Physics

Quantum Mechanics Entanglement and Spooky Action at a distance

Very interesting and experimental approach to entanglement and Bells inequality.
    

Interesting points of note in the video

  • pop bottle bottom glasses on 70's guy!
  • Eigenvalues of a quantum mechanical solution are what you can observe.  You never observe solutions that are combinations of eigenvalues.
  • StarTrek looking test apparatus mock up.  Scotty would have felt at home fixing this bugger!
  • Einstein did not like ghostly action at a distance.  EPR
  • Assume quantum theory is incomplete: Look for a hidden variable. Photon pairs are emitted with a shared equal hidden parameter.
  • Theories using hidden variables have been created that preserve locality and realism
  • Experiments that only test perfect correlations do not force us to choose between quantum explanation and hidden variable method
  • John Bell was the first person to show how to bring the two theories into conflict so they could be tested
  • Testing perfect correlations are tantamount to looking at one sock and seeing it is blue and concluding the sock on the other foot is blue
  • Imperfect correlations: set the target polarizers at unequal angles.
  • Alain Aspect and company tested Bell's Theorem
  • Tunable lasers were required for this test setup

More …….

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Quantum Computing Parallelism Explained

How does parallelism arise?

quantum-computing-parallelism-explained.gif

Assumptions: -1- You had a 3 bit register with each bit in a mix of both states —  states 0 and  state 1 -2- You then perform operations on the register When you perform the operation you will be performing the operation on all the possible values 000  through 111.  Thus is explained the parallelism of quantum computing.  That is its advantage over classical computing.   If you do not understand how a physical system can be in both states at the same time you need to go back and study more quantum mechanics.   More detailed explaination here  An introductory course online 

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Use of Maximum Entropy to explain the form of Energy States of an Electron in a Potential Well

The base state of an electron in an infinite potential well has the most "space" for the electron state.  Thus it has the maximum entropy. Take that same state and imagine pinching the electrons existence to nil in the middle of the trough.  Now you have state-2.  The electron now exists in a smaller entropic state and guess what?  It contains exploitable energy now. This is like a spring compressed.  The electron can decompress and exert force / expend energy.  For example in an interaction with another atom possibly a recoil could occur.   In a crystal lattice an electron can transfer its energy to the atom next door and in effect yield conduction.  All these are preliminary suppositions subject to more scrutiny. As mentioned before since the electron exists in this potential well in the form of free fall it can not have any acceleration.  Thus its distribution must thoroughly avoid the edges of the well were it would indeed experience accelerations by bouncing and recoiling off of the walls.

electron-in-infinite-well.bmp

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago

Heuristic method of understanding the shapes of hydrogen atom electron orbitals

Occurred to me while riding a bike

 

Have you ever wondered why the dumbell shape of the N=2 quantum state of the hydrogen atom.  I have! The Schrodinger wave equation gives you the results. But WHAT are you looking at? I have finally solved the problem of understanding the shape of the solutions.  I did it while riding a bicycle in front of the electric driveway door waiting for it to open. It opens like a standard garage door on a house. I hate to just sit their with my leg on the ground so I started by riding the bicycle in a circle as the door rises.  When the door is fully open I ride in and park.   You can see my orbit in the picture below:

bicycle-orbit-1.jpg

One day the owner of the complex of houses was parked right in front of the door with the car extending into the street where I normally ride in a circle.  I was thus constrained as show in the following diagram.  The figure 8 felt most efficient given the contraint of not being able to go in a circle and wanting to loiter on spot until the path was clear.   Maximum entropy principle wants to make my path as gentle as possible given the constaint of the circle not being allow.  bicycle-orbit-2.jpg    

Riding my bicycle in a figure 8 pattern Thus it is with the N=2 orbital.  The N=2 orbital in an unexcited atom is only filled when there is an electron already filling the circular N=1 orbit.  This filled orbit is the constraint of the car in the bicycle example. Its taken a long time to know the WHY of this.  I solved the schrodinger for the hydrogen atom a long time ago.  But I did not understand the why. Now I am sure that this same method applies the the higher N  Numbers.  The N number is the number of wave lengths in a full orbital path.  Since the dumbell shape requires 2 wavelengths minimum. I feel better now! The Schrodinger wave equation yields minimum time / maximum entropy solutions.   From this I deduce that an electron when in a state in an atom it is in Free-fall.  Free fall is the condition of minimum time.  However in free-fall there is no force on the particle. Also noting that accelerated charges radiate leads me to the conclusion that indeed the electron is spread out into the entire space of the orbital and not just a billiard ball whipping around in an orbit.  This is very much a standing still wave. Why doesn't the electron just fall down onto the proton of the hydrogen atom?  I think that might be due to the electron not liking to be stuffed into too small of a box.   The electron most likely can sit on the proton with some probability but since it would undergo massive "compression" to do so it has an extremely high probability of leaking out of this state and into the N=1 state to get jiggy with it.    

By Fudgy McFarlen, ago