Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser

I have pondered and speculated on this in my mind for years. I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave. It can alter its frequency but not it's mass. Protons I believe maintain the same frequency.The variable might be the frequency of the electron and this may account for the strange results this experiment indicates but I am only musing.

If we look at river it appears like a constant wave of motion but if we could capture and magnify one point we would see a molecule of water, the wave would be an illusion.

Be they particles or waves, neither are the same as conscious experience, but if you disagree, please explain.

I have pondered and speculated on this in my mind for years. I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave. It can alter its frequency but not it's mass. Protons I believe maintain the same frequency.The variable might be the frequency of the electron and this may account for the strange results this experiment indicates but I am only musing.

If we look at river it appears like a constant wave of motion but if we could capture and magnify one point we would see a molecule of water, the wave would be an illusion.

Be they particles or waves, neither are the same as conscious experience, but if you disagree, please explain.

Sorry Exogen you will have to explain.

I have pondered and speculated on this in my mind for years. I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave. It can alter its frequency but not it's mass. Protons I believe maintain the same frequency.The variable might be the frequency of the electron and this may account for the strange results this experiment indicates but I am only musing.

If we look at river it appears like a constant wave of motion but if we could capture and magnify one point we would see a molecule of water, the wave would be an illusion.

Be they particles or waves, neither are the same as conscious experience, but if you disagree, please explain.

Sorry Exogen you will have to explain.

I already have in other threads so I would direct you to those threads on the relation between mind and body. I think we would be digressing to much away from the delayed choice experiment.

Let's just say that the experiment has philosophical implications depending on the interpretations you take on it.

Exogen:

Re: delayed choice experiment. I think you're talking about Bell's theorum/Bell's Inequality, quantum entanglement and all that.

Various quantites in physics are "conserved" - which means they can't be created or destroyed. One example is momentum. Eg. If two objects are initally connected together and have zero momentum (they're not moving) and then fly apart, so that they both now have some momentum (they're moving), their momenta must be equal and opposite, and thereby still add up to zero.

Another example is angular momentum, or spin. This is one of the examples used to illustrate quantum entanglement. Two "connected" particles, initially with zero spin fly apart to an arbitrarily large distance. If you then measure the spin of one of them and find it to be, say, 1 unit, then you've implicitly measured the spin of the other. It has to be -1 units if angular momentum is conserved. That's all fine and unremarkable in the classical world. But in some interpretations of Quantum Mechanics the spin (or other properties) of the particles are deemed, in some sense, not to exist until they are measured. They are thought of as existing in a superposition of all possible states represented by a set of probabilities, expressed mathematically as the famous "wave function". The act of measurement "collapses" this wave function into one of the possible states.

But this seems to imply that the implicit measurement-from-a-distance I mentioned above causes something to happen instantly at a distance, violating the laws of causality. If Quantum Mechanics is right, there are no hidden variables, and the state of the particles' spins before they are measured is truly uncertain, then the act of measuring one causes the other to be instantly determined.

One objection to this is that even if that is so, the information about that act of measurement cannot be transmitted faster than light from the explictly measured particle to the implicitly measured one. So even if the measurer of the first particle now knows with certaintly the state of the other particle, he can't do anything with that information. And it is information, or influence, whose propogation faster than light is prohibed by the theory of relativity.

Anyway, that's a very very brief summary. The whole subject is hugely subtle and complicated. It often sounds, at first glance, all completely ridiculous. (and at second glance.) I remember (vaguely) studying it at University and it's very difficult not to get sucked into the mathematics and start to see it as just a huge convoluted exercise in abstraction with no bearing on reality. You have to remind yourself that QM is completely grounded in empirical observation. It has to be. It could never get away with being so crazy otherwise!

It's very difficult to both understand the maths and be able to step back and look at it philosophically, I think.

Xris:

I know an electron at rest has mass but when it moving it expresses that mass as energy in the form of a wave.

Not quite. Electrons, like all particles with mass, have "rest mass" and they gain mass when they gain kinetic energy - they move. The frequency of an electron (or any other piece of matter) is related to its momentum because the wave represents the uncertainty in its position. And the uncertainty principle states that there is a fundemental uncertainty in particular pairs of properties. One such pair is momentum and position.

So electrons, protons, neutrons, atoms, molecules, rocks and buses all have an associated wave function with a frequency which is related to their momentum and energy.

Steve,

Something like the Copenhagen interpretation, which is the most prevalent in physics is similar to my phenomenology. Philosophically I argue for that position independent of experiment, and hence what I argue for is philosophical. In my philosophy I use possibility or potential instead of superposition.

The delayed choice experiment as I understand it, at least along Copenhagen lines, is an instance of observation causing the wave collapse. There is a reason why the Copenhagen interpretation is the consensus.

Steve I appreciate your knowledge but I was under the impression that an electron could only express it's wave length when moving. I also thought the two were exclusive, an electron can be either,it can disappear and reappear. There is an act of transformation. I like many mortals find it difficult to understand the experiment let alone the results. Many conflicting views, even the practical side of the experiment has been questioned. It certainly does not help the laymen have faith in the conclusions.

Hi Xris,

I wouldn't want to claim to be an expert or anything. I did a physics degree a long time ago but haven't particularly kept up with developments. I share your bafflement about a lot of it! The trouble is, like any kind of cumulative knowledge, physics just keeps moving further on and gets harder and harder for a lay audience to understand. And it's so full of metaphor that it usually sounds ridiculous. I reckon the rot started when they first came up with the concept of quarks and decided to name their properties colour, flavour, strangeness and charm. (I have read that they were originally going to give them three flavours - vanilla, chocolate and strawberry, but wisely abandoned that idea.)

Anyway, yes the wavelength of an electron (or anything else with mass) is related to its movement (its momentum). And the uncertainty in the electron's position means that it can suddenly appear on the other side of a barrier. This is quantum tunnelling - the principle behind the scanning tunnelling microscope.

Exogen
Posts: 123
Joined: November 21st, 2011, 6:08 am
Re: Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser
Post Number:#8 December 9th, 2011, 9:56 am

stormy phillips wrote:
To me the cat in the box idea is not a question of whether the cat is alive or dead. It is more that first you opened the box, in other words imagined it to exist, opened your mind to the idea. Then through observation you determined how to make it real through the ingredients of reality, in other words you applied the light of reality to it, in which all things need in order to matter. Having achieved that, you now have acknowledged that yes indeed, the cat exists, but the real question remains....how real is it, the only answer is....real enough to matter.
In the end, "if you don't mind, it wont matter."

"So are you saying that the cat is not in a state of potential if no one ever looks at it; that unobserved objects have their own being independent of the perception of them, or do you think this an irrelevant matter and are simply concerned with what is "real" for us and find anything outside of experience to be unintelligible talk? I ask because when you say what i outlined in bold it is someone ambiguous to me given the context."

Sorry for the delay, I must have missed this.
I'm saying reality is telling us there is no cat, unless we alone are mindful of it. I was once asked, how would you describe God?..... Mindful.

Hello Phillips.

I am somewhat confused so please help me. I will use a different example than the cat.

If you have an aneurism in your brain that is just about to burst, but you are not mindful of it because thus far no symptoms, is it not there? Does it not matter?

Regards, John.

In reality it matters. Of which you need to be mindful of. Shoe...

Hello Phillips.

Thank you very much for your advise to me to be aware of reality.

But just what did you mean with the following: I'm saying reality is telling us there is no cat, unless we alone are mindful of it.

I read this to mean that unless we are aware of there being a cat, it is not there.

Regards, John.

To delineate my position, I am saying there is a cat only if we are experiencing it. Until we experience it we are in a state of potential, until experienced. I don't understand what Stormy is saying either.

Stormy, could you clarify with an example and try to describe what you are saying in other words.

Everything exists, not everything is real, but it can become real, should we be mindful of it. If it is not already real within our reality, then our reality will convince us that it dose not exist, yet should we be mindful of it, then clearly it dose exist, it is just not real within our own quarters of reality. Not all that matters appears as matter, not all that appears to matter is all it appears to be. All I know amounts to not knowing all I know, but nothing.
These are the days, when we mix what matters that is not real, with what is real yet no longer needs to matter, and get a slight glimmer of the possibilities of creating a higher reality. One that is more real, where only the good bits need matter.

Phillips.

What are you smoking? I want some of that!


Regards, John.

It sounds to me like stormy is expressing some version of idealism. But what I don't understand is how is it that something can exist but also not be "real?" It would seem to me that if you exist then you would be real.

stormy, can you elaborate more on what you mean when something merely "exists" as opposed to being real? I understand that what you mean by reality is being conscious of something, but what do you mean to say when you say that something can exist but not be real/conscious of/mindful of?