Quantum Physics

[NSXType-R]

Definitely one of the strangest things I've ever read. My head hurt after reading the whole article. Don't read it if you really don't like science stuff.

It's about quarks.

If anyone can explain it to me go ahead, because I can't make any sense of it.


Howstuffworks "How Quantum Suicide Works"

[Coventrysucks]

I think they must be leaving something out:

"He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal."

Eh?

The fact that the gun has a quantum spin measuring device doesn't stop his body's natural processes. He'll just keep firing the gun until he dies of dehydration/sleep deprivation a few days later. Serves him right, too.

Quantum physics is fun though. Spin = 1/2 is just nuts, spontaneous generation of pairs of virtual particles, etc.

I sometimes wonder if I should have gone on to study quantum/astro physics properly, but I think that it probably wouldn't be as much fun as I imagine, and I wonder what the career prospects are like; you could end up spending your life performing experiments on an empty jar hoping to find something.

[ferrarifreak013]

well i read about half of it and am totally baffled i would love to hear someones explanation on it though.

[Coventrysucks]

I think I may be right; something appears to have been lost in translation.

A physicist sits in front of a gun which is triggered or not triggered depending on the decay of some radioactive atom. With each run of the experiment there is a 50-50 chance that the gun will be triggered and the physicist will die. If the Copenhagen interpretation is correct, then the gun will eventually be triggered and the physicist will die. If the many-worlds interpretation is correct then at each run of the experiment the physicist will be split into one world in which he lives and another world in which he dies. After many runs of the experiment, there will be many worlds. In the worlds where the physicist dies, he will cease to exist. However, from the point of view of the non-dead copies of the physicist, the experiment will continue running without his ceasing to exist, because at each branch, he will only be able to observe the result in the world in which he survives, and if many-worlds is correct, the surviving copies of the physicist will notice that he never seems to die, therefore "proving" himself to be immortal, at least from his own point of view.
...

Required assumptions and controversy
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3. Not dying some finite number of times (perhaps in parallel universes) constitutes immortality.

The process of repeating the experiment does not eventually bestow immortality upon the subject, as the HowStuffWorks article appears to suggest.

The subject merely begins to think he is "immortal" because he cannot kill himself with the gun - each time he pulls the trigger, he survives (or, at least, only observes the universe in which he survives).

[Quiggs]

There is no spoon.

[kingofthering]

screw that, String theory ftw

[blingbling]

I think they must be leaving something out:

"He'll continue this process for eternity, becoming immortal."

Eh?

The fact that the gun has a quantum spin measuring device doesn't stop his body's natural processes. He'll just keep firing the gun until he dies of dehydration/sleep deprivation a few days later. Serves him right, too.

Quantum physics is fun though. Spin = 1/2 is just nuts, spontaneous generation of pairs of virtual particles, etc.

I sometimes wonder if I should have gone on to study quantum/astro physics properly, but I think that it probably wouldn't be as much fun as I imagine, and I wonder what the career prospects are like; you could end up spending your life performing experiments on an empty jar hoping to find something.

NERD!

[Coventrysucks]

NERD!

INSECURE!

[dydzi]

i don't know how you don't understand it guys, even though english is only learned language to me i don't have any problems understanding that theory. i agree with ^ and i'll add another anxious opinion - i think even though that theory makes sense, i can't imagine that world divides into billions every second

and i don't agree with copenhagen interpretation, to my thinking world is independent to people or other observers ergo: there wouldn't be any superstition state

[blingbling]

INSECURE!

haha dont worry i have a whole semester of modern physics next semester...

[Equinox]

It does make a bit of sense. The attached pic explains it kind of.

But according to this
"One vital aspect of the Many-Worlds theory is that when the universe splits, the person is unaware of himself in the other version of the universe. This means that the boy who made off with the treasure and ends up living happily ever after is completely unaware of the version of himself who entered the cave and now faces great peril, and vice versa."

We have two universes's like the picture below.

Like when you say I am going to the store. Two things can happen. 1. You make it to the store, or 2. You get into an accident on the way to the store.
It's more or less Destiny or faith. (If you believe in that stuff.)

The only problem is, is that if this was true, then our destiny has already been decided. Because why else would we choose the options that we choose, and no matter what happens it has already been decided between the two worlds. In one world the person dies and the other he lives.

I think its also a spiritual thing. Like when they say there is life after death. When you pull the trigger and die, in that world you are dead (our world) then in the other world (the after-life) you still exist. Which would be the outcome.

In other words. Its a life after death theory!

[deffenbaugh03]

I don't think the point was that we have two universes. That picture and examples like pulling a trigger on a gun were simplifications of the theory. They think the universe divides into a very very large number of universes every second not depending on whether some guy pulls a trigger or not but rather depending on what random action the quarks (or whatever those sub-sub-atomic things are) take.

[Equinox]

Yeah, I ment that there are lots of different universes for each out-come, But the Two universes were for the guy pulling the trigger. It either kills him or it doesn't. There's only two out-comes for that theory. He dies, or he lives. But every day and every person has there own set of universes deppending on what they are doing. People make hundreds of choices everyday. Each choice we make has an opposite 'world', that would have happend had we chose the other option.

[Matra et Alpine]

You['ve forgotten the many other possible "outcomes" of the gun being fired.
Death is final, but the life side has many possible outcvomes too. Paralysed, mutilated, brain damaged, meeting a pretty nurse ... etc etc All paths that "seperated" at the point of pulling the trigger

[blingbling]

physics is all fun and games until the physicists get math all up in thurr