: I must admit that I've never actually seen a detailed
: report on this experiment, although naturally one
: hears anecdotal tales. I'd love it if you could
: provide me with a link that actually lists the study
: date and the names of the experimenters. John Wheeler
: initially proposed the experiment, but I don't know
: who actually carried it out.
Lol, I did! It's really not that difficult. Take a lazer beam. Aim it at a slit or two in an upright black divider. Have a nice white wall behind it, or something which will visibly reflect the light so the pattern on the wall can be observed. Observe the wave pattern made on the wall when there are two slits, only a single band when there is one slit :-). Quantum Mechanics is true fun. :-)
I first saw this experiment done on the Discovery Channel, exactly as I described, and took my little key chain lazer and set up the thing.
: I do know that the essential "time travel"
: aspect of it is valid...it's the same sort of effect
: as with the "entangled" particle pairs of
: the EPR experiment, where you can set the properties
: of one particle and instantly--faster than lightspeed,
: faster than anything--set the properties of the other.
I hope someone gets up the GUTs soon to stub his TOE.
: However, it seems unlikely that the "consciousness
: controls all" aspect is quite as strong as
: suggested. Consider: if you simply decide not to look
: at the computer data after you've stored it, then
: you've essentially created the same situation as if
: the computer auto-erases the data. So in that case the
: wave/dot effect should depend on your personal
: whim--and if you erase the data after you've seen a
: dot, then you've created a paradox, no? I think some
: aspects of this have been exaggerated in the telling.
A paradox is the best! ::watches Kirk practically blow up the 20th century and then return to the 23rd temporally unscathed::
: Most of what I've read suggests that the act of
: "measurement" really takes place in the
: apparatus rather than in your mind. That is, events
: that don't involve consciousness at all can still
: affect wave functions in the same way as a
: "measurement" does.
: Another reason I'd doubt this is that in every other time
: travel/instantaneous travel QM trick found so far,
: there are always "gimmicks" attached so that
: you can't violate relativity and transfer information
: faster than light.
You know, I hate that. Luminal velocity is characterized by the space it exists in. If one changes the property of space, or avoids it all together, such laws don't apply. Hell, light slows to half its speed when passing through a diamond, and physicists have actually frozen and captured photons in cryogenic cesium, releasing it moments later. It's all relative, as Einstein himself would admit.
: For instance: as described above
: you can set the properties of a distant particle by
: messing with a nearby one--BUT the way in which you
: set the properties for both returns a random result.
: It's like you've got a pair of magic dice, and they
: always turn up on the same number, so you can put one
: on Pluto and instantly know what number it has from
: looking at your own--but the number you throw in the
: first place is random, so you can't use it to send
: information.
Aye, the Seemless Universe concept: I have one particle here and another over there, at any distance, and moving one in one direction, or rotating it, causes the corresponding one to act precisely the same. I hope this leads to Warp Drive, damnit…I need some tachyons to lower a starship's mass to -15500, then we can go warp 5! :-)
: On the other hand, if this experimental result actually
: happened it would definitely allow you to send info
: from the future--all you have to do is see if the film
: pattern is a wave or a dot to know if you're gonna
: ever look at the data. And that would be really big
: news. :-)
Aye, indeed.
Don't forget also the sending info from the future implications of sending information faster than light.
: One minor indication that whoever produced this story
: wasn't entirely reliable: A single electron does *not*
: produce a wave pattern on the film. Ever. It produces
: a dot. But when both slits are open, its *probability*
: of hitting any given point is a wave-shaped
: function...so when you fire a million electrons
: through the slits one after another, their individual
: dots pile up to form a wave distribution. Whereas if
: you close one slit, the electron dots simply pile up
: at one point to form a big bright dot.
