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A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

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Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#81
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and objects move along geodesics You say that like it's so obvious. But why do they move in the first place?

Good discussion of your question: http://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/24359/why-do-obje...

I thought those seemed part and parcel. :) "I'm in the gravity well of a star" leads to "this alters the geodesic of spacetime that the I tumble down", which made me wonder "wait, why does it tumble down geodesics to begin with".

The answers seems to be "physics doesn't have to abide by your intuition or need for narratives, human"

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#82
post #53
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been keenly following this area of research and have heard some of the talks and read some papers. I concur with the sketch given by @gaze. 1. The notion of unitarity is a "common sense" rule that implies that you can consistently assign probabilities to possible outcomes in a quantum mechanical experiment ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarity_%28physics%29 ) 2. The notion of locality states that what happens…

> 2. The notion of locality states that what happens on Jupiter better not affect how fast your code compiles this morning (or how experiments run on earth). This is an important postulate, because if this weren't true, we might as well give up on doing science as there would be arbitrarily many external influences we couldn't take into account. Unfortunately for science, the principle of locality has been violated m…

The way I see it, locality in every Lorentz frame = causality.

What Bell experiments disprove is local realism. In the conventional formulation of quantum physics (quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, etc.) it's realism that takes the fall. Locality is still crucial in the conventional perspective.

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#83
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's a lot of exciting research going on in the context of integrable systems (~Bethe Ansatz) and N=2 quantum field theories. However, some people are also working on integrability in N=4 theories, which might be relevant to the ideas in this article. It's a thought some people (including Arkani-Hamed) have expressed, but it's too early to tell.

You don't know any of Neitzke's grad students by any chance, do you? A certain fellow with a fondness for army boots and camo fatigues used to live down the hall from me at Caltech....

A certain fellow working down the hall from me is quirky enough to match that description :-)

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#84
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't my field (a.k.a. I'm talking out of my ass), but I can give it my best shot. Usually with QFT you start with locality and unitarity as a sort of starting point. You might hope that you could come up with something much simpler where locality and unitarity come about naturally from the model itself (the goal of physics being to show that "it had to be this way".) QFT tells us how the world works by calculat…

Do you know of a good review paper?

http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.1697

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#85
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is possible that Gravity as we know it is an illusion. For example, the Newtonian take on Gravity was that it was a force. That according to Einstein was illusory, Gravity was really a geometric manifestation due to the curvature of space-time. With that take Gravity as we know it is different from the Gravity as was once known. However the Newtonian view that Gravity is a force can and still does facilitate usefu…

>I took QFT some years back and it also went over my head. There is still that mental gap of where the only way you can think about time is via time-(in)dependent wave function. Total bullshit. The wave function is time dependent.

Given psi(x, t), if the relation between x and t is not non- linear. Then you can have a time-independent Schrodinger equation with a time-independent wave-function i.e psi(x).

However, you do not need start with a time dependent wave function to justify the time-independent wave function.

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ah yes, well that solves the mystery, doesn't it. The universe arose out of pure geometry. That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? It's the idea that every mathematical structure just "exists", like "poof magic", and the simpler ones would, like, have greater weight. Kind of a literal interpretation of Occam's Razor, really. A corrolary is, the simpler the laws of physi…

> That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? Of course, I love Tegmark's speculative work. But that's all it is, speculative. It's like reading science fiction, one shouldn't confuse it with reality, at least not without evidence to justify that. > It's the idea that every mathematical structure just 'exists', like 'poof magic', and the simpler ones would, like, have greater…

> There's no evidence that this is how reality works,

Agree, to the extent we're talking rather direct evidence. It's like trying to distinguish between "poof magic" and "God did it". Quite impossible.

> and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way.

Disagree. It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it.

> All current evidence is that it's a fantasy

You mean, current evidence speaks again the level IV multiverse hypothesis? Or something else? Anyway, please name three.

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> [The idea of a timeless universe is] a little different from the idea that reality is an incarnation of pure mathematics.

As far as I know, we try to express the laws of physics with pure mathematics since Newton, if not earlier. I think it at least indicates a hope that reality may be accurately described by pure math. Provided we can, good luck trying distinguishing that, and "being an incarnation of math. No way we can test it from within.

> In case, the fact that ideas have been around for some time has little bearing on their validity.

Of course. I was merely pointing out that this idea was more ordinary that you made it out to be. To me, it is not sensationalist at all. It's something I more or less independently thought about in my teen years.

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I maintain that Occam's Razor always suggest that the true explanation is simpler than the one we currently have. We're not logically omniscient. For any sufficiently complex explanation, there is always this nagging doubt that we missed something. Since by Occam's razor, the simpler explanation is the best explanation, the mere possibility of the existence of a simpler explanation is enough to suggest we're not there yet.

But it's no more than that, a suggestion. With enough double and triple checking, computer-verified proofs… we can be rather sure we did find the simplest explanation.

In the case of our current understanding of physics, we quite know for sure that we are missing something. In my opinion, that makes Occam's Razor's suggestion all the stronger.

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> By your premise, actual simplification would not be surprising, but claims have no necessary correlation to actual simplifications.

I was just saying that when I hear someone claiming something that I don't find very surprising, I generally take that as serious evidence that the claim is true. I may not believe them, but they would at least get my attention.

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> There are certainly cases where basic mathematical principles are expressed in a very direct way in the universe. Probability in quantum mechanics is one example,

Nope, not this one. :-) Quantum mechanics has to do with complex amplitudes, whose square determine the Born statistics. Plus, the wave function as we know it is deterministic. The relation to probability theory is tenuous at best. It serves more at hand-waving your way to the Copenhagen Interpretation, instead of biting the bullet and posit a collapse theory.

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#87
post #82
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2. The notion of locality states that what happens on Jupiter better not affect how fast your code compiles this morning (or how experiments run on earth). This is an important postulate, because if this weren't true, we might as well give up on doing science as there would be arbitrarily many external influences we couldn't take into account. Unfortunately for science, the principle of locality has been violated m…

The way I see it, locality in every Lorentz frame = causality. What Bell experiments disprove is local realism . In the conventional formulation of quantum physics (quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, etc.) it's realism that takes the fall. Locality is still crucial in the conventional perspective.

Realism looks like such a misnomer. Or does it mean something deeper than the existence of a hidden variable?

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That was a serious hypothesis before this. Heard about Tegmark's level IV multiverse? Of course, I love Tegmark's speculative work. But that's all it is, speculative. It's like reading science fiction, one shouldn't confuse it with reality, at least not without evidence to justify that. > It's the idea that every mathematical structure just 'exists', like 'poof magic', and the simpler ones would, like, have greater…

> There's no evidence that this is how reality works, Agree, to the extent we're talking rather direct evidence. It's like trying to distinguish between "poof magic" and "God did it". Quite impossible. > and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way. Disagree. It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it. > All current evide…

> It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it.

I don't think it's simple at all. What is the role of "mathematics" in the conjecture - what is the word supposed to mean, and what about this new definition of mathematics results in the creation of physical realities? It seems unrelated to the discipline I know of by that name, which at its most general, is an approach to defining, analyzing, and using formal models. Essentially Tegmark is saying "all formal models (of a universe) must have a concrete realization", but why, and what is the point of introducing formal models into the picture - what role do they play?

It comes down to this comment of yours:

> we try to express the laws of physics with pure mathematics since Newton, if not earlier. I think it at least indicates a hope that reality may be accurately described by pure math. Provided we can, good luck trying distinguishing that, and "being an incarnation of math." No way we can test it from within.

To test a claim, the claim first has to be stated coherently. Mathematics is an approach we use to describe and model things, including the universe. It simply isn't some sort of creative force existing independently of the minds that can contemplate it. So when someone says "the Big Bang and cosmological evolution of the universe arose out of pure geometry", they are speaking incoherent nonsense, because "pure geometry" is simply not the sort of entity that can produce such an effect.

For this to make sense, someone would have to describe the nature of this creative force that they're calling pure geometry, and then the only connection to what we normally call geometry is that ordinary geometry would be a way of describing the effects of that creative force.

Geometry or mathematics are approaches to modeling, and are neither physical phenomena themselves nor the cause of those phenomena. As soon as someone claims that "it" is the cause of phenomena, they have committed an equivocation fallacy and begun talking about some other "it" which they haven't defined.

> You mean, current evidence speaks again the level IV multiverse hypothesis? Or something else? Anyway, please name three.

I was responding more to your characterization than to Tegmark's actual definition: if "every mathematical structure just exists" and "the simpler ones ... have greater weight", then it should have observable consequences, but we don't observe such consequences. For example, we might expect things to be constructed from pure Platonic solids, we might expect the subatomic realm to be less fuzzy, etc.

> With enough double and triple checking, computer-verified proofs… we can be rather sure we did find the simplest explanation.

Actually I don't agree with that. Finding simplicity does not always lend itself to formal process. But I'm saying that although Occam's Razor can remind us that a better explanation could be simpler than the one we currently have, it does not tell us that this is the case.

> I was just saying that when I hear someone claiming something that I don't find very surprising, I generally take that as serious evidence that the claim is true.

We differ on that. The fact that something is not surprising is not evidence. Many claims that are not surprising turn out to be false. To be more likely to believe something that seems unsurprising to you implies that you're choosing beliefs based on personal bias.

> Quantum mechanics has to do with complex amplitudes, whose square determine the Born statistics. Plus, the wave function as we know it is deterministic.

None of this contradicts what I was saying. Those complex amplitudes are complex to deal with superposition, and once that is taken into account, probability densities in QM are described perfectly by probability theory, so I don't know in what sense you mean that the relation is "tenuous". This has very little to do with one's position on interpretations, it's there in the math whether you like it or not.

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#89
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, you made a comment four months ago that simple, geometric models are likely to be important?

The point was that these techniques that people are decrying as just applying to super idealized cases in N=4 SUSY produced real computationally and experimentally testable results in real lower dimensional systems. However, no one is going to be putting out excited press releases about thermodynamic Bethe Ansaetze.

Thanks for clarifying. That it's not limited idealized cases is a very good point, and my apologies for my earlier snarky comment.

Re: A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no evidence that this is how reality works, Agree, to the extent we're talking rather direct evidence. It's like trying to distinguish between "poof magic" and "God did it". Quite impossible. > and there's no particular reason to think that it should work this way. Disagree. It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it. > All current evide…

> It's the simplest hypothesis to date that I know of. Therefore, I assign at least a non trivial probability to it. I don't think it's simple at all. What is the role of "mathematics" in the conjecture - what is the word supposed to mean, and what about this new definition of mathematics results in the creation of physical realities? It seems unrelated to the discipline I know of by that name, which at its most gene…

(If you want to continue this conversation offline, you can reach me by e-mail —see my profile and my website.)

Okaay.

By "simplicity", I mean something like the inverse of Kolmogorov complexity. I know it's not very well defined, but given a Turing complete language, there is a proof that a given program is the shortest of its equivalence class —if it is.

I said "simplest", not "easy to grasp for a human brain", or even "simple". It's just that "poof magic we have simple mathematical rules on which the universe runs" is a simpler hypothesis than anything else I have heard from (such as the God Hypothesis). There's also a certain… elegance in positing that every set of mathematical rules are actualized. That way, we don't have to pick a particular rule, making the master program even simpler.

On Quantum Mechanics, okay, I guess you're right. Just remember that while amplitudes are out there in the world, probabilities are in the mind.

Do you think plausible that we could, in principle, find a mathematical model that perfectly describes the universe? To me, the answer is obviously "yes", even though I'm not certain that we could find this model in practice. Now, assuming our universe does run on math, it is quite impossible to test for different kinds of ontological existence. Do we live in a simulation? If the simulation isn't buggy, we don't stand a chance at root escalation, and we can't tell. Does the mathematical rules exist, like "poof magic", or do they need some exterior force or entity to be actualized? Again, we can't tell, because there's just no way out of our universe.

> For example, we might expect things to be constructed from pure Platonic solids, we might expect the subatomic realm to be less fuzzy, etc.

Maybe not. The actual laws of physics may be even simpler than that, despite the complexity that arise from them. We'll see when we find them. Occam's razor doesn't favour surface simplicity, it favours simplicity at the deepest level.

> The fact that something is not surprising is not evidence.

Indeed. It is prior information, which is just as important as evidence. Without prior information, you don't stand a chance at interpreting evidence. Data can't speak for itself.

> To be more likely to believe something that seems unsurprising to you implies that you're choosing beliefs based on personal bias.

Or, it could mean that I tailor my surprise to my actual probability of the thing being true, based on the information I have. Heck, I have emotions, I might as well use them. By the way, didn't you notice that you're not surprised all the time? That emotion isn't as irrational as a Straw Vulcan would believe.

I'm not sure what "personal bias" you speak of, but there's no escaping the fact that different people have access to different prior information. They will inevitably make different probability estimates, even if they are perfect Bayesians.

You should read Probability Theory: The Logic of Science. It's an excellent book.

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