Can Quantum Weirdness Be Logically Predicted?

[David Sklansky]

"dont see how they arent surprising - you cant derive the inverse square law (unless you bring in the anthropic principle which doesnt seem to be what you are talking about) it is a brute fact about the world. Similarly, you cant derive quantum weirdness - it just is."

The inverse square law isn't obvious to you?

[Max Raker]

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What were people thinking 500 years ago when gravity was first being explored and defined (differing masses falling at the same rate!)? Unbeknownst to the people of the times, the mass of the earth is so immense, that the relative mass of the other bodies was negligible (ha, I think, right?

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Actually, no.
F=ma
F(of gravity on falling object) = m(of falling object) a(acceleration of falling object)

F(of gravity on falling object) = g(gravitational constant)*M(of earth)*m(of falling object)/d(distance between center of gravities)^2

set F = F

g*M*m/d^2 = ma

m = mass of the falling object is on both sides of the equation and cancels itself out.

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The OP was right. Your equations only work when one object is much smaller than the other and can ignore the acceleration of the larger object (i.e the Earth). Otherwise you have to add in the acceleration of the Earth from the gravity of the object.

The equation ends up being G(M+m)/d^2 = a, where a is the acceleration of one object as seen from the surface of the other object.

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Nope the OP is wrong. The mass of the Earth dosen't matter.
There is really no such thing as "acceleration of one object as seen from the surface of the other object." You can measure acceleration locally and it is absolute. An object is or isn't accelerating, it dosen't matter where you look from. This is the opposite of velocity in which you need to specify the frame where you measure from.

[bunny]

No moreso than heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

I am assuming that by being obvious you mean it must be that way (is that your intention? Or do you mean it's easy to see?)

For the former - I can imagine a world where gravity is proportional to the cube of the distance, for example so I dont see why the strength of gravity being inversely proportional to the square is obvious in this sense.

In the second meaning - I dont think it is easy to see just by looking, you need to do experiments and calculations (and even these will give the "wrong" answers due to measuring error, friction, etc - you have to follow a process of abstraction to get to the law). This doesnt seem any different to quantum results, they are just newer imo.

[Max Raker]

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"dont see how they arent surprising - you cant derive the inverse square law (unless you bring in the anthropic principle which doesnt seem to be what you are talking about) it is a brute fact about the world. Similarly, you cant derive quantum weirdness - it just is."

The inverse square law isn't obvious to you?

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I dont think you can call the inverse square law obvious. It's a very good guess based on geometry. But, in Newtonian physics, you can on paper come up with other possibilities. Ironically, when you say that Newtonian physics is obvious, I think you are wrong. Newtonian physics is based on many arbitrary concepts. (Why not F=ma^2 or something else). Things like F=ma where almost purely experiement. In that sense I think your question is flawed because quantum mechanics is really MORE "obvious" and predictable than Newtonian physics.

[tsrcess]

i think i will wade a little into these waters. although everything appears to be very regular at a distance, EVERYTHING up close is VERY weird. consider, for example, any event or any observation at all (i.e. the jfk assaination or the position of any particle) that has been studied in great detail. the conclusion is ALWAYS the same. the event or observation is weird and does not make sense. why is this? well, my theory is that our (human) perception of reality is really an illusion on a grand scale. we observe our surrondings and we attempt to logically define them. but, our notions of logic are not truely consistent with our surroundings. if i'm correct (as i'm sure i am), there are no particular implications for the average life. afterall, millions (billions) have lived and died with no good understanding of existence. what does it matter? it matters only to those who want to know the truth. i don't think the knowledge has any practical consequences...

[chezlaw]

Not sure this is what your looking for but maybe something like quantum wierdness follows from the assumption the universe is efficient plus some other bits.

Calculating positions/momentums/polarisations/spins etc etc is costly and often unnecessary (in some sense). Why not only calculate them when a value is needed - something like QM then follows as quantumn wierdness is equivalent to just in time computation.

Leaves the question, when is a value needed - maybe something to do with concious experience.

chez

[felson]

David,

This has no bearing on the QM/creator issue. But if, as you say, so much of physics is common sense, it is a cruel accident of history that you were born 500 years too late to be credited with the discovery of Newton's laws and gravitation, and that you were born 100 years too late to be credited with the discovery of relativity.

Would you also say that all the "obvious" discoveries in physics have now been exhausted? Or might there be some remaining?

[Zeno]

There is a very good and article in the recent Skeptical Inquirer Volume 30, No.4 July/August 2006 titled: "Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird After All", by Paul Quincey. Unforturnely the recent issue of the magazine and article are not yet available on the website Skeptical Inquirer but it may be within a few weeks.

Anyway, the article is worth reading and Mr. Quinecy borrows and/or bases some of his arguments from material in Richard Feynman's book, QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.


I haven't the time nor the will go over this article in detail here. Pick up the magazine if you want or wait and see if the article will be one of the ones available on the website. Or contact Paul Quiency, he is a physicist at the National Physical Laboratory, Hampton Road, Teddington, Middlesex, TW11 OLW, United Kingdom. His e-mail is given in the magazine but I don't know if it is appropriate to give it here so I will not do so.


A few excerpts from the article:

"But the triumph of quantum mechanics came with an unexpected problem- when you stepped outside of the mathematics and tried to explain what was going on, it didn't make sense."

" Richard Feynman's "least-action" approach to quantum physics in effect shows that it is just classical physics constrained by a simple mechanism."


The article uses a surveyor’s wheel for measuring action in quantum mechanics where the wheel circumference equals Planck's constant, h.


With that tickle and tease, I leave the rest to the more cerebral minds on this forum.

-Zeno

[MaxWeiss]

It seems to me that the only reason that there is so much "weirdness" is due to a lack of understanding of what is going on. I haven't studied quantum mechaincs much (at all) but I have studied special and general relativity.

Anyway, the who field of probability and statistics is trying to derive something useful from incomplete information. AK against 22 is a toss up because we assign a random (unknown) distribution to the possible cards that come. If we shuffle track and know an ace will hit the flop (which is easy to do in a lot of card rooms) we know AK has a much better chance than 50/50. Similarly, I believe deep down (even with the numerous scince classes I've taken) that we just don't know enough yet, and as the field progresses and we learn more about the particles, we won't say it has a 50-50 chance of decaying---we will be able to analyze more variables than we can currently account for (because we have advanced in that field) and say exactly when it will decay.

Physical law will follow the math equations--becaus we derivded them from observation and use of the scientific method. Those equations call for uncertainty and probabilistic functions. The ONLY reason this is so is because we have not yet input all the variables. We just don't know. And we don't know WHAT we don't know.

We tend to forget that nature doesn't act weird. It simply acts, and we think it's weird because it's not what we think it should be, because we are not fully informed. But, and this is my favorite phrase, everything happens exactly as it should.

[Metric]

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...we will be able to analyze more variables than we can currently account for (because we have advanced in that field) and say exactly when it will decay.

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This was the view of of many physicists before Bell's inequalities, which basically show that "not taking into account every variable" is not sufficient to account for all of the predictions of QM.