big perseid meteor shower later tonight( look to northeast?)

... I'm feeling like Mr. Faraday faced with the "reality" of sub-atomic particles.  I don't really grok this one, John.  I think I've got classical physics wedged very deeply into my "beliefs."

How 'bout a nice chat about the photo-electric effect?

Thanks for posting this! 

...and deeply interesting thing to take away from this article is the simple concept that it is possible to move through empty curved space in a way that is analogous to swimming through water. If you chew on that one for a while it will change your paradigm for good!

As far as individual genius is concerned, Maxwell’s equations are still the most outstanding achievement. Maxwell invented the contemporary world, including cell phones. Einstein, although a true genius, merely added some fancy trigonometry to Maxwell’s equations to make special relativity, and then borrowed Riemann’s geometry to make general relativity. Of course, Einstein was able to grasp novel concepts, just like the concept in this article.

The modern world is Maxwell’s world, corrected by Schrodinger’s equations. Einstein grasped the conceptual nature of the photo-electric effect as early as 1905. But it was Schrodinger’s equations that allowed Maxwell’s radios to be shrunk down to something we can all hold in the palm of our hands.

The most important thing that Schrodinger said was that his equations were empirical. They don’t necessarily describe “reality.” They just work. So much of the bull you hear about the spiritual implications of quantum physics ignores that basic point. The best way to think about quantum physics is in terms of emergent systems. The everyday reality of classical physics is an emergent system based upon, yet different from quantum physics, just as the phenomenal world of life is an emergent system based upon, yet different from the world of classical physics. So if you’re looking for spirit, it’s wise not to look under the hood.

John,

Many thanks for your generous gift (above), John.  I am very much enjoying getting reacquainted with Messrs. Maxwell, Coulomb, Ampere, et al., and electromagnetic fields.  As expected, more questions than clarity.  Thank you, sir.

Warmly,
Michael

You could get hood-winked! Thanks John~

 ... (Spooky Action at a Distance) and how it might relate to this?

I found one good article, cached:

  http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/Q/quantum_entanglement.html

I must admit that I have not been reading my Scientific American lately.  But your post has sent me scurrying to read the August issue, which was buried in a stack of recent magazines in a box we keep.  Too bad (that I have not read the last six issues or so) because I used to be so interested in science, especially physics...

...and now, again, I am (interested).  Thanks to you.

We have always heard of "The known laws of physics".  I wonder about the (yet) unknown laws of physics.

Einstein could never reconcile spooky action at a distance (ie Quantum Entanglement).  But it is a phenomenon which has been tested and proven, at least in the lab at small distances.  Never mind the "spiritual" interpretations and or implications of this-- I am interested in the scientific.

Maybe this all ties in somehow.  Maybe the EPR Paradox ties into this.  Maybe it's all unrelated.

You could run intellectual circles around me, John.  Especially lately (anyone could).

But I now have an eight-page article to read, and I wouldn't have, if not for your post.

Thanks for the inspiration!  I am now swiveling in my chair!

Plays well with others 

First of all, I’m not that smart. I have never been able to learn any language except English. I studied Spanish, French and Russian, and can’t understand any of it! All the same, I can’t resist thinking!

Quantum entanglement is an excellent thought experiment. It has a lot to teach people about physics. However, I’m afraid it’s fundamentally flawed. It is important to distinguish matter from information. The so-called transmission involved is not instantaneous. Ask yourself, “How do you know which particle to watch?” If you separate two particles by one light-year, it takes exactly one year at the speed of light to transmit the information that identifies the twin. Can information be communicated (in the mechanical world) faster than the speed of light? I’m afraid the answer is, “No.”

The more subtle point comes from the idea of “emergence.” Emergent worlds are not congruent. Even though they both may exist, that doesn’t mean they are congruent. That’s true of our world, in relation to the quantum world. Schroedinger understood that the effects of the quantum world upon the macro world were all that he could describe. Existential concepts don’t work across worlds. It’s a mistake to think about quantum physics with macro-physical concepts. We literally don’t know anything about the phenomenal world on the quantum scale, because we don’t exist in it. We have mathematics that is extremely accurate for predicting quantum effects upon our macro world. We can predict just how thin we can make an insulator in an electronic circuit - but that’s it. We really don’t know anything about what it’s like to be an electron. The concepts we use, like spin for instance, are totally fabricated. Electrons really don’t “spin.” Macro-physical spin doesn’t exist in the quantum world. So if we don’t really know anything about quantum existence, it’s a mistake to draw conclusions about macro-existence from the empirical tools we use to predict quantum effects upon our macro-world. Schrodeinger was clever enough to know that.

Now, the important thing to realize is that, as aware living beings, we live in an emergent world that is different from the mechanical world. The phenomenal world of our interior lives - the awareness we experience as living beings - has emerged from, and is different from the world of either quantum or classical physics. The experience of life is different from mechanics, and can’t be accurately describe by it. There are some extremely interesting things to discover, if we carefully reflect upon our experience as aware beings. So Rupert Sheldrake really is on to something. Except that he took an unfortunate detour into quantum physics. (He’s been doing some really good experimental work lately, by the way.)

It was really easy for my generation to get seduced by sub-atomic physics. We were misled into making existential inferences about our phenomenal world, from a world “two orders of emergence down.” But we did learn a lot of interesting physics! And I encourage you to do the same. (And by all means read those Scientific Americans. I've been reading SA, on and off, for fifty years!)

.