Quantum Mechanics

In this forum certain physical theories and its implications are discussed a lot. Quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, spetial relativity are the ones I see the most and most of the time the level of the discussion is frightening.

I really think people should a little bit more of what they are discussing before discussing it. The argument that this is only a public forum and people can speculate is wrong. People that are related to these areas speculate everyday but they do it in a responsible way. Science is always about what you know and trying to figure out new things. And figuring out new things is based on speculation. That the only difference is that in the later case we see a reponsible speculation. Not just some word throwing around like I see in here.

The thing is that for most of the subjects people argue about in here they could do it in a responsible way if just they did a little bit of research beforehand, then thought about it and only then they should discuss it. Please don't get wrong idea from this but I really think this could be much more enjoyable and benefiotial than the usual way. If I'm wrong than I'm wrong.

That being said I founf this video today and found it amusing and enlightening: It's about an hour long and if you like this type of things and have the time to see it then see it.

If in the future I see another video that I consider to be pedagogical I'll post it here too.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4674461198051839963&hl=en

Originally posted by adam warlock
In this forum certain physical theories and its implications are discussed a lot. Quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, spetial relativity are the ones I see the most and most of the time the level of the discussion is frightening.

I really think people should a little bit more of what they are discussing before discussing it. The argument that this i ...[text shortened]... 'll post it here too.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4674461198051839963&hl=en

Well, I listened to portions of that video, but I didn't hear anything that had anything to do with spirituality. As a mater of fact I don't read much in this forum that has anything to do with spirituality either.

Originally posted by josephw
Well, I listened to portions of that video, but I didn't hear anything that had anything to do with spirituality. As a mater of fact I don't read much in this forum that has anything to do with spirituality either.

In that case: Good thing I posted this here eh? 😛

Now seriously: I just posted it in here because I see people discussing these types of things here a lot and doing ti wrong. Andsince I don't know if the majority of them goes to any other forum were this could be more fitting I had to take a decision.

Originally posted by adam warlock
In this forum certain physical theories and its implications are discussed a lot. Quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, spetial relativity are the ones I see the most and most of the time the level of the discussion is frightening.

I really think people should a little bit more of what they are discussing before discussing it. The argument that this i ...[text shortened]... 'll post it here too.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4674461198051839963&hl=en

"...where the Hamiltonian is some self-adjoint linear operator..."

Yes, I'm sure this video will be very helpful to those unacquainted with QM.

The lectures here are better: http://bethe.cornell.edu/

Cheers.

Originally posted by adam warlock
In that case: Good thing I posted this here eh? 😛

Now seriously: I just posted it in here because I see people discussing these types of things here a lot and doing ti wrong. Andsince I don't know if the majority of them goes to any other forum were this could be more fitting I had to take a decision.

I understand. I just don't know a thing about science beyond high school. That is, "technically".

I know that science is important, and I have nothing against it's pursuit, but my personal interest is in spiritual things.

Science, it seems to me, is about raw material things.

Originally posted by bbarr
"...where the Hamiltonian is some self-adjoint linear operator..."

Yes, I'm sure this video will be very helpful to those unacquainted with QM.

This would be the minimum pre-requisite for me to say I'm acquainted with QM. People can look this terms up you know? This is precisely the point I'm trying to make: If people don't know this basic stuff they should know before discussing QM.

Ps: A self-adjoint operator is an operator that has real valued eigen-values. Since the eigen values are actually the things we measure this a good thing.

What is an operator? An operator is a mathematical object that acts on a function and it's result is a function. An example of an operator would be the integral of x between 0 and 1. Another example of an operator would be the drivative.

An eigenvector of an operator is some function that when acted by the operator results in a number times the function. The number is said to be the eigenvalue. For instance exp(5x) is an eigenvector of the derivative operator with eigenvalue 5.
A linear operator A is one that acts like this: A(f+g)= A(f)+A(g) and A(cf)=cA(f). Here f and g are functions and c is a number.

The hamiltonian is an operator that whose eigenvalues are the energy states of the wavefunction.

By the way, what is a wave function? People that talk about quantum mechanics use this term a lot even thought they don't know what it means. In my mind this term is as tricky as a self-adjoint operator but since it has entered the common language domain people use it like they really know what it means.

Originally posted by josephw
I understand. I just don't know a thing about science beyond high school. That is, "technically".

I know that science is important, and I have nothing against it's pursuit, but my personal interest is in spiritual things.

Science, it seems to me, is about raw material things.

For me science is easier than spiritual things. In spiritual things we can argue but never be certain who is right. People can have different and valid view points. In science most of the time there can't be such a thing. We experiment and then see who's right.

The truth is much more dirtier than this but roughly things flow in this way.

Originally posted by adam warlock
For me science is easier than spiritual things. In spiritual things we can argue but never be certain who is right. People can have different and valid view points. In science most of the time there can't be such a thing. We experiment and then see who's right.

The truth is much more dirtier than this but roughly things flow in this way.

I agree with you on both points. Science is about understanding how things work in a material world. Either one is right or wrong.

But on spiritual matters there can be a world of differences, and who's to say who's right or wrong?

There's an answer to that, but who's going to believe me?

Originally posted by josephw
I agree with you on both points. Science is about understanding how things work in a material world. Either one is right or wrong.

But on spiritual matters there can be a world of differences, and who's to say who's right or wrong?

There's an answer to that, but who's going to believe me?

But please bear in mind that I simplified things a lot. And scientists (a word I don't like at all) do care about ethical/moral/spiritual matters. Ones more than others they just have other things to do with most of their time.

Do you know that Newton spend most of his time studying the bible and fiddling around with alchemy than with natural science.

Or that the guy that originally proposed the big bang hypothesis was a priest?

Originally posted by adam warlock
But please bear in mind that I simplified things a lot. And scientists (a word I don't like at all) do care about ethical/moral/spiritual matters. Ones more than others they just have other things to do with most of their time.

Do you know that Newton spend most of his time studying the bible and fiddling around with alchemy than with natural science.

Or that the guy that originally proposed the big bang hypothesis was a priest?

Yes I knew that. That's what I mean when I said all I know about science I learned in high school.

There are many scientists that believe in God, but there seems to be a disproportional number of atheist/evolutionists as scientist.

Here's a question that may appear to be unrelated.
Have you ever considered that Christians are perfectly capable of doing the work of the adversary? And in fact are?

Originally posted by adam warlock
This would be the minimum pre-requisite for me to say I'm acquainted with QM. People can look this terms up you know? This is precisely the point I'm trying to make: If people don't know this basic stuff they should know before discussing QM.

Ps: A self-adjoint operator is an operator that has real valued eigen-values. Since the eigen values are act ...[text shortened]... t has entered the common language domain people use it like they really know what it means.

Yes, I learned all this from Arthur Fine and Marc Lange. My point is just that much of this is unnecessary for dealing with the use of QM in debates in the Spirituality Forum. For the purposes of this forum, an accurate but non-technical introduction is more appropriate.

Originally posted by adam warlock
This would be the minimum pre-requisite for me to say I'm acquainted with QM. People can look this terms up you know? This is precisely the point I'm trying to make: If people don't know this basic stuff they should know before discussing QM.

Ps: A self-adjoint operator is an operator that has real valued eigen-values. Since the eigen values are act t has entered the common language domain people use it like they really know what it means.

Out of curiosity, do you think that QM is at all relevant to the sort of questions that arise in the Spirituality forum?

Originally posted by josephw
Yes I knew that. That's what I mean when I said all I know about science I learned in high school.

There are many scientists that believe in God, but there seems to be a disproportional number of atheist/evolutionists as scientist.

Here's a question that may appear to be unrelated.
Have you ever considered that Christians are perfectly capable of doing the work of the adversary? And in fact are?

What's doing the work of the adversary?

Originally posted by bbarr
Yes, I learned all this from Arthur Fine and Marc Lange. My point is just that much of this is unnecessary for dealing with the use of QM in debates in the Spirituality Forum. For the purposes of this forum, an accurate but non-technical introduction is more appropriate.

I think we disagree on what's technical... I don't want people to be fluent on second quantization methods to discuss QM either, but a stronger grasp of what's going on would only benefit them.

I don't know any of the guys you mentioned. So tell me, by your own words, what is the wave function.

Originally posted by adam warlock
I think we disagree on what's technical... I don't want people to be fluent on second quantization methods to discuss QM either, but a stronger grasp of what's going on would only benefit them.

I don't know any of the guys you mentioned. So tell me, by your own words, what is the wave function.

Wave functions are descriptions of physical systems. These descriptions contain lists of the possible values of some parameter of the system measurement may reveal. These "eigenvalues" are indexed to probabilities understood in a metaphysical rather than epistemic sense (since Schrodinger's wave equation, which governs wave functions, is supposed to be a complete description of the evolution of any physical system; if the probabilities found in wave functions were merely epistemic, this would entail the presence of hidden variables). Upon measurement for some parameter of a physical system, the wave function "collapses", which just means it takes on a definite eigenstate corresponding to one of the eigenvalues found in the wave function.