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Researchers have now found a way to put a photon in a quantum superposition where it is both a wave and a particle at the same time. Worse still, one setup allows them to determine the photon's nature as a wave or particle after it has gone through an apparatus where it must act as one or the other.
Got that? Didn't think so, so let's go through it in more detail.
Through a careful manipulation of its polarization, researchers were able to set the first photon (the one that went through the apparatus) into a superposition of wave and particle states, meaning it was an indeterminate mixture of the two. By changing how they handled the second photon, they could also control the probabilities of this superposition, making it more wave or particle-like on demand. As with the other experiment, they did this all after the first photon had been through the device and been measured by the two detectors.
One objection to this is that there could be some mechanism by which a photon could detect the sort of device it's about to enter and behave accordingly.
Originally posted by zilebeliveunknown
Wait..What!? Photons have consciousness!?
As with the other experiment, they did this all after the first photon had been through the device and been measured by the two detectors.
Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by Cuervo
Hey, I'm extremely religious, and the only issue that I have with Quantum Mechanics is non-physicists who use it to explain how magic is possible. Well, that and anyone who says that we understand QM, lol -- we've barely begun to understand it.
Originally posted by Cuervo
Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by Cuervo
Hey, I'm extremely religious, and the only issue that I have with Quantum Mechanics is non-physicists who use it to explain how magic is possible. Well, that and anyone who says that we understand QM, lol -- we've barely begun to understand it.
Keep in mind that religion is analogous to "magic" in the eyes of science so you may have more in common with those guys than you think.
Originally posted by PhoenixOD
I dont think this has anything to do with time travel.
Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by Cuervo
Hey, I'm extremely religious, and the only issue that I have with Quantum Mechanics is non-physicists who use it to explain how magic is possible. Well, that and anyone who says that we understand QM, lol -- we've barely begun to understand it.
Originally posted by adjensen
Originally posted by Cuervo
Originally posted by adjensen
reply to post by Cuervo
Hey, I'm extremely religious, and the only issue that I have with Quantum Mechanics is non-physicists who use it to explain how magic is possible. Well, that and anyone who says that we understand QM, lol -- we've barely begun to understand it.
Keep in mind that religion is analogous to "magic" in the eyes of science so you may have more in common with those guys than you think.
Not at all -- I'm a methodological naturalist, but not a philosophical one, and ne'er the twain shall meet. I don't need quantum mechanics, or any science, for that matter, to explain the attributes and actions of God, and I don't need God to explain science, so I don't.
No, I'm referring to New Age noodle heads, like the producers of "What the (bleep) Do We Know?" and similar claptrap that uses misunderstandings of QM to claim that anything is possible and that their outlandish claims of supra-natural behaviour is easily validated by physics that they don't understand.
For some reason, my position of "theistic skepticism" seems to tick off a lot of people, lol.
Originally posted by Cuervo
I'm attracted to the holomovement theory and that's just one example of how you can't box up faith and call it unscientific.
Originally posted by VoidHawk
Originally posted by zilebeliveunknown
Wait..What!? Photons have consciousness!?
Stop cruelty to photons!
Photons should have rights too!
It seems the more we learn about this stuff the more we realise we know very little.