Re: Quantum mystics

On 10/06/2024 22:43, Jeroen Belleman wrote:

On 6/10/24 19:03, Martin Brown wrote:

Experimentally it is quite a tour de force!
>
Physical intuition tends to break down when you have a superposition of quantum states involved. Attempting to know which slit a particle actually went through destroys the interference pattern and experiments using ultra low flux levels with just a single photon in at any one time still show a diffraction pattern. QM is decidedly counter intuitive.
>
Explores all available paths mathematics gets the right results but I can't help feeling that there is a way to avoid the action at a distance implied by quantum entanglement when we get all of the physics correct.
>
I didn't think his talk was all that outrageous. A bit over simplified perhaps but then avoiding almost all of the maths that is inevitable.
>

 Over-simplified to the point of being devoid of meaning, indeed.

That is the problem with popular science lectures about QM. This one - a Nobel prize lecture by Serge Heroche from 2012 is a lot more meaty and the experimental techniques they used and perfected are breathtakingly cunning. The audience has quite a few famous physicists in it.
He is wonderfully self effacing and shares the credit for the success of his experiments very generously with his co-winner many collaborators, his team and graduate students.
Non destructive sensing of single atom quantum states is incredibly impressive! I didn't know until I saw that talk that the Schrodinger's cat wavefunction has been experimentally verified.
Basically he has constructed a real life particle in a box experiment!
It took ultracold superconducting hyper polished mirrors to realise it.
--
Martin Brown