What the bleep do we know?

[Nero]

Anyone see this movie? What did you think? or what do you think of quantum physics in general?

[tekla]

Physics is not religion, it exists no matter if you believe it or not.

[Nero]

Physics is not religion, it exists no matter if you believe it or not.

are the physics ideas in the movie sound?

[tekla]

To even begin to glean what quantum mechanics is really about you need serious grounding in real college level physics, not a course or two, but the entire course of study (including the math) and some graduate work in physics, particularly in atomic theory, and then, even then, you're only going to get parts of it, because the fullness of the entire theory is pretty much impossible to grasp by anyone, including my teacher, who was a Nobel nominee.  If it bothers you, really, really bothers you at a very fundamental level because what you are understanding is pretty much telling you that everything you know is wrong, or pretty much made up - some sort of collective hallucination, then I'd say you're on the right path.  QM is deeply disturbing.

[Nero]

well, looks like I'm never going to get it then.  not to sound ignorant (okay yes, to sound ignorant), has any of this been proven? the crazy stuff that sounds made up?

[Sandy]

They say that if you understand QM you don't understand QM.

QM been shown to be 99.9998(?) percent accurate in all cases.  Kat, I'm sure you'll correct me if I've dropped a decimal place or two.

Much of QM is counter-intuitive, especially things like wave/particle duality.  But to infer that because of that counter-intuitiveness it allows us to channeling long dead Aztec kings seems like quite a stretch.  I've seen WT*DWK and others like it.  It can seem comforting to see a possible link between hard physics and spirituality, but most of that, I'm afraid is wishful thinking.

Why do they always channel some long dead king?  Why not some long dead nerd who got run over by a cow while preparing manure for fertilizer?

-Sandy

[tekla]

To date, most of the parts of it that have been tested, have been proven true.  But not all part of it have been tested, and it might not even be possible due to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which was the start of a lot of this thinking along with the stuff Max Plank worked on, thought the original problems with Physics that Quantum Mechanics attempted to solve go back to the 1830s/1850s.  The stuff at the far edge, like quantum chaos, we might not ever really know.

[finewine]

Presumably one is posting via a computer.  QM in action, my dear.

The double slit experiment where you can SEE a probability waveform collapse. QM in action.  This simple experiment is one of my favorites...if you really grok what it is showing you, it should utterly blow your mind.

It did to me and I'm still hoovering itty bitty bits of brain out of the sofa ever since.

[Miniar]

Saw it..

Saw a Lot of assumptions within the theories within it...

Think it's a nice fairytale.

[Sandy]

Could Neils Bohr or Fred Alan Wolf please enter this thread about now? Pretty please? Heck, I'd settle for Douglas Hofstadter, or even Douglas Adams!

Any of those *except* Fred Alan Wolf.  He seems to play fast and loose with some of the physics descriptions he wrote about.  Supposedly just to improve the appearance of the spirituality/physics connection so that more "New Age" people would buy the books.

He was in the film too and that is what set the little bell in the back of my head off.

I miss Douglas Adams!  Taken way, way before his time.

-Sandy

[Sandy]

Yep, I knew that Fred Alan was in the film, just thought that in that regard he might enlighten us some about what was there and what wasn't. I'm not sure how comfortably I'd feel if other participants, except for maybe Marlee Matlin, came here to "explain" their thoughts.

I mean, in regards to "others," you've been on the solipsism-thread today, Sandy. Not sure we could take two threads like that simultaneously!

*pop*
I'm still getting the hang of this klein bottle thingie...
*pop*

[finewine]

Rhubarb, rhubarb, Wolf, rhubarb hurrumph, unfalsifiable metaphysical assertions, rhubarb grumble, insert a large marrow into him, grumble hurrumph

[finewine]

Werner Heisenberg gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop.

"Do you have any idea how fast you were going, sir?" asks the cop.

"Ja but I have no idea where I am!" came the reply.

[Sandy]

Werner Heisenberg gets pulled over by a motorcycle cop.

"Do you have any idea how fast you were going, sir?" asks the cop.

"Ja but I have no idea where I am!" came the reply.

Please warn a girl before you tell jokes like that!!!

I have milksnot all over my keyboard!!!!

-Sandy