Quantum Mechanics

[DSM0305]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVpXrbZ4bnU

So what is your opinion regarding quantum mechanics. Do you find any relation between this and god? Basically do you find any links between quantum physics and higher power.

[torkham]

Probably god doesn't play dice.

[DSM0305]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrsWPCp_rs

[Herat]

I thought you were going to show some Deepak Chopra "Quantum guru" crap there DSM0305. What the hell do you think is up with these mystical gurus absurdly leeching on science huh? I suspect that the answer has to do with that motif of religiosity, in the behavioural genetics and psychological literature, defined as a personality trait, called "self-transcendence", those experiences associated with the mystical and higher powers.

Anyways, there is nothing mystical about QM (well ok Ill admit, I did waste many hours learning some at a rudimentary level, and was motivated to do so by its mysteriousness and all that) and trust me folks, those Michio Kaku types videos on it are truly worthless, if you want to learn what QM is all about get the most popular introductory textbook on it by Griffiths, believe it or not its actually not that hard to learn if you can do the Math basically all Science and Engineering undergrads need to do these days.
http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Q...ntum+mechanics

All it is is some linear algebra (Mary Boas's notorious text on Mathematical Methods for Physics/Chemistry undergrads has a nice 100 page chapter on linear algebra that I found more than enough for part I of Griffiths text), one annoying partial differential equation that the textbook will mindlessly teach you how to solve (the Schrodinger equation) and a bunch of bizarre notation and experiments. Griffiths says early in the text that you don't "understand" quantum mechanics, you learn how to do it- by which he means you mindlessly learn some applied linear algebra junk, techniques for mindlessly solving the Schrodinger equation and learning some bizarre notation (the Dirac notation). Any science or engineering undergrad who has done linear algebra should be able to learn it using Griffiths text. Now let me share with you what I thought of the subject: I had enough of it after 5 of the 11 chapters for a life-time, again trust me its nowhere as cool as those videos make it sound, its basically just applied linear algebra for the most part that really does make no sense.

Ok, not quite. There is a little more to it -right at the end of the text, Griffiths dedicates a tiny chapter (afterword) to what the entire book is supposed to "mean", as in to the various interpretations of QM. The entire problem is this: you see, in classical/newtonian mechanics, with a general time-dependent force equation (F = ma but add in time dependence so you have it all), you can hypothetically (the real world is complicated but in the abstract sense) specify the entire motional behaviour of a particle, as in you can determine its position at any point in time given the equation and an initial position (the more important implicit point of this is that you can determine both the position and momentum of the particle). Thats more or less most of classical mechanics for you, the rest is just mathematical detail.

In QM, there is an analogous equation -the Schrodinger equation, a partial differential equation- that Schrodinger somehow managed to come by by "generalizing" DeBroglies matter wave concept but the details of which went over my head- except its solution describes what they call a "wave function" whose modulus squared describes a probability distribution, that describes the probability of finding the particle at some position at some point in time. How the hell did they arrive at that? Well Max Born after some years the Schrodinger equation had been formulated somehow figured it out, I wasted a few hours trying to understand Borns reasoning for the statistical interpretation before giving up. If you understand what the hell I am talking about up till this point, you should immediately realize what the problem is here: how the hell can a probability distribution describe a freaking particles location in space!? Well, when you observe the particle in the real world, you do end up observing it at a one location at some point in space, the wave function "collapses" as in forms the bizarre Dirac-Delta function peak at the position (basically an infinitely thin spike on a graph over which an integral is defined to give you unity) so the Math works for describing the position at that point after you have observed it. Back to the "meaning" of QM: where the hell was the particle before you observed it!? Well thats what the "meaning" of QM is basically literally all about. The majority of Physicists now subscribe to a particular interpretation now known as the Copenhagen interpretation (there is a reason for this, something to do with something called Belles theorem which again I did not understand) which is this: the particle wasn't anywhere, the act of measurement literally "compelled" the particle to assume a position. There are several other interpretations most of which have gone out of fashion these days, including the "realist" interpretation, this is the one Einstein advocated for, which says that the particle was at where you observed it -the trouble is that this implies that QM is incomplete since the wave function (a probability distribution) wasn't able to tell you that from the beginning.

Here is how I make sense out of all of it, the issue is really about how the scientific method works: basically its all just Math and ingenious ad-hoc experimenting and experimental interpretation that just happened to "work", which in science, means explains the experiments and gives accurate predictions (it does this really well for many experiments, as in typically to greater than the 3 sigma confidence interval, i.e. far less than 0.3% of experimental uncertainty in the quantitative results of some experimental values within the theoretical predictions of the theory), theres nothing more to it.

Ultimately, I think the problem of "understanding" QM is more a matter of biology; our brains evolved not even in a Newtonian world but in the apparent Aristotelian world of mechanics: it appears that things require a force to keep them in motion. The law of inertia was something that very, very few Physicists had considered before Galileo popularized it with his experiments. We may take this for granted being taught it in middle-school science but it actually took one of the greatest geniuses to ever walk the face of the earth just to establish the law of inertia. Still, to most people, the law of inertia is not "intuitive", what is actually intuitive is what is called "folk/naive physics" that psychologists have described.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Na%C3%AFve_physics

The human mind did not evolve to intuitively understand the world that is beyond our domain of experience: this is the world of the very small that QM describes and the world of the very fast (speeds approaching c) that relativity describes. We can investigate it accurately but only with the power of the scientific method. There is nothing mystical about science, God has nothing to do with QM.

Well not quite. The Physicists are currently trying to reconcile QM with general relativity -this is Einsteins theory of gravitation, the one that says gravity is the result of the physical structure of space-time (no there is nothing mystical about that, time defined operationally as the duration of an event, turns out to have a physical structure, in fact is part of the same structure as space, again defined operationally). The trouble is that if time is a part of the same structure as space, in the light of the big bang, it is basically meaningless to ask what came "before" the big bang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uabNtlLfYyU

Some Physicists, which includes Stephen Hawking, think that doing this might remove the need for a "first cause".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11161493

[DSM0305]

Using the same rhetoric again and again... When repeating the same thing, it usually get old both for the provider and the receiver. In your case, you got praised in Hujra forum by a certain someone, I wont mention the name, now you find yourself entitled to use it over and over again.

You're like a kid. When once patted, you keep repeating the same thing in hope of receiving the same recognition. One can easily see the same pattern in every post of yours, since the day you got praised in Hujra section. One can say, this kind of rhetorical pattern is a good think, when you submit your essay in school. In the other hand, the reality of a forum is complete different. Your rhetoric repetition in a forum decreases your point/statement you're trying to make.
You're simply confusing yourself, nothing else. I have read your recently posts both here and in political section. Guess what, your statements is almost non-existent. You're using your time on this rhetoric instead of the statement itself. As I said before, your statement have no meat, only makeup.

If you weren't to busy with your repeating rhetoric. You would have discovered that the very little you said regarding Quantum Mechanics itself, was basically something already said in the videos i posted. Basically your post lacked any new material. Repetition... again.
Even more importantly, you did not come with any material that was relevant to the topic itself.
Maybe next time, you use your time to improve the statement/material that is relevant to the topic, instead of wasting your time on judging other people with terms. The funny thing is, that there is several terms to the exact same topic and you keep picking the wrong one every time, lol.

[Herat]

Oh the hilarious irony, my arguments (all sourced) which you did not even address is all "rhetoric" but your generic non-argument of a post has much "meat". You asked whether Quantum Mechanics had anything to do with God, I replied (sourcing a textbook, a Wikipedia article, a video produced by actual Astrophysicists and a BBC report of Stephen Hawking) by explaining as concisely as I could what QM actually is and then went on to answer your question, in case you didn't get it before, the answer is that by itself QM says nothing about "God" but SOME Physicists (e.g. Stephen Hawking) think that unifying QM with general relativity could render the need for "God" unnecessary. I am sorry if I sounded condescending in that post, that was not my intention, I also should have tried to make one point a bit clearer: popular Physics is basically a media sale. I too when I was a bit younger was caught in all that Michio Kaku, Brian Green stuff but as I began to learn actual Physics (in school and from actual textbooks which I can recommend if you want), I discovered that there was a huge discrepancy between much of popular Physics and actual textbook Physics. For example, in the media, "string theory" and all that crap is a very popular sale but the reality is that the experimental Physics community has a very different attitude.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Trouble-With-Physics-Science/dp/061891868X/ref=sr_sp-atf_title_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406139887&sr=8-1&keywords=the+problem+with+physics