Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00066)

Here is a little snippet from another list that caught my eye. Rather
interesting, what.
>
> Hi all,
>   Found this in my University's alumni magazine, The Rochester Review
> (published by the University Of Rochester).
>    I am going to quote large chunks because as a "challenged in physics"
> person I might get it wrong if I try to paraphrase.
>
> >From the Rochester Review/Spring-Summer1996(p.5)
>
> Photon Experiment Shows the Flaw in Classical Physics
>
>    "Using a simple system involving two photons, Rochester physicists have
> demontrated in the laboratory a central tenet of quantum mechanics: that an
> event must be measured before it is real.  The work is reported in a recent
> issue of Physics Letters A.
>     (two paragraphs deleted ...)
>   Quantum mechanics has brought the rise of many ideas that fly in the face
> of common sense: the possibility of altering past events, for instance, or
> the ability to change an event merely by observing it. As bizarre as the
> predictions of quantum mechanics are, the theoretical basis has held up
> whenever tested experimentally."
>
>    This research was done by a fellow named Leonard Mandel, a professor of
> physics and optics, and two grad students, Justin Torgerson and David
> Branning and research associate Carlos Monken.  A laser was used to send a
> stream of photons into a crystal which then sent out pairs of lower-energy
> photons.
>   According to the article, after "mixing the photons" the team traced their
> paths and compared the routes they followed to those predicted by classical
> physics and by quantum mechanics.
>      Evidently classical physics lost, even though it predicted the path of
> the photons
> "with certainty", the photons didn't always follow the expected path.  That
> prediction was not matched by what actually happened.
> And, says the Rochester Review, "Mandel's team has shown experimentally that
> quantum mechanics wins again:  There *is* no reality until a measurement is
> made."
>     Says professor Mandel-
>    "Many people accept the notion that reality is something separate from the
> information we take through our own detectors - our senses. Our results run
> counter to that thinking, in emphasizing  that there is no reality in the
> absence of measurement.  Even Einstein had trouble accepting that this was
> true."
>   Whoosh.......
>   Does this mean that the world really might go away when we aren't looking?
> Are you all my imagination? Am I having a bad dream and need to wake up?
> mutter, mumble .........
>   Sally Ann Smith
>   Encore9016@aolcom
>
>

--



   Bee Brown
   Member TSNZ,Wanganui Branch.
   Theos Int & L