Let us take something simple - the uncertainty of knowledge. Okay, maybe it's not that simple. But it should be. Quantum physics states quite plainly that all information is locally hidden until a measurement is made. It actually goes further to say the information doesn't exist until the measurement is made, but that's a separate idiocy for another time. Quantum physics also states that, due to Bell's inequality, local hidden information is impossible. The vast majority of physicists take both of these propositions to heart without any critical reflection whatsoever. Thus, they internalize contradictions as part of their formal training.
Please forgive my repeated rant here against Bell's inequality. In his papers, Bell carefully sets up a straw man argument, then knocks it down. Thus, using his paper as proof, you can make the most outlandish claims - that entangled particle pairs cannot contain hidden information (even as the information must be hidden due to the probabilistic nature of the quantum wavefront), that the particle pairs communicate instantaneously over great distances when you finally do measure them, and that there is no such thing as local realism. These claims are only possible due to the nonsensical nature of Bell's inequality.
What is the problem with bell's paper and its famous inequality? What is the inequality? In summary, Bell showed that sawtooth waves are not identical to sine waves. Shocking, I know. Where do the sawtooth waves come from? He made them up with mathematical sleight of hand. There has never been the slightest indication that any particle acts in any way like a sawtooth wave. And yet that's what Bell uses to claim that entangled particles must communicate instantaneously, and that there is no such thing as local realism. I'm quite serious. Go read the paper yourself, and marvel at the hubris used to create the straw man sawtooth particle. Then cry that it has been taken very, very seriously indeed by generations of scientists.
Bell's original paper (pdf)
By the way, I'm not the first to notice this. Some scientists have complained about it since just a few years after the paper was published. However, these men seem to share similar fates in having their funding mysteriously cut off after announcing that the emperor has no clothes. And those who spend tens of millions of dollars proving the tautology (waves act like waves) win Nobel prizes, thus reinforcing the power of "woo-hoo" politics in modern physics. Shut up and calculate!
I would offer a simple observation. I live in a three dimensional reality which is effectively a dumbed-down shorthand for what may be a seven to eleven dimensional universe, just as my dog gets by with out yellow or much blue in her vision, I do without most of the dimensions.
ReplyDeleteThe apparent (and troubling) contradictions in physics may simply be that we are intellectual canines with irresolvable questions rooted in our limited intelligence. Logic is a powerful tool whose limits we cannot easily see. Perhaps it is not a good enough tool. We are all among the top intellects in our solar system but our three-pound brains may the wrong tool to understand this questions fully. As (I think)Julian Huxley observed using the original meaning of the word, "The universe is not only queerer than we suppose but queerer than we can suppose"
Your dog isn't tall enough for this ride.
DeleteUnlike the dog in the excellent book, "How to teach relativity to your dog".