New form of matter?

[Tharan]

Well, new to human awareness, at least.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg1 ... urth-state

...Wen suspected that the effect could be an example of a new type of matter. Different phases of matter are characterised by the way their atoms are organised. In a liquid, for instance, atoms are randomly distributed, whereas atoms in a solid are rigidly positioned in a lattice. FQHE systems are different. "If you take a snapshot of the position of electrons in an FQHE system they appear random and you think you have a liquid," says Wen. But step back, and you see that, unlike in a liquid, the electrons dance around each other in well-defined steps...

...This led Wen and Levin to the idea that there may be a different way of thinking about matter. What if electrons were not really elementary, but were formed at the ends of long "strings" of other, fundamental particles? They formulated a model in which such strings are free to move "like noodles in a soup" and weave together into huge "string-nets"....
Light and matter unified

The pair ran simulations to see if their string-nets could give rise to conventional particles and fractionally charged quasi-particles. They did. They also found something even more surprising. As the net of strings vibrated, it produced a wave that behaved according to a very familiar set of laws - Maxwell's equations, which describe the behaviour of light. "A hundred and fifty years after Maxwell wrote them down, here they emerged by accident," says Wen.

That wasn't all. They found that their model naturally gave rise to other elementary particles, such as quarks, which make up protons and neutrons, and the particles responsible for some of the fundamental forces, such as gluons and the W and Z bosons.

From this, the researchers made another leap. Could the entire universe be modelled in a similar way? "Suddenly we realised, maybe the vacuum of our whole universe is a string-net liquid," says Wen. "It would provide a unified explanation of how both light and matter arise." So in their theory elementary particles are not the fundamental building blocks of matter. Instead, they emerge from the deeper structure of the non-empty vacuum of space-time.

"Wen and Levin's theory is really beautiful stuff," says Michael Freedman, 1986 winner of the Fields medal, the highest prize in mathematics, and a quantum computing specialist at Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara. "I admire their approach, which is to be suspicious of anything - electrons, photons, Maxwell's equations - that everyone else accepts as fundamental."

[Jamesh]

The pair ran simulations to see if their string-nets could give rise to conventional particles and fractionally charged quasi-particles. They did. They also found something even more surprising. As the net of strings vibrated, it produced a wave that behaved according to a very familiar set of laws - Maxwell's equations, which describe the behaviour of light. "A hundred and fifty years after Maxwell wrote them down, here they emerged by accident," says Wen.

The production of light waves from vibrating strings is of no surprise to me. After all it is just the expansionary force being released from a balance, as the structure evolves into new tigher balances.

The whole idea of "charge" just relates to the ratio of the expansionary force over the contracting force.

[Tharan]

Describe this "expansionary force" please.

What is interesting to me is just as string theory is seeing a decline from its lofty state as holy grail because of lack of real world applications, an actual solid object arrives that, upon extrapolation, fits nicely in string theory and gives rise to the universe of particle types we see.

[Blair]

Matter matters ?

[Jamesh]

Describe this "expansionary force" please.

OK, my definition is

"infinite expansion", made finite by being coexistentially relative to the opposite contracting force.

Surely, a most unsatisfying definition to you, but who gives a fuck.

What is interesting to me is just as string theory is seeing a decline from its lofty state as holy grail because of lack of real world applications, an actual solid object arrives that, upon extrapolation, fits nicely in string theory and gives rise to the universe of particle types we see.

Coincidence or just more limited science???

I don't personally have an adversion to the basics of string theory until they throw in additional dimensions to make the maths work. It's a bit like Einsteins universal constant bullshit, which was again just something imagined to make the maths work.

[David Quinn]

Hang on. Haven't scientists been saying these past few decades that quantum theory is "complete" and that there were no hidden causal factors to be discovered ......?

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[Tharan]

I don't personally have an adversion to the basics of string theory until they throw in additional dimensions to make the maths work. It's a bit like Einsteins universal constant bullshit, which was again just something imagined to make the maths work.

But multiple dimensions are all around you, Jim. The worldview of an ant can be considered a dimension or a sub-dimension. Consider an ant walking around a leaf or flower. The flower of cactus petals allow him to go in and out. But from our vantage point from a slight distance, a flower might appear flat. Another good example from one of my college calculus classes, was the coastline of Britain. From space, it has a certain shape. But as you zone in closer, you begin to see the jagged ins and outs of the coastline. If you continue to zoom in, you see the depth and cragginess of individual rocks and boulders. These are more partial dimensions. All of these components make up the coastline of Britain, yet not all are visible from every perspective. This flat wooden desk I am typing on would appear completely different on the molecular or quantum level. All of these invisible environments make up every component of every piece of matter in existence. And if I am not mistaken all or most of the quantum dimensions described are actually small little warped balls that spring out of others like subsets.

So to imagine, and to work out mathematically, dimensions that we cannot see with our eyes, yet hold up via predicted outcome in experiment after experiment, is not something that should be discarded outright simply because our biological senses are limited. Would you deny color to a dog? Would you deny smell to a fish? Would you deny sound to a creature evolved in a thin atmosphere? Simply because they are not capable of perceiving with their natural senses does not speak directly to the phenomenon not existing, but rather strictly to the limits of their natural perceiving apparatus.

[Tharan]

Hang on. Haven't scientists been saying these past few decades that quantum theory is "complete" and that there were no hidden causal factors to be discovered ......?

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Decades? Not sure I heard that one. It is a fairly healthy endeavor with much land to discover. Always has been. Certain booksellers with physics PhDs have made silly statements about "the end of science" but there have always been snake oil salesmen. Science will never end as long as the details of Nature are not fully understood. Yet Nature changes constantly in its details and its possibilities, so some hotshot making wild declarations for his 15 minutes of fame is just hubris and pandering. The moment Nature might be understood is the moment before it changes into something else.

[David Quinn]

I agree with you. However, the very basis of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is that quantum theory is complete and that there are no hidden factors causing what is observed in the quantum realm. This school of thought has been around since the 1930s and, ever since, most physicists and their followers have subscribed to it. It is the basis of their belief that quantum events lack causes.

Can it really be true that the scientific community is finally going to ditch this piece of insanity?

Not that it really matters either way, of course. If they do ditch it, they will only be ditching it for all the wrong reasons. Their insanity will still remain.

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[DHodges]

Hang on. Haven't scientists been saying these past few decades that quantum theory is "complete" and that there were no hidden causal factors to be discovered ......?

Well, no, not quite. You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics. When you observe the polarization of a photon, for instance, what you observe is not due to some encoded information contained locally within the photon. (The observed result may depend, for instance, on what's going on with other particles the photon is "entangled" with - "nonlocal" variables.)

But let's consider the idea that photons - and electrons, etc. - don't inherently exist. That they appear to us as particles (or waves) is a matter of our perspective.

Imagine instead that the particle is one end of a wave, and presumably there is another particle at the other end. From our perspective, it looks like two separate particles, but "really" there is a wave, and the apparent particles are just an artifact of how waves act and interact.

I don't know if this is exactly what they are getting at with the string-net liquid, but it's an idea (or at least related to an idea) I've been kind of toying around with lately - and it seems to fit in with the transactional interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Some interpretations of QM consider the wave function to be a mathematical formalism and nothing more. Well, another perspective might be that the wave function is the real part and it's the particles that are illusory, an apparent artifact of wave interaction.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Imagine instead that the particle is one end of a wave, and presumably there is another particle at the other end. From our perspective, it looks like two separate particles, but "really" there is a wave, and the apparent particles are just an artifact of how waves act and interact.

That makes perfect sense. If we look at - let's say a desk - under a high enough powered microscope, we will see that it isn't "really" there. There are some protons, neutrons, electrons, and there is a whole lot of space. Yet despite all that space, if we pick up one end of the desk, the whole thing moves. Just because there is space between things does not mean that one thing does not have an effect on something far away from it. It is a matter of understanding the forces acting on the things - and all of the forces that exist may not have been discovered yet.
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[David Quinn]

David Hodges wrote:

DQ: Hang on. Haven't scientists been saying these past few decades that quantum theory is "complete" and that there were no hidden causal factors to be discovered ......?

DH: Well, no, not quite. You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics. When you observe the polarization of a photon, for instance, what you observe is not due to some encoded information contained locally within the photon. (The observed result may depend, for instance, on what's going on with other particles the photon is "entangled" with - "nonlocal" variables.)

I'm not sure that I see the significance of this point. For example, when I observe the crushing of a person's skull, what I observe is not due to some encoded information contained within the skull, but rather due to it becoming entangled with a large descending hammer.

In the moment before contact, the hammer can be classed as a "non-local" variable.

You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics.

I don't see how this can ever be proven. How do you empirically prove the non-existence of realms that are currently beyond the limits of what you can observe? At best, all you can do is make a tentative inference.

In any case, I was under the impression that the disbelief in underlying local variables was merely an assumption built into the Copenhagen interpretation, which asserts, as an article of faith, that quantum theory is the bottom line and nothing is beneath it.

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[DHodges]

You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics.

I don't see how this can ever be proven.

This is proven by Bell's Theorem.

In any case, I was under the impression that the disbelief in underlying local variables was merely an assumption built into the Copenhagen interpretation, which asserts, as an article of faith, that quantum theory is the bottom line and nothing is beneath it.

Actually, quantum mechanics is known to be incomplete (until it is reconciled with gravity and relativity). What's currently held as "an article of faith" by some physicists is that what's beneath it is the string theory, and that this will all get tied together eventually with strings, so to speak. (This is faith because there is currently no empirical evidence fot the extra dimensions required for string theory.)

The Copenhagen Interpretation does seem to have an underlying belief that the wave function is all you can say about a system (however the wave function does not describe an actual wave, but describes an observer's knowledge about the system). Since all the wave function gives you is a probability of a certain outcome, this is usually interpreted as saying that it is non-deterministic.

My hope is that someone will devise an experiment that will distinguish between the various interpretations of QM, at least eliminating some of them. Right now you have a lot of choices.

[Cory Duchesne]

You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics.

I don't see how this can ever be proven.

This is proven by Bell's Theorem.

The following was taken from wiki

David Bohm's first book, Quantum Theory published in 1951, was well-received by Einstein, among others. However, Bohm became dissatisfied with the orthodox approach to quantum theory, which he had written about in that book, and began to develop his own approach (Bohm interpretation) — Bohm devised a non-local hidden variable deterministic theory whose predictions agree perfectly with the nondeterministic quantum theory.

Ok, so does anyone have a good explanation for why Bohm's theory isn't taken seriously?

In any case, I was under the impression that the disbelief in underlying local variables was merely an assumption built into the Copenhagen interpretation, which asserts, as an article of faith, that quantum theory is the bottom line and nothing is beneath it.

Actually, quantum mechanics is known to be incomplete (until it is reconciled with gravity and relativity). What's currently held as "an article of faith" by some physicists is that what's beneath it is the string theory, and that this will all get tied together eventually with strings, so to speak.

Ok, but what sort of particles comprise these strings?

[David Quinn]

Dave Hodges wrote:

DH: You can prove that there are no local hidden variables, which means something quite specific in particle physics.

DQ: I don't see how this can ever be proven.

DH: This is proven by Bell's Theorem.

Only to those who are locked within the Copenhagen interpretation. As you point out, there are many alternative interpretations which also fit the facts.

What is interesting about the Copenhagen interpretation is that the physicists involved have decided to use one of the core philosophic principles of science (namely, Occham's Razor) to undermine another core philosophic principle of science (namely, causality). As far as I can see, this is unprecedented in the history of science.

The normal practice of science is to formulate theories which are consistent with the accepted philosophic principles of science. But in this particular case, theory is being used to violate one of these principles. This only serves to take the Copenhagen interpretation outside the realm of science to some degree. It makes it unscientific to some extent.

Occham's Razor is the principle by which you adopt the simplest possible explanation for the facts at hand. However, if the other philosophic principles of science aren't allowed to place a check on it, then absurdities will quickly arise. Left unchecked and taken to extremes, Occham's Razor will only lead to meaningless scientific conclusions such as "God created it", or "It happened by magic". The purpose of the other principles is to stop Occham's Razor from creating these absurdities and keep scientific theory within the bounds of science.

So to my mind, what quantum physicists should be doing is abandoning the Copenhagen interpretation altogether and finding the simplest possible explanation of quantum events which doesn't violate causality. No doubt this was Einstein's intention all along in his running battle with Bohr and company.

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[Jason]

[message deleted, I probably don't know enough about this stuff - Jason]

[Philosophaster]

"Pick the simplest theory" is too broad to be an accurate representation of Occam's Razor. What Occam's Razor actually says is that you should add an entity to a theory only if you must do so in order for the theory to make accurate observable predictions.

[David Quinn]

It also says that, all things being equal, if you have a choice between various theories which explain the facts at hand, then you should chose the simplest one.

This is probably one of the reasons why many quantum physicists balk at adopting a causal explanation of quantum events. The current causal explanations are too unwieldly for their tastes. It interferes with their sense of what a good theory should be - namely, simple and elegant.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. But when you have to ditch causality in order to achieve this simplicity and elegance, then something is clearly wrong. It is a hollow achievement.

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[Trevor Salyzyn]

Owch, my brain.

Bell's theorem: No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

Translation for the idiotic (by me, for me, in this case):

Far away events have no instantaneous effects on local ones. No theory that assumes otherwise can make all these predictions.

That's tautologically true. Something that is not present cannot have an effect on the present. Why would anyone think this violates causality?

[Trevor Salyzyn]

Wait a damn minute here. If I'm not mistaken, Bell's theorem is just a clever re-wording of the principle of causality. He's not saying anything new.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Not quite translated right Trevor. It's more like - No theory based solely on the physical world takes into account all the things in the metaphysical world. The predictions of quantum mechanics takes the variables from the metaphysical world into account.
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[Trevor Salyzyn]

Eliza,

No theory based solely on the physical world takes into account all the things in the metaphysical world. The predictions of quantum mechanics takes the variables from the metaphysical world into account.

If that's the correct translation, no wonder David has a problem with it. Giving exclusive metaphysical validity to any one scientific theory is ridiculous. A person simply cannot describe the fundamental nature of Reality scientifically. The fundamental nature of Reality is what allows science to be possible: quantum theory, for instance, cannot be used to explain the origins of logic when quantum theory needs to be grounded in logic in the first place.

[Elizabeth Isabelle]

Giving exclusive metaphysical validity to any one scientific theory is ridiculous. A person simply cannot describe the fundamental nature of Reality scientifically.

It does not look like they are giving exclusive metaphysical validity to quantum mechanics, but rather saying that quantum mechanics provides a tool that the physical world can't provide. Using just physical theory to understand the metaphysical world is like a deaf person "hearing" the radio by placing their hands on the speakers. They will have some understanding of sound, but they will not understand the sound the way a hearing person would.
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[Trevor Salyzyn]

Using just physical theory to understand the metaphysical world is like a deaf person "hearing" the radio by placing their hands on the speakers. They will have some understanding of sound, but they will not understand the sound the way a hearing person would.

I'm confused. Don't all physical theories presuppose a metaphysical theory? How does quantum mechanical theory get a special status?

[David Quinn]

Trevor,

Bell's theorem: No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

Translation for the idiotic (by me, for me, in this case):

Far away events have no instantaneous effects on local ones. No theory that assumes otherwise can make all these predictions.

It's the other way around. Bell's Theorem "proved" that no physical theory which postulates hidden local causes can reproduce all of the predictions of QM. In other words, the principle of local events producing local causes doesn't seem to apply in much of the quantum realm.

That's the current theory, at any rate.

I'm not sure what Elizabeth is talking about in regards to metaphysics. Quantum theory makes no reference to a metaphysical world.

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