The Red Brick Times

From todays NYTimes: Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein's Strangest Theory:

"Nary a week goes by that does not bring news of another feat of quantum trickery once only dreamed of in thought experiments: particles (or at least all their properties) being teleported across the room in a microscopic version of Star Trek beaming; electrical 'cat' currents that circle a loop in opposite directions at the same time; more and more particles farther and farther apart bound together in Einstein's spooky embrace now known as 'entanglement.' At the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers are planning an experiment in which a small mirror will be in two places at once."

Posted 5:59 AM by whatley (2) comments

       Comments:

Thoughts on quantum theory by various scientists:

"On quantum theory, I use up more brain grease than on relativity."
Albert Einstein to Otto Stern in 1911

"Those are the crazy people who are not working on quantum theory."
Albert Einstein referring to the inmates of an insane asylum near his office in Prague, in 1911

"I could probably have arrived at something like this myself, but if all this is true then it means the end of physics."
Albert Einstein, referring to a 1913 breakthrough by Niels Bohr

"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single word."
Niels Bohr

"I don't like it, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it."
Erwin Schrödinger about the probability interpretation of quantum mechanics

"What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning."
Werner Heisenberg, 1963

"You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem."
Richard Feynman, 1982

# posted by  whatley : December 27, 2005 6:09 AM
 
Feynman reinvented the wheel each time he attacked a new problem. Since the time when he invented differential and integral calculus in high school, he always jumped outside the box to view the world. Some interpretations of entanglement imply that states of matter and energy coexist across vast times and distances. Or, conversely, everything is, and was, and will be, right now forever. Michael Chrichton's book "Timeline" uses this to postulate time travel in support of archeology and tourism in Medieval France. Drawbacks include "transcription errors" when you are being re-assembled. If your parts do not all line up, problems may result. Matter transporters in sci-fi occasionally scramble their passengers. Get a horse.

# posted by  Andy : December 29, 2005 5:20 PM
 
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