The philosophies in physics

As a big week for physics comes up–a July 4 update by CERN on the search for the Higgs boson followed by ICHEP '12 at Melbourne–I feel really anxious as a small-time proto-journalist and particle-physics-enthusiast. If CERN announces the discovery of evidence that rules out the existence of such a thing as the Higgs particle, not much will be lost apart from years of theoretical groundwork set in place for the post-Higgs universe. Physicists obeying the Standard Model will, to think the snowclone, scramble to their boards and come up with another hypothesis that explains mass-formation in quantum-mechanical terms.

For me... I don't know what it means. Sure, I will have to unlearn the Higgs mechanism, which does make a lot of sense, and scour through the outpouring of scientific literature that will definitely follow to keep track of new directions and, more fascinatingly, new thought. The competing supertheories–loop quantum gravity (LQG) and string theory–will have to have their innards adjusted to make up for the change in the mechanism of mass-formation. Even then, their principle bone of contention will remain unchanged: whether there exists an absolute frame of reference. All this while, the universe, however, will have continued to witness the rise and fall of stars, galaxies and matter.



It is easier to consider the non-existence of the Higgs boson than its proven existence: the post-Higgs world is dark, riddled with problems more complex and, unsurprisingly, more philosophical. The two theories that dominated the first half of the previous century, quantum mechanics and special relativity, will still have to be reconciled. While special relativity holds causality and locality close to its heart, quantum mechanics' tendency to violate the latter made it disagreeable at the philosophical level to A. Einstein (in a humorous and ironical turn, his attempts to illustrate this "anomaly" numerically opened up the field that further made acceptable the implications of quantum mechanics).

The theories' impudent bickering continues with mathematical terms as well. While one prohibits travel at the speed of light, the other allows for the conclusive demonstration of superluminal communication. While one keeps all objects nailed to one place in space and time, the other allows for the occupation of multiple regions of space at a time. While one operates in a universe wherein gods don't play with dice, the other can exist at all only if there are unseen powers that gamble on a secondly basis. If you ask me, I'd prefer one with no gods; I also have a strange feeling that that's not a physics problem.

Speaking of causality, physicists of the Standard Model believe that the four fundamental forces–nuclear, weak, gravitational, and electromagnetic–cause everything that happens in this universe. However, they are at a loss to explain why the weak force is 10³²-times stronger than the gravitational force (even the finding of the Higgs boson won't fix this–assuming the boson exists). An attempt to explain this anomaly exists in the name of supersymmetry (SUSY) or, together with the Standard Model, MSSM. If an entity in the (hypothetical) likeness of the Higgs boson cannot exist, then MSSM will also fall with it.

Taunting physicists everywhere all the way through this mesh of intense speculation, Werner Heisenberg's tragic formulation remains indefatigable. In a universe in which the scale at which physics is born is only hypothetical, in which energy in its fundamental form is thought to be a result of probabilistic fluctuations in a quantum field, determinism plays a dominant role in determining the future as well as, in some ways, contradicting it. The quantum field, counter-intuitively, is antecedent to human intervention: Heisenberg postulated that physical quantities such as position and particle spin come in conjugate quantities, and that making a measurement of one quantity makes the other indeterminable. In other words, one cannot simultaneously know the position and momentum of a particle, or the spins of a particle around two different axes.

To me, this seems like a problem of scale: humans are macroscopic in the sense that they can manipulate objects using the laws of classical mechanics and not the laws of quantum mechanics. However, a sense of scale is rendered incontextualizable when it is known that the dynamics of quantum mechanics affect the entire universe through a principle called the collapse postulate (i.e., collapse of the state vector): if I measure an observable physical property of a system that is in a particular state, I subject the entire system to collapse into a state that is described by the observable's eigenstate. Even further, there exist many eigenstates for collapsing into; which eigenstate is "chosen" depends on its observation (this is an awfully close analogue to the anthropic principle).

[caption id="attachment_23523" align="aligncenter" width="600"] xkcd #45[/caption]

That reminds me. The greatest unsolved question in my opinion is whether the universe houses the brain or if the brain houses the universe. To be honest, I started writing this post without knowing how it would end: there were multiple eigenstates it could "collapse" into. That it would collapse into this particular one was unknown to me, too, and, in hindsight, there was no way I could have known about any aspect of its destiny. Having said that, the nature of the universe–and the brain/universe protogenesis problem–with the knowledge of deterministic causality and mensural antecedence, if the universe conceived the brain, the brain must inherit the characteristics of the universe, and therefore must not allow for freewill.

Now, I'm faintly depressed. And yes, this eigenstate did exist in the possibility-space.

Eigenstates of the human mind

1. Would a mind's computing strength be determined by its ability to make sense of counter-intuitive principles (Type I) or by its ability to solve an increasing number of simple problems in a second (Type II)?


2. Would Type I and Type II strengths translate into the same computing strength?


3. Does either Type I or Type II metric possess a local inconsistency that prevents its state-function from being continuous at all points?


4. Does either Type I or Type II metric possess an inconsistency that manifests as probabilistic eigenstates?

Disentangling quantum entanglement

Very few scientific concepts enjoy the popularity of teleportation: the idea is equally awe-inspiring among scientists and laymen. To the most inspired, so to speak, what is fascinating is not how it’s accomplished as much as the possibility of “leaving” one space and “arriving” at another, but traversing the interim distance instantaneously. The implications of such travel are significant even at first sight. For example, imagine being able to teleport an object from earth into interstellar space, hundreds of thousands of kilometers away, without having to bother with rockets that might take years to span the same distance.

The sole field of physics seemingly capable of tackling the problems associated with such an esoteric and fragile system—quantum mechanics—still has leaps and bounds to go, however, before it can realize the teleportation of objects. For starters, it hasn’t figured out what really happens during the teleportation of a few photons even though it has accomplished just that with an 80-per-cent accuracy over a distance of 97 km.

In a paper submitted to arXiv on May 9, 2012, Jian-Wei Pan, et al, demonstrate how they used an exotic phenomenon called quantum entanglement to achieve teleportation across Qinghai Lake in western China. Using an ultraviolet laser aimed at a barium crystal, Pan’s team generated pairs of quantum-entangled photons. Then, each photon of a pair was transmitted using a telescope to two parties on either sides of the lake, A and B.

[caption id="attachment_23171" align="aligncenter" width="460"] The experimental setup[/caption]

Making a measurement of the photons yields a good description of the “state” the photons are collectively in. Therefore, A’s and B’s goals are to see if a third party interacting with these photons ends up in a state similar to the control group even when separated by 97 km of free-space. Here, the state of the system refers to the values of a few fixed variables: if the variables hold a particular set of values, then the system is said to be in a particular state (states are usually independent of extrinsic properties such as mass, etc).

To measure this change, the researchers at Site A let photons generated at locally to interact with the incoming modified photons. Simply put, the foreigners would leave an imprint on the locals upon interaction. This imprinted state is then measured and compared with the state of the photons at Site B. In Pan’s experiment, the between the two agreement was 8 on 10.

The aspect that makes such an outcome wonderful is that the particles didn’t have to end up with the same state. Further, 80 per cent is a value large enough to rule out any coincidence (but small enough to rule out a complete success). If this long-distance communication between nanoscopic particles is further investigated, it becomes evident that their pre-travel entanglement provided for a form of durability and predictability of state that let the particles behave similarly in two very different measurement experiments. At the same time, it is the nature of this entanglement that baffles most scientists.

The formal definition of entanglement is very fundamental in the sense that quantum mechanics deals with it in terms of probabilities. When two groups of photons are said to be quantum-entangled, it means that the states that the groups are in are related to each other by means of a variable. If the variable changes, then the properties of the photons change, too. However, the groups’ relationship with each other does not, like siblings who remain siblings despite how old they get or when they each die.

The existence of this variable is not as much disputed as it is hoped into existence (Little wonder then that it’s handled as a product of probabilities?). Because it remains outside the realm of human control, experiments with teleportation tend to leave the hidden variable alone and instead focus on how much the measurement sites can be separated by, how efficiently large molecules can be entangled, etc., i.e., testing the limits of its practicability.

In order to do so, the photons are subjected to a simplified treatment—one conceptualised so as to make the fewest assumptions as well as not introduce new sources of error. Instead of groups of photons, two are addressed, and each is “allowed” to exist in one of two states. Schrodinger’s cat takes off here and asserts that the particles may exist in this state, that state, or the counter-intuitive superposition of both, and that revelation can come only with observation.

Let’s say the two particles are ‘a’ and ‘b’, the states ‘0’ and ‘1’. The four possible combinations of states, then, are:

{0, 0}
{0, 1}
{1, 0}
{1, 1}

Entanglement is said to have occurred when b is in a particular state when a is in a particular state. That is, if b is 1 every time a is 0, then a and b are entangled. Since this property is commutative, a will be 0 every time b is 1. Further, the change occurs instantaneously irrespective of the distance between the two particles (giving the impression that they're "communicating" at a speed faster than light's). The presence of such an order coupled with the four possible outcomes makes each outcome a particular state of the system, called a Bell state.

To find out what the Bell state is, a Bell measurement is made. Because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, however, the act of making the measurement changes the state of the system. Even so, this alteration doesn’t matter as long as the pre-measurement state is discovered. In Pan’s experiment, with six initial states, the Bell measurement was made using the imprinting mechanism to reveal that the entangled photons had interacted with other particles to yield a final state that resembled the initial.

[caption id="attachment_23175" align="aligncenter" width="729"] xkcd #824[/caption]

Earlier, another experiment had been conducted that demonstrated the teleportation of quantum information across 16 km. The principal shortcoming of that experiment was that the photons to be teleported—the “locals” —had been specially generated within the lab under careful conditions. Practically, this is a highly ideal condition that can seldom be met: if this blogger is to be teleported, he cannot be carefully “prepared” in a lab. Pan and his colleagues eliminated this necessity by generating local photons with random quantum states.

At the same time, they have failed to discount a possible source of error: the entangled photons and the to-be-teleported photons were generated by the same source. Even though this limitation doesn’t interfere significantly, it is a limitation nonetheless. (What is the confidence with which it may be asserted that the “local” photons are created in a mixed state? If it’s being assumed that this is not a source of error, what were the considerations made? Et cetera.)

I must concede that looking behind the teleportation curtain kills a lot of the fantasy. Even if entanglement continues to elude understanding, simplifying something so enigmatic to probabilistic proportions and then to linear algebra can be a bit of a buzzkill—disregarding that that is the purpose of scientific endeavour, of course. With their paper, Jian-Wei Pan and his team currently sit pretty at the forefront of quantum mechanical teleportation. Even if we still have a long way go, the knowledge of Pan’s experiment gives us the best shot at ultimately achieving the teleportation of complex objects.

Why Quentin Tarantino is wrong

(This article involves a prelude that I insist you read.)

It's important to understand that technology does not, and will not for a long time to come, replace emotional expression and emotional honesty, and that's where I think the great Quentin Tarantino could be wrong. He once famously stated that,

"You can't write poetry on a computer."

I appreciate his loyalty to the ideals of romanticism but, looking at it axiomatically, he chose to say "computer" and not anything else (although don't ask me what "anything else" could be). What does a computer do to effectively reduce the "poeticness" of a poem? What is it about an electronically supplied numerical input and an electromagnetically generated visual output that is beaten by a leaky fountain pen and paper that crumbles at the lightest touch-or should I say that it is a matter of individual investment and computers limit that when they shouldn't? I don't agree. If anything, typewriters and computers make it easier to compose real poetry: poetry that is completely independent of its medium, poetry that finds it rational to reflect only the literary prowess and emotional content of the individual (objective) and not his/her association with the oldest form of literary communication (subjective).

Poetry, you see, is an abstraction just like beauty and justice are, and if Tarantino thinks he can't find them in a computer or only on a piece of paper, then it's also unfortunately obvious that his films are a product of iconoclastic ideals and the chance of the occasion that I was to be born in 1988, and that doesn't happen often.

Our individual attitude towards technology does not change the way technology itself behaves; it only changes how much we think it can do for us when we take to it-and this applies even to the tech that is constantly being upgraded and modified to satiate different needs. Similarly, poetry that requires a "non-computer" to be realized is not poetry but what we think is poetry: it is subjective interpretation, one that fails in the face of the slightest opposition, and therefore cannot withstand the test of time.

Why Quentin Tarantino is wrong

(This article involves a prelude that I insist you read.)

It's important to understand that technology does not, and will not for a long time to come, replace emotional expression and emotional honesty, and that's where I think the great Quentin Tarantino could be wrong. He once famously stated that,

"You can't write poetry on a computer."

I appreciate his loyalty to the ideals of romanticism but, looking at it axiomatically, he chose to say "computer" and not anything else (although don't ask me what "anything else" could be). What does a computer do to effectively reduce the "poeticness" of a poem? What is it about an electronically supplied numerical input and an electromagnetically generated visual output that is beaten by a leaky fountain pen and paper that crumbles at the lightest touch-or should I say that it is a matter of individual investment and computers limit that when they shouldn't? I don't agree. If anything, typewriters and computers make it easier to compose real poetry: poetry that is completely independent of its medium, poetry that finds it rational to reflect only the literary prowess and emotional content of the individual (objective) and not his/her association with the oldest form of literary communication (subjective).

Poetry, you see, is an abstraction just like beauty and justice are, and if Tarantino thinks he can't find them in a computer or only on a piece of paper, then it's also unfortunately obvious that his films are a product of iconoclastic ideals and the chance of the occasion that I was to be born in 1988, and that doesn't happen often.

Our individual attitude towards technology does not change the way technology itself behaves; it only changes how much we think it can do for us when we take to it-and this applies even to the tech that is constantly being upgraded and modified to satiate different needs. Similarly, poetry that requires a "non-computer" to be realized is not poetry but what we think is poetry: it is subjective interpretation, one that fails in the face of the slightest opposition, and therefore cannot withstand the test of time.

On investigative journalism

Investigative journalism—investigations are initiated as a matter of personal conviction—responsible exercising of personal judgment required—practice of zero-interference methodologies—participation necessitates agreement with and understanding of policies that define the need—knowledge of what is right, what is wrong—is personal involvement necessary?—mandatory elimination of speculative convictions—investigation must not NECESSITATE the investigation

*

Scenario I

[caption id="attachment_3653" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario I - Investigation timeline vs. probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Conclusion of phase 5 of investigation: direct reporting

Conclusion of phase 4 of investigation: reporting predictions

Conclusion of phase 3 of investigation: investigative reporting

*

Scenario II

[caption id="attachment_3654" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario II - Probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Dotted line: projected probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

*

Scenario III

[caption id="attachment_3655" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario III - Probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Dotted line A: projected, and increased, probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

Dotted line B: projected, and decreased, probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

*

Conference of ethical value—moral value of personal judgment—what if P(ethical val. of B > ethical val. of A) = P(ethical val. of A > ethical val. of B)?—non-interferential investigation takes precedence takes overall precedence when ethical values of A and B are fuzzy—does lesser fuzziness validate interference?

On investigative journalism

Investigative journalism—investigations are initiated as a matter of personal conviction—responsible exercising of personal judgment required—practice of zero-interference methodologies—participation necessitates agreement with and understanding of policies that define the need—knowledge of what is right, what is wrong—is personal involvement necessary?—mandatory elimination of speculative convictions—investigation must not NECESSITATE the investigation

*

Scenario I

[caption id="attachment_3653" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario I - Investigation timeline vs. probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Conclusion of phase 5 of investigation: direct reporting

Conclusion of phase 4 of investigation: reporting predictions

Conclusion of phase 3 of investigation: investigative reporting

*

Scenario II

[caption id="attachment_3654" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario II - Probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Dotted line: projected probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

*

Scenario III

[caption id="attachment_3655" align="aligncenter" width="734" caption="Scenario III - Probability of occurrence of event vs. timeline of event"][/caption]

Dotted line A: projected, and increased, probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

Dotted line B: projected, and decreased, probability of event as a result of interferential investigation

*

Conference of ethical value—moral value of personal judgment—what if P(ethical val. of B > ethical val. of A) = P(ethical val. of A > ethical val. of B)?—non-interferential investigation takes precedence takes overall precedence when ethical values of A and B are fuzzy—does lesser fuzziness validate interference?