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[edit] Observer in the QM universe

I saw that you are interested in physics, QM interpretations, etc and did quite a few very reasonable edits. I wonder if you could possibly review a tiny article I wrote on the subject of the observer in the quantum universe. It's on the Wikipedia sister project - Wikiversity - here: [1] and the same article with some basic math is on my talk page: [2]

--Dc987 (talk) 09:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, for your comment. I think I have a good answer. Please take a look if you can. -> [3] Thanks! --Dc987 (talk) 22:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Any chance to get a reply? --Dc987 (talk) 07:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

"It's difficult because there are so many perspectives on entropy." - well... I was using oversimplified approach to QM entropy - something along the lines of the Von Neumann entropy - entropy is a measure of entanglement. I also thought that the classical entropy is supposed to come from the classical limit of the quantum theory. Apparently it does not. Such a mess. --Dc987 (talk) 20:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

A related question for you. What do you think would be the outcome of the following thought experiment?

Would counter A be different from the counter B? From the classical perspective the answer would be definite no. From the QM perspective, my guess that it would be something like $N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{S_{A} - S_{B}}$ , where

N A

,

N B

are the counter values and

S A

,

S B

- total entropy in the space-time light cone (entropy 'visible' to the observer). --Dc987 (talk) 23:28, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Nice diagram, I like it. I think the entropic side arm makes no difference, since the operation of each photomultiplier is a high entropy process in itself. (Each photon carries approximately k entropy.) So for a low intensity source we would normally see the arrival of a bunch of photons at either A or B but not usually both. --Michael C. Price ^talk 23:47, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Is there any way to derive the answer from the quantum mechanics? My guess that counter values should be proportional to the resulting number of 'decoherence states' for each path (including states of the photomultipliers, counters, etc). Hence the entropy is in my answer. Is it correct?

Here is another diagram, illustrating the entropy exchange with the environment:

--Dc987 (talk) 01:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Correct as far as I can see. Divide the entropy by k if we're not using natural units. Shouldn't the half-silvered mirror be rotated by 90 degrees? --Michael C. Price ^talk 10:45, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I've rotated the mirror :)

Hmm. You answer is not entirely clear to me. You think that $N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{\frac{S_{A} - S_{B}}{k}}$ , where

N A

,

N B

are the counter values and

S A

,

S B

- total entropy in the space-time light cone (entropy 'visible' to the observer) is correct or simply that the diagram is correct? --Dc987 (talk) 19:03, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Note, that it creates all kinds of subjective FTL, casuality, observer effects paradoxes.--Dc987 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Would you think it can be possible to see a statistically significant deviation from the 50/50 distribution in the real experiment?--Dc987 (talk) 18:43, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

BTW. Here is an extreme scenario. Let's assume that we've made some nice time-reversible photomultipliers and counters. So:

S P = 0

,

S C = 0

. Now the only possible way of interaction with the environment is the heater. Everything else is time reversible. With the time flow entropy can only increase (it can not even stay the same!). So the only logical conclusion here is that with the time flow all the photons would chose the path A. --Dc987 (talk) 20:18, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

I had not realised that the set-up was meant to be paradoxical. I was treating the photomultipliers as irreversible, and will have to digest the idea of reversible photomultipliers. Are such things conceptually possible? Let me mull things over.--Michael C. Price ^talk 20:57, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

A completely reversible photomultiplier+counter can be replaced by a quantum harmonic oscillator. And the light source with an another oscillator with some initial energy. See: [4]. I would think that every system is a little bit reversible. Release of the entropy into the environment (entanglement with the environment) would be the measure of IRreversibility. --Dc987 (talk) 22:15, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I get the reversible counters now. I often get lazy: since all irreversible processes induce decoherence, which can act as measurements, I often slip into thinking that all measurements are irreversible. This isn't the case and reversible measurements are possible (with a more advanced technology not yet available), as your idea of reversible counters / multipliers testifies. Indeed the natural language for dealing with reversible measurements is via entanglement (more on this later). Everett modelled measurement as a type or subset of "subject-object correlation", but that is basically what we now call entanglement. However I don't think this changes the outcome of the experiment -- as the photon passes a counter it effectively induces wf collapse, so that we still would see only one of the counters recording a hit. Reversibility only changes things if we try to reverse everything -- but that would involve wiping from our own memory which of the counters detected the photon, in addition to reversing the counter. We could still retain a memory of one of the counters firing, but not which one. If you have an entropic process triggered by one of the counters then you can't reverse the process -- but this is the only consequence, namely that the setup is irreversible. It doesn't change the behaviour of the counters.

Returning to the subject of entanglement and reversible measurements. It occurs to me that reversible measurements are non-entropic (by definition), yet they still induce, or are the result of, entanglements (or correlations in Everett's language). Therefore we can have entanglements and measurements without changes in entropy. This also suggests that wavefunction collapse can be reversible, and not always associated with decoherence.--Michael C. Price ^talk 01:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I would prefer if the observer wouldn't look at the every counter value. This will create a lot of decoherence/entropy. Only once and after a very large number of elementary outcomes, with a lot of entropy released by the heater.--Dc987 (talk) 04:37, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

"Reversibility only changes things if we try to reverse everything" - Yes. Everything in the light-cone of the observer (including the observer in some QM interpretations). Hopefully it is not an infinity. That's why I've specified: "S - entropy, produced by the apparatus in the space-time light cone of the observer".

I understand the measurement-as-entanglement approach. I like it better, compared to the orthodox "collapse of the wave function" one, but it doesn't really matter here. In the Copenhagen interpretation we simply would not include the observer into the setup. The observer will look at the counter, and this will cause the "irreversible collapse of the wave function". --Dc987 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

It looks like this thought experiment is interesting enough to deserve an article. At least as a fallacy, if not as a real thing. Tell, if you maybe interested collaborating on that. Either way, take a look at these extra nice diagrams that I've made to illustrate the main point of this thought experiment. See: [5] --Dc987 (talk) 19:25, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

It might make an article. Most of this stuff has been written about by Everett, DeWitt or Deutsch, to some extent, so we should be able to source it - just! Or do you mean a real article?

I would think real arxiv.org article. I think it is a nice thought experiment. Even if there is some fallacy in it, it is worth publishing as a 'common fallacy'. I've also made a small real-life experiment out of a 4Mbps QRNG, so there would be some real experimental results (likely not the effect itself, only a boundary on the effect). --Dc987 (talk) 02:20, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The whole point of this thought experiment is to illustrate how the probabilities on the outcome of a single quantum event can be influenced by the future entropy considerations. The fact that they are influenced is trivial. Simply consider the setup with the quantum harmonic oscillators.--Dc987 (talk) 20:12, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the effect of the (reversible) counters is to reversibly collapse / entangle the wavefunction. The effect of the entropy release is to make this entanglement irreversible. But the transition from reversible to irreversible is not, it seems to me, immediately measurable. We only see the effect of the entropy should we later try and reverse everything and we then find that we can't. --Michael C. Price ^talk 09:55, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

"the effect of the (reversible) counters is to reversibly collapse / entangle the wavefunction"?? Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying. Lets use Copenhagen. And assume that at the moment the observer looks at the counter - the experiment ends / wavefunction collapses. Before that everything is quantum mechanical. The photon is going all paths at once. OK? Now the idea: 50/50 beam splitter does not necessarily splits the beam 50/50. The equilibrium could be moved, if Path A releases more entropy than Path B.--Dc987 (talk) 03:05, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Can't think of how to explain this at the moment. Give me some time to mull it over....--Michael C. Price ^talk 23:43, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, try this: we are using or treating the counter readings as recordable data that we can refer to at any later time, this implies that we are dealing with an irreversible counter-observer combination. Therefore all the reversible stuff we talked about is a red herring (albeit interesting and informative); we can regard the counters as irreversible (even though they may not be) since the observer-counter combination is irreversible. Therefore the wavefunction can be regarded as collapsing as the photon passes the counters. This implies that we can regard the counters as highly entropic (dS >> kT). Entropy releases further down the measurement chain have no additional effect on the earlier measurements, since you can't retroactively collapse the wavefunction twice.

Or, equivalently: the counter readings are permanent data (in our memories, on our notepads etc); anything that creates a permanent trace is, or can be regarded as, irreversible, which means it can be treated as highly entropic. Therefore the wavefunction can be regarded as collapsing as the photon passes the counters. Entropy releases further down the measurement chain have no additional effect on the earlier measurements, since you can't retroactively collapse the wavefunction twice.

--Michael C. Price ^talk 11:18, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Only final counters value (measured by the observer) should be treated as "recordable data that we can refer to at any later time". The observer don't suppose to continuously record or look at the counters. Just like if you have a quantum computer, the observer is not supposed to do any extra measurements as that would ruin the computation. Your argument (dS >> kT) still stands though. It looks like kT should be present somewhere in the equation.--Dc987 (talk) 23:51, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Oooopps : I meant dS >> k not dS >> kT ! --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:06, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

As long as dS >> kT is all that is important. So the later entropy has no effect since the kT threshold has already been passed.--Michael C. Price ^talk 12:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

If (dS >> kT) effectively disables the effect, some function of it should be somewhere in the $N_{A}/N_{B} = e^{\frac{S_{A} - S_{B}}{k}}$ . Where would it be? (It could be nice to have a precise formula. I think that it could place some tangible limits on the observer effects, etc).

It is still seems counter intuitive to me, that we can create a large potential well on one path and somehow the nature doesn't really use the opportunity. Either way, I think we've beaten that horse to death :) Thank you for your comments!

If you maybe interested in collaboration/publishing a more or less real article on the topic - I've managed to realize the setup in a very precise fashion (optical QRNG, XOR with the MT199937 PRNG, plus practically no hardware bias). I will have a reasonable amount of data in a few weeks. --Dc987 (talk) 20:39, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Editing scientific articles

Michael, I started up an AN/I thread about your recent remarks at Wikipedia talk:Editing scientific articles. See here [6]. David Tombe (talk) 05:17, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] I am on probation

Thanks for your words of support, and your attempts to make this a better place. But it seems that lawyers are taking over. Is this inevitable? Could the process not have gone the other way, towards less government? I am not sure. This is an place with a large number of people, and administrative decisions are made by a Wiki-nobility.

I believe in this project, but I have always been hesitant about contributing to something which has an uncertain political future. The idea of granting power to the administratively minded, as opposed to the technical contributors, doesn't sit well with me.Likebox (talk) 18:31, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm very sorry to see the outcome, and I'm shocked at the speed and abitrary nature of the process. But it's done. If there's anything I can do, you know you only have to ask.

One definite piece of advice: don't waste your time debating with the admins about the logic or unfairness of the probabation; it will only make matters worse. You'll dig yourself in deeper and deeper, as Brews is doing.

With hindsight it is clear that only the way to change policy is by working on developing the policy and guidelines articles. Changing it by direct action is never going to work.

There are several grounds for appeal (such as it being indefinite, for example) but, IMO, you'd best let things cool off for a few months, be on your best behaviour, etc first. Carry on developing material as you already have on your own subpages; I can't see how anyone can object to that. --Michael C. Price ^talk 01:26, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 'On' vs. 'in'

then (a) that requires a citation, and, (b) you need to state that in the text, because, as i said, common usage is 'in' bed.Toyokuni3 (talk) 17:46, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay. --Michael C. Price ^talk 17:50, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Weight Diagram

You ask on my talk page about the SO(10) weight diagram.

"I get everything except the vertical column of arrows and numbers on the right hand side. How do they work?"

The arrows and labels to the right are just keeping track of the level of the different weights (By convention the levels start from zero at the top and grow as you come down the weight diagram). This is not a very important feature of the weight diagram and could be omitted for brevity.

Do you have a similar diagram for the Pati-Salam model?

The Pati-Salam group SU(4)xSU(2)xSU(2) is actually a maximal sub-group of the SO(10), so you can actually produce weight diagrams for the Pati-Salam model out of SO(10) weight diagrams. All you have to do is remove the connections labeled with a 2 (the yellow connections on my diagram) (That brings you down to the SU(4)xSU(2) sub-group) and add new connections for the second SU(2) component of the Pati-Salam. These will jump 7 levels down (more specifically you have to go down 1 connection labeled 1, 2 connections labeled 2, 2 connections labeled 3, 1 connection labeled 4, and 1 connection labeled 5 - not necessarily in that order). For instance, the anti-neutrino at the very top should be connected to the positron at level 7 (follow for instance the sequence: anti-neutrino--5--anti-up--3--anti-up--4--anti-up--2--up--1--down--3--down--2--positron), and the anti-ups on levels 1,2, and 3 get connected to the anti-downs on levels 8, 9, and 10. That way the SO(10) 16 representation breaks down into the Pati-Salam 4x2x1 + 4x1x2 representations. Dauto (talk) 16:21, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

If we keep posting at each other talk pages our conversation will end up split in two which may make it hard to follow later on. I will be answering you on my talk page from now on. Dauto (talk) 20:04, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Please be careful

Michael, Please be careful not to get blocked for being a disruptive editor. It seems easy in Wikipedia for editors to get too caught up in the heat of battle, and make errors in judgement. You may want to compare your actions to the actions of those that you believe behaved improperly in the previous turmoil on the article. Regards, --Bob K31416 (talk) 15:22, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Why don't you take your concerns to the appropriate thread on the SoL talk page? --Michael C. Price ^talk 15:25, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Cat conflict

Thank you for joining the discussion. I know you well enough to believe that you would not be so sure without good sources, so I know now that I am really on to something. Those solid sources must have errors and we are in a position to point them out now. David R. Ingham (talk) 22:25, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

See my response on the talk page. Einstein a good enough source? :-) --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:18, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] mistaken revert

I almost reverted the guy who removed the Cherenkov section myself, but in checking into why the section seemed to be broken, I found that Timothy Rias had put it back double after removing it. The anon's mistake was mainly to not comment his edit; it was easily mistaken for vandalism. So, I repaired the punctuation and took out the duplicate that you restored. Dicklyon (talk) 07:53, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

Hah! Thanks. Too quick with the D key. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:01, 7 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Making sure things settle down

Hello! I am guessing you know about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Pdeitiker.27s_edits You might also want to see how it has developed, and keep this page in mind: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Andrew_Lancaster/PB666 The aim is never to need to use it, but for now I suggest we keep it up to date.--Andrew Lancaster (talk) 17:47, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

No, I hadn't seen any of that. I disengaged with P awhile back, after some fruitless attempts to stop the juggernaut of destruction. He does seem to be posting fewer walls of text, which is a good sign. --Michael C. Price ^talk 22:35, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I'm going with the "nuclear" option now: [7]. I believe it will take less effort to improve the article via an RfC or some other remedial route than it will by direct and fruitless dialogue with PB666. --Michael C. Price ^talk 04:06, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] BTW

Flicking through your edit history (and incidentally establishing you are fairly credible, even though you write in a rather irritated style... I cannot complain you failed to read my comments properly since it is obvious I also failed to read one of yours properly) I was curious about [8]. Do you know Polkinghorne (or Paul Sheppard who is the other person I know who roughly overlapped with you)? --BozMo talk 19:29, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I admire the guy (Polkinghorne), but don't know him personally. I went to a talk he gave in early '80s, but, in truth, recall little of it now. I guess you know him from his Cambridge days. Lucky you (and I'm not being sarcastic!). --Michael C. Price ^talk 21:36, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I have met him a few times (over coffee when he was at Queens) but I don't think he would know me from Adam. I like him and I guess intellectually he was a significant influence on my religious views. Funnily the only bit I really disagreed with him on ref religion is obscure and to do with inflation which is your kind of area. --BozMo talk 23:21, 11 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean by "on ref religion" but I'd be interested to hear more about how it relates to inflation. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:33, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Sorry. I am not a great communicator and this may not make any sense at all. I have no idea if your Polkinghorne interest is religious or scientific so this may mean nothing to you. The issue was whether there is an argument for the existence of God based on the extraordinary nature of scientific fact. I think since the mid seventies (after Hans Wilhelm Frei published the Eclipse of Biblical Narrative) most Christians I know, seem to have accepted that "other explanations exist" for contemporary physical phenomena without needing an interventionist model to explain how God, people, free will etc relate to the physical world (i.e. science predicts without needing to invoke God or invoke people in an explanation), or if they did not accept it they realised it did not matter. I was still an atheist then so when I became a Christian a reasonable understanding of how the theory worked was already part of the package. Polkinghorne was absolutely on the money concerning the lack of need for scientific inconsistency and helpful in discussing the Resurrection (sorry, this would be a long note but its a bit of a special case) but was still arguing in the 1980s that coincidence in relationalships between physical numbers in the origin of the universe pointed to a God. At the time, aside the principle, some of Polkinghorne's coincident relationships looked within reach of scientific theories particularly inflation. Stephen Hawking, who was also on the edges of my acquaintence, and has similar religious views I think, made some comments on this after he heard a Sermon by P in Great St Mary's church, although he seemed to support the argument too at the time. I haven't followed the science since then. --BozMo talk 07:19, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

IMO Polkinghorne is correct to argue in the 1980s that coincidence in relationalships between physical numbers in the origin of the universe pointed to a God. Except that I would add, or multiverse, which is how Martin Rees, a student of JP's, puts it. As an atheist I opt for the multiverse. (I believe this is also Hawking's position.) Inflation doesn't really come into it anymore directly, although it is a fascinating process in its own right and (as you've noted) is something I try to follow. I think Hawking's comments were made in the early days of inflationary theory when rather less was understood about the formation of galactic superclusters than now, and it seemed necessary to invoke the anthropic principle to explain it. Although I see that inflation and the anthropic principle still seem to have some overlap. --Michael C. Price ^talk 08:16, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, thats interesting. Hawking isn't an atheist though, but nor am I and I do not look for evidence of God in fundamental science so until something better comes along I ought to read about multiverses (I am probably more agnostic that JP though: I think I would be open to embrace a better world view point if one turned up)... --BozMo talk 08:35, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

SH's ex-wife Jane insists he's an atheist. Depends what you mean by that, I guess. (Technically I'm agnostic, but I can't believe that a God would have any interest in humans over, say, slime mould. So I think of myself as an atheist.)--Michael C. Price ^talk 19:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Never met Jane. Yeah, definitions are pretty much everything. Didn't Darwin say God must have an extraordinary fondness for Beetles? Perhaps they ate the slime mold. --BozMo talk 19:42, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Haldane not Darwin apparently. --BozMo talk 19:45, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Beetles and stars. Yes, an immortal quotation. Difficult to top. --Michael C. Price ^talk 19:49, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Penrose interpretation

I wander, what's your view on the gravity-induced decoherence/Penrose interpretation/objective collapse? Do you think it could fit the MWI picture nicely and determine "when the splitting happens"? --Dc987 (talk) 00:41, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

I think Tom Kibble has written something about this as well. Re objective collapse, the main problem it seems to me is that gravity defines a natural Planck mass, yet much lighter objects such as single electrons and photons appear to collapse. Which is another way of saying that it is hard to see how a weak force like gravity could induce an electron to collapse. The same problem would exist using gravity to induce decoherence; gravity just seems to weak to do this either.

If the graviton is found to behave as other quantum partickes or forces then I guess (?) that these ideas would have to be shelved. --Michael C. Price ^talk 00:55, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

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