New Law of Physics Could Explain Quantum Mysteries

[interception]

http://www.physorg.com/news169725980.html

[CFTraveler]

I would have liked it better if they would have titled it "New Theory in Physics" .

[Zino]

Didn't understand half of that, anyone care to post me a simple version?

[Xanth]

Didn't understand half of that, anyone care to post me a simple version?

Yeah, some of us could really use a laymen's explanation please!  LoL

[CFTraveler]

Ok, I'll try.

  Who here is familiar with string theory?  I'm only mentioning it because it can give you 'sort of' an idea of how to visualize what this is about.
In string theory, the idea is that what we think of as particles are in reality strings vibrating, and what we perceive is the vibrations when they interact with each other.  Now the originator of this theory (Hawking) postulates that there are more than four dimensions, that there are possibly up to ten or twelve, but they are so small and 'smushed up' into each other so that we can't perceive them. (Yet, anyway).
Now this has not much to do with this other theory but it will make you see how something can be there without being perceived, in the same space. Other than that it has nothing to do with this other theory.


Ok for the theory:
You know about the popular idea that Quantum Physics shows that reality reacts to being observed or measured?  There are more than one interpretations of this, and it has to do with what is known as the 'uncertainty principle'.  If you know what this is go to the next paragraph.
What this is is simply, that quanta (that is, quantum particles) are so small they can't be measured the 'usual' way (which is by bouncing photons against it) because the impact will displace it.  So, the act of measuring quanta makes them move somewhere else.  Because of this it is known that if you know where a particle has been, you don't know where it's going, and you can't ever know where it is now.  Because the second you look for it it goes somewhere else.  Obviously the uncertainty principle only applies to very small things, because as soon as they're big enough, you can just look at it, and know where it is now.  And applying force to it makes it's probable future predictable.  This is simple enough to understand.


Now combine this with the knowledge that quanta can be a particle or a wave, and it is never known what it is until you measure it, someone smart figured out that if a photon (who is going at the speed of light) can become a wave to go through a slit and yet can be a photon when it hits the plate that receives it, that it must be changing before it gets to the target, making it obvious that:
It is two things at the same time
Or, that it knew what you were going to do to it before you did it and was ready for you. (That is, you opened up the slit, or didn't, etc.)

The first idea (that it is two things at the same time) is the idea of superposition- that a thing can be in two states at the same time (particle and wave) is what gives Quantum Physicists nightmares- Because QP has shown that particles do things like this- they can be two things at the same time, or they can communicate instantaneously in different places after they have interacted.  This makes us spiritualists happy but gives materialists nightmares.

So this scientist, Tim Palmer, came up with an idea that explains superposition in a way that makes it  different from 'what we think of as reality', yet that it doesn't break any rules of physics.

The theory suggests the existence of a state space (the set of all possible states of the universe), within which a smaller (fractal) subset of state space is embedded.

In other words, he postulates that when you have a case of superposition, both realities are in 'different' parts of space, and only one will be considered 'real', depending on 'where' in the fractal of reality it is.  So all states exist, not at the same time/space, but within different 'places' as fractals embedded in reality.  When you observe the one you get (as in the particle hitting the plate)- the particle hit the plate, because in the reality of 'plate', the space of that reality was invariant- only a particle could hit the plate, and when the photon went through the slit only the wave expression of it could go through a slit, making the invariant set 'wave' be the only 'real' within that space.
That is, the photon is 'wave' in the geometric set that makes it possible to be 'wave', while it is 'particle' in that geometric region of space that allows it to only be 'particle'. 
Do you see why I used the string example above?
Now, if you look up fractals (I believe there are all kinds of sites that explain fractals you'll get a better idea of what this is about).
I think this idea is similar to the holographic theory, only in that in any part of the hologram you will find the entire information on the original object 'embedded' in it.

This subset is dynamically invariant in the sense that states which belong on this subset will always belong to it, and have always belonged to it. States of physical reality are those, and only those, which belong to this invariant subset of state space; all other points in state space are considered "unreal."

his words, about what I just said.

I hope this helped explain this.

[Xanth]

Anyone else just get a headache?   

[CFTraveler]

Ok, to simplify even further (and the originator of this theory will probably cringe if he reads this)
What he is saying is that reality has the capacity to have something be two different things at the same time, but it's not in the same space, just in different 'subsets' of space, in which one is real and the other is unreal, depending on it's structure, as part of the package.

Is that better?

[Xanth]

Headache decreasing...

\o/

Thanks!

[Zino]

I was in the same boat as Xanth But I believe I understand now.

You are saying like, the world could be here at the same time with the same people on it but in a different space?

[CFTraveler]

I was in the same boat as Xanth But I believe I understand now.

You are saying like, the world could be here at the same time with the same people on it but in a different space?

Sort of.  Like different versions of the world are here at the same time and in different versions of the same space.

[hizuka007]

Sort of.  Like different versions of the world are here at the same time and in different versions of the same space.

in other words, parallel universe.

i will just add something about superposition. It says that an object exist in every POSSIBLE location simultaneously. Seeing the object is post detection...

example: If I hold a glass in my hands, there are possible event or choices I can do:
1. I can throw it away
2. I can put it on the table
3. I can put it on a chair
4. I can let go of the glass so that it will shatter on the floor.
..etc.

Those choices/event above is called superposition of the object. So if I choose number 2, then those remaining choices will STILL continue to happen individually in a different parallel universes (multiverse).

[CFTraveler]

in other words, parallel universe.

I'm not sure if this is what this theory postulates.  I'm not sure of the physics of it, but what this 'new theory' postulates is not superposition, it postulates that a  specific subset of space has only one possibility, not infinite. In fact, the reason the theorist came up with it was to have an alternative to superposition.   I believe another poster (I believe it was White Phoenix of Astral Society) described something it much better than I could, if I understand what he meant.  If I can, I'll find a link and add it.

i will just add something about superposition. It says that an object exist in every POSSIBLE location simultaneously. Seeing the object is post detection...

Yes, and the operative word is possible.  What this theory postulates is that possibility is not infinite, and depends on the subset of space the quantum event takes place in.

I just want to add that I don't have any preference to this or any other theory- personally, I find the idea of superposition to tickle my fancy and I hope it's the correct one, but I claim no expertise, and don't know what the truth it.  I simply think I roughly understood what the physicist was trying to convey, and offered to spell it out in layman's terms, which may come back to bite me.

[Yamabushi]

Yes, and the operative word is possible.  What this theory postulates is that possibility is not infinite, and depends on the subset of space the quantum event takes place in.

Sounds like Feynman's version of quantum theory, then. Richard Feynman's quantum possibilities are different from classical probabilities. Everything that might have happened influences what actually does happen. Classically the more ways an event can happen, the more probable its occurrence. In quantum theory, possibilities have a wavelike nature that allows them to cancel (a la destructive interference / inharmonic resonance), so increasing the number of quantum possibilities does not always make an event more probable.

To calculate an electron's fate (for instance), Feynman adds up all its possible histories, many of which will cancel out. Whatever is left represents the (finite) probability range of what actually will happen.

YB