Forum Home
Introduction
Terms of Use
RSS feed | RSS help
Introduction
Terms of Use
Posts by the blogger are highlighted in orange; posts by FQXi Members are highlighted in blue.
By using the FQXi Forum, you acknowledge reading and agree to abide by the Terms of Use RSS feed | RSS help
RECENT BLOG COMMENTS
Anonymous: "How do thought and mathematical description fundamentally relate to..." in Essay Contest 2010: What...
Anonymous: "This next contest should advance physics fundamentally, including how..." in Essay Contest 2010: What...
Anonymous: "These four: electromagnetism, gravity, inertia --- and quantum mechanics..." in Philosophy vs. Physics
T H Ray: "Lorentz transformation does not "mingle past and future." Spacetime in..." in Philosophy vs. Physics
T H Ray: "I think a less technical way to speak of the difference between quantum and..." in GRW vs Free Will
Steve Dufourny: "Hi dear Don, Interesting for the link between numbers and mass.....it's..." in GRW vs Free Will
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Readers' Choice: The Holographic Universe
Take one universe. Turn it into a hologram. Find its quantum wavefunction. Understand the birth of our cosmos.
The Quantum PlayStation
How the PS3 is helping physicists develop a theory of quantum gravity.
The Destiny of the Universe
A radical reformulation of quantum mechanics suggests that the universe has a set destiny and its pre-existing fate reaches back in time to influence the past. It could explain the origin of life, dark energy and solve other cosmic conundrums.
Time and the Multiverse
Could multiple universes explain our arrow of time? Does time run backwards in other universes?
The Black Hole Universe
Is our universe housed in a black hole? Or did it exist before the Big Bang? If so, we could solve the mystery of dark energy—surprisingly, it could all be down to the humble neutrino.
Anonymous: "How do thought and mathematical description fundamentally relate to..." in Essay Contest 2010: What...
Anonymous: "This next contest should advance physics fundamentally, including how..." in Essay Contest 2010: What...
Anonymous: "These four: electromagnetism, gravity, inertia --- and quantum mechanics..." in Philosophy vs. Physics
T H Ray: "Lorentz transformation does not "mingle past and future." Spacetime in..." in Philosophy vs. Physics
T H Ray: "I think a less technical way to speak of the difference between quantum and..." in GRW vs Free Will
Steve Dufourny: "Hi dear Don, Interesting for the link between numbers and mass.....it's..." in GRW vs Free Will
RECENT ARTICLES
click titles to read articles
Readers' Choice: The Holographic Universe
Take one universe. Turn it into a hologram. Find its quantum wavefunction. Understand the birth of our cosmos.
The Quantum PlayStation
How the PS3 is helping physicists develop a theory of quantum gravity.
The Destiny of the Universe
A radical reformulation of quantum mechanics suggests that the universe has a set destiny and its pre-existing fate reaches back in time to influence the past. It could explain the origin of life, dark energy and solve other cosmic conundrums.
Time and the Multiverse
Could multiple universes explain our arrow of time? Does time run backwards in other universes?
The Black Hole Universe
Is our universe housed in a black hole? Or did it exist before the Big Bang? If so, we could solve the mystery of dark energy—surprisingly, it could all be down to the humble neutrino.
FQXi BLOGS
September 2, 2010
Plenty of people have been writing about the recent fqxi conference, which was excellent by the way, so I'll write instead about another fqxi-funded event that happened at the beginning of July in St. Catherine's college, Cambridge.
The two-week workshop was entitled Operational Probabilistic Theories as Foils for Quantum Theory and organized by Rob Spekkens, Jonathan Barrett and...
view entire post
The two-week workshop was entitled Operational Probabilistic Theories as Foils for Quantum Theory and organized by Rob Spekkens, Jonathan Barrett and...
view entire post
this post has been edited by the author since its original submission
post approved
"How can we understand why the world obeys quantum theory rather than any of the other theories?"
One can start with the H.U.P?..can one really locate (measure) a particle..anywhere?
If you know a particle's position, you may not know it's momentum. Relative to the process of measure is what one is asking about the process of measure and measurer. The history of a particle WRT time, is "fixed". You can know a particles path in a past history, it is "fixed", without knowing it's path in a future trajectory, "random" and uncertain.
Now WRT the H.U.P, one can make assumptions based on position and momentum, thus:If one knows a particles future path, then it's location history is unknown. (this is my intepretation).
Seems straight forward for observers, time dictates an observer to be the measurer in a "now" context, if the measurer tries to observe a particles future, then the observation will fail to make sense?
Thinking about the "contact" needed for measurement, how does one locate something that has not yet reached there?..I mean I am trying to pinpoint an objects position of where it is "not" ( it's future location ), by determining where it is ( where it HAS been ), the possible way I can determine a full observation measurment, is to perform the measuments at a very fast rate,(signaling the results performed, to confirm measures taken) faster than the devise is capable of?
The is a limit of observation, random variables operate differently for every measure needed, if say one random variable becomes known (random variable of particles future location), then the corrsponding momentum (which is really nothing more than the particles history), will become unknown, or in the context of particle interactions, become a changed (as opposed to fixed, perminant) factor.
This can be translated to the appearance of "unmeasured" particles, and dissapearance of "measured" particles, as QM shows.
post approved
One can start with the H.U.P?..can one really locate (measure) a particle..anywhere?
If you know a particle's position, you may not know it's momentum. Relative to the process of measure is what one is asking about the process of measure and measurer. The history of a particle WRT time, is "fixed". You can know a particles path in a past history, it is "fixed", without knowing it's path in a future trajectory, "random" and uncertain.
Now WRT the H.U.P, one can make assumptions based on position and momentum, thus:If one knows a particles future path, then it's location history is unknown. (this is my intepretation).
Seems straight forward for observers, time dictates an observer to be the measurer in a "now" context, if the measurer tries to observe a particles future, then the observation will fail to make sense?
Thinking about the "contact" needed for measurement, how does one locate something that has not yet reached there?..I mean I am trying to pinpoint an objects position of where it is "not" ( it's future location ), by determining where it is ( where it HAS been ), the possible way I can determine a full observation measurment, is to perform the measuments at a very fast rate,(signaling the results performed, to confirm measures taken) faster than the devise is capable of?
The is a limit of observation, random variables operate differently for every measure needed, if say one random variable becomes known (random variable of particles future location), then the corrsponding momentum (which is really nothing more than the particles history), will become unknown, or in the context of particle interactions, become a changed (as opposed to fixed, perminant) factor.
This can be translated to the appearance of "unmeasured" particles, and dissapearance of "measured" particles, as QM shows.
post approved
I think this is a fairly conventional view, but I don't think the HUP can really be used as a founding principle for quantum theory, at least not in its usual form. In particular, it is not strong enough to entail the canonical commutation relations. In fact, having something like a HUP is another thing that's going to be generic in the framework I described.
post approved
post approved
off topic: there's something wrong with the picture placement using Internet Explorer (pics are on top of each other and cover the text).
post approved
post approved
Actually, the commutation relations *lead* to HUP (well, to Schr??dinger's generalization of HUP) so, in a sense, you'd almost be better off building everything on that (the commutation relations). In essence, what I think Matt is describing is a generalization that contains sets of inequalities, one class of which are Schr??dinger's generalized HUP, and so forth. Reminds me a bit of something I tried to do once with set theory (http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0508076). I don't think I was terribly successful, but I'm sure these insanely smart folks will succeed.
post approved
post approved
Ian, are you the same I T Durham, as cited in this co-incedetally topic relevant recent paper? :http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.3519
post approved
post approved
Add a New Post