Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150910-einstein-insanity/

by treefire86 • 11 years ago

47 50 11 years ago

For the opposite take, some may like the article, "Clearing Up Mysteries - The Original Goal" by E.T. Jaynes:

http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/cmystery.pdf

While it is easy to understand and agree with this on the epistemological level, the answer that I and many others would give is that we expect a physical theory to do more than merely predict experimental results in the manner of an empirical equation; we want to come down to Einstein's ontological level and understand what is happening when an atom emits light, when a spin enters a Stern-Gerlach magnet, etc. The Copenhagen theory, having no answer to any question of the form: What is really happening when - - - ?", forbids us to ask such questions and tries to persuade us that it is philosophically naive to want to know what is happening. But I do want to know, and I do not think this is naive; and so for me QM is not a physical theory at all, only an empty mathematical shell in which a future theory may, perhaps, be built.

...and maybe chapter 10 of his book, "Probability Theory: The Logic of Science".

We are fortunate that the principles of Newtonian mechanics could be developed and verified to great accuracy by studying astronomical phenomena, where friction and turbulence do not complicate what we see. But suppose the Earth were, like Venus, enclosed perpetually in thick clouds. The very existence of an external universe would be unknown for a long time, and to develop the laws of mechanics we would be dependent on the observations we could make locally.
Since tossing of small objects is nearly the first activity of every child, it would be observed very early that they do not always fall with the same side up, and that all one’s efforts to control the outcome are in vain. The natural hypothesis would be that it is the volition of the object tossed, not the volition of the tosser, that determines the outcome; indeed, that is the hypothesis that small children make when questioned about this. Then it would be a major discovery, once coins had been fabricated, that they tend to show both sides about equally often; and the equality appears to get better as the number of tosses increases. The equality of heads and tails would be seen as a fundamental law of physics; symmetric objects have a symmetric volition in falling.
With this beginning, we could develop the mathematical theory of object tossing, discovering the binomial distribution, the absence of time correlations, the limit theorems, the combinatorial frequency laws for tossing of several coins at once, the extension to more complicated symmetric objects like dice, etc. All the experimental confirmations of the theory would consist of more and more tossing experiments, measuring the frequencies in more and more elaborate scenarios. From such experiments, nothing would ever be found that called into question the existence of that volition of the object tossed; they only enable one to confirm that volition and measure it more and more accurately...
Biologists have a mechanistic picture of the world because, being trained to believe in causes, they continue to search for them and find them. Quantum physicists have only probability laws because for two generations we have been indoctrinated not to believe in causes - and so we have stopped looking for them. Indeed, any attempt to search for the causes of microphenomena is met with scorn and a charge of professional incompetence and "obsolete mechanistic materialism." Therefore, to explain the indeterminacy in current quantum theory we need not suppose there is any indeterminacy in Nature; the mental attitude of quantum physicists is already sufficient to guarantee it.

http://www.med.mcgill.ca/epidemiology/hanley/bios601/Gaussia...

eli_gottlieb3• 11 years ago

For being the top purveyor of maximum-entropy methods, Jaynes really should have been more willing to accept a probabilistic theory of fundamental physics.

OscarCunningham• 11 years ago

Jaynes believed that the only kind of probability was that caused by uncertainty about the true state of the world. So he was advocating MAXENT as a way to summarise one's (lack of) knowledge about some system.

In fact, this point of view probably made him less likely to accept a probabilistic theory of fundamental physics. If you've discovered how a deterministic universe can appear random, and how probabilities can still be useful for measuring one's ignorance, then it's reasonable to suspect that these are the only kinds of probabilities and that the universe really is deterministic.

spacehome10• 11 years ago

Einstein had amazingly good intuition for the character of physical laws, i.e. what shape the laws of physics must necessarily take. And in this case he was right, too. God doesn't play dice; the universe is deterministic. Unfortunately, he didn't stumble upon the right answer, Many Worlds. I sometimes wonder how much longer it will take popular science writers to stumble upon it, too.

trhway2• 11 years ago

he didn't stumble upon the right answer, Many Worlds.

i hope you're joking. Many Worlds to treat the alleged indeterminisity is like cutting the head off to treat an acne.

spacehome10• 11 years ago

Haha, no, not joking.

Many worlds is by far the best hypothesis to date.

fizx2• 11 years ago

The popsci version of Many Worlds is terrible, because it implies that some sort of meta-conservation laws are violated in the creation of all of these universes. (where do all the universes come from?)

This is simply just bad explanation of perfectly reasonable math. This happens all the time with fundamental physics. Unfortunately the bad explanations persist, because coming up with good nuanced metaphors is hard, and they tend to be harder to communicate.

dankohn1• 11 years ago

But the Many Worlds hypothesis is responsible for superb Star Trek episodes: http://en.memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Parallels_(episode)

danharaj• 11 years ago

The relational interpretation is much more intuitive without any of the ontological extravagance.

eli_gottlieb3• 11 years ago

Replying to cancel an accidental downvote.

joefkelley3• 11 years ago

I think the trouble arises when you try to connect that to consciousness and human experience. From my perspective ("me" being the version in me in the "current" universe or whatever), I only experience one timeline, and so the universe appears totally nondeterministic. What use is this to science or even philosophy?

I disagree that Einstein's intuition carried him through quantum mechanics. I rather think that history shows him to be probably on the wrong side of the EPR/Copenhagen split. Not only did he cling to determinism (and I think he would have believed in something stronger than MW, which is a sort of very-weak determinism) but he also constantly objected to "spooky action at a distance" aka quantum entanglement which has now been very well observed.

spacehome10• 11 years ago

It is true that Einstein was wrong about his insistence that there must be hidden variables, but I'm not so sure I would call him on the wrong side of the debate, as the correct hypothesis wasn't available during his lifetime. I wonder what he would have done with it had he heard about it.

Einstein's objection to spooky action at a distance and clinging to determinism is exactly the kind of thing to point to when trying to explain his amazingly good intuition for the character of physical law. He was 100% right about the action at a distance not being real and physics being deterministic. To be clear, entanglement is real, but there's no effect that happens at faster than lightspeed; the resolution to this is, of course, MWI.

As for what use there is - the primary use is that we can all stop being confused about this. And stop thinking that just because quantum physics is mysterious, it must necessarily be connected to other concepts that are mysterious too, like consciousness. And when else would we question the justification for learning the truth of what we all and the universe are made of?

(P.S. In what sense do you believe that MWI is very-weak determinism? It's deterministic through and through.)

mirimir• 11 years ago

Maybe we only experience one timeline, but we can imagine many. And maybe there's leakage among them at small scales. But I'm not a physicist. I just enjoy SF. Anyway, for those interested in such matters, I recommend Anathem by Neal Stephenson, and Diaspora by Greg Egan :)

gohrt• 11 years ago

Is there any conceivable experiment to prove or disprove MWI is true. I'd think not, since it has "I"nterpretation in it.

omalleyt3• 11 years ago

Many Worlds? That just abstracts the probability one step further, ie why am I in THIS world and not the other one (or if you prefer, why did my universe experience the string of events A-C-C-A-B and not A-C-C-A-A)?

The deterministic solution to quantum mechanics is Pilot Wave theory. It can explain nearly all quantum weirdness. Spacetime vibrates.

graycat2• 11 years ago

Physicists, here is a related question:

We have a gun that shoots electrons one at a time due north. A little ahead of the gun and in the path of the electrons we have a beam splitter, that is, a flat plate of material with horizontal normal along the line from south east to north west.

So, we fire the gun. The electron hits the beam splitter. The wave function splits with some going east and the rest passing through the beam splitter and going north.

One mile to the north of the beam splitter and in the line of the path of the wave function we have a very good electron detector. Similarly for one mile to the east.

So, we fire and some fraction of the time we get a detection from the north detector and the rest of the time, from the east detector.

Now, let's move some of the mass of the electron faster than the speed of light: A little ahead of each detector we have a very sensitive detector of gravity (or, maybe charge).

So, as the two parts of the wave function pass the gravity detectors, we get a signal from both. If the beam splitter sends 10% of the wave function north and the other 90% east, then from the north gravity detector we should get a signal of 10% of an electron, and from the east, 90% of an electron.

Then, soon, one of the electron detectors gives a signal, of 100% of the mass (and charge) of an electron. So, 90% or 10% of the mass (and charge) of the electron moved instantly, faster than the speed of light. along the line between the two detectors.

Is this wrong? Why?

In more detail, what about the electromagnetic field from the moving parts of the wave function? E.g., if the electron is detected at the east detector, is there an electromagnetic field still from the path of part of the wave function to the north?

joefkelley3• 11 years ago

My understanding is that the gravity detectors would not detect 10% or 90% of an electron. One would detect 0% and one would detect 100%. You cannot measure the wave function directly. Attempting to do so collapses it.

When that waveform collapse happens, everything about the quantum state collapses: electromagnetic field, gravity, etc.

rubidium2• 11 years ago

Physics PhD here. You're correct. Any measurement of the electron state will affect the state.

Grandparent did an excellent job setting up the hypothetical scenario by the way. It just turns out QM is awesomely weird like that. It does mean a mass which was de-localized by miles can, theoretically, localize to a single point instantly. However, any information about that localization is restricted to moving at the speed of light.

graycat2• 11 years ago

Thanks.

Sounds like when the wave function of the electron is moving, likely it is following the local geometry of space-time but otherwise is essentially lost to the universe.

Then whenever we do detect a field, gravity, electro-magnetic, strong, weak, etc., necessarily we are detecting just collapsing wave functions, each of which happens at essentially just a point in time. Then after the point in time of the collapse, the electron is just a wave function again off on its way to another collapse.

E.g., when an electron accelerates going around a circle and radiates photons, each photon radiated is from a collapse of the wave function of the electron at which time the electron creates a new wave function and continues on? Sounds like that.

Hmm ... So, all we are seeing, feeling, detecting, observing, measuring, etc. are just high rate point processes of collapsing wave functions? Gads. Why didn't they tell me that back in high school?

Where am I going wrong?

spacehome10• 11 years ago

I'm having trouble finding the reference right now, but if I remember correctly, an experiment similar to yours has actually already been tried. From my faulty memory, here's the experimental setup. I hope someone else who reads this can find the exact reference.

- There's a huge sphere of a dense metal (something like 20 feet in diameter).

- The sphere can be moved closer to or farther away from an incredibly precise accelerometer.

- When the sphere is close to the accelerometer, the accelerometer's reading change very slightly due to the gravitational attraction of the massive sphere. (The change in acceleration was just barely detectable given the technology.)

- A radioactive isotope has a 50-50 chance of decaying or not in a particular time period. Under the Many Worlds Interpretation, the experimenter is in a superposition of having seen the decay and not.

- If the isotope decays, the experimenter pushes the sphere close to the accelerometer. Otherwise the experimenter pushes the sphere away. Now the sphere is in a superposition of affecting the accelerometer and not.

- The experimenter reads the accelerometer.

The point of the experiment was to see if the accelerometer would detect the deformation in spacetime caused by the superposition of the massive ball in parallel universes. The result of the experiment is that no acceleration was ever detected by other worlds' balls.

fizx2• 11 years ago

That's not how Many Worlds works. The "worlds" are non-interacting.

coldcode• 11 years ago

Physics is a game best played by madmen.

yakult4• 11 years ago

Wild guessing from someone who has no background in physics:

1. Simulating QM-level events is NP-complete.

2.Assuming P=/=NP, a machine that simulates a volume of size X in QM-correct terms must be exponentially larger than X.

3. This includes X itself.

4. Therefore, the universe is taking sweeping shortcuts that look like classical mechanics at large scale. These are not 'our' computational shortcuts, they're actually how things work at a fundamental level.

5. ...maybe if we build a big enough quantum computer we can overflow the universe's buffer.

spacehome10• 11 years ago

You're missing step 0, which is assuming that our universe is a simulation. Also, you're making a lot of assumptions about the laws of physics and what is computationally feasible in the universe that that computer is running in.

yakult4• 11 years ago

I'm not assuming simulation. It's more of "if the universe can pack something that can predict the outcome of an NP-complete system (that is, the universe itself) in real-time into a relatively very tiny space, then either it's cheating or P=NP."

As for the assumptions, I agree. Hence it's wild guessing.

ingenter• 11 years ago

5. ...maybe if we build a big enough quantum computer we can overflow the universe's buffer.

Except black holes are a thing.

yakult4• 11 years ago

Depends on how it's optimized. If a star gets sucked into a black hole but nobody sees it, does it truly make hawking radiation?

(Next stop: solipsism.)

eru• 11 years ago

1. Simulating QM-level events is NP-complete.

Unlikely. Check out "Can NP-complete problems be solved efficiently in the physical universe?" (http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/npcomplete.pdf) and "BQP and the Polynomial Hierarchy" (http://www.scottaaronson.com/papers/bqpph.pdf).

There's, of course, also Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BQP).

FrankenPC4• 11 years ago

P=NP. We just can't read the meta-meta-rules surrounding QM yet.

FrankenPC4• 11 years ago

Charlton Einstein: "You'll pry my determinism from my cold dead hands"

rubidium2• 11 years ago

Determinism is dead. Long live an in-deterministic (and free) universe!

But seriously, why many scientists are so attached to wanting a deterministic universe is beyond me. Even at the highest levels, I'm amazed that physicists have an near moral repugnance to the idea that there's randomness inherent in the universe. They even go through such lengths as inventing the many worlds theories to try and recapture determinism.

pgwhalen• 11 years ago

I would say it's because non-deterministic things aren't testable, which make them fall out of the bounds of scientific investigation.

Obviously that's not really true, but it adds a certain level of discomfort to to science.

omalleyt3• 11 years ago

If you accept that all effects have causes, you accept determinism.

Also, determinism will be resurrected. Look at Pilot Wave theory. It explains quantum weirdness with a deterministic worldview, but everyone would prefer to hype voodoo theories.

Einstein’s Parable of Quantum Insanity

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