sounds like old arguments against gays and, later, against gay marriage. Still, civilization seems to be chugging along, and will survive some guys/gals going "synthetic" as well.
1,464 karma · joined March 18, 2013
The original posts at "theawl" - i wasn't able to read it beyond the first couple of paragraphs, as it is sounds like an incomprehensible blabber to me, something along the lines of an anxious teenager describing his word argument with another teenager.
as it was already mentioned this architect had already built death ray building in Las Vegas
>It is quite unusual for the windows on a building to start melting cars, especially in a mild climate like London.
Sun's potential energy flux on the Earth's surface, be it Las Vegas or London, is 1KWt per m2 of the surface _perpendicular_ to the flux. So given clear day and good angle (close to perpendicular) of a building to the Sun's light, the building will be beaming back significant part of that 1KWt/m2.
through the human (and well before the human) evolution the ones who prefer unfamiliar (to try to eat, to touch, to waddle in, to make friends with, ...) have statistically been leaving lesser number of descendants than ones who prefer familiar, and thus we're here - the result of that statistical process
> because people also don't like thinking.
instinctive or very well learned/automated behaviour (i.e. familiar situation/stimuli, trained response) is much cheaper for the brain energy-wise, thus it will be preferred by selection until the situation changes to where thinking presents better price/performance ratio. And then new cycle of bottom-line optimization of pushing newly thought out behaviour in that new situation down to the level of well trained/instinctive response and back to square 1.
like silicon?
Once, we picked up an obviously lost dog on a mountain road and dropped it at the first fire station after the phone on its collar resulted in a voicemail. It was during our 1st year in the US and the thing "what if the dog was stolen and we stopped by police while the dog is in our car" didn't even cross our mind. Now after 13 years here, i'm wondering what i'd do if it was say a child (and there is no collar with the phone to leave voicemail) ...
...
>What happens if Hitachi's experimental setup had only one path for the electron to follow rather than two? You're claiming that the frogs are a good model for Hitachi's setup, so it should be the same result that you claim for the frog model with one door. You're claiming that the frog model with one door produces a pattern of alternating wet and dry. What happens in the lab when you try it with electrons? Electrons following a single path don't produce an alternating pattern; they produce a pattern very close to a Gaussian.
The electrons, photons, and frogs (jumping over the wall when probability below some threshold) would produce an alternating pattern like this one:
http://www.a-levelphysicstutor.com/images/waves/ys-1s-2s-gra...
Because it is result of the same geometry as on the image that i posted before : where 2 greens touch the wall simultaneously - deep trough, zero intensity, and where 2 reds - peak. The meaning of the green/red isn't important - be it probability of a frog's legs touching ground or the probability density of position of electron - the resulting pattern is the same. The image can be interpreted as either while it is just an image of concentric circles originating from 2 points. Gaussian outline comes to play only because it describes the normal deviation of a frog/electron from the preferred direction they jump/fired along.
> If you let electrons go through either just one path or just the other path, you'll get nice smooth Gaussians from both (translated a bit from each other).
this is true only in classical mechanics where position of electron or a bullet isn't quantized - you'll get a smooth Gaussian. In QM, i.e. real electrons, photons (or jumping frogs having the property of going through/over the wall where ground touch probability is close to 0) single slit produces dim/light pattern like on the image above. Like the double-slit pattern, this single-slit pattern is also result of position quantization.
> But open both paths up, you'll see the distribution dim at places. That's very unexpected! Somehow letting more electrons through has decreased the electrons hitting certain parts of the screen.
This - double slit is more frequent than single-slit or dimming at some places - happens only for stream of photons as photons interfere with one another and the photon's wavelength is the same as its position quantization period (note - for electron DeBroglie and positional quantization are different wavelengths), so the photon_A-photon_B interference is visible on the scale of the pattern produced as a result of positional quantization. In case of Hitachi, we have single electrons, so no electron_A-to-electron_B interference, so the double-slit pattern is less frequent than single-slit, ie. where was light on single slit - there will continue to be the same or brighter light on double-slit, it is just some (not all) troughs/dims will disappear.
> You "see" the effect in the probability distribution for where that electron appears
The quantized position probability distribution already explains the pattern. I don't see how adding the interference or superposition changes it.
>If you still think there's some effect being transmitted between different electrons
no, the many particles, i.e. many samples is just results in better visualization of underlying probability distribution. I think here we agree.
> You would get exactly the same effects by setting up a statistically significant number of screens all spatially separated from each other and running the experiments without signals being able to be communicated between screens and then overlaying the resultant observed positions.
the same here. We agree about independent events and their cumulative statistics. Let frogs jump in separate setups, and mark their results on a separate screen - the pattern will emerge as if they all jumped in the same yard.
>However, the Mach–Zehnder Interferometer is, I believe, an better physical model to witness a single photon interfering with itself.
Will definitely spend a time on it.
> Young's double-slit experiment was invented first, so for really that reason alone, it's taught first, but because of its continuous nature, it's easier to get bogged down in certain irrelevancies.
it only looks somewhat "continuous" with light. That is the beauty of the Hitachi experiment as it took away a lot of "continuity" effect as well as "photon A interfering with photon B" effect.
sounds like abomination. Even in the early 1998 our web browser had 4 or 5 root certificates. Why only one in the case of secure boot?
yes, my mistype, it is basically Ensemble Interpretation.
> However, the probability density you gave for the frogs in the classical case, cos^2(pi*X/A), is incorrect.
it isn't resulting probability distribution on the wall. It is probability distribution of the frog legs touching the ground on a radial line from door to the wall, i.e. peaks at 0, A, 2A, 3A,.... It is about the same as position operator for electron would produce on a radial line from slit to the screen. Also note that the frog doesn't interact with the wall if the frog is "airborne" (i.e. one can imagine that it just goes through the wall without leaving a wet spot or even better - the wall is too low, say 0.1m , so airborne, mid-flight, frogs would fly over it).
If you look at this image
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/interference/doubles...
the red concentric lines is where a frog most probably touches the ground and the greenish-yellow - where a frog is most probably mid-jump airborne (flying at the height enough to fly over the wall). Where 2 yellow-greenish lines intersect right near the wall - it is the place with minimal probability of a frog landing near the wall, ie. dry place. While intersection of 2 reds - correspondingly a very wet place.
>The fact that electrons in Hitachi's experiment display a "many-humped" distribution is good evidence that the electrons are not following the same rules as the frogs, and hence that the electrons are behaving non-classically.
this non-classical behavior is the quantization of position, ie. position probability density looks like concentric waves starting at a slit. I.e. cut along the radial line, the profile of that density is a correctly scaled cos(x), with x - distance from the slit. The superposition isn't necessary for the observed effect.
>> in Hitachi experiment it is shown explicitly clear that quantum interference is emerging only for multiple particles.
>This is the exact opposite of what the Hitachi experiment shows. The experiment is interesting and surprising precisely because particles are sent one at a time but still show an interference pattern. The experiment shows a single particle interfering with itself.
i'm trying to understand where do you see the interference of a particle with itself. Lets say the experiment was run only until there is only 1 (i.e. 2 sec into the clip), or say 3 particles hit the screen (4 seconds into the clip). What would be an indication of the interference in such a case?
not sure that we're talking about the same. My understanding here is that one calculates probabilities the same way. It is the interpretation different. In Copenhagen the particle is supposed to carry all probabilities which magically "collapse" on the measurement, while in statistical a given particle is in "collapsed" state to start with (there is a distribution of the states over the ensemble), and the probabilistic model describes the evolution of these states and distribution of final states - there is no collapse on measurement, we just measure specific state.
>I'm unclear why you're bringing up Hitach's experiment and what you think it shows. Maybe you could elaborate? My understanding is that the raison d'être of the experiment is to show that multiple particles are not necessary for quantum interference to occur, and that a single particle is perfectly capable of destructively interfering with itself.
in Hitachi experiment it is shown explicitly clear that quantum interference is emerging only for multiple particles. It is basically a visualization of underlying probability distribution, like it happens in any statistical experiment when enough samples are taken. During the Hitachi experiment nothing happened that looks like or requires an explanation by a single particle supposedly interferencing with itself.
If you don't see this in Hitachi experiment, lets run the following experiment. Imagine 2 doors in a wall, and imagine another, parallel, wall at several meters distance from the doors. Imagine that frogs jump out, one at a time, from either door pretty randomly. The frogs jump in general direction of the wall opposite the doors. The precise direction of each frog is varying a bit. It takes a frog several jumps to reach the wall. The probability density of the places where the frog's legs touch the ground is square of cos(pi*x/A) (correctly scaled to be a probability density) where x is the distance from the door the frog jumped out, and A is the avg. frog jump length. A frog only exist (i.e. can interact with anything else) when it touches the ground, and doesn't exist when it is flying during the jump. Whenever a frog lands near the wall, say not farther than a body distance from the wall, it touches the wall and leaves a wet spot.
It is easy to see that after a big enough bunch of frogs, there would be an "interference pattern" of dry and really wet areas on the wall - i.e. some places have low probability of a frog landing near it while some have high, and that probability distribution looks like an "interference pattern". No superposition, no destructive interference of a frog with itself is necessary to observe the effect. This is what Hitachi experiment shows.
>This is pretty direct evidence for superposition,
yes, an interference of a particle with itself would be such evidence. I'm yet to learn about an experiment which can only be explained by such interference.
> Any successful theory of physics must explain how 15 was factored using Shor's Algorithm.
agree. While 15 seems too small a number to exclusively lock a superposition explanation, i don't have another ready. I'd like to have quantum computers and other quantum miracles too :) I just want them to be a bona fide miracles, not figments of our interpretation :)
An interpretation of QM experiments depends on your interpretation of QM :) When one sees the world through Copenhagen interpretation (i.e. superposition of states, simultaneously dead/alive cat) one sees miracles like entanglement, and starts wondering about many worlds, etc... On the other side one can look at Hitachi's electron double-slit experiment :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ-0PBRuthc
It doesn't refute superposition, it just allows to interpret/explain things without it. Of course with superposition gone, quantum computers are gone, and no miracles like entanglement, and many worlds while still may exist lose a potent argument in their favor :)
(note: the experiment clearly shows 2 separate things:
1. the main point of QM that, for example, position of a particle is described by wave-function/quantized
2. superposition of many positions is visible as a characteristic of the whole set of particles
Bringing in additional superposition at the level of one particle doesn't add anything for explanation, it only brings "miracles" that Copenhagen interpretation is filled with )
MS lobbying in WA.
lets not forget that having friends in government intelligence (people in the shadow with strong soft powers) may be just helpful ...
http://www.ngpedia.ru/cgi-bin/getpage.exe?cn=61&uid=0.381138...
which points to "АСВТ-М" series of machines used in all areas of economics, government, education, and military as well.
http://www.icfcst.kiev.ua/MUSEUM/PHOTOS/M-6000_r.html
Usually the military components would have "ВП" stamp ("Военная приемка" - "accepted by military QA") - at least that was the case with electronic components from torpedo and cruise missiles at the navy base hardware dump that we sourced our hobby electronics components from in the childhood, and this doesn't seem to have it :
http://sovietsouvenirs.com/catalog/images/ic/core_memory-15-...
or a lifesaver for aircrews stationed in "dry" countries like Yemen :)
The guys clearly have an agenda, and their opinion of what is "non-scientific based medicine" clearly goes against NIH, a top medical research organization. One is free to pick a side, a top medical research organization or the alternative :)
> You totally failed to address the content of the article.
i didn't even planned on doing it. My word against SBM, even when NIH's word is supposedly not enough? Are you kidding?
>On your link: It is a summary of chiropractics, along with a summary of studies discussing what treatments may or may not help. It is lacking substance and has no new information that was missing from the SBM links.
exactly - summary by NIH is just some fluff that is "lacking substance". Man, i rest my case.
that is outright fantasy.
"NIH is made up of 27 Institutes and Centers, each with a specific research agenda, often focusing on particular diseases or body systems."
My experience with a specific NIH's center - NCBI - and their work clearly correlates with it, they [ ie. their own researchers] are doing fundamental science.
The rest of your statements goes the same way.
What i've been wondering for many years about is why such schema wasn't miniaturized? We have disk plates with high density in HDDs, and the magnetic head is physically moving. Imagine if instead of the magnetic head there would be a [miniaturized] lattice similar in principle to the one on this image http://sovietsouvenirs.com/catalog/images/ic/core_memory-15-.... The similar principle is used in flash memory, yet in the flash memory it is electrons trapped in the floating gate instead of magnetic domains with all the problems (durability, sustained write speed) of flash vs. magnetic disks.
Instead, one can look at NIH site:
http://nccam.nih.gov/health/chiropractic/introduction.htm
After that we can look at your statements:
>Chiropractic is a pseudo-profession. It is well established in scientific fields as a pseudo-profession and it has done very little to try and shed this image, besides making ad-homenim (if you can call it that) attacks against the rest of science screaming of prejudice.
yep, man, calling it a pseudo-profession in the face of NIH is a definition of ad-homenim. As well as calling 'true believer' people whose opinion is supported by NIH, yet contradict your own. Speaking about 'true believers' :)
we were arguing diagnosis, hence the link that quick search brought.
I'm really surprised by the prejudice [especially baseless prejudice which is just plain offensive] against chiropractors that i met in this thread. I understand that you(+your family) had mixed experience and that provides basis for your opinion. My experience is completely different.
Even without going into personal experiences and opinions which as we see may vary (like in the case of regular medicine as well), the objectively most important fact here is that insurance covers chiropractors - this is ultimate and most important endorsement in the US :) - speaking from my personal experience of fighting an insurance several years ago when they refused to pay for a procedure an MD performed on me.
Wrt. my experience with chiropractors. My father was successfully treated for back pain by a chiropractor 30 years ago back in Soviet Union, and my wife got successfully treated for a joint issue here recently, and in my case everything has so far been consistent with my knowledge/understanding as well as with medical info i could find.
So, i don't see any reasons to worry or be suspicious with chiropractors beyond what would be typical and prudent in any other encounter with any other medical professional.
interesting how in future, when time will weather out a lot of details, people will look back at our time and see huge amount of dwellings - offices - going empty at night while some people would sleep under bridges, on the streets, etc... Was it a personal choice of these people, were they punished, banned from the society or was it a society without empathy? One can imagine various archaeo-socio-logical PhD-s.
yep, it was a sole basis of you doubt. Even though tghw was outright trashing neck angle problem, you still supported the trashing because diagnosis comes from chiropractor. Evidence based reasoning coming from a future medical doctor i guess ...
> Chiropractors are notorious
... and more of it.
may be now you do. Couple comments up - you obviously didn't as you so eagerly agreed with tghw's doubting what abnormal cervical curvature can be a problem :)
http://umm.edu/programs/spine/health/guides/cervical-kyphosi...
that was, almost word for word, among the things that was explained to me by the chiropractor [when he shown me the disk deformation on my X-ray - abnormally straight neck and thus abnormally compressing the front side of the disks] :
"As the discs collapse and grow thinner, the head tilts forward and the neck begins to curve forward. This begins a process that may continue to progress for years. The weight of the head causes an imbalance of forces pushing the neck increasingly forward. This slowly leads to an increasing curve and may end with a kyphosis. "
Do you have immediate friends or family treated by chiropractor (i have), have you seen chiropractor yourself (i have). Can you point any specific respectable publication which dismiss chiropractors as a whole or shows significant presence of "unscrupoluousness"? Until that your groundless dismissal of the whole class of professional people and their practice is just it, groundless childish dismissal.
been to chiropractor recently and he shown me X-ray of my neck. This bending forward is actually an unnatural straightening of the neck where it normally would be curved. Cause for a host of issues now and in future.