A rant : Magic (possibly Spirituality to)

[Faust]

So if QM is all fuzzy and full of shit like "we'll never know" how the fuck is it useful for anything?

pls note: I'm not disputing it's use (apparently it is) I just need an explanation as to how. 

Well there are now spectrometers that are highly accurate due to their ability to take into account quantum tunneling. That and in meso scale semiconductors. It has a huge range of applications, just no magical ones.

[LMNO]

As much as metaphors are crappy ways of discussing QM, try this one on.


You can't use a themometer to tell you how tall a building is, and you can't use a ruler to determine the temperature*.

In the macro world, temperature and length are usually considered vastly different frames of reference.  If you're trying to take the temperature, you can't also be measuring length.

In the quantum world, there are many more "frames of reference" than in the macro world.  So, while it seems "normal" to have position and momentum relate to each other, in the quantum world, it is like trying to see how cold it is outside by using a yardstick.

























*Yes, I'm sure you can find a way, if you're really clever.  This is why metaphors suck when discussing QM.

[Kai]

I can measure time in bushels.

[LMNO]

I can save time in a bottle.  So, the first thing that I'm gonna do is to save every day 'till eternity passes away, just to spend them with you.

[P3nT4gR4m]

OK, more specific question

(x-posted from IM)

I'm pretty sure they've produced technology using quantum stuff but I just can't make the connection how saying "how the fuck should I know?" helps them to arrive at such goals.

Like you got Newtonian physics and that basically tells us, among other things, that the earth sucks so if you build a bridge a specific (read suction defying) way then you can run trains across it and shit.

Fine! I'm down with that - Speed = distance over time, makes sense to me.

Then Einstein comes along and says "Yo, Newton was useful but I gots better shit for y'all" and lo and behold the new model lets us build space ships and Ipods and all sortsa cool shit.

Fine! I'm down with that - E=MC² Dunno what it means but I believe smart people who tell me they do.

But then The dalek guy comes along and says "fuck that einstein shit I gots new shit that basically says 'we can't work anything out', 'it's all just bullshit', 'our maths doesn't even know if a cat is alive or dead'"

And fucking what?? Apparently some apeshit new microelectronics developments in storage and processing. How?? I got no fucking idea where protons are either and it don't make my PC any faster

[LMNO]

Most of the "weird stuff" that people know about QM come mainly from the critics, who use them as examples of why that theory is "wrong". 

Schrodinger's cat, the double slit experiment, QUIP, Heisenberg... For the most part, they're used to show how "fucked up" QM is, so "it can't be right."

But all it shows is that QM is inherently non-intuitive.

If you look at the history of QM, from Newton to the Higgs Boson, you see islands of proof in a sea of ignorance.  Someone comes up with a decent piece of math, and someone else makes a bridge between that piece, and the other islands that make up the network of modern physics.  If the math doesn't work, then something is wrong.

So, the math in QM, especially in the Standard Model, is well established.  It works.  Unfortunately, it works in a non-intuitive way, so it's hard to explain to people who don't want to bother with the math.

What QM does is describe the behavior of very tiny things.  It does it in a way that doesn't make sense to most people.  However, for people who want to work with and manipulate very tiny things, it is incredibly useful.

So, in your example, you need to know how Big Things work in order to make a bridge.  Likewise, you need to know how Small Things work in order to build a nanotube, or a room-temperature superconductor.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Finally! Thanks man, I needed that. You're absolutely right - all I been hearing about, as a layperson, is the "weird stuff". Wrongly assumed it was coming from the the scientists.

So are you saying Schroedinger and Heisenberg were anti-QM people too? Only one I head about was Enistein with the "god doesn't play dice" thing.

Also the double slit trip - that's a metaphor? Like the wave doesn't collapse and/or it was never there in the 1st place - but to all intents and purposes, where your math is concerned, it does.

[Triple Zero]

I would think Schroedinger and Heisenberg were just poking as hard as they could at the new theories to see if they would break, like proper scientists. Then it didn't break and everybody was like OMGWTF.

[Faust]

So are you saying Schroedinger and Heisenberg were anti-QM people too? Only one I head about was Enistein with the "god doesn't play dice" thing.

Eh, while Einstein did do some amazing work on relativity that doesn't obay classical physics, he never did much on the quantum scale. Funnily schroedinger didn't take relativity into account with the Schrodinger wave equation, it was Dirac who did that (his equations are HORRIBLE to follow), but schrodingers wave eqn can be used to solve certain characteristics of the hydrogen atom (these are sometimes referred to as the crowning jewel of physics). Saying Schrodinger was anti QM is like saying a carpenter is anti whatever he crafts.

[Faust]

I'm pretty sure they've produced technology using quantum stuff but I just can't make the connection how saying "how the fuck should I know?" helps them to arrive at such goals.

because the uncertainty principle is only a part of QM, and there are other things that have direct physical applications.

[LMNO]

So are you saying Schroedinger and Heisenberg were anti-QM people too? Only one I head about was Enistein with the "god doesn't play dice" thing.

They weren't anti-QM, they were anti the other guy's QM.  When they were doing their thing, no-one was sure what the fuck was going on, and everyone had different ideas.  Schrodinger had these equations that didn't make any fucking sense, so he came up with a metaphor to show why they didn't make any fucking sense; Heisenberg tried to simplify what the math was saying (to Bohr's dismay), and in doing so got a fundamental part of the theory all twisted around.  They may be physicists, but they're only human.

Also the double slit trip - that's a metaphor? Like the wave doesn't collapse and/or it was never there in the 1st place - but to all intents and purposes, where your math is concerned, it does.

The double slit thing is, to use a previous metaphor, like sending an icicle into two separate boxes.  One box has a thermometer in it, and the other has a ruler.  If you look in one box, you can see that it IS 32 degrees F.  If you look in the other, you can see that It IS 9 inches long.

OMG!  HOW CAN THAT BE!?!?!?!?

[P3nT4gR4m]

Okay, I think I'm nearly there but I'm still not getting the double slit thing.

Double slit is like when you fire a little thing (photon/electron/mekon?) at a bit of card with two slits in it passes through both slits and interferes with itself?

I can't reconcile this to the boxes thing, despite the fact that the boxes thing makes perfect sense to me. How the fuck does the tiny thing manage to go through both slits and then bang into itself?

[LMNO]

It doesn't.  You're still thinking of it like a tiny billiard ball.

Remember, non-intuitive.

[P3nT4gR4m]

Magic?

[LMNO]

Nope. 

It's just weird.