Thursday, August 11, 2011

Quantum Week - Day 4

Just as there are respected scientists who hold out for a classical, deterministic explanation of quantum physics, so too are there respected scientists on the opposite end of the spectrum, who believe that quantum behavior lends evidence to a participatory universe. Their ideas flow from a number of features of quantum physics which we have seen, namely entanglement and the observer effect.

Quantum entanglement, shown by the EPR/Bell's Theorem/Alain Aspect and others' experiments viewed yesterday, indicates that matter is related in fundamental ways. And we believe all matter was related at the time of the 'Big Bang.'

The observer effect, which we saw in the double slit and the EPR experiments, suggests that consciousness or at least observation and measurement play a part in reality.

Again, I'm not going to investigate either the participatory interpretations or ones that suggest a more spiritual interpretation. There have been some popular books, such as The Tau of Physics by Fritjof Capra and The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav about these ideas. Plus, there exist many web sites and videos about them. However, I could not find one that met the rigors of my standards, or that did not have a lot of hallucinatory graphics or new age music.

Instead, I'm going to show three videos which offer warnings about spiritual interpretations of quantum physics. The speaker, David Albert, refers to a film, which is, I believe, What the Bleep Do We Know!? Albert appeared in the film, but felt he was misrepresented by selected editing.



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