Tuesday, July 22, 2014

From Frank Tipler: An Explanation For Quantum Non-Locality... Or Is It?

From Ars Technica
With many-worlds, all quantum mechanics is local

"He’s essentially saying that scientists are arbitrarily adding nonlocality, which they can’t observe, and then claiming they have discovered nonlocality. Quite an accusation, especially for the science world. (The "collapse" he mentions is the collapse of the particle’s wave function, which he asserts is not a real phenomenon.) Instead, he claims that the experiments thought to confirm nonlocality are in fact confirming an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation called the many-worlds interpretation (MWI). As its name implies, the MWI predicts the existence of other universes.

The Copenhagen interpretation has been summarized as “shut up and measure.” Even though the consequences of a wave function-based world don’t make much intuitive sense, it works. The MWI tries to keep particles concrete at the cost of making our world a bit fuzzy. It posits that rather than becoming a wave function, particles remain distinct objects but enter one of a number of alternative universes, which recombine to a single one when the particle is measured.

Scientists who thought they were measuring nonlocality, Tipler claims, were in fact observing the effects of alternate universe versions of themselves, also measuring the same particles.

Part of the significance of Tipler’s claim is that he’s able to mathematically derive the same experimental results from the MWI without use of nonlocality. But this does not necessarily make for evidence that the MWI is correct; either interpretation remains consistent with the data. Until the two can be distinguished experimentally, it all comes down to whether you personally like or dislike nonlocality."
Or whether you personally like dodging in and out of alternate universes, a trip you do not experience, much less control. Gotta love QM.

3 comments:

Robert Coble said...

"Scientists who thought they were measuring nonlocality, Tipler claims, were in fact observing the effects of alternate universe versions of themselves, also measuring the same particles."

In my ignorance, I was under the impression that an observer in one specific world had no access to any other world, even though all of these worlds exist simultaneously. If that is the case, then how does a scientist in one world observe the effects (results) of alternate universe (a different world) version of themselves measuring the same particles?!?

Something is beginning to smell a little rotten with that claim. . .

Stan said...

Tipler represents the iconic "brilliant crank" in this case (and others). He is unwittingly demonstrating the failure of QM to resist misinterpretation because of its failure to be completely, unequivocally, experimentally understood. Both the Copenhagen and the parallel worlds interpretations lead to absurdities, just as Feynman's sum of all paths is a necessary absurdity in modelling QM.

Scorpio said...

If all qunatum mechanics is local then the measurements and interactions at one point in space can only affect things in the immediate vicinity of that point.This rules out quantum entanglement.

Scientists who thought they were measuring nonlocality,Tipler claims, were in fact observing the effects of alternate universe versions of themselves, also measuring the same particles.

Wow,atheists will invent all sorts of ridiculous theories just to avoid having to deal with the Copenhagen Interpretation of consciousness collapsing the wave function.