People reject science because...

[spacecowboy342]

It is in your court to prove Einstein eventually accepted qm, as I stated. Yes, he did not just try, but was ultimately successful in persuading many physicists against qm, but naturally many of those were already doubtful. I have no idea, other than through blind acceptance of popular science and ignorance, why it is so many of you seem to think qm is the ultimate answer in physics. I might also add that it would be a very good idea for you to do some simple things, such as checking out the flaws in the Bell tests, as previously suggested. You might also do some checking into relativistic qm and its acceptance, along with the uncertainty theorem. On that last, if you take Heisenberg to the ultimate end, by this time in my life with all the walking/running I've done, I should have fallen through the earth by now. Heisenberg's theorem is of no use whatever, same as most other qm/qed et cetera.

Re particle/wave, it is my opinion that you haven't the vaguest idea what you're talking about. Sputtering transistors and ICs is a matter of mechanics and chemistry, and there is no wave/particle duality at all. In actual fact, electrons having wave/particle duality was only postulated by Feynmann, and this was the subject of several discussions I had with the man. Wll this sort of junk science is nothing more than a feeble attempt by qm to make some sort of sense out of all these statistical theoretical approximations that don't actually lead anywhere. Maybe you should go study something like the Phi wave theory for a while, get your teeth into it. It's pretty obvious that you don't really have anything more than a surface knowledge of either electronics mechanics or qm. If you did, you would not have made your massively ignorant statements.

And I suppose you're familiar with invention, yes? You might enlighten us all as to your inventions, or even enlighten us as to some of those inventions you claim were done without theoretical knowledge. You're fighting an uphill battle, and you're not going to win it. It's pretty obvious that you don't really have anything more than a surface knowledge of either electronics mechanics or qm. If you did, you would not have made your massively ignorant statements.

What shining problems are there with an infinite universe, pray tell? I find it much easier to think there is no end, for logical reasons, such as just what do you suppose is outside that so-called end? Is there perhaps a gigantic brick wall out there? This sort of discussion is terribly silly, since in a logical sense, you can't win, nor can Einstein. You will provide nothing more than a batch of equations that, in the final analysis, are nothing more than assumptions and approximations. As stated, I don't deal with unproven junk, or Bell tests that rely on the whim of the scientist's point of view, or Feynmann's virtual particles, or any of the rest of that crap. I rely on facts, on things I can prove exist, and phenomena I know are real, not some math someone came up with after a wet dream And when any science simply ignores natural functions that are shown to exist, simply because those functions don't fit the math, then that science is not a science, it is a pseudoscience.

So tell ya what. For close to a hundred years now, qm has been claiming that what can't be measured can't exist (except for more recently: now they claim there's dark matter and dark energy, which, of course, can't be measured - something wrong there?). So why don't you build yourself a Caduceus coil and a drive that will pulse the thing at, oh, say 10 - 20 kHz with a nice square wave, with lots of power. In case you're not aware of it (which you probably are not, based on previous statements you've made), the Caduceus coil is wound with opposing windings connected together; preferably, a single wire is wound in both directions starting from the wire center. Since you probably aren't aware of it, what this will do is cause opposing H (magnetic) fields to be generated, supposedly cancelling out. At any rate, you won't detect H fields around the thing if you've wound it correctly. So, since energy cannot be destroyed, what exactly happened to the energy generated by the windings? Betcha you can't really tell me that, nor can any particle physicist. Anyway, if you build the Caduceus as stated, you will find out. Go ahead, take a chance.

I think in a previous post you asked about other things. I'll take a little time and steer you in a direction so you can experiment yourself. First, find out what switched reluctance is. Second, look up Ecklin generators, build one, then test it: instrument inputs and outputs at various stable loading, to make it easy. When you've done that, come back here and explain to all of us what happened. Thirdly, look up switched reluctance motors. You can find some good theory and practice in Texas Instruments archives. Look up SPRA420A, February 2000 application report. It'll give you a good basis of knowledge of how they work, be be very aware of what you read there. There is a clue in that report that if you can find it and follow it, you can do something amazing with one of those, assuming you build and program the control system.

Got some really bad news this am, I'm tired, I'm tired of bs, and I'm retiring from this discussion until something worthwhile is printed for me to chew on.

Wow. First, I never said Einstein accepted quantum mechanics. I said he tried to refute it and failed. Second QM never stated that what could not be measured could not exist but that the act of measuring changes what is measured. Electrons behave as waves with no fixed position until they are observed and the wave collapses and they take definite positions. See the double slit experiment. It has been repeated again and again in many different forms with the same result. It also says it is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle and the closer you measure one of those aspects the less you know of the other. Also it is impossible to know the energy content of a given point in space at a given point in time. These are the aspects of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You may find it useless but that makes it no less valid. And it has been used in many theories such as quantum fluctuation, and explains how black holes radiate.QM is the most successfully confirmed theory in the history of science.

[spacecowboy342]

Religion can be that, often seems to be aye, but it doesn't have to. The fault of the kind of religions you speak of is they assume they know the truth better than they might, that it's all been discovered. Who says god should really be omnipotent? Though no one can blame you for not doing science based on the assumption there is or might not be god, I dont think everyone has to assume that when they do science, as long as they maintain a good level of integrity. As long as they keep in mind that it's their theory, because that's what things tend to be in science. Evidence is good but there's alot of different kind of evidence, some are more or less or much less verifiable and repeatable than others but are they all true or false? To me it's a great possibility...

Well you make valid point. I suppose much depends on what religion you adhere to. If something is not falsifiable then it is meaningless to speculate about it's validity as there is no way to prove it one way or another. If I told you you were actually just a brain in a vat of chemicals being fed electrical impulses to make you believe you actually were you it would be impossible for you to prove me wrong but without evidence why should you believe it? That is how I feel about stories of miracles. If God is all powerful He could have produced a universe that looked billions of years old and an earth with dinosaur fossils millions of years old already in the ground. I can't prove that didn't happen but without evidence why should I believe it?. and without evidence why should I accept the Christian or Jewish or Muslim view of creation over the Greek or Norse or Navajo?.I have to go with what makes sense to me and that is the story told by science. I'm not so arrogant however to think that I couldn't be wrong.. Edited October 16, 2013 by spacecowboy342

[Frank Merton]

It is difficult for the layperson to distinguish science and pseudo-science and many get carried away because of this. The rule I follow is to stick with respected journals and university web sites.

[Rlyeh]

How do you know divine revelation is untrue?

And that is the problem, you can't verify divine revelation.

[spacecowboy342]

And that is the problem, you can't verify divine revelation.

Also usually not repeatable or falsifiable

[Frank Merton]

Also usually not repeatable or falsifiable

From: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/popper_falsification.html (I recommend the entire essay)

These considerations led me in the winter of 1919-20 to conclusions which I may now reformulate as follows.

1. It is easy to obtain confirmations, or verifications, for nearly every theory — if we look for confirmations.
   
2. Confirmations should count only if they are the result of risky predictions; that is to say, if, unenlightened by the theory in question, we should have expected an event which was incompatible with the theory — an event which would have refuted the theory.
   
3. Every "good" scientific theory is a prohibition: it forbids certain things to happen. The more a theory forbids, the better it is.
   
4. A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice.
   
5. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or to refute it. Testability is falsifiability; but there are degrees of testability: some theories are more testable, more exposed to refutation, than others; they take, as it were, greater risks.
   
6. Confirming evidence should not count except when it is the result of a genuine test of the theory; and this means that it can be presented as a serious but unsuccessful attempt to falsify the theory. (I now speak in such cases of "corroborating evidence.")
   
7. Some genuinely testable theories, when found to be false, are still upheld by their admirers — for example by introducing ad hoc some auxiliary assumption, or by reinterpreting the theory ad hoc in such a way that it escapes refutation. Such a procedure is always possible, but it rescues the theory from refutation only at the price of destroying, or at least lowering, its scientific status. (I later described such a rescuing operation as a "conventionalist twist" or a "conventionalist stratagem.")
   

The first item is perhaps most telling about all the observations of stuff that gets posted here.

[spacecowboy342]

Brilliant

[Leonardo]

Wow. First, I never said Einstein accepted quantum mechanics. I said he tried to refute it and failed. Second QM never stated that what could not be measured could not exist but that the act of measuring changes what is measured. Electrons behave as waves with no fixed position until they are observed and the wave collapses and they take definite positions. See the double slit experiment. It has been repeated again and again in many different forms with the same result. It also says it is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle and the closer you measure one of those aspects the less you know of the other. Also it is impossible to know the energy content of a given point in space at a given point in time. These are the aspects of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. You may find it useless but that makes it no less valid. And it has been used in many theories such as quantum fluctuation, and explains how black holes radiate.QM is the most successfully confirmed theory in the history of science.

The wave-function collapse of quantum objects is described by some (and notably, Niels Bohr himself) as a misunderstanding of what Bohr wrote regarding this 'collapse'. Bohr's opinion was the wave-function was a purely mathematical phenomenon, and did not reflect the real-world object. Thus this 'collapse' did not actually happen, but was the only way to mathematically describe the observation made.

[Frank Merton]

The wave-function collapse of quantum objects is described by some (and notably, Niels Bohr himself) as a misunderstanding of what Bohr wrote regarding this 'collapse'. Bohr's opinion was the wave-function was a purely mathematical phenomenon, and did not reflect the real-world object. Thus this 'collapse' did not actually happen, but was the only way to mathematically describe the observation made.

OK, then what does "actually" happen?

[Leonardo]

OK, then what does "actually" happen?

I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand exactly what you are referring to here?

Do you mean, "what happens when an electron is observed?"

Which, I would have thought would have a fairly self-evident answer. "The electron is observed."

That we use a wave-function to describe what was there before the observation, only suggests that we cannot show the electron was 'there' until the observation was made (obviously). It does not show the electron "existed as something else" (i.e existed as the wave-function itself.)

But it is confusion over this that has led to the belief in the observation causing or intiating a "wave-function collapse" - as if that collapse actually happens.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Leonardo

[Frank Merton]

So then it is the act of observation.

[Leonardo]

So then it is the act of observation.

No. The act of observing a quantum object has no effect on the state of that object, except that the energy used in observation may interfere with the object. Regardless, observation does not 'collapse a wave-function', because that wave-function is a mathematical representation only.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Leonardo

[Frank Merton]

I don't think your response resolves the issue, as I understand that the important figures in the field nowadays just avoid the question. However, I am not competent to get into a serious discussion of it.

[spacecowboy342]

The wave-function collapse of quantum objects is described by some (and notably, Niels Bohr himself) as a misunderstanding of what Bohr wrote regarding this 'collapse'. Bohr's opinion was the wave-function was a purely mathematical phenomenon, and did not reflect the real-world object. Thus this 'collapse' did not actually happen, but was the only way to mathematically describe the observation made.

I'm not talking about the collapse of the probability wave per se but that before observation electrons exhibit no definite location and appear to be able to be in two places at once. There are different interpretaions of this but it has been confirmed again and again that electrons behave as waves until observation forces them into definite positions and they behave as particles

[Leonardo]

I don't think your response resolves the issue, as I understand that the important figures in the field nowadays just avoid the question. However, I am not competent to get into a serious discussion of it.

I'm not conceited enough to think my opinion can "resolve the issue"!

All I wanted to do was express the 'alternate viewpoint' to what mainstream scientific orthodoxy seems to have adopted, that being that quantum objects (particles) existing "here, there and everywhere" as some nebulous 'wave-function' prior to observation just doesn't happen.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Leonardo

[Leonardo]

I'm not talking about the collapse of the probability wave per se but that before observation electrons exhibit no definite location and appear to be able to be in two places at once. There are different interpretaions of this but it has been confirmed again and again that electrons behave as waves until observation forces them into definite positions and they behave as particles

No experiment has shown a quantum object as being bi-local. The experiments referred to simply cannot explain the observations made without using a wave-function description for the object prior to observation.

[spacecowboy342]

No experiment has shown a quantum object as being bi-local. The experiments referred to simply cannot explain the observations made without using a wave-function description for the object prior to observation.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/21st_century_science/lectures/lec13.html

Edited October 16, 2013 by spacecowboy342

[Leonardo]

http://abyss.uoregon...ctures/lec.html

Sorry, but the link didn't work for me.

[RabidCat]

@Leonardo:

[spacecowboy342]

Sorry, but the link didn't work for me.

Sorry I messed up. It works now

[Leonardo]

Sorry I messed up. It works now

Thanks.

The double-slit experiment does not show bi-locality. Nor does it explicitly show the photon (or electron, etc) behaving as a wave. The interference pattern exhibited on the detector may suggest the photon's interaction with the equipment, rather than any interaction with itself.

I have performed the experiment several times myself under lab conditions, and at no time could I rule out the equipment being partly responsible for the interference pattern shown.

[spacecowboy342]

Thanks.

The double-slit experiment does not show bi-locality. Nor does it explicitly show the photon (or electron, etc) behaving as a wave. The interference pattern exhibited on the detector may suggest the photon's interaction with the equipment, rather than any interaction with itself.

I have performed the experiment several times myself under lab conditions, and at no time could I rule out the equipment being partly responsible for the interference pattern shown.

How then would you explain quantum tunneling if the position of the electron is not actually spread out and not merely unmeasured?

[Leonardo]

How then would you explain quantum tunneling if the position of the electron is not actually spread out and not merely unmeasured?

Quantum tunnelling is the term used for the mathematical description of a particle's finite probability of crossing an energy threshold. The phenomenon itself does not require the particle to be "wave-like", but the mathematical representation of the phenomenon does - because it is a probability function.

[spacecowboy342]

Quantum tunnelling is the term used for the mathematical description of a particle's finite probability of crossing an energy threshold. The phenomenon itself does not require the particle to be "wave-like", but the mathematical representation of the phenomenon does - because it is a probability function.

I think actually it does require a particle to be wave like. In classical physics if the electron's energy was less than required to pass the threshold it should never happen. Obviously this is incorrect. QM describes the process well and while that may not prove the dual nature of electrons it certainly lends credence to the idea. The double slit experiment has been repeated time after time with the same result. You would think if it were just interference from the equipment the result would change sometimes just by chance. Edited October 16, 2013 by spacecowboy342

[Leonardo]

I think actually it does require a particle to be wave like. In classical physics if the electron's energy was less than required to pass the threshold it should never happen. Obviously this is incorrect. QM describes the process well and while that may not prove the dual nature of electrons it certainly lends credence to the idea. The double slit experiment has been repeated time after time with the same result. You would think if it were just interference from the equipment the result would change sometimes just by chance.

Yes, but that does not automatically suggest the electron is a wave-like phenomenon until observed. It merely suggests the classical view of the electron is incomplete.

Edited October 16, 2013 by Leonardo