{"id":460,"date":"2006-06-02T22:57:00","date_gmt":"2006-06-02T22:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/2006\/06\/02\/460\/"},"modified":"2006-06-02T22:57:00","modified_gmt":"2006-06-02T22:57:00","slug":"460","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/?p=460","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading a pretty good book about quantum theory – you know, about the weird way that really tiny particles inside the atom act. Actually, the book is about quantum reality. Thus its title: Quantum Reality<\/span>, by Nick Herbert. If you really want to get up to speed on quantum stuff and you ain’t got a PhD in physics, this book is a necessity. But it isn’t all you need. I’ve read about 5 or 6 different books dealing with quantum physics, and I’m still not comfortable with it all. It takes a while to wrap your mind around it. Don’t think you can go see What The Bleep (or the new Rabbit Hole<\/span> version) and know much about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and wave-particle dualisms. Those movies make you think that they’re teaching you all about it, but they really aren’t. Just as The DaVinci Code isn’t going to turn you into a historical Jesus scholar.<\/p>\n

According to Herbert, the core dilemma of quantum theory is that it gives up on explaining what scientists observe during experiments regarding tiny things like electrons and photons (light) and other elementary particles. It’s all just too weird. There just aren’t any patterns, nothing to grab on to. Science has thus put a little sign on the sub-atomic map, “here be weirdness”. Don’t bang your head trying to figure it out, because it can’t be figured out. Under the “Copenhagen interpretation”, it’s just random variation; all we have is the ghostly probability wave that tells you where (and how often) the little buggers might show up when you disturb them with your measurement apparatus. A few scientists (the “neo-realists”<\/span>) still try to hold out against this viewpoint (as Albert Einstein did). But it’s been accepted doctrine for almost 100 years now.<\/p>\n

Again, I’m no scientist and I don’t really understand the fundamental math and physics behind quantum dynamics. But I can’t help but sympathize with the handful of romantics who refuse to give in to the weirdness. They just aren’t ready to celebrate a dancing universe of virtual bubbles and blips. They aren’t going gently into that good night of fashionable metaphysical anarchy, despite being seen by the majority as Newtonian dinosaurs. They stand their ground despite rude deconstructionists who tease out white-male, Eurocentric racist \/ sexist \/ classist agendas from their viewpoints. <\/p>\n

I can’t help but wonder if a glimmer of hope for the romantics is starting to appear on the horizons of cutting-edge theoretical physics. If I understand Herbert, the biggest impediment to an explanatory mechanism for quantum behavior is the limitation on the speed of light. A coordinating force for the behavior of tiny particles would have to spread faster than the speed of light. Einstein said you can’t do that, and every experiment thus far has upheld that theory. But there are still some frayed edges in the standard models of the universe, especially involving gravity. So, scientists are now postulating hyper-dimensional models of the universe. Yep, the fifth dimension may someday be more than a late 60’s singing group (remember Age of Aquarius?). <\/p>\n

I can’t work out the math, and I know this may be gibberish. But what if there is another spatial dimension, which we can’t perceive for some crazy reason? If our 3D world lies flat in that extra dimension (like a 2D piece of paper lies flat in our 3D world), then the speed of light remains an absolute limit. But just put a little curve in the topography of our world relative to hyperspace, and voila! A force or particle could leave point A on our world, take a shortcut thru hyperspace, and wind up at point B faster than an ordinary light beam could. It wouldn’t have to break the speed limit of light, just so long as it could get into hyperspace and find a shorter pathway than the one that remains in our 3D universe. Some physicists now speculate that a portion of the force of gravity somehow “leaks” into hyperspace. So, maybe forces can duck out into hyperspace — and maybe comeback at another point, faster than light? If so, maybe the door to an explanatory mechanism for “the dance of the quanta” could yet be found?<\/p>\n

Well, admittedly I’m a sucker for sentimental stories about those who keep burning a candle throughout the longest and darkest night, and live to see the dawn. I love a good tale of faith. I still remember those cheezy miracle movies that you’d see on regular TV during Holy Week back in the old days, especially the one about the kids in France or some such place, who talked to the Virgin Mary. The local priests and their parents said they were nuts. And then one fine day, the sun got weird and started to swell up in the sky, and all the adults in the village totally freaked out, ducking into any basement or wine cellar they could find (ah, for one last glass of burgundy). But of course, one of the kids who had a chat line going with the BV, a permanently crippled kid with crutches, looks up at the sun and raises his hands, and lo and behold he can walk again. So his father stops in the middle of the turmoil and says “I’ll never give up hope again!”<\/span> And then you hear the usual ethereal female voices, and the sun gets back in line, and the villagers all look at each other dumbstruck.<\/p>\n

Yea, wouldn’t it be great if something like that were to happen with quantum physics. But I’m not holding my breath. Oh me, of so little faith. No doubt I’ll be in that cellar sipping on vino on the day when the hyper-dimensional sun finally breaks into our world!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve been reading a pretty good book about quantum theory – you know, about the weird way that really tiny particles inside the atom act. Actually, the book is about quantum reality. Thus its title: Quantum Reality, by Nick Herbert. If you really want to get up to speed on quantum stuff and you ain’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimgworld.com\/blog1\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}