MedicTJ Posted January 10, 2003 #1 Share Posted January 10, 2003 The Discovery Channel ran a piece on this a little while back. I taped it and have watched it more than a few times trying to comprehed it. If you haven't seen it, or heard anything about quantum mechanics at all....the general rule is that uncertainty is recognized as a part of reality. Kind of hard to explain, but this is what I got out of it: They had a picture of a box....with a supposed bomb inside of it. Next to the box was a picture of a cat. Now, the bomb inside the box had an exact 50/50 chance of exploding when the top of the box was opened. So either the cat got inside the box alive....or the little guy got blown to smithereens. It's at THIS point where quantum mechanics comes into play. Recognizing uncertainty as a PART of reality, there is a point before the box is open when the cat is BOTH alive AND dead. This is where we get into dimensional physics. It's the actual event that happens when the box is opened that chooses the reality. But quantum mechanics allows that an entirely different reality co-exists parallel to the one that WE might see. In other words, branching off one way, you've got a happy cat. Branching off in a separate reality, you've got a mess. And BOTH are real. Believe it or not....as WIERD as this sounds, scientists actually proved this theory using light particles. This is REALLY hard to explain...so I'll just get to the real cool part. Scientists found that photons in light, when split, form two separate particles. One positive, and one negative. One spins clockwise, the other counter-clockwise. Ready for the WIERD part? When they switched the polarity of the positive particle to negative, the already existing negative particle IMMEDIATELY switched to positive. Curious, they found a way to separate the particles to different sides of the room. They tried the experiment again. SAME REACTION. Positive switched to negative, and vice versa. So they decided to try the experiment from either side of the same building or complex. SAME REACTION. As a final test, they actually found a way to perform this test on opposite sides of the globe...(I don't know how...they didn't get into that) And you know what? SAME REACTION!!!!! So what this is saying, in essence, is that things can still communicate from vast distances. If one particle is on one side of the globe, and the other is here....how can they INSTANTLY change? The WIERD conclusion?? That it wouldn't matter if one of the particles was here on Earth, or on THE EDGE OF THE UNIVERSE.....IT WOULD STILL SWITCH POLARITY THE INSTANT IT'S PARTNER DID!!!!! Now, if nothing can travel faster than light.....then Einstein is in a bit of a pickle here, wouldn't you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MedicTJ Posted January 10, 2003 Author #2 Share Posted January 10, 2003 I should have probably elaborated a little more on this.... What I'm speaking of is one aspect of quantum mechanics. It's called, "The Many-Worlds Theory" and it was first proposed in 1957 by Hugh Everett III. Here is an overview of it. Very interesting reading! Many-Worlds Interpretation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Althalus Posted January 10, 2003 #3 Share Posted January 10, 2003 (edited) Don't you just love phase space. - which is another name for the many worlds theory. briefly it states that for whatever action someone does or whatever thought someone has, they will make the opposite one also and reality will split into two, one where they made the one desicion and one where they made the other, and so on, this occurs for every though, action, everything that somene does, now imagine that it happens whenever anyone does this, for everyone, all the time. This spliting carries on ad infinitum, phase space is where it happens and also what it is before it happens, for instance schrodingers cat theory TJ mentioned, the phase space of it would be that the cat is both alive and dead at the same time until someone looks to make sure and finds out that it is either one or the other. Thank you Poincare, for that little lot. Edited January 10, 2003 by Althalus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest_bounty_hunter Posted January 11, 2003 #4 Share Posted January 11, 2003 oh so let me get this straight (im a bit slow) what your saying is there are two realities? As in if i got a choice between vanilla and strawberry icecream and i choose vanilla in an alternate reality im choosing strawberry? Im freaked out and this is true....scary. But what does this mean? What can we do with this information? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Posted January 12, 2003 #5 Share Posted January 12, 2003 The only information contained here is that you are informed of a particular theory, and there is nothing you can do with that information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloated Corpse Posted January 17, 2003 #6 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Concluding that scientist know of 11 parralell universes, would this assume the you would make 10 seperate choices to the one you made in this universe? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Posted January 17, 2003 #7 Share Posted January 17, 2003 Scientists don’t know for sure if there are 11 universes. You’re speaking of the M-Theory, and there are many other theories on multiple dimensions. Currently the quantum theories range from 10-26 dimensions, but there is nothing conclusive yet on any of these. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizarro Posted January 20, 2003 #8 Share Posted January 20, 2003 haha, Homer is beginning to sound like me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j6p Posted January 24, 2003 #9 Share Posted January 24, 2003 I can't get my mind wrapped around the multiple dimention thing, 4 are all I can handle for now but virtual particles look good to me. I especially like what Hawking talked about in his latest book when he mentioned how VP's may react near the event horizion of a black hole. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Homer Posted January 24, 2003 #10 Share Posted January 24, 2003 (edited) Another name for it is ‘Hawking Radiation’, and could be one of the reasons why there is a lack of antimatter in the universe. Hawking Radiation is also the reason why Black Holes evaporate. Very interesting. Edited January 24, 2003 by Homer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest X Posted February 23, 2003 #11 Share Posted February 23, 2003 That is quite intriguing, I'd like to read more about it, if there are any books on the subject you all are aware of let me know Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j6p Posted February 23, 2003 #12 Share Posted February 23, 2003 Hawking's "Universe in a Nutshell" is a fun read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Posted February 26, 2003 #13 Share Posted February 26, 2003 random fact of the day : Steven Hawking went to the same secondary school as me. St. Albans... where, not many will know, he made a very early computer, only to be thrown out by a maths teacher who thought it was junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceyKC Posted February 26, 2003 #14 Share Posted February 26, 2003 That's cool Tommy! (about the school, not the teacher! Good to know that stupid move didn't stop SH) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tommy Posted February 26, 2003 #15 Share Posted February 26, 2003 I know KC. Sorry i wasn't very clear on that, but actually it was only thrown away about 10 years ago i think; whenever it was it was way after Stevie had left the school. I wonder if anyone has even told him about it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceyKC Posted February 26, 2003 #16 Share Posted February 26, 2003 Hey, Tommy, that's okay, I hope they did tell him, I'm sure he would've gotten a big laugh out of it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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