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Thursday, 14 March 2019
quote [ Researchers from the Russia teamed up with colleagues from the US and Switzerland and returned the state of a quantum computer a fraction of a second into the past. They also calculated the probability that an electron in empty interstellar space will spontaneously travel back into its recent past. ]
No, they didn't turn back time like Cher wishes she could, but it's still pretty neat what they did.
Here's an explanation I found:
This reversal was not performed in a closed system, but was instead driven by a specific device. The second law of thermodynamics still holds in general for closed systems. The flow of time was not ever actually reversed in this system, however a quantum states evolution was successfully reversed. Its cool and useful, but it's not time travel.
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snowfox said @ 6:31pm GMT on 14th March
Is that really returning to the past? This seems more like they found the probability of an electron making two changes that negate eachother, returning the electron to its original position and state, then they set up another experiment to find the probability of electrons happening to take up states that we would think of as a reversal through our own human error in understanding. It isn't that these electrons are going from chaos to order (if there is such a thing), but whether they might all happen to come together... and they do that frequently or else atoms would not be possible. This notion that things can go and come from what we call "chaos" is a ridiculous way to visualize things because our world of chaos is also full of apparent patterns we'd call order, meaning that things fall into and out of "order" all the time.
All this comparison to the billiard balls is a nuisance because we know that sub-atomic does not scale to Newtonian. It's not a good analogy.
My money is still on neutrinos. I don't think they appear and disappear, not really. Particle-wave duality dictates that all particles are waves. So if we're seeing a pattern of presence and absence in a wave, that would suggest that a pattern of inconsistent constructive interference, which is why neutrinos sometimes appear to be there and sometimes not. These oscillating waves sometimes interact in a way that makes a particle, and sometimes don't. The neutrinos' fundamental wave components are there, but not always constructively interfering. Combine this with the implications of the double slit experiment, and you get this notion that what is "real" versus what is merely possible but has not happened is a matter of whether the probability is high enough that it creates a dense, perceptible band. The ideas of a strong frequency and high probability are fundamentally the same.
In other words, it's all just a good vibration, baby.
Any physicists on here care to tell me what I'm missing about this experiment that causes it to have profound implications?
snowfox said @ 6:35pm GMT on 14th March
Is that really returning to the past? This seems more like they found the probability of an electron making two changes that negate eachother, returning the electron to its original position and state, then they set up another experiment to find the probability of electrons happening to take up states that we would think of as a reversal through our own human error in understanding. It isn't that these electrons are going from chaos to order (if there is such a thing), but whether they might all happen to come together... and they do that frequently or else atoms would not be possible. Chaos, which is probably a word for probability, results in things we'd perceive as order on the regular; it is a system that produces order.
All this comparison to the billiard balls is a nuisance because we know that sub-atomic does not scale to Newtonian. It's not a good analogy.
My money is still on neutrinos. I don't think they appear and disappear, not really. Particle-wave duality dictates that all particles are waves. So if we're seeing a pattern of presence and absence in a wave, that would suggest a pattern of inconsistent constructive interference, which is why neutrinos sometimes appear to be there and sometimes not. These oscillating waves sometimes interact in a way that makes a particle, and sometimes don't. The neutrinos' fundamental wave components are there, but not always constructively interfering. Combine this with the implications of the double slit experiment, and you get this notion that what is "real" versus what is merely possible but has not happened is a matter of whether the probability is high enough that it creates a dense, perceptible band. The ideas of a strong frequency and high probability are fundamentally the same.
In other words, it's all just a good vibration, baby.
Any physicists on here care to tell me what I'm missing about this experiment that causes it to have profound implications?
<-- Entry / Current Comment
snowfox said @ 6:31pm GMT on 14th March
Is that really returning to the past? This seems more like they found the probability of an electron making two changes that negate eachother, returning the electron to its original position and state, then they set up another experiment to find the probability of electrons happening to take up states that we would think of as a reversal through our own human error in understanding. It isn't that these electrons are going from chaos to order (if there is such a thing), but whether they might all happen to come together... and they do that frequently or else atoms would not be possible. Chaos, which is probably a word for probability, results in things we'd perceive as order on the regular; it is a system that produces order.
All this comparison to the billiard balls is a nuisance because we know that sub-atomic does not scale to Newtonian. It's not a good analogy.
My money is still on neutrinos. I don't think they appear and disappear, not really. Particle-wave duality dictates that all particles are waves. So if we're seeing a pattern of presence and absence in a wave, that would suggest a pattern of inconsistent constructive interference, which is why neutrinos sometimes appear to be there and sometimes not. These oscillating waves sometimes interact in a way that makes a particle, and sometimes don't. The neutrinos' fundamental wave components are there, but not always constructively interfering. Combine this with the implications of the double slit experiment, and you get this notion that what is "real" versus what is merely possible but has not happened is a matter of whether the probability is high enough that it creates a dense, perceptible band. The ideas of a strong frequency and high probability are fundamentally the same.
In other words, it's all just a good vibration, baby.
Any physicists on here care to tell me what I'm missing about this experiment that causes it to have profound implications?
