Sir_Crocodile
Member
they can't move because senpai noticed them
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Zeno Effect confirmed: Atoms won't move when observed
- Thread starter 3phemeral
- Start date
- Status
Sir_Crocodile
Member
also cue plenty of "a watched kettle never boils" newspaper articles
This post deserves more love; A++, would lol again
Atoms are these guys:
Appreciate dat
To measure something you must interact with it.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
Richard Feynman.
Rebel Leader
THE POWER OF BUTTERSCOTCH BOTTOMS
Holy
shit
I never thought it would be possible
shit
I never thought it would be possible
Cool, didn't know he stole it.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
without reading the articles, this would be more like suspending an unstable particle from degrading, due it being held by its interaction (magnetic field or similar) with the measurement equipment. Suggesting the particle gets a say in it is absurd.
compare it to this as visualisation (quite common in platformer video games):
imagine a small round magnet in a gel tube where it slowly descends (to a would-be bottom, but let's pretend the bottom is open and the magnet would fall out if it descends far enough). Or would, because you've put a large magnet on a pendulum and swing it over the tube in a regular pattern. Every time the small magnet in the gel will descend, but each swing the pendulum will add enough energy to pull it back up.
If the pendulum is the only way to observe the magnet, you would find it being in the upper state (of the gel) the entire time if you measure at an adequate frequency. It would still lose energy (descend) during the off time, but never enough to have to lose energy by degrading completely (which is falling out of the tube in this little model).
compare it to this as visualisation (quite common in platformer video games):
imagine a small round magnet in a gel tube where it slowly descends (to a would-be bottom, but let's pretend the bottom is open and the magnet would fall out if it descends far enough). Or would, because you've put a large magnet on a pendulum and swing it over the tube in a regular pattern. Every time the small magnet in the gel will descend, but each swing the pendulum will add enough energy to pull it back up.
If the pendulum is the only way to observe the magnet, you would find it being in the upper state (of the gel) the entire time if you measure at an adequate frequency. It would still lose energy (descend) during the off time, but never enough to have to lose energy by degrading completely (which is falling out of the tube in this little model).
The article does not suggest anything else. Not volition nor awareness.
Not always right? I mean not all measurements involve an interaction with the source e.g. Astronomy.
With astronomy we are interacting with the light those objects have sent towards us. Measurement of that light destroys the photons that object has sent towards us.
Gravitationally, we are interacting with everything in the universe right now, as an aside.
Bedameister
Member
In that case the object we want to observe interacts with the instruments we use. So yeah observation always needs some kind of interaction.
You are literally capturing photons from the object in astronomy, but that's beside the point, it's talking about subatomic objects. Which arguably aren't even objects but something more nuanced.
ZackieChan
Member
Does this explain how half of GAF showers irregularly, but doesn't stink until observed by a passerby's olfactory senses?
Sometimes called the "wash-off effect"
Sometimes called the "wash-off effect"
And you win the thread.
Can anyone clarify what "Emergent Classicality" is? From what I've been piecing together, frequently measuring an atom causes that atom (I guess, in this case, an unstable atom) to react in a classical manner i.e. as classical, non-quantum macro objects would. Is that accurate?
I meant interaction in the sense of not altering the original process (source) which causes/emits the subsequent EM signals which are observed. Yes, the instruments which read these signals will cause some sort of distortion but that's where calibration and signal processing comes in to reduce instrumentation errors. The case here from what I understand is that the observation involves an alteration of the conditions under which the process is taking place right?
MiamiWesker
Member
la flama blanca
Banned
Is there any sort of speculation as to maybe why this happens?
the method of the observation is enough to induce stabilization for the atom
like.. hmmm.. imagine there's a ball rolling across the field, being moved by the wind. To measure it's size, you have to walk up and put a string around it. The string will stop the ball from moving. the ball doesn't "know" it has a string around it and stopped, your measurement method stopped it.
TimeEffect
Member
You obviously are using a tool to observe these things in the first place. It's not simply because you are spectating them with your eyes.
In quantum mechanics, if you know the state a particle is in, its state at a different time is e^(i H t) x initial state. So if t is very small, the exponential is about one, and it will still be in it's initial state. Measure enough times close enough together, and the state doesn't change.
Edit: i is √-1, and H has to do with the energy of the particle.
boiled goose
good with gravy
It is pretty well understood theoretically.
Remember, when we are observing things you are interacting with them in some way.
show me your skeleton
Member
fuck quantum physics. i barely understand normal physics.
John Kowalski
Banned
they're not anti social they're just shy...
la flama blanca
Banned
But from what I read and understand(I really don't know much about this), aren't the tests not necessarily hindering "the movement" much like a string around a ball would?
oreomunsta
Banned
I love the smell of quantum weirdness in the morning.
Great thread, OP
Great thread, OP
https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/3pw7xy/one_of_the_oddest_predictions_of_quantum/cw9yjf2
So I think yeah, the waveform collapses and starts acting classically.
Freeza Under The Shower
Member
As I understand the article:
Structure, not atom. They've created a supercooled matrix structure where normally there would occur quantum tunnelling within the structure, making the atoms shift positions in an unpredictable manner. Meaning you wouldn't know the complex state (relative positions within the matrix) of the structure until you measure it.
By pulsing / measuring it continuously at a greater intensity, you can start to keep the atoms in the structure in the same positions and start to make regular (classical) predictions on where they will be next, whereas normally quantum measurement are too small and too quick to be predictable in that manner (which is not the same as inherently unpredictable, but we could never measure that state of complexity).
'Emergent' is a quality of complex systems to create a 'higher' (more complex) phenomenon when it gains a critical mass of sorts. A hundred ants are just ants, a hundred thousand becomes an ant hill / colony.
This quantum structure becomes a more regular matrix structure under the experimental conditions, which is what they mean. "Pseudo-classical" might have been a better name though.
edit: oh, we already had that. Oh well, I tried. Not a physicist either.
shira
Member
Interesting. So when these atoms are forced to behavior in a classical manner, does this at all take away from understanding its quantum behavior?
From what I'm understanding of this, you can make classical predictions by forcing them to collapse into a state in which they exhibit classical behavior. But it's coming off as knowing one side of a coin but still being unable to observe the other. Still so fascinating.
For lack of a better way of phrasing this, does this mean these atoms are affected by conscious interaction? I don't mean conscious in the sense of awareness, as if this happens because of minds, but more like resonance; something interacting with it through an action.
Very interesting happening, if that's it.
Very interesting happening, if that's it.
Ether_Snake
å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®å®
So I think this indicates my line of thinking that things can't advance through infinitely-divisible space, and in fact it is only probabilities that determine that something has changed state/interacted with something else.
Meaning nothing really moves through space, probabilities just determine where things stand at a given moment. Something that interacts with nothing at all either doesn't exist, or is still interacting but on a very low probability basis. Meaning if a particle was to go very far away from anything in the universe, it would be increasingly less "real" in a deterministic sense; it might no longer be exactly where we would think it would be, but in many possible places at once, and only probabilities will define where it ultimately is after interactions increase again (for example, if a meteor got increasingly close to where that particle might be).
So Zeno was kind of right.
In a way we can see probabilities as a form of gravitational force; a particle "smears" across space in all directions at the same time, but probabilities will pull it into a specific direction, and those probabilities are basically the sum of all other states at a given time. Something is more probable if more interactions are occurring.
Meaning nothing really moves through space, probabilities just determine where things stand at a given moment. Something that interacts with nothing at all either doesn't exist, or is still interacting but on a very low probability basis. Meaning if a particle was to go very far away from anything in the universe, it would be increasingly less "real" in a deterministic sense; it might no longer be exactly where we would think it would be, but in many possible places at once, and only probabilities will define where it ultimately is after interactions increase again (for example, if a meteor got increasingly close to where that particle might be).
So Zeno was kind of right.
In a way we can see probabilities as a form of gravitational force; a particle "smears" across space in all directions at the same time, but probabilities will pull it into a specific direction, and those probabilities are basically the sum of all other states at a given time. Something is more probable if more interactions are occurring.
Ding ding ding. Now to do the same experiment from a further distance. So....we need stronger lens?
A dumb computer could continue to probe this particle indefinitely with no human operator and it would maintain its state. Not sure if that helps.
- Status