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Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
Mon Nov 18, 2019, 06:45 AM Nov 2019

Objective Reality Doesn't Exist, Quantum Experiment Shows


By Alessandro Fedrizzi - Professor of Quantum Physics, Heriot-Watt University, Massimiliano Proietti - PhD Candidate of Quantum Physics, Heriot-Watt University 2 days ago



(Image: © Shutterstock/Juergen Faelchle)

Alternative facts are spreading like a virus across society. Now, it seems they have even infected science — at least the quantum realm. This may seem counter intuitive. The scientific method is after all founded on the reliable notions of observation, measurement and repeatability. A fact, as established by a measurement, should be objective, such that all observers can agree with it.

But in a paper recently published in Science Advances, we show that, in the micro-world of atoms and particles that is governed by the strange rules of quantum mechanics, two different observers are entitled to their own facts. In other words, according to our best theory of the building blocks of nature itself, facts can actually be subjective.

Observers are powerful players in the quantum world. According to the theory, particles can be in several places or states at once — this is called a superposition. But oddly, this is only the case when they aren't observed. The second you observe a quantum system, it picks a specific location or state — breaking the superposition. The fact that nature behaves this way has been proven multiple times in the lab — for example, in the famous double slit experiment.

In 1961, physicist Eugene Wigner proposed a provocative thought experiment. He questioned what would happen when applying quantum mechanics to an observer that is themselves being observed. Imagine that a friend of Wigner tosses a quantum coin — which is in a superposition of both heads and tails — inside a closed laboratory. Every time the friend tosses the coin, they observe a definite outcome. We can say that Wigner's friend establishes a fact: the result of the coin toss is definitely head or tail.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/objective-reality-not-exist-quantum-physicists.html
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Objective Reality Doesn't Exist, Quantum Experiment Shows (Original Post) Judi Lynn Nov 2019 OP
All debates everywhere should end, then. FiveGoodMen Nov 2019 #1
Only if we shrink the debaters a whooooole lot. getting old in mke Nov 2019 #2
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