Thinking Inside The Box

[mrtwosheds]

if I remember the Shrodinger,s cat thing correctly, The cat WAS in the box, and so was a vial of poison, which would be released by a quantum particle trigger when its state became fixed one way but not the other.
The conundrum is how to find out if the cat is alive or dead and thus the state of the quantum particle, without opening the box and deciding the matter...
The obvious solution is to wait until tea time and see if the box meows...

[VSMIT]

Schrodinger's Cat was a theory that stated that if a cat was inside a closed container, with a radioactive particle and a vial of poison that would open at the decaying of said radioactive particle (which would decay at a random time), we would not be able to tell if the cat was alive or dead, and therefore, was in a quantum state of being both alive and dead at the same time.

VSMIT.

[Red Devil]

Man, that (not you, the theory) is really dumb and is akin to the, "If a tree falls in a forest..." hornswoggle.

That's like saying everybody driving is "in a quantum state" because you don't know if they are involved in an accident or that you don't know if they are turning left or not.

It's just another sell word that some physicists made up to sell some books, get some grants and fellowships, and which translates to "unknown".

As for the LHC, "You're meddling with things you cannot possibly comprehend!"

[OvermindDL1]

As stated, the state in the box is known, as is the state out of the box, but the two states do not know each other because they are in different and distinct reference frames, which has interesting consequences depending on which of the two main quantum theories you wish to go with.  The first is that it is in a super-position of all states, they are all occurring and no occurring simultaneously in space and time, and it will not collapse to a single value between one or the other until information is transferred.  Using the multi-worlds version, they are all occurring at the same space and time, but in different dimensions splitting off an infinite number of times every temporal instance, and the universes remain distinct until information is transferred between them, which then essentially 'locks' them together.

And RD, it has been well proven that these quantum super-positions exist.  One of the simplest experiments is the Double Slit Experiment (this video is not the most accurate explanation, but it has lots of pretty graphics and visuals people like, and is accurate enough).
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[Red Devil]

Hornswoggle! 

I love how they talk like they're magicians doing a card trick for an audience and automatically jump to the conclusion that by "observing" that they actually affected the outcome.  What vanity.

Matter and energy have been proven to be the same, but just in different states of equilibrium.  Particles/energy are constantly being transferred between objects/matter and changing from one form to the other.

Subatomic "particles" do exist and do behave in interesting ways, but for them to ascribe magical properties to them is pure poppycock.  What is more likely the case is that it is at this level that energy and matter are changed/maintained/passed on so that chaos does not reign.

[OvermindDL1]

They are not magical, and it makes more 'sense' it you look at the current ToE theories, like String Theory.  The current state of String Theory (more properly called M-Theory) states that there are 11-dimensions.  There are vibrating 'strings' of energy and they move and flow inside these 11 dimensions, the way they react to the different dimensions give them different timings and energy states, hence they make up all the most basic subparticles, like fermions, bosons, etc...  There are many different kinds, but for them to exist for any length of time they need to meet an equilibrium, all the base subparticles are those vibrating strands at equilibrium within their dimensional state.

There are also two kinds of 'strings', close loop versions and open-ended versions.  Strings can also be different sizes depending on how much energy is stored in them.  For example, if enough energy is stored in a string it can get bigger, big enough to be larger then an entire atom, or big enough to be a universe.  Strings that have got that large are called membranes (just abbreviated "brane" for short), and our universe is one of these branes.  According to the theory, there was a massive transfer of energy (probably our brane colliding with an even bigger one in the 11-dimensional space) that caused the big bang, and is also the reason why our universe is growing (and not slowing down, it is actually speeding up), the energy is still propagating around from the impact; quite literally, the amount of physical space and time within what you right now know of as 1 inch will double in length in another few billion years as our universes spacetime is stretched (I do not remember the exact timings, might be more then just a few billion).

Now those lose strings, the open-ended ones attach to a brane (or any sufficiently sizable string) and do not let go without a tremendous release of energy (the kind like a brane rupturing kind of energy, our existence would disappear in such a state).  These open-ended strings are thus stuck inside of our space-time, this makes up things like most of our particles, electromagnetism, etc...  The open loop strings are not bound and are free to wander, including floating freely away from our brane, this would be the forces like gravity (which is why gravity is 'weak', it is actually the same strength as the other forces, it just floats free, but because of that it is not restricted in distance either, hence why gravity works over any distance, unlike all the other forces).

But yea, they do not have 'magical properties', those properties are well described by a number of mathematical formulas.  And it is not just those that follow those wave functions.  Even macro size matter (like a person) can be transformed into a pure wave function if you put them into a pure vacuum (no heat, nothing, not even the depths of space get that cold, hence why that cat-box cannot actually exist in nature), then the only thing keeping the wave function collapsed would be the particles of the body interacting with each other, but after a time (possible a very short time) the particles would drift away one-by-one, causing them to go out as a wave and staying that way due to no other interaction, and the person would eventually 'cease-to-exist'.  There are a few plausible ways of causing it to at a macro scale, but we do not have the technology, it is however pretty easy to do it at the nano-scale.

If someone cause a particle to enter a quantum super-position state, then you cause something to interact with it, like sending a photon into the wave field, it will cause a quantum decoherence where the wave will become a particle for that one instance of time, then re-'radiate' from that point again, this point can be measured (do note, we can either get the particle information, and see where it is, or we can get the wave information, and see its heading, but we cannot know both at once), and this point fits the mathematical formulas for where it will be created (it is a percentage chance in 3d-space, repeated enough times and it matches the formulas for all possible locations).  According to string theory it all makes sense in the 11-dimensional space, just the human brain cannot wrap its mind around it.  It is stated that probably only 2 or 3 people on this planet actually understands quantum physics.
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[Nielk1]

Ah, I was remembering a simple cat in quantum box thing.

[Red Devil]

Have these membranes and strings been observed or are they all in someone's head?

", this point can be measured"   But, having observed it/measured it, does that not (according to the theory) alter it and therefore make the findings unreliable?

[Nielk1]

It has been established and hence should always be the way it is before and after our measurements.

[mrtwosheds]

It is stated that probably only 2 or 3 people on this planet actually understands quantum physics.

Thus the probability of it being correct is rather small. 

we would not be able to tell if the cat was alive or dead, and therefore, was in a quantum state of being both alive and dead at the same time.

Which could be proven by leaving the cat in the box for a couple of weeks, until it smells really bad and meows at the same time, thus proving that the Undead do actually exist...

Have these membranes and strings been observed or are they all in someone's head?

It's all theory, and will probably stay that way. The essential unsolvable problem is that all particles/waves/dimensions/strings/branes etc etc must exist within nothing, nothing is infinite has no value and cannot be measured, No theoretical calculations can be used to explain its absent property's which unfortunately have a very profound effect on everything.

[OvermindDL1]

It is currently theory, but so far it is the only one that has been able to accurately describe anything that happens (even some of the weirdest things, energy coming from something that should not, is still described properly by this).  It is also not that they exist with nothing, it is just that they exist everywhere.  All the dimensions fold in on themselves, so there is a distinct size, even though they are infinite.  There has been an experiment thought up that can disprove string theory, it is a way certain energy reactions occur, but to test it they need to build a satellite, launch it, and if it cannot accelerate using this engine, string theory is most definitely wrong, if it does accelerate, then it might be right.
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[Red Devil]

Ever wonder how positively charged protons can all stick together without flying apart?

There is no matter.

[Nielk1]

It seems quantum reflection doesn't occur with subatomic particles or something.

(Quantum reflection is what prevents matter from passing though each other, more specifically though the atom's electron cloud which exists in a quantum state).

[OvermindDL1]

They stick together because the strong nuclear force is a lot more strong then electromagnetism, it just operates over vastly shorter distances (it will not event extend out of the atom).  You get things 'close enough', and they still stick, no matter how much force it pulling them apart.
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[Red Devil]

 That's kinda what I believe, too.  Those protons aren't really matter, but just another form/state of energy that behave in a way we call 'matter'.