This is one of the best videos that I've seen to help get a grip of some notions of quantum physics. I'm not a physicist myself, but I think that it's very good for anyone with a more casual interest.
[video=youtube;p7bzE1E5PMY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7bzE1E5PMY[/video]
It's sort of hard to picture how this has anything to do with reality
[QUOTE=paul simon;52030500]It's sort of hard to picture how this has anything to do with reality[/QUOTE]
Yeah our perceptions, our faculties, everything we are as humans is not designed to observe any of this
Just like we weren't meant to think of spaces as large as Space, we were evolved to think of Savannahs and forest and all sorts of realistic sizes. But now we try and understand the enormity of something like that, or the incredibly complexity of something like Quantum mechanics, our brains kinda have a disconnect from what the subject matter is.
One of my favourite ways to "break" that innate thinking is evaluating the "size" of infinite numbers. There's an infinite number of prime numbers, but there's a larger, more infinite(like what the fuck) set of composite numbers. How does that even work in your brain? It just doesn't.
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52030543]One of my favourite ways to "break" that innate thinking is evaluating the "size" of infinite numbers. There's an infinite number of prime numbers, but there's a larger, more infinite(like what the fuck) set of composite numbers. How does that even work in your brain? It just doesn't.[/QUOTE]
Well math is, at it's core, just something we invented. Intangible concepts like that (infinity and beyond) being confusing might be an issue with how our math systems work and are taught.
Primarily I'm concerned about what constitutes as an 'observer' or the occurrence that makes the measurement that collapses the wave function in Quantum Mechanics. Are we subject primarily to classical relativity over quantum mechanics due to the sheer amount of possible 'observers' in our environment?
[QUOTE=ZombieWaffle;52030931]Primarily I'm concerned about what constitutes as an 'observer' or the occurrence that makes the measurement that collapses the wave function in Quantum Mechanics. Are we subject primarily to classical relativity over quantum mechanics due to the sheer amount of possible 'observers' in our environment?[/QUOTE]
I'm definitely not an expert so I may totally wrong on this but my understanding of it is this:
The reason it affects things is because the possible areas for the wave function to populate has been changed. They don't directly state this in the video, though they strongly hint at it, but the uncertainty principle means you can't know both the velocity and location of a particle. And the wave function is basically a diagram of the possible places a particle can be at any given point in time. So by measuring the particle you're changing the wave function itself because you've narrowed down the particle's location.
To try and put it more simply: The fact there's an observer is actually irrelevant and it's more that the wave function is a probabilistic abstraction of what they're observing.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;52030953]I'm definitely not an expert so I may totally wrong on this but my understanding of it is this:
The reason it affects things is because the possible areas for the wave function to populate has been changed. They don't directly state this in the video, though they strongly hint at it, but the uncertainty principle means you can't know both the velocity and location of a particle. And the wave function is basically a diagram of the possible places a particle can be at any given point in time. So by measuring the particle you're changing the wave function itself because you've narrowed down the particle's location.
To try and put it more simply: The fact there's an observer is actually irrelevant and it's more that the wave function is a probabilistic abstraction of what they're observing.[/QUOTE]
So it's less "Observing the thing changes the thing", and more "Observing the thing narrows down our search"?
I always thought that observing the things actually would make a real change for whatever divine reason.
[QUOTE=paul simon;52030977]So it's less "Observing the thing changes the thing", and more "Observing the thing narrows down our search"?
I always thought that observing the things actually would make a real change for whatever divine reason.[/QUOTE]
That's my understanding of it, yes. It may be better to wait for someone who's more educated on the subject to verify or debunk what I said though. (Where's JohnnyMo1? He's always really good at explaining this sort of thing.)
That last part about the collapse not being noticed really made it click in a cool way. I think... I understood it, but to me it was just really cool, almost like watching a chunk of reality being created.
[QUOTE=paul simon;52030977]So it's less "Observing the thing changes the thing", and more "Observing the thing narrows down our search"?
I always thought that observing the things actually would make a real change for whatever divine reason.[/QUOTE]
It's nothing more than that the only methods of observation always affect quantum systems. Like if you have a finish line tape in a race and the winner crosses it, the resistance of the tape on their body affects the result. At the scales we're measuring that makes all the difference. I have a video that explains this well somewhere but couldn't find it. I really don't like the word observation because it is too often taken as human consciousness being necessary. If no living thing existed in the entire universe wave functions would still collapse and everything would continue as normal. Observation is more like sharing or imparting information across two or more systems.
To touch on uncertainty, it's like measuring waves in an ocean. You can watch them move by and measure one of two things: The position of the peaks/troughs and the velocity of it all. But knowing more about one means you know less about the other. For example, you can measure as accurately as possible the position of a peak on the wave, but now you know nothing about its velocity because you need to know how fast the wave is oscillating past you. And vice-versa if you measure how fast it's oscillating using the rate of peaks passing by then you have no idea what the position of anything is. Uncertainty of waves is not strictly a quantum phenomenon. It's inherent to the nature of waves, which when you break it all down is everything (as far as we know).
Also to respond to your earlier post I don't believe that math is a human construct but is the underlying nature of our universe.
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52031345]
Also to respond to your earlier post I don't believe that math is a human construct but is the underlying nature of our universe.[/QUOTE]
Reminds me of the time a guy told me "The universe is fucking strange man, like the fact that a kilometer is exactly 1000 meters, how can that be a coincidence???"(In his defence he was sorta drunk). It's just, what. Mathematics is a very powerful tool that we've developed and it helps us understand the world around us, the metric and imperial or whatever weird system you use are systems developed by and based on math to help us visualize and measure distances, weights, amounts, etc. etc. But it doesn't actually mean anything. A very strange and poor analogy would be that a hammer can be used to build a wall, but that doesn't mean that the hammer is a wall or that the wall is made out of hammers
[QUOTE=HumanAbyss;52030543]Yeah our perceptions, our faculties, everything we are as humans is not designed to observe any of this
Just like we weren't meant to think of spaces as large as Space, we were evolved to think of Savannahs and forest and all sorts of realistic sizes. But now we try and understand the enormity of something like that, or the incredibly complexity of something like Quantum mechanics, our brains kinda have a disconnect from what the subject matter is.
One of my favourite ways to "break" that innate thinking is evaluating the "size" of infinite numbers. There's an infinite number of prime numbers, but there's a larger, more infinite(like what the fuck) set of composite numbers. How does that even work in your brain? It just doesn't.[/QUOTE]
But there are the same number of prime and composite numbers, at least in terms of cardinality, because you can list the primes:
1 <-> 2, 2 <-> 3, 3 <-> 5, 4 <-> 7,... etc.
[QUOTE=Rixxz2;52032145]Reminds me of the time a guy told me "The universe is fucking strange man, like the fact that a kilometer is exactly 1000 meters, how can that be a coincidence???"(In his defence he was sorta drunk). It's just, what. Mathematics is a very powerful tool that we've developed and it helps us understand the world around us, the metric and imperial or whatever weird system you use are systems developed by and based on math to help us visualize and measure distances, weights, amounts, etc. etc. But it doesn't actually mean anything. A very strange and poor analogy would be that a hammer can be used to build a wall, but that doesn't mean that the hammer is a wall or that the wall is made out of hammers[/QUOTE]
I see it like, the specific units and the measurements are all man made, but the concepts are always there no matter what. Momentum will always be mass times velocity, and gravity falls off at a specific rate no matter how you measure it.
[QUOTE=Alice3173;52030953]I'm definitely not an expert so I may totally wrong on this but my understanding of it is this:
The reason it affects things is because the possible areas for the wave function to populate has been changed. They don't directly state this in the video, though they strongly hint at it, but the uncertainty principle means you can't know both the velocity and location of a particle. And the wave function is basically a diagram of the possible places a particle can be at any given point in time. So by measuring the particle you're changing the wave function itself because you've narrowed down the particle's location.
To try and put it more simply: The fact there's an observer is actually irrelevant and it's more that the wave function is a probabilistic abstraction of what they're observing.[/QUOTE]
It depends strongly on your interpretation. My favorites though, particularly [url=http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/06/30/why-the-many-worlds-formulation-of-quantum-mechanics-is-probably-correct/]many-worlds[/url], don't even have collapse.
[QUOTE=Rixxz2;52032145]Reminds me of the time a guy told me "The universe is fucking strange man, like the fact that a kilometer is exactly 1000 meters, how can that be a coincidence???"(In his defence he was sorta drunk). It's just, what. Mathematics is a very powerful tool that we've developed and it helps us understand the world around us, the metric and imperial or whatever weird system you use are systems developed by and based on math to help us visualize and measure distances, weights, amounts, etc. etc. [B]But it doesn't actually mean anything.[/B] A very strange and poor analogy would be that a hammer can be used to build a wall, but that doesn't mean that the hammer is a wall or that the wall is made out of hammers[/QUOTE]
It means everything. If you're talking about measuring things then it's important to that most of our modern measurements are based on immutable constants. Quanta of mass. Quanta of energy. And if you can reduce the entire universe down to all its constituent parts and observe that they perfectly follow mathematical rules that we've deduced, how is that then a meaningless human construct?
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52031345]It's nothing more than that the only methods of observation always affect quantum systems. Like if you have a finish line tape in a race and the winner crosses it, the resistance of the tape on their body affects the result. At the scales we're measuring that makes all the difference. I have a video that explains this well somewhere but couldn't find it. I really don't like the word observation because it is too often taken as human consciousness being necessary. If no living thing existed in the entire universe wave functions would still collapse and everything would continue as normal. Observation is more like sharing or imparting information across two or more systems.
To touch on uncertainty, it's like measuring waves in an ocean. You can watch them move by and measure one of two things: The position of the peaks/troughs and the velocity of it all. But knowing more about one means you know less about the other. For example, you can measure as accurately as possible the position of a peak on the wave, but now you know nothing about its velocity because you need to know how fast the wave is oscillating past you. And vice-versa if you measure how fast it's oscillating using the rate of peaks passing by then you have no idea what the position of anything is. Uncertainty of waves is not strictly a quantum phenomenon. It's inherent to the nature of waves, which when you break it all down is everything (as far as we know).
Also to respond to your earlier post I don't believe that math is a human construct but is the underlying nature of our universe.[/QUOTE]
That makes way more sense than my old impression that - somehow - observation categorically collapses waveforms, and not the specific methods of observing them.
[QUOTE=Marik Bentusi;52032298]That makes way more sense than my old impression that - somehow - observation categorically collapses waveforms, and not the specific methods of observing them.[/QUOTE]
Pretty much. If you want to look at something, you have to shine light on it to see it, don't you? Doesn't really matter if you're doing it on the macroscopic scale, but on the quantum level, an individual photon most likely has enough energy to significantly disturb a particle; changing it's behaviour. Same with any other form of interaction that could interfere with it.
I will agree that watching layman's videos on phenomena like the double slit experiment almost imply that there's some ~spooky physics~ going on, but they just completely fail to mention the observation interaction on the system.
Fourier transforms are really interesting things, the concept of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle didn't make too much sense up until I was learning about it. Same thing as to how it's possible to evaluate Pi to an arbitrary amount of digits, Fourier Transforms are the reason why.
It's because of this probability until observation that things like Quantum Computers can exist, in fact it is exactly what allows qubits to validly exist in a superposition ( arguably the linearity of the schrodinger equation as well ).
[QUOTE=paul simon;52030977]So it's less "Observing the thing changes the thing", and more "Observing the thing narrows down our search"?
I always thought that observing the things actually would make a real change for whatever divine reason.[/QUOTE]
Sort of but not really, we don't really know what the hell is going on with quantum physics. An observer is more just anything it interacts with. There's some who argue it isn't until a person actually reads the results but I think that's more just philosophical babble.
There are genuinely odd quantum physics effects, such as electrons interfering with themselves in slit experiments and causing interference patterns.
got lost at 6:40 and let jesus take the wheel
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52033104]Sort of but not really, we don't really know what the hell is going on with quantum physics.[/QUOTE]
Well, we know pretty much what's going on and can even simulate a lot of it, we just have no idea why much of it works the way it does.
Quantum gravity though we've been struggling badly with. A few other things are also million dollar questions (literally).
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52032288]And if you can reduce the entire universe down to all its constituent parts and observe that they perfectly follow mathematical rules that we've deduced, how is that then a meaningless human construct?[/QUOTE]
Well, it's not literally meaningless seeing as it makes us able to predict how things will behave, but it also doesn't mean that the universe is based on math, or, as you at least seem to imply, simulated.
I mean apart from high school and a bit of university level physics specialized in electricity I know practically nothing about it, and the same goes for philosophy, I just fail to see how us successfully using mathematics to describe and predict the universe = the universe is made out of math
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52033400]Well, we know pretty much what's going on and can even simulate a lot of it, we just have no idea why much of it works the way it does.
Quantum gravity though we've been struggling badly with. A few other things are also million dollar questions (literally).[/QUOTE]
We have predictive models but don't really understand what's going on at the quantum level.
[QUOTE=Rixxz2;52033462]Well, it's not literally meaningless seeing as it makes us able to predict how things will behave, but it also doesn't mean that the universe is based on math, or, as you at least seem to imply, simulated.
I mean apart from high school and a bit of university level physics specialized in electricity I know practically nothing about it, and the same goes for philosophy, I just fail to see how us successfully using mathematics to describe and predict the universe = the universe is made out of math[/QUOTE]
I'm not suggesting simulation. There's too many problems with simulation theory for it to be remotely viable. Not one believer of it can answer simple questions such as "How can you physically simulate an entire universe without needing a computer bigger than a universe?" It's preposterous. The best they can do is shit out, "some kinda LOD system," or, "that universe must have different physics," which are baseless, unlikely assumptions to cling on to what amounts to faith.
Anyway, I think the universe being "based on math" is the wrong frame of mind as it inherently assumes human mathematics as a reference point. I'm arguing that it [I]is[/I] math in the sense that the universes laws are laws are laws. The universe doesn't care what we describe it as. It's always going to follow its own fundamental rules. We could represent it all in base 12 and it wouldn't make a lick of difference. Mathematics is simply the tool by which we can quantify and deduce these rules. And if it turns out that math alone can explain every last aspect of the universe then that's fundamentally no different than saying the universe's nature is inherently a mathematical construct. It doesn't matter if we're all in Tron or not. A "real" universe that always follows its own intrinsic rules is no less inherently mathematical than a "simulated" one programmed to follow rules.
[editline]30th March 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=carcarcargo;52033539]We have predictive models but don't really understand what's going on at the quantum level.[/QUOTE]
that's pretty much what i mean. we know a hell of a lot more more about the whats than the whys.
[QUOTE=DOG-GY;52033569]Not one believer of it can answer simple questions such as "How can you physically simulate an entire universe without needing a computer bigger than a universe?" It's preposterous.[/QUOTE]
What kind of bullshit logic is that?
Computer size does not, in any way, equate to computation power.
If that were the case, then the Bombe machine:
[t]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/%27bombe%27.jpg[/t]
Would be able to compute several magnitudes more operations per second than the Intel i7-4770K CPU:
[t]https://tpucdn.com/cpudb/images/cpus/1459.jpg[/t]
Going off size alone, I can't find actual figures on the Bombe's size, but judging from the picture, I'd say the Bombe is about 7 feet tall by 9 feet wide. The Intel chip is only a few square-inches wide. I can't find any figures, but let's say 3.5" x 3.5". Not considering depth, that makes the Bombe 8064 square inches, and the Intel chip 12.25 square inches. Therefore, we can estimate that the Bombe is slightly over 650 times larger than the Intel chip, and so should be proportionately more powerful in computation.
In reality, the Bombe is estimated to have been able to perform [url=https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-computing-capacity-of-Alan-Turings-machine-called-Bombe-that-deciphered-the-Enigma]about 15 operations per second[/url], whereas the Intel chip can perform [url=https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/Haswell-Floating-Point-Performance-493/]177,000,000,000 operations per second.[/url]
I'm not throwing in my hat one way or the other about simulation theory.
I'm just pointing out that using the computer size as [b]any[/b] form of metric for its computing power is utterly ridiculous. The only "preposterous" thing here is your suggestion that you need a computer larger than something to simulate it.
[QUOTE=PelPix123;52030422]anyone here think quantum mechanics seems unsettlingly like a LOD system?
You know, if this is a simulation, you don't have to simulate it all. You can just kind of fake it until people look closer.[/QUOTE]
As far as I can tell, quantum effects (i.e. interference) require more information to be present than the classical model.
[editline]30th March 2017[/editline]
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52033770][...]
[...] The only "preposterous" thing here is your suggestion that you need a computer larger than something to simulate it.[/QUOTE]
You do, in fact. The important point is information contents and storage density.
Current video games may look very realistic, but in terms of information they are [I]incredibly[/I] lightweight compared to the universe.
One atom can only store the information belonging to an equivalent atom (or, for practical purposes, less), so unless the universe ours is simulated in has vastly different physics, you'd indeed need a stupidly huge computer to even simulate Earth.
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52033770]What kind of bullshit logic is that?
Computer size does not, in any way, equate to computation power.
I'm not throwing in my hat one way or the other about simulation theory.
I'm just pointing out that using the computer size as [b]any[/b] form of metric for its computing power is utterly ridiculous. The only "preposterous" thing here is your suggestion that you need a computer larger than something to simulate it.[/QUOTE]
It does come down to size because there is going to be a physical limit to what you can compute in a given area. Try simulating a 2cm^3 volume down to the quantum level with a machine as small as or smaller than 2cm^3. You see what I mean? It's not physically possible to simulate the information of the volume in a volume of equal or smaller size. Thus, you need a > universe sized computer for simulating a universe.
[QUOTE=Gmod4ever;52033770]What kind of bullshit logic is that?
Computer size does not, in any way, equate to computation power.
If that were the case, then the Bombe machine:
*Picture of Bombe machine*
Would be able to compute several magnitudes more operations per second than the Intel i7-4770K CPU:
*Picture of I7-4770K*
Going off size alone, I can't find actual figures on the Bombe's size, but judging from the picture, I'd say the Bombe is about 7 feet tall by 9 feet wide. The Intel chip is only a few square-inches wide. I can't find any figures, but let's say 3.5" x 3.5". Not considering depth, that makes the Bombe 8064 square inches, and the Intel chip 12.25 square inches. Therefore, we can estimate that the Bombe is slightly over 650 times larger than the Intel chip, and so should be proportionately more powerful in computation.
In reality, the Bombe is estimated to have been able to perform [url=https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-computing-capacity-of-Alan-Turings-machine-called-Bombe-that-deciphered-the-Enigma]about 15 operations per second[/url], whereas the Intel chip can perform [url=https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/hpc/Haswell-Floating-Point-Performance-493/]177,000,000,000 operations per second.[/url]
I'm not throwing in my hat one way or the other about simulation theory.
I'm just pointing out that using the computer size as [b]any[/b] form of metric for its computing power is utterly ridiculous. The only "preposterous" thing here is your suggestion that you need a computer larger than something to simulate it.[/QUOTE]
Simulating reality is extremely complex. Let's assume that by some magic we just figure out all of physics and a way to run simulations of it.
Are the molecular interactions that happen in a spade of sand less complex that those that happen in a CPU?
In all likelihood, the complexity of the actions that keep a CPU running are sort of minuscule compared to the enormous complexity of all the atomic interactions that occur in the materials it's built of.
So why is this relevant? Well, can a CPU run an unbiased real-time simulation of [I]itself?[/I]
If it was able to simulate itself, that simulation could run yet another simulation of itself and this would nest infinitely.
Not only would the simulation be simulating the circuitry, but all the molecular interactions in the construction of the CPU as well.
Since we're already capable of simulating the entirety of the CPU, let's save some computational power by stripping away all the things we don't want to simulate - After all, we're only interested in simulating circuitry. Now that we've stripped away simulating the interactions between the paint and the aluminium heat-sink, we have plenty of power to spare.
In fact, all of our infinitely nested simulations have some computational power to spare due to this optimisation.
In fact, we now have infinite computational power.
I'm fairly sure we can say that a CPU can not simulate the same amount of matter it is itself composed of - You'd simply need a bigger and more powerful CPU.
That's my take on it anyways.
My guess is you could simulate a universe using a computer smaller than the universe you're simulating, but only if you did it far, far slower than real time. It wouldn't make any difference to the inhabitants of the simulation really, it would just take forever on the creators end.
Hell you could do it with an apple II but the amount of time it would take to simluate a nanosecond would be inconciveably long.
[QUOTE=Pythagoras64;52033995]My guess is you could simulate a universe using a computer smaller than the universe you're simulating, but only if you did it far, far slower than real time. It wouldn't make any difference to the inhabitants of the simulation really, it would just take forever on the creators end.
Hell you could do it with an apple II but the amount of time it would take to simluate a nanosecond would be inconciveably long.[/QUOTE]
I'm just not sure you could [I]store[/I] it.
[QUOTE=JohnnyMo1;52032163]But there are the same number of prime and composite numbers, at least in terms of cardinality, because you can list the primes:
1 <-> 2, 2 <-> 3, 3 <-> 5, 4 <-> 7,... etc.[/QUOTE]
I should have phrased that differently.
The sizes of infinity are the same, but your natural intuition doesn't lead you that way
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