Friday 10 March 2017

A layman’s view on Quantum Physics


A layman’s view on Quantum Physics.

Or Possibilities, Probabilities and Uncertainties, oh and Super Position.

Here is a conundrum;

''In principle, it should make no difference whether the correlation between twin particles occurs when they are separated by a few meters or by the entire universe,'' If we are made up of atoms it follows then there is another wife and I  somewhere else in the Cosmos.


To the layperson there appears to be some dodgy maths behind Quantum Physics. We cannot actually ‘see’ any of these likelihoods above as they all part of the family of uncertainties even entanglements but they are all there and using maths we end up with an answer that might not actually hold true “because of them”. We use an example of Schrödinger’s Pussy theory to prove a point which adds another possibility which I would like to include if I may, called ‘impossibility’ but Quantum theory proves me otherwise …I think.


I will post the following word for word as it is so bizarre I don’t want to be held responsible for admitting it was my theory. “In 1936, physicist Erwin Schrödinger proposed a now-famous “thought” experiment meant to highlight the bizarre implications of quantum mechanics. In his formulation, a cat is trapped in a box with a radioactive atom. Because, according to the dominant interpretation of quantum mechanics, particles can exist in multiple states until they are measured, logic dictated that the cat would be both alive and dead at the same time until the radioactive atom was measured. If that atom decays, the cat will be poisoned and die, but if the atom has not decayed, the cat lives”.


I am not absolutely sure how in practice he intended to isolate a single radioactive sub atomic particle as I was taught that an atom is the smallest particle of matter that can exist, well that was before the discovery of Quantum Physics. You must understand not being a confidante of Einstein or Schrödinger I can only ask the questions.


The hard questions started when I inquired of our religious instructor at school where heaven might be located. I should not overly worry about the health of Schrödinger’s cat or my question did he/she survive? as his cat was only a “thought” experiment.


As most people understand the purpose of the Hadron Collider they would have also heard about the famous double-slit experiment. What I like about the “Possibilities, Probabilities, Uncertainties and Entanglements” of Quantum Physics is the Double-Slit experiment which touches on the question of what is reality? I do not particularly like the reality I live in and the slim possibility there might be another really intrigues me. 


Like Schrödinger’s cat I am prepared to go along with “Possibilities Probabilities and Uncertainties” if there was the slightest chance this reality I live in is not real but has been discovered because of Quantum Physics. With all these said uncertainties and probabilities etc. it is not surprising to understand most quantum computing concepts involve a lot of redundancy.


It gets better Heinz Pagels, like many other theorists, believed that quantum physics is a kind of code that interconnects everything in the universe, including the physical basis of life itself. If all things consist of atoms the theory is we can also exist somewhere else in the universe. They found in the realm of the very small, things could be in two places at once. That their fates are dictated by chance and that reality itself defies all common senses and that everything we thought we knew about the world might turn out to be completely wrong. It is fair to say everything in Physics is a wave. Its sounds like a contradiction but the electron obeys a wave equation although it’s a particle. (Plank)