Anyone remember nanorobots? About 30 years ago, they were getting the kind of hype quantum technologies are getting today. They were going to be injected into our bloodstream and cure diseases, among other uses. Didn’t happen, and we are no closer to that now than then, as far as I know.

 

The way i see it is that anyone that says that this will work or not work will just be randomly right or wrong because nobody can yet predict the future. There is knowledge we dont know yet and once we obtain that knowledge, there is no telling what advancements that could bring.

So if anyone takes you up on the wager then whoever gets the payoff will have won through pure randomness.

That's my take because i have seen too many times that some 'predictions' come true and some not come true.

This isn't about "predicting the future". It is about coming to terms with realization that the fundamental mechanisms for which quantum computing relies, its core principles, have never been validated. Even Einstein himself raised doubts about them. Do you not know or care that neither "wave function collapse" nor the super-position of infinite states have ever been observed in a single experiment? Nowadays there is so much funding to be had in the area of quantum computing that there is little incentive for researchers to do actual science. That might scare off the investors!

 

Anyone remember nanorobots? About 30 years ago, they were getting the kind of hype quantum technologies are getting today. They were going to be injected into our bloodstream and cure diseases, among other uses. Didn’t happen, and we are no closer to that now than then, as far as I know.

Actually, this may not be as far away as you might think. There has been a lot of progress in various related fields. I would expect the next 10-20 years to see some huge (nano?) leaps. Even today, coupling organic structures with electronics is completely doable. One day, they will likely gain the ability to operate under their own power and processing. For now at least, power and control can all be done externally. Biology is also rapidly advancing, thanks to AI, among other things.

 

This isn't about "predicting the future". It is about coming to terms with realization that the fundamental mechanisms for which quantum computing relies, its core principles, have never been validated. Even Einstein himself raised doubts about them. Do you not know or care that neither "wave function collapse" nor the super-position of infinite states have ever been observed in a single experiment? Nowadays there is so much funding to be had in the area of quantum computing that there is little incentive for researchers to do actual science. That might scare off the investors!

Hi,

Well yes i "know" some of that stuff but when we "know" something it is actually just current and may change in the future no matter how strongly we think it will stay the same. We have to always remember that Nature is in control of us we are not in control of Nature except in a very small way in a very small area of the universe.

You make a good point though about the foundations of the theory of quantum computing. It's hard to state that we can construct a building if we dont yet have any bricks and dont even know where they come from.

I thought about the wave function collapse also, and note that there is no equation for that yet i dont think.

To me the wave function collapse is just some way to describe a change in energy. A better way to understand it i think is as an antenna. In other words, everything is an antenna and any particle that happens to strike the 'antenna' is simply turned into another form of energy, which then in turn can turn into another form of energy such as heat, or it just turns into heat right off.
This view would mean that when a microwave hits food in the oven the food becomes the antenna. The energy turns into heat.
Is there a wavefunction collapse? It would seem more likely that the wave simply changes from one wave to another wave, so maybe the 'antenna' or 'food' acts as a filter also.
If we wanted to call it a 'collapse' then it would seem it just changes from one form to another. Nothing actually "goes away".
Think about it see what you think.

This area always interested me and i wondered if the wave could be turned into electrical energy first and then conducted over a tiny length which then depending on the material is turned into heat. If the material is more electrically conductive it would turn into heat but if less conductive then less heat and more of the total wave energy passes right through it.

 

The wave function gives a probability distribution. The collapse simply means that the probability goes to zero everywhere except where the particle is detected. It is not a physicsl change, it is a change of knowledge.

 

This isn't about "predicting the future". It is about coming to terms with realization that the fundamental mechanisms for which quantum computing relies, its core principles, have never been validated. Even Einstein himself raised doubts about them. Do you not know or care that neither "wave function collapse" nor the super-position of infinite states have ever been observed in a single experiment? Nowadays there is so much funding to be had in the area of quantum computing that there is little incentive for researchers to do actual science. That might scare off the investors!

You've got the cart and the horse in the wrong order. Skepticism of quantum computing is well deserved, but not because quantum mechanics is wrong. To be sure, QM is not complete, but that is very different from claiming that QM is wrong or not actual science (?!). The experimental evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the universe is fundamentally quantum-like. Any future theory of physics will necessarily include the results of QM, just as QM necessarily includes the results of Newtonian mechanics.

 

The wave function gives a probability distribution. The collapse simply means that the probability goes to zero everywhere except where the particle is detected. It is not a physicsl change, it is a change of knowledge.

Well that is certainly a convenient redefinition, but I can assure you that Werner Heisenberg himself would have disagreed. As far as he was concerned, it was a VERY real, physical mechanism.

You've got the cart and the horse in the wrong order. Skepticism of quantum computing is well deserved, but not because quantum mechanics is wrong. To be sure, QM is not complete, but that is very different from claiming that QM is wrong or not actual science (?!). The experimental evidence is overwhelmingly clear that the universe is fundamentally quantum-like. Any future theory of physics will necessarily include the results of QM, just as QM necessarily includes the results of Newtonian mechanics.

You should tell that Einstein! Because these issues were raise by him and others almost 100 years ago. Schrödinger's famous cat experiment, as a matter of fact, was designed to demonstrate just why these new interpretations of quantum physics did not really make much sense.

Think about it. Just imagine you were to flip a coin and then someone tried to convince you that while in flight, the coin was actually in a superposition of two states, and the final state only occurs at the very moment that you observe the coin once it lands in the palm of your hand. You would probably laugh and point out that a high-speed camera would clearly show that the position of the coin at each moment was not in fact in some combination of states at any point in time. But the Copenhagen interpretation would have you believe just that!

So where did they go wrong? In my opinion, they mistook their statistical model for "the thing itself". Simple as that. Yes, the statistics governing quantum mechanics do indeed produce fine results. The problem is when people start philosophizing about the non-measurable metaphysical meanings of "observation" and "probability" and then go about incorporating such nonsense into physics. That said, I have no problem with quantum mechanics per se.

 

The wave function gives a probability distribution. The collapse simply means that the probability goes to zero everywhere except where the particle is detected. It is not a physicsl change, it is a change of knowledge.

Well i am not sure i see your point. Everything mathematical can be said to be a thing of knowledge, but it is meant to show some physical process and may be even like a simulation of what nature is doing.

 

Well that is certainly a convenient redefinition, but I can assure you that Werner Heisenberg himself would have disagreed. As far as he was concerned, it was a VERY real, physical mechanism.




You should tell that Einstein! Because these issues were raise by him and others almost 100 years ago. Schrödinger's famous cat experiment, as a matter of fact, was designed to demonstrate just why these new interpretations of quantum physics did not really make much sense.

Think about it. Just imagine you were to flip a coin and then someone tried to convince you that while in flight, the coin was actually in a superposition of two states, and the final state only occurs at the very moment that you observe the coin once it lands in the palm of your hand. You would probably laugh and point out that a high-speed camera would clearly show that the position of the coin at each moment was not in fact in some combination of states at any point in time. But the Copenhagen interpretation would have you believe just that!

So where did they go wrong? In my opinion, they mistook their statistical model for "the thing itself". Simple as that. Yes, the statistics governing quantum mechanics do indeed produce fine results. The problem is when people start philosophizing about the non-measurable metaphysical meanings of "observation" and "probability" and then go about incorporating such nonsense into physics. That said, I have no problem with quantum mechanics per se.

Those are some interesting observations.
It is interesting how Schrodingie's cat experiment is misinterpreted sometimes to mean that it shows that quantum stuff really is spooky.

And as you say, the non-measureable things, or can i rephrase that as the hard-to-measure things, start to seem like nonsense i think because we dont know how to interpret the entire system of anything as a whole. We always tend to break things down into limited areas and locations and dimensions and make 'some' sense of it, but then when we throw it back into the real world we still are not sure if it is right or not because we find that we would still have to take more things into account, and then more things, and then even more things after that. So we never reach a real definite conclusion about the really fine edge of reality stuff maybe because it becomes harder to define what it is we are looking for in the first place until after we find an answer and then find that the answer still isnt quite complete yet.
I think the answer may be that in order to understand the very subtle points in physics we need to understand what everything in the universe is doing at the time of the experiment, not just what we see locally. Unfortunately that may mean knowing what every particle is doing at the time everywhere in the universe, and still have to hope that is enough, or at least over a very very wide region of the universe where we can surmise that we are truly covering enough ground to get to some definite conclusion.

 

Those are some interesting observations.

It is interesting how Schrodingie's cat experiment is misinterpreted sometimes to mean that it shows that quantum stuff really is spooky.


And as you say, the non-measureable things, or can i rephrase that as the hard-to-measure things, start to seem like nonsense i think because we dont know how to interpret the entire system of anything as a whole. We always tend to break things down into limited areas and locations and dimensions and make 'some' sense of it, but then when we throw it back into the real world we still are not sure if it is right or not because we find that we would still have to take more things into account, and then more things, and then even more things after that. So we never reach a real definite conclusion about the really fine edge of reality stuff maybe because it becomes harder to define what it is we are looking for in the first place until after we find an answer and then find that the answer still isnt quite complete yet.

I think the answer may be that in order to understand the very subtle points in physics we need to understand what everything in the universe is doing at the time of the experiment, not just what we see locally. Unfortunately that may mean knowing what every particle is doing at the time everywhere in the universe, and still have to hope that is enough, or at least over a very very wide region of the universe where we can surmise that we are truly covering enough ground to get to some definite conclusion.

The problem with non-measurable things being introduced to physical theories is quite simply that they cannot ever verified. Which is to say that you could replace every instance with the phrase "purple unicorn" and the theory remains unchanged. Neither can be proven, after all. "Wavefunction collapse occurs when the observer makes a measurement." Can anyone prove such a claim?

Science should only support theories which are VERIFIABLE. Time-dilation may seem like a rather crazy idea at the outset, but the theory is well-supported by EVIDENCE, and therefore we should accept it. Not as "reality", mind you, but a scientific model that effectively predicts OBSERVATIONS.

That said, there will of course be things for which we will never understand, either individually or collectively. But if we are going to fumble around trying to find the answers, it would behoove us to be as rational about it as possible. "Quantum weirdness" seems to have had a long-term detrimental effect on society, in that no one really knows what to believe anymore anyway. Whatever the theory-du-jour may be, most people tend accept it at face-value as "plausible". Critical thinking is passé...

 

Well that is certainly a convenient redefinition, but I can assure you that Werner Heisenberg himself would have disagreed. As far as he was concerned, it was a VERY real, physical mechanism.




You should tell that Einstein! Because these issues were raise by him and others almost 100 years ago. Schrödinger's famous cat experiment, as a matter of fact, was designed to demonstrate just why these new interpretations of quantum physics did not really make much sense.

Think about it. Just imagine you were to flip a coin and then someone tried to convince you that while in flight, the coin was actually in a superposition of two states, and the final state only occurs at the very moment that you observe the coin once it lands in the palm of your hand. You would probably laugh and point out that a high-speed camera would clearly show that the position of the coin at each moment was not in fact in some combination of states at any point in time. But the Copenhagen interpretation would have you believe just that!

So where did they go wrong? In my opinion, they mistook their statistical model for "the thing itself". Simple as that. Yes, the statistics governing quantum mechanics do indeed produce fine results. The problem is when people start philosophizing about the non-measurable metaphysical meanings of "observation" and "probability" and then go about incorporating such nonsense into physics. That said, I have no problem with quantum mechanics per se.

No, this is from Wikipedia, Heisenberg said it was NOT a physical process.

The concept of wavefunction collapse was introduced by Werner Heisenbergin his 1927 paper on the uncertainty principle, "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik", and incorporated into the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics by John von Neumann, in his 1932 treatise Mathematische Grundlagen der Quantenmechanik.[10] Heisenberg did not try to specify exactly what the collapse of the wavefunction meant. However, he emphasized that it should not be understood as a physical process.[11] Niels Bohr also repeatedly cautioned that we must give up a "pictorial representation", and perhaps also interpreted collapse as a formal, not physical, process.[12]

Appeal to authority is a logical fallacy, even when you get it correct.

 

No, this is from Wikipedia, Heisenberg said it was NOT a physical process.

From his original paper, "Über den anschaulichen Inhalt der quantentheoretischen Kinematik und Mechanik":

I believe the genesis of the classical "orbit" can be precisely formulated thus: the "orbit" only comes into being by our observing it. Let us assume an atom in its thousandth excitation state. The dimensions of the orbit are relatively large here, already, so that it is sufficient, in the sense of § I, to determine the electron's position with a light of relatively long wavelength. If the determination of the electron's position is not to be too uncertain, then one consequence of Compton recoil will be that after the collision, the atom will be in some state between, say, the 950th and the 1050th. At the same time, the electron's impulse can be derived to a precision given by equation (I) - from the Doppler effect. The experimental fact so obtained can be characterized by means of a wave packet - or better, probability packet - in q-space, by a variable given by the wavelength of the light used, essentially composed of eigenfunctions between the 950th and the 1050th eigen-function, and through the corresponding packet in p-space. After a certain time, a new position determination is performed, to the same precision. According to § 2, its result can be expressed only statistically; possible positions are all those within the now already spread wave packet, with a calculable probability.

 

0kay, clue me in, what part of that do you think says collapse of the wave function is a physical process? On second thought, forget it, I will not bother to read any more of your nonsense.

 

0kay, clue me in, what part of that do you think says collapse of the wave function is a physical process? On second thought, forget it, I will not bother to read any more of your nonsense.

Hello again,

I always took it to mean that the particle travels as a wave, but condenses into a point once it encounters another object. That sounds physical to me, but maybe it depends on how you want to interpret that phenomenon.

I believe there is still an ongoing debate about what the wave function really is, or isnt.

 

0kay, clue me in, what part of that do you think says collapse of the wave function is a physical process? On second thought, forget it, I will not bother to read any more of your nonsense.

Nonsense? It HAS to be a physical process if we are to assert that the very act of observation causes the superposition of states to "collapse" into the resulting measurement. For what it's worth, Heisenberg doesn't seem to address the problem directly in his papers. His contribution was more or less the "observer effect" for which "collapsing wave functions" is based.

In any case, if these interpretations were indeed true, then we should have had a working quantum computer long ago. But we do not, and never will, because these assumptions are simply incorrect.

 

Did you read what I posted? Heisenberg himself said it is not a physical process.

 

Did you read what I posted? Heisenberg himself said it is not a physical process.

Where? Please site the paper where he actually raises that point.

Again, even so, his "observer effect", which necessitates the supposed wave function collapse phenomena in the first place. The idea of an observer as an entity in order for quantum mechanics to work arguably rather absurd.

Now of course the ACT OF MEASUREMENT can indeed effect the THING BEING MEASURED. Naturally, measurement devices are necessarily made up of atoms in various energy states which can obviously interact with its surroundings.

That isn't however what we are talking about when we debate Copenhagen versus "Einstenian" interpretations. Einstein made the very rational argument that the probability density functions were merely equations representing all of the possible microstates of the system, and that the act of measurement was simply a reflection of those equations being applied to ESSENTIALLY DETERMINISTIC processes, in the presence of "hidden variables" (an undetected cosmic EMP striking the electron being measured, for example).

But the Copenhagenists insisted that no, causality was an illusion, and measurements are governed only by statistical models for which the result "comes into being" by way of some mysterious mechanism. AKA wave function collapse. Incidentally many scientists over the years have walked back these aspects of quantum mechanics. (As confirmed by the current Wikipedia articles).

Only problem is, this ties in directly to whether or not quantum computers are actually possible. Because with no "observer effect", there is no wave function collapse, and thus no decoherence. And without that, there is little hope of ever extracting any information from a qubit, or getting ANY quantum computer to work as promised for that matter.

 

Hello again,

I always took it to mean that the particle travels as a wave, but condenses into a point once it encounters another object. That sounds physical to me, but maybe it depends on how you want to interpret that phenomenon.

I believe there is still an ongoing debate about what the wave function really is, or isnt.

Thankfully, most of quantum mechanics is unaffected by these so-called philosophical additions to the theory. Fact is, especially in the case of the most delicate kinds of measurements, QM performs orders of magnitude better than classical mechanics.

Come to think of it, aside from that, the most important step we can make to get rid of this whole "quantum weirdness" mindset that seems to have taken hold, is to simply accept that EVERYTHING IS MADE UP OF WAVES. Solid particles are a crude analogy that can be disposed with altogether. This was DeBroglie's approach, and it resolves the issue in a rather broad stroke. Once we do that, science might one day regain its "sensical" character.

 

Nonsense? It HAS to be a physical process if we are to assert that the very act of observation causes the superposition of states to "collapse" into the resulting measurement. For what it's worth, Heisenberg doesn't seem to address the problem directly in his papers. His contribution was more or less the "observer effect" for which "collapsing wave functions" is based.

In any case, if these interpretations were indeed true, then we should have had a working quantum computer long ago. But we do not, and never will, because these assumptions are simply incorrect.

Why do you suppose IBM recently announced that they created the largest quantum computer so far with more than 400 qubits?

 

Thankfully, most of quantum mechanics is unaffected by these so-called philosophical additions to the theory. Fact is, especially in the case of the most delicate kinds of measurements, QM performs orders of magnitude better than classical mechanics.

Come to think of it, aside from that, the most important step we can make to get rid of this whole "quantum weirdness" mindset that seems to have taken hold, is to simply accept that EVERYTHING IS MADE UP OF WAVES. Solid particles are a crude analogy that can be disposed with altogether. This was DeBroglie's approach, and it resolves the issue in a rather broad stroke. Once we do that, science might one day regain its "sensical" character.

Ok then how would you explain the photon that travels as a wave yet when it hits a wall it only creates a small point-like impression.

If everything is waves then what we call solid must be just waves interacting with waves, which i can see happening. We never actually 'touch' a solid object the electron fields in our finger interacts with those in the solid so it's really field against field.
To have some point-like reaction that would mean that the wave has to act in just one place alone even though it traveled as a wave.
Can we see this phenomenon using water waves? I dont think so, but we can generate a wave from a point in one place alone.
In any case, the energy from a particle wave has to be able to act at one point alone, or is it that the point we refer to isnt really a point but an area, although that area would still be very very small compared to what we think of as the width of the wave (not the wavelength).
If we allow for a reversal of time then we can see the water wave turn into a single point (more or less).