Never Mind Schrödinger’s Cat, Here’s David Bohm’s Dream
Never Mind Schrödinger’s Cat, Here’s David Bohm’s Dream
I’ve had dreams of all sorts from time to time, but I don’t remember them too well. There was one dream that had a sort of philosophical content.
I dreamt I was in a place that had a cat. I came into the room where this cat was talking to another cat, making a date to meet at a certain time. I said, “There’s something wrong here. What could it be? I know what it is: Cats can’t tell time!”
I went up to this cat and said, “What do you mean by making this date? You know you can’t tell time. ”
The cat said, “Of course we cats can tell time.”
I said, “I don’t believe it. There’s a clock on the wall. Tell me the time.” The clock showed a quarter after eight.
But the cat hemmed and hawed and said, “Five after four… ten after three…”
So I said, “That proves that cats can’t tell time!”
Then I woke up laughing because the point was that in the dream, I was concerned with some trivial difficulty when a much more fundamental issue was askew. The trivial difficulty was that cats can’t tell time. The fundamental absurdity was the cat talking!
Quantum physicist David Bohm offered up a controversial theory back in the Fifties that was an alternative explanation of Quantum Mechanics weirdness: ‘Pilot Waves’
New Support for Alternative Quantum View
Quanta – May 2016
(But wait…)
Experiment Dooms Alternative to Quantum Weirdness
Quanta – October 2018
De Broglie–Bohm theory
The de Broglie–Bohm theory, also known as the pilot wave theory, Bohmian mechanics, Bohm’s interpretation, and the causal interpretation, is an interpretation of quantum mechanics. In addition to the wavefunction, it also postulates an actual configuration of particles exists even when unobserved. The evolution over time of the configuration of all particles is defined by a guiding equation. The evolution of the wave function over time is given by the Schrödinger equation. The theory is named after Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) and David Bohm (1917–1992).
The theory is deterministic and explicitly nonlocal: the velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the guiding equation, which depends on the configuration of all the particles under consideration.
(Wikipedia)
The One Theory of Quantum Mechanics That Actually Kind of Makes Sense
Popular Mechanics – Dec 2016
“when you shoot a single photon particle through the double slits, it still creates the interference pattern even though there is nothing to interfere with it”
The usual explanation for this these days is that somehow the single photon goes through both slits, not just one. That leads to the many-worlds interpretation.
Further reading…
Strange Parallels: Alternative Histories In Physics And Culture
NPR – Dec 2017
(John Wheeler, Richard Feynman, Hugh Everett – ‘sum over histories, ‘many-worlds’)
If only we could get those cats to tell us the secret of quantum mechanics…
Sandwich
You are a trip at times. Things must be going good for you.
I try to look at the light side of things — also.
Sandwich
I have no way to upvote you other than say you are read by someone who has spent 40 years in some form of manufacturing globally. I love talking to the young college ones on supply chain and how not to look and be ugly overseas.
Sammich
I only know what I read in the papers, but here is my take on popular quantum theory.
First, WE may not know if the cat is alive or dead until we open the box. But the cat does. Furthermore, the trigger “observes” the neutron whether we observe it or not.
Second, imagine a closed cylinder something like a brake master cylinder, filled with incompressible fluid. Pressure applied by “input” piston appears (at the speed of light?) at all points inside the cylinders at the same psi…until one of the output pistons moves. In this way the psi is a “wave” until it intereacts with a “detector” at which point it appears as a “particle.”
As I admit above, I have no idea what real physics would say about this, but I thought it was amusing. Physical waves seem to be able to travel a long way limited only by the amount of energy they lose to “objects” that are capable of absorbing that energy. It would not surprise me if light (or electron waves?) need a receptor as well as an emitter to exist[yes, i realize i have neglected the time aspect of the double slit experiment. ah well, little steps…
[while i’m here, somewhat related to the marcy of science, Zeno’s paradox is simply a magicians trick. He dupes you into not noticing that he is showing you still pictures of each instant in time, but only those that occur before Achilles catches the tortoise. i’m pretty sure i have read recent “explanations” of the paradox that overlooked this simple fact.]
Zeno’s Paradox (at least the version which states you can never get to a destination if you travel each day half the distance from where you start to the point where your destination is) is actually nonsense from a physical point of view.
Because, in effect, if you know the distance from where you start to where you want to be, you’ve already been there, in effect (by reaching out with a pole if necessary to do so.)
As for Schrodinger’s Cat, the point really is that the physics of it (and the math) must deal with the cat being alive or dead; both conditions have to be considered.
It being a thought experiment, no cats are being killed in conducting the experiment.
Fred
You do know something . . .
Unfortunately, that does not (much) extend to economics.
My one (required) economics course at RPI was an early-morning deal that I mostly slept through. Not skipped, just dozed. Relied on sleep-learning.
Okay, probably skipped sometimes.
typo watch
marcy of science should have been
march of science
certainly not mercy of science
Dobbs,
Like I said, I only know what I read in the papers.
One version I heard was that instead of dropping a cyanide pill into a bucket of acid or whatever it is they use for executions, the trigger was hooked up to an atomic bomb. In which case no one would ever know whether the cat was alive or dead. The experiment is currently being conducted in Ukraine. But I worry about the imaginations of those scientists. No cat is ever really safe with them around.
If memory serves, in the original gedankenexperiment, it was a vial of prussic acid hooked up to a geiger counter.
Unfortunately, it apparently is the case that what’s going on in Ukraine is the real thing, not a thought experiment at all, with plenty of dire consequences in store.