21–30 of 49 posts
They should name this proposal "quantum sneakernet". It's pretty weird to imagine aliens light years away could have a constellation of quantum networked telescopes and be taking Google Maps-resolution photos of Earth.
I'm certainly interested in this, but for different reasons. Over the years, several people have bent my ears about Duane's theorem that suggests the double-slit experiment is not demonstrating quantum effects at all. It strikes me that this could help establish or overturn such claims. https://billwadge.wordpress.com/2019/10/25/double-slit-exper... Any thoughts? Could it help to test it on a planet-sized scale?
I would think Abraham-Minkowski problem would make people wary about defining rules for momentum exchange with solid systems.
That animation at the top of the article of the possible locations of the photon is very cool. Quantum behavior seems so counterintuitive to us because we're just apes who evolved minds to survive in the macroscopic world of the African savanna. But I wonder if we perhaps taught quantum behavior to kids from an early age, whether they could get an intuitive understanding for it, in the the same way that I can, like,…
It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…
Is there a resource (book, videos, ...) that takes this approach to teaching it (and accessible to/understandable by a motivated layman?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what is configuration space
"Configuration space" means that the state of the world is described by some list of numbers that don't actually correspond directly to locations in space or time. Or even mass or energy. It means that those things aren't really fundamental. What's fundamental is some other set of things that aren't too difficult to work with mathematically, but which don't correspond exactly to anything you're familiar with. The bes…
And both of those are among the details which can be safely ignored. The only math you really need in order to understand QM conceptually is linear algebra. (And actually, even the harmonic oscillators are not that difficult to understand. If you understand Euler's identity, you're 90% of the way there.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…
I’m not sure I’m following… are you saying that the wave functions are just a yaml for the behavior in physical space?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…
Wow. Is there a resource (book, videos, ...) that takes this approach to teaching it (and accessible to/understandable by a motivated layman?)
AFAICT I am the primary proponent of the pedagogical significance of this idea, so maybe I should write something up. Watch my blog.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…
Wow. Is there a resource (book, videos, ...) that takes this approach to teaching it (and accessible to/understandable by a motivated layman?)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what is configuration space
"Configuration space" means that the state of the world is described by some list of numbers that don't actually correspond directly to locations in space or time. Or even mass or energy. It means that those things aren't really fundamental. What's fundamental is some other set of things that aren't too difficult to work with mathematically, but which don't correspond exactly to anything you're familiar with. The bes…
How is that different from hidden variables?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
what is configuration space
"Configuration space" means that the state of the world is described by some list of numbers that don't actually correspond directly to locations in space or time. Or even mass or energy. It means that those things aren't really fundamental. What's fundamental is some other set of things that aren't too difficult to work with mathematically, but which don't correspond exactly to anything you're familiar with. The bes…
gp's premise about learning with the multi-particle landscape first sort of blew my mind.
That animation at the top of the article of the possible locations of the photon is very cool. Quantum behavior seems so counterintuitive to us because we're just apes who evolved minds to survive in the macroscopic world of the African savanna. But I wonder if we perhaps taught quantum behavior to kids from an early age, whether they could get an intuitive understanding for it, in the the same way that I can, like,…
It's actually not that hard to get an intuitive understanding of QM even as an adult. The key is having the right pedagogy, which is very rare. IMHO the key to the right pedagogy is just one crucial insight: the wave function lives in configuration space , not in physical space. How physical space emerges from configuration space is a deep mystery. No one knows. But it is CRUCIAL not to conflate these two things. Mos…
Exactly, how quantum collapse happens, or what quantum collapse even is, is one of the biggest mysteries of physics.
And I'll argue that as long as we don't have an explanation for that bridge between the "configuration space" and the "physical space" like you call them, the former may as well be magic.
Yes it would make learning and explaining the rules of magic a bit easier if you get into that mindset, but it still doesn't make it intuitive, but just easier to accept.
If anything, it does feel we could very well be living in a simulation governed by arbitrarily defined rules that exist on a different plane than other physical laws. Hmmm maybe we should give non-local hidden variable theories another look...