Reality
In physics, reality is based on the empirical results of
observation and experiment.
Visualization of Quantum Physics (Quantum Mechanics) (14+ min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7bzE1E5PMY
This video visually demonstrates some basic quantum physics
concepts using the simple case of a free particle.
Quantum Mechanics: Animation explaining quantum physics (26 min)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVpXrbZ4bnU
Covers all topics, including wave particle duality,
Schrodinger's cat, EPR / Bell inequality, and the
relationship between measurement and entanglement. Quantum
Mechanics and Quantum Physics.
Einstein's "Spooky Action at a Distance" (historical)
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/427174/einsteins-spooky-action-at-a-distance-paradox-older-than-thought/
Einstein's phrase "spooky action at a distance" has become
synonymous with one of the most famous episodes in the
history of physics-his battle with Bohr in the 1930s over
the completeness of quantum mechanics.
Einstein's weapons in this battle were thought experiments
that he designed to highlight what he believed were the
inadequacies of the new theory.
Quoting John Wheeler from Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History
Of Time, A Reader's Companion", "I had worked with the other
great man in the quantum debate, Niels Bohr, in Copenhagen.
And I know no greater debate in the last hundreds of years
than the debate between Bohr and Einstein, no greater debate
between two greater men, or one that extended over a longer
period of time--twenty-eight years--at a higher level of
colleagueship. To put it in brief: Does the world exist out
there independent of us, as Einstein thought; or, as Bohr
thought, is there some sense in which we, through our choice
of observing equipment, have something to do with what comes
about..." Einstein refused to believe in a reality that
precluded cause and effect. "God does not play dice with the
universe." he declared. He especially objected to the
theory's insistence that particles, forces, and events
seemed to come into existence only when a measurement or
observation was made."
For more than half a century physicists and philosophers
debated whether the quantum theory really was a complete and
accurate description of reality. Then in 1964, physicist
John Bell proposed a brilliant method to resolve the issue.
"Bell's Theorem", says the eminent physicist Henry Stapps,
"is the most profound discovery of science." By the early
1980s a number of elegant experiments applying Bell's
Theorem have proved that quantum theory, which speaks in
terms of probabilities rather than actualities, is indeed a
complete explanation of reality... God DOES play dice with
the universe!
Is the Moon There When Nobody Looks? Reality and the Quantum Theory
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.880968
Wikipedia -- Bell's theorem
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem
Wikipedia -- Introduction to quantum mechanics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics
Summary of Important Ideas in Quantum Physics
http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/~infocom/Ideas/qn_summary.pdf
Wikipedia -- Quantum entanglement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_entanglement
Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon which occurs
when pairs or groups of particles are generated, interact,
or share spatial proximity in ways such that the quantum
state of each particle cannot be described independently of
the state of the other(s), even when the particles are
separated by a large distance-instead, a quantum state must
be described for the system as a whole.
Measurements of physical properties such as position,
momentum, spin, and polarization, performed on entangled
particles are found to be correlated. For example, if a pair
of particles is generated in such a way that their total
spin is known to be zero, and one particle is found to have
clockwise spin on a certain axis, the spin of the other
particle, measured on the same axis, will be found to be
counterclockwise, as is to be expected due to their
entanglement. However, this behavior gives rise to seemingly
paradoxical effects: any measurement of a property of a
particle performs an irreversible collapse on that particle
and will change the original quantum state. In the case of
entangled particles, such a measurement will be on the
entangled system as a whole. Given that the statistics of
these measurements cannot be replicated by models in which
each particle has its own state independent of the other, it
appears that one particle of an entangled pair "knows" what
measurement has been performed on the other, and with what
outcome, even though there is no known means for such
information to be communicated between the particles, which
at the time of measurement may be separated by arbitrarily
large distances.
Quantum Entanglement & Spooky Action at a Distance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=36&v=ZuvK-od647c
Bell's theorem (Review)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell's_theorem
Book Recommendation
"Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics"
Amir D Aczel
2002 John Wiley & Sons/Four Walls Eight Windows
https://www.amazon.com/Entanglement-Greatest-Amir-D-Aczel/dp/1568582323
"There are two kinds of books about quantum
mechanics. There are those in which we learn
about abstract concepts such as Hilbert spaces,
state vectors and density matrices, but where the
author never addresses - or only pays lip-service
to - the question of what quantum mechanics
actually means. This is the approach often taken in
textbooks. The other, quite opposite, approach
focuses on the interpretative question - drawing all
kinds of conclusions and analogies, talking about
telepathy and other mysteries, and perhaps even
claiming that quantum mechanics transcends
Western philosophy.
"Neither approach is very helpful when one wants
to understand what quantum mechanics really
means in a deep philosophical sense. Amir Aczel's
new book on entanglement - falling as it does into
neither category - avoids such pitfalls."
~Anton Zeilinger from the Institute of Experimental
Physics at the University of Vienna reviews the
book in the May issue of Physics World
Quantum entanglement of identical particles by standard
information-theoretic notions
http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.03445
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