Saturday, September 28, 2019

Does Dr Quantum Cheat At Cards?

Go to the store and buy a fully wrapped fresh deck of standard playing cards. Have ten friends available to shuffle the new deck starting with person one through person ten, ten shuffles per person. At the end of those 100 shuffles, you'd probably agree that the deck is about as shuffled as it can be. Now place the deck on top of the table, all 52 cards face down.

Now the question is, what is the value of the top card (or the 5th card or the 26th card or the 51st card) down from the top? Which card doesn't matter; just choose one card in the one location.

Quantum physics will give you several possible scenarios.

Many Worlds Interpretation #1: You know, and I know, that the top card can be one of 52 possibilities. No one possibility is more or less likely than the next. So, since there's nothing that favours one card over another, when the top card is turned over, all 52 possibilities eventuate. That's accomplished because the cosmos divides into 51 further universes. In our Universe, one card will eventuate as the top card. Since there are 51 other possibilities, all equally possible, each one happens in each of the 51 new universes. There is no favouritism.

The issue of credibility comes into play when you realise that throughout our entire universe, zillions of 'forks in the road' decision or option branches happen each second. Thus every second zillions of new universes have to be created in order to give each and every possibility a fair go. Considering how many seconds have elapsed in our universe in the past 13.7 billion years, well that's a tad more newly created universes than you can count on your fingers and toes! Further, each newly created universe, a branch-off of ours, in turn generates zillions more universes each second, each of which creates zillions more each second, and so on and so on.

https://www.wikipedia.org

The 'many worlds' tag isn't quite 'infinite worlds', but the number of universes present and accounted for is several orders of magnitude larger by now than 'many' would suggest. The good news is that in one universe, all of those 'forks in the road' over all the millennia have been by chance allowed you to become Master of the Universe - well that specific universe anyway!

Many Worlds Interpretation #2: The other side of the Many Worlds coin is that from the get-go there already exists all those other 51 universes, each with a new deck of cards shuffled 100 times. In those 51 universes plus our own, all top card possibilities are realized. Of course that means that in the beginning there were all those zillions and zillions and zillions of universes each one having its own unique cosmic history. When all are put together, everything that can happen does happen, so all possibilities get a fair go and thus their moment of glory basking in the sunshine.

Copenhagen Interpretation: In this scenario, as above, all you and I know is that the top card is one of 52 possibilities. In the Copenhagen Interpretation, not one of those 52 possibilities is really real until such time as someone peeks. Options all exist equally and simultaneously until then. That's called the wave-function - it's a measure of probability. It's the very act of observation or measurement (same difference) that gives rise to a single and unique reality. That's termed the collapse of the wave-function. No observation, therefore no reality, just a superposition or a composite of all possible realities. [Actually the entire deck is in a state of ever shifting superposition since the value of every card is undetermined.] The problem here is that how is it that the lucky card becomes the lucky card and the other 51 possibilities go 'poof' into the realm of unreality. One card lives; 51 cards die without rhyme or reason.

The other problem is that when it comes to 'forks in the road', the universe has made the reality/unreality decision zillions of times without there being anyone around to peek, make a measurement or an observation. Taken to its logical conclusion the Copenhagen Interpretation suggests that the Universe exists and has tangible reality because observers exist. Without observers (life) the entire Universe would be in just one superposition of all possible states simultaneously. So, the question is, is an observer really necessary in order for a state of probabilities to become one actual reality and hence other possibilities achieve unreality? If not, and it would appear that's the case since the universe hasn't always had peeping-toms, the Copenhagen Interpretation is kaput. The Universe did nicely without observers (life) for billions of years. Observers are nice but unnecessary.

Common Sense Interpretation: Forget quantum probabilities. Causality rules, OK? If you observe all the variables that went into all the shuffling of that deck of cards, each and every one was grounded in cause-and-effect. If you filmed the entire shuffling sequence in high speed motion, then played back the film frame-by-frame, by knowing the original sequence of the brand new deck, you should be able to determine what the top card was after those 100 shuffles. There is no probability involved. Okay, even if you have no idea what the top card was after 100 shuffles, it is fixed and certain. The top card is not a composite of all 52 possibilities. Whether the top card is turned over seconds after that final shuffle, or 1000 years later, the value of that top card will be the same. Unfortunately you won't tend to find this kind of explanation in the textbooks as any association between quantum physics and causality is frowned upon.

Discussion:

Now quantum physicists will tell you that in the realm of the very, very tiny, you cannot observe or measure to the absolute last decimal place the relative values quantum sized objects have. That's because in the micro realm the very act of observation or measurement changes the very values of what you are trying to observe or measure. How is that? Well, if you wish to observe or measure a very tiny object, say an electron, you have got to bounce a photon (light particle) off of it and have that photon enter your eyeball or measuring device and thus record what information that photon reveals. However, the energy of that photon is sufficient to alter the velocity, position and trajectory of that electron when it hits and bounces off on the way to your eyeball. So, the best you can say is that the values have a certain probability of being this or that. The electron is somewhere within this range since you know not where the photon knocked it.

Further, the value of the electron's velocity, position or trajectory is also uncertain (to us) because of wave-particle duality. The particle electron is actually or allegedly waving in 3-D all over the place, which adds to only being able to describe the electron's velocity, position or trajectory in probabilistic terms. While that's true enough, that doesn't translate, in my book anyway, that there isn't an absolute last decimal place to whatever value you're interested in. Like with the deck of cards, you don't know the value of the top card after 100 shuffles but you had no doubt there was one, and one only value. That's a certainty. That doesn't change the fact that the probability, as far as you are concerned, of that top card being such-and-such was 1 in 52.

https://exed.canvas.harvard.edu/eportfolios/3024/Home/Incredible_HP2H88_Exam_Hacks_with_Valid_HP2H88_Braindumps
https://exed.canvas.harvard.edu/eportfolios/3024/Home/Get_XK0004_Braindumps_for_Straightforward_Good_results
https://exed.canvas.harvard.edu/eportfolios/3024/Home/Believing_In_HPE0J58_Braindumps_Myths_for_Far_better_Outcome_in_HPE0J58_Exam
https://exed.canvas.harvard.edu/eportfolios/3024/Home/Updated_HP2H86_Braindumps_To_Pass_HP2H86_Exam
https://exed.canvas.harvard.edu/eportfolios/3024/Home/_Actual_Veritas_VCS323_Braindumps__Your_Administration_of_Veritas_Backup_Exec_16_Success_Companion

Now I have no problem with electrons waving all over the place - it's what photons (light waves) do. It's just that the electron has an independent reality as a tiny little 'billiard ball', and so despite what the textbooks say, an electron cannot be in more than one place at one point in time. Like the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, there's the position of the unknowable electron. But position it has. X marks the spot! The electron exists at time T at coordinates A, B, & C.

Put it this way, probability is just having lack of sufficient information to determine the absolute state of affairs of whatever system you are interested in. Your lack of information maybe because it is too complex or difficult to acquire to the degree required or there are too many variables to compute simultaneously or because the act of uncovering that information itself changes the system. But ultimately, there is an absolute state of affairs even if to you it is a probable state of affairs. If you want to look at it this way, Mother Nature (or God - if you are so inclined) knows, even if you don't.

Note that what we are dealing with here is what we perceive as Mother Nature's uncertainty or probability when it comes to Her doing this or that. When it comes to human indecision or uncertainty or probability it is just that - indecision or uncertainty or probability. IMHO, Mother Nature is a fixed and final entity; only humans don't have sufficient data (and sufficient crunch power) or often can't even get the data through no fault of their own. Thus our interpretation is that Mother Nature isn't a fixed and final entity. It's an illusion - our illusion. It is human inability to see or measure the Big Picture in the micro realm that doesn't translate anywhere to the same degree in the macro realm which we live out our daily lives in.

Also note that so far I have thrown around terms like observers and measurements, and humans, and our, and you, and my, and us and similar sorts of words. In other words, when it comes to quantum uncertainty or probability, etc. as hinted at above, it's humans that see things as uncertain or as probabilistic. Now, what if we eliminate the human being from the picture? In fact, let's eliminate all living things. Let's have a universe without any life at all. Would the concept of probability or uncertainty or indeterminacy be meaningful in a universe without life?

In a universe without any observers, without any life, would it be meaningful to invoke the idea of quantum probability or uncertainty? It's not that difficult to imagine a universe without life. In fact that no doubt was the state of our universe for several billion years post the Big Bang event.

This is no doubt delving into deep philosophy, but to me the answer is clearly "NO". For billions of years the universe ticked over just fine and everything was classically clockwork with no indecision or indeterminacy or probability or uncertainty about what-was-what and what-was-where and what-was-who and what-was-when. There was nobody around to give a damn about this or that election's trajectory or position or velocity. It had one that was fixed and final. Of course there was no deck of 52 cards either, but if there had been, nobody would have given a damn about what the top card was or wasn't. It too would have been fixed and final.

Of course if Planet Earth is the be-all-and-end-all of life in the Universe, and Planet Earth goes kaput, well the Universe has been lifeless before and all the physics therein won't give a tinker's damn. Physics, independent of life, will just keep on keeping on. As it was in the beginning so it shall ever be.

So the moral of the story is the natural worlds of the micro and the macro meshes just fine as long as there are no observers* around to artificially classify and put micro and macro concepts into quantum (micro) pigeon holes and classical (macro) pigeon holes that needn't be put in pigeon holes at all.

There can be no fixed boundary line between the micro and the macro. The micro morphs into the macro or the macro morphs into the micro so it's really nonsense talking about quantum physics (micro) and classical physics (macro) - there is just physics.

*If no observers (life) existed, well that's just an extension of what if you didn't exist - and you didn't for 13.7 billion years and you won't for untold billions more.

No comments:

Post a Comment