Falsification Of Heinsenberg's Uncertainty Principle?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by common_sense_seeker, Jul 7, 2009.

  1. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Both position and velocity of a quantum particle can't be precisely known at the same time? The older generation tend to get stuck from this point on.. A computer simulation of reality, which evolves from an accurate model of creation and the big bang would allow these to measurements to be known.

    Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle should be re-interpreted as to the possibility of an accurate simulation model of the evolution of the universe being created. It's a new angle of thinking that hasn't been thought of before, I believe.
     
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  3. Oli Heute der Enteteich... Registered Senior Member

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    A computer simulation isn't the real thing.
     
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  5. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Any computer simulation worthy of the name would incorporate uncertainty into the simulation. CSE, you don't appear to understand what Heisenberg's Principle means. Would you care to prove me wrong with a tightly written paragraph or two?
     
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  7. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    The uncertainty principle really isn't that special. Uncertainty principles exist for all kinds of wave phenomena, not just quantum phenomena. For instance in signal processing you can't both time limit and band limit a signal below a certain threshold. It's essentially identical to the energy/time form of the Heisenberg principle.
     
  8. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    This is equivalent to saying that the position and momentum of a particle can be simultaneously well defined it's just that we don't know how to measure them properly, which is the concept known as hidden variables, that the quantum nature of quantum mechanics is just the result of our less than perfect knowledge of the universe. Bell's Inequalities and Theorems kill this if you accept the concept of locality.

    It has been thought about before, it's just that anyone with any knowledge of quantum mechanics instantly dismisses it due to knowing that isn't how quantum theory works. Even if you have perfect knowledge of a system at some particular time quantum mechanics is inherently non-deterministic and any computer simulation can only give you probabilities of later states.

    It's not that noone has thought of things you're talking about, you just haven't learnt anything about quantum mechanics and you're simply pitching already rubbished ideas. You keep doing this, why do you not bother to learn something about physics before posting a thread which is basically you saying "God, physicists are so stupid, here's my simple solution to this problem!"?

    You seem to get stuck on everything.
     
  9. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks for the intellectual input. My proposal was one of concept. Although the actual measuring in reality may influence the outcome, this isn't the case in a simulation model, since a god-like view can always be maintained.
     
  10. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    Einstein was wrong: God does play dice.
     
  11. Dub_ Strange loop Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not a student of physics -- please allow that disclaimer to color your interpretation of my post -- but my understanding is that the issue of physical measurement is beside the point. Perfect simulation is impossible even in principle by virtue of quantum mechanics being inherently probabilistic. A computer model based on deterministic rules would be misleading and necessarily flawed, and I'm guessing that probabilistic computer models already abound (but don't quote me on that).
     
  12. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    When you do quantum mechanical computer simulations (it's hardly a new idea) you must do a great many because all dynamics are probabilistic, not deterministic. Then you bring in such things as Monte Carlo ensemble statistics and working out such things as standard derivations, variances, uncertainties, likelihoods, p values and hypothesis testing. You are modelling wave functions, not particular deterministic problems. Even with a 'God-like view' you cannot avoid the statistical nature of quantum mechanics.
     
  13. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    Statistical mechanics is a way to streamline physics, like the assembly line is made for cars. With statistical mechanics anyone can input something useful into the datalogs, as a sure-fire method to advance the system; however, it is not the absolute truth. There are deeper concepts and laws which we do not understand.

    Take photosynthesis, for example. In nature, the pooling of energy (or energy traveling from one high energy particle to another) is incredibly unlikely. However, plants have evolved photosynthesis and this pooling of energy is the norm rather than a probability. Evolution discovered that statistical mechanics can be beat.

    You can beat the uncertainty principle using quantum entanglement. You measure the velocity of one particle and the location of the other in an entangled set.

    The watcher has spoken.
     
  14. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    "You can beat the uncertainty principle using quantum entanglement. You measure the velocity of one particle and the location of the other in an entangled set."

    If you're trying to say that you can figure out the velocity of particle A by measuring particle B, and then just measure the position of particle A, thus gaining perfect knowledge of the velocity and momentum of particle A, then I am afraid you are incorrect. You will still be limited by the uncertainty principle, no matter what tricky entanglement scenario you cook up. It cannot be "beaten".
     
  15. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    When dealing with a quantum entangled system you are technically dealing with two identical systems. You would be measuring the same particle in two different places. Thus, if you measure the energy/position of two halves you are really gauging different faces of the same particle.

    The uncertainty is such a bullshit principle. It only applies because of human ignorance. Its like saying you cannot figure out whether a food is good without eating it. What if you consult multiple people to find out if they like it? If you know that your tastes are similar, you can certainly get a good picture.

    I'm not trying to argue against the wave-particle duality; I just hate the uncertainty principle because it is such a blatant imposition of flawed human nature onto the physical world.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2009
  16. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    It doesn't matter, the UP permeates all of quantum mechanics. It's a direct result of the fact \([x,p] \not= 0\), which is the very essence of quantum mechanics. If two systems are entangled then the pairs will follow the UP, you won't be able to know one if you know the other too much. And the systems aren't identical, they are entangled, they have particular summed properties. But the quantum nature of the system will still persist.
     
  17. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    There are now ways to entangle the vibrational oscillations of ions. True, you could not ever really be certain about where these entangled systems were in the world, but you could be very certain about where the ions are relative to their bound oscillators.
     
  18. common_sense_seeker Bicho Voador & Bicho Sugador Valued Senior Member

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    That's a interesting state of opinion DRZion. I always like to back a knowledgable scientist who can talk sense and who doesn't have to resort to bamboozlement to fight his corner. Anti-mainstream ideas are difficult to get past 'the herd'.
     
  19. AlphaNumeric Fully ionized Registered Senior Member

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    Doesn't matter what you entangle, you still get the uncertainty principle.

    The only way you'd get around the UP is if you have [x,p]=0, which is like saying "Quantum mechanics becomes deterministic if you remove all quantum characteristics". Yes, but that's tautologous.

    Can you provide a derivation of how entanglement allows a circumvention of the UP? Show that \(\sigma_{p_{x}}\sigma_{x} \leq \frac{h}{2}\) is possible for an entangled system.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2009
  20. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    "I just hate the uncertainty principle because it is such a blatant imposition of flawed human nature onto the physical world"

    It isn't at all actually. Unless you believe in some hidden variables type theory I suppose. It's really just a result of the wave nature of particles and the fact that position and momentum are Fourier transform pairs.

    For instance, a free particle in a momentum eigenstate has perfectly defined momentum but undefined position because it's wavefunction looks something like:

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    which has well defined wavelength (momentum) but no localisation (the plot goes on forever)

    In other words the Fourier transform is a spike marking the momentum. Likewise if we started with a delta function plot, which is perfectly localised, it's Fourier transform is something like the above plot, i.e. it's momentum is not defined.

    You can't have it both ways if you're dealing with wave phenomena. If you try, i.e. you end up with a wavefunction something like:

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    then sure, you have localised it to some degree, but you can't say exactly where the particle is, and you've screwed up it's wavelength in doing so.

    Thus you have an uncertainty principle quantifying this limitation.
     
  21. DRZion Theoretical Experimentalist Valued Senior Member

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    Hmm. That is beyond my understanding. The way I understood it is that when you measure the momentum of a particle, you do so with a photon (or electron). When this photon does its job, it changes the location of the particle so that the original position is unknown.

    If you measure position, the photon changes the momentum of a particle, and once again the other quantity is unknown.

    In other words, the better you know one quantity, the less certain you can be about the other one..


    And yes, getting past the herd is difficult. There are some phrases that are so deeply rooted in popular science that it is ridiculed to question them. It is bamboozlement, because many sophisticated physicists will defend their claims with words rather than math and logic. You start an argument, and sooner or later someone is going to throw the magic word at you 'uncertainty' and next thing you're not so sure, and somehow it makes sense that your opponent won. I piss on this kind of physics and this kind of physicist. Concepts and proofs will shape science, sophistry will only bog it down.

    The watcher has spoken.

    PS Yes, that was incredibly hypocritical. Is my understanding of the uncertainty principle right?
     
    Last edited: Jul 10, 2009
  22. BobG Registered Senior Member

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    That is a common way of understanding it but the uncertainty principle is more general than that. Experiments have been carried out where the change in momentum/position caused by the firing of the photon is insufficient to explain the uncertainty principle, yet it is still shown to hold.
     
  23. kurros Registered Senior Member

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    Yes this is more or less true, but as BobG says there is more to it. It's hard to explain further because I'm not sure what physical picture you have in your head about what is happening in a particle interaction. We all would like to be able to cling to the billard-ball collision type picture but that clearly doesn't work and I assume you're past that, but I don't know what else you imagine in it's place.


    Yes it is a problem, but I see no alternative really. Physics is hard, and it is built upon hundreds of years of ideas and jargon and mathematics. New words and phrases have to be invented to describe new concepts and it is almost impossible to make people understand them without dragging them through everything on which the new concept is built. It takes a genius like Feynman to be able to explain these things to the intelligent layperson, and even he had only limited success. Hell it's hard enough to have conversations with professional physicists who work in a slightly different area to oneself. The jargon is necessary because each jargon word carries with it a huge amount of information, which can't be rederived from first principles on every usage if one ever wants to get anything done. It's the same in every professional field.

    Also a lot of professional physicists will only remember the fundamentals of their own area of expertise, they won't remember how to derive and prove all this stuff. They use the results of it all the time though so they're pretty damn sure something about it must be right. They can go and look up the basics and they'll understand it but most people don't remember the nuances. There's just too much to jam in one brain, unless you're a super-genius.

    In other words the physicists who work on fundamental quantum mechanics will probably tell you a very different story to those work on quantum optics, for instance.
     

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