predict the future position of an election If we had the technology to observe the exact position of an electron.
But since that isn't the case, it makes more sense to talk about probabilities and energies in electron clouds.

Quantum entanglement is a similarly misleading name for an extremely boring and obvious phenomenon.
Two or more particles with exactly the same velocity/spin/energy state etc,  will remain the same until an outside force or energy interacts with them (Kinda like Newtons first law of motion).
So NO information is being transmitted between said particles.
If you shoot two bullets with exactly the same velocity and stabilizing spin they are not transferring any information between each other.

Another issue is with photons.
The only reason photons even exist isn't because light must always exist as photons.
It is because most sources of electromagnetic radiation are due to single atom emissions of light.
Incandescent lightbulb, trillions upon trillions of atoms all emitting their own little pulses of light as their electrons change energy states. Like a strobing array of LEDs.
But an antenna as an example acts as a perfect single source emitting a single never ending wave. So no photons.
Yes, the energy of the wave is quantized in that a certain number of electrons is moving in the conductor.
But, there are no individual short-lived packets of electromagnetic radiation being emitted by different atoms at different times.
So no photons.

Also the double slit experiment does give different results depending on the material used to make the slits.
It is nothing more than electromagnetic radiation interactions with matter just like Fraunhofer diffraction, diffraction gratings, refraction, absorption, polarization etc.
For example, in some cases sub-wavelength holes in a thin sheet of metal can transmit MORE light when both ends of the holes are covered up by disks of opaque material.
https://opg.optica.org/oe/fulltext.cfm?uri=oe-19-21-21098&id=223055
The double slit experiment doesn't demonstrate any particle/wave duality what so ever. I don't know why that is still being thrown around.
Light is a wave and the double slit is made of matter. Thus the interesting results.

So at the end of the day unfortunately there will be no quantum computer that can make a functional use of quantum entanglement.
No so-called "Quantum computer" has ever demonstrated an even remotely anomalous computational ability.
Among the more successful scams that thrive off of frivolous government spending is D-Wave.
Then the thousands of researcher university grants with experiment conclusions ending with pleas for more money because "we almost did it, the breakthrough could happen at any moment now!".
 This is a shame because I would like Quantum computing to be an actual thing.

[AVGresponding]

-snip-

Another issue is with photons.
The only reason photons even exist isn't because light must always exist as photons.
It is because most sources of electromagnetic radiation are due to single atom emissions of light.
Incandescent lightbulb, trillions upon trillions of atoms all emitting their own little pulses of light as their electrons change energy states. Like a strobing array of LEDs.
But an antenna as an example acts as a perfect single source emitting a single never ending wave. So no photons.
Yes, the energy of the wave is quantized in that a certain number of electrons is moving in the conductor.
But, there are no individual short-lived packets of electromagnetic radiation being emitted by different atoms at different times.
So no photons.


-snip-

This rather contradicts the current model. I assume you have some sources that you can cite to back this claim?

[bd139]

No he’s right. Photons are the discrete packets of energy within the quantisation limit of Planck’s Equation (E=hv). If a state transition occurs it farts out a discrete chunk of energy that we call a photon. The photon abstraction is just a discretisation abstraction. It’s still waves in theory.

It doesn’t contradict the model. Just a different way of looking at it which is correct also.

[AVGresponding]

No he’s right. Photons are the discrete packets of energy within the quantisation limit of Planck’s Equation (E=hv). If a state transition occurs it farts out a discrete chunk of energy that we call a photon. The photon abstraction is just a discretisation abstraction. It’s still waves in theory.

It doesn’t contradict the model. Just a different way of looking at it which is correct also.

Re-read what he wrote. He claims photons only happen at visible wavelengths, which is plain wrong.

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v13/s62

https://www.arpansa.gov.au/understanding-radiation/what-is-radiation/ionising-radiation/x-ray