My Verification Challenge

[SelfSim]

Two can be demonstrated quantitatively, where i cannot.
(i is taken on faith.)

Two is a model, so is 'i'. Both can be demonstrated quantitatively (I already did so for 'i'). '2' as a representation of a specific quantity of oranges is trivial, I would have thought(?)

'i' does not have to be taken on faith. As with any definition, its meaning depends on context.

 

[sjastro]

Do complex numbers exist debate rears its ugly head.
Here is what Sabine Hossenfelder has to say on the subject.
I'm in the "shut up and calculate" camp as described at the end of the video.

 

[Kylie]

Matthew 14:22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

How would you scientifically verify Jesus walking on water, even if you were there when He did it, and had the technology at your disposal that you have today?

(Keep in mind the ship is being tossed with waves.)

You have all the equipment and knowledge at your fingertips.

How would you verify it?

The only way to scientifically verify it would be to apply the scientific method, and that would require testing.

I would examine the available evidence, then formulate several hypotheses. I would then design tests/experiments which would eliminate the incorrect hypotheses. After this, I would use the new information I had gathered to fine tune my hypotheses and see if I could get to a point where one hypothesis withstands all efforts to disprove it.

However, this would require Jesus to walk on water several times, with me setting up certain conditions for each one so I could eliminate any flawed hypotheses.

Since that is unlikely, there is no way to verify that Jesus walked on water. This claim is unfalsifiable.

 

[SelfSim]

.. I'm in the "shut up and calculate" camp as described at the end of the video.

Me too.
(Although I'm not sure I fully understand the alternative, ie: 'that nature is even more non local than QM already is'. What does that even mean? )

 

[sjastro]

Me too.
(Although I'm not sure I fully understand the alternative, ie: 'that nature is even more non local than QM already is'. What does that even mean? )

You are not in lone company here, even Albert struggled with this.
Locality means an object is affected by its immediate surroundings.
You can influence a boulder by pushing it; you need to be in physical contact with the boulder in order to push it for locality to exist.

Gravitational and electromagnetic forces between objects suggest non locality occurs as they are separated but still influence each other; this is the action at a distance principle.
Locality can be preserved by treating gravity and electromagnetism as fields where masses and charged particles interact with the field of the separated object which extends into their immediate vicinity.

Problems with locality arise with quantum entangled particles.
Quantum entangled particles can be separated but remain entangled and a measurement on one of the entangled pair can instantly reveal the state of the other particle even if it is at the opposite end of observable universe.
This would suggest that information can travel at instantaneous speed which violates special relativity as nothing can exceed the speed of light.

Quantum mechanics does not violate special relativity as Sabine explains in this video and therefore appears to behave as a local theory.

 

[SelfSim]

You are not in lone company here, even Albert struggled with this.
Locality means an object is affected by its immediate surroundings.
You can influence a boulder by pushing it; you need to be in physical contact with the boulder in order to push it for locality to exist.

Gravitational and electromagnetic forces between objects suggest non locality occurs as they are separated but still influence each other; this is the action at a distance principle.
Locality can be preserved by treating gravity and electromagnetism as fields where masses and charged particles interact with the field of the separated object which extends into their immediate vicinity.

Problems with locality arise with quantum entangled particles.
Quantum entangled particles can be separated but remain entangled and a measurement on one of the entangled pair can instantly reveal the state of the other particle even if it is at the opposite end of observable universe.
This would suggest that information can travel at instantaneous speed which violates special relativity as nothing can exceed the speed of light.

Quantum mechanics does not violate special relativity as Sabine explains in this video and therefore appears to behave as a local theory.

Thanks for your response there, but I guess I don't understand how QM's purported non-dependency on imaginary (or complex) numbers, leads to her tentative conclusion: 'that nature is even more non local than QM already is'?

I suspect the paper she cites in the first video on imaginary numbers along with the experiment proposed in the paper(?), together, contain the missing link for me there .. maybe(?)

 

[Larniavc]

Matthew 14:22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

How would you scientifically verify Jesus walking on water, even if you were there when He did it, and had the technology at your disposal that you have today?

(Keep in mind the ship is being tossed with waves.)

You have all the equipment and knowledge at your fingertips.

How would you verify it?

I’d say “Hey, JC! Can you tell be how you do it? Is it levitation? Is it mass shunting to those little dimensions gravity comes from? Yeah, no I know your busy but if you can just explain to me and my crew of time travellers how you do your thing it might bring an era of peace and harmony to the future.”

That’d probably sort things.

 

[Larniavc]

When it comes to this I keep in mind that it can't be scientifically verified how bumblebees are able fly (or so I've heard numerous times).

It can, though.

The aerodynamics of bumblebee flight were solved in the early 2000s, and modern computational fluid dynamics can accurately model insect flapping flight (Young et al., 2009, Science).

 

[sjastro]

Thanks for your response there, but I guess I don't understand how QM's purported non-dependency on imaginary (or complex) numbers, leads to her tentative conclusion: 'that nature is even more non local than QM already is'?

I suspect the paper she cites in the first video on imaginary numbers along with the experiment proposed in the paper(?), together, contain the missing link for me there .. maybe(?)

This article might make it clear about the meaning behind her statement.
In the article the dependence on complex number QM instead of real-number QM was based on two specific experiments involving a series of quantum-information operations by manipulating light or a superconducting quantum bit or qubit.
The article concludes;

He [Chao-Yang Lu ] hopes these experiments will further inspire physicists to examine questions such as the meaning of complex numbers – and to do so through experiments. He says, “We used to ‘shut up and calculate’, but now is a good time to rethink many foundational problems in quantum mechanics and test them with quantum computers”.

One of the foundation problems mentioned in Sabine’s video is the EPR experiment which addresses the role of hidden variables in QM entanglement as well the issue of it being a local or non local theory.
As shown for QM entanglement, theory agrees with experiment only for complex number QM.

If the other foundation problems through experiment lead to the same conclusion, the implication is “that nature is even more non local than QM already is”” and complex numbers have a physical reality.

Being in the ‘shut up and calculate’ camp, complex number QM works well as a model; why it should work instead of real number QM seems more like a metaphysical question and is not science.

 

[SelfSim]

This article might make it clear about the meaning behind her statement.
In the article the dependence on complex number QM instead of real-number QM was based on two specific experiments involving a series of quantum-information operations by manipulating light or a superconducting quantum bit or qubit.
The article concludes;


One of the foundation problems mentioned in Sabine’s video is the EPR experiment which addresses the role of hidden variables in QM entanglement as well the issue of it being a local or non local theory.
As shown for QM entanglement, theory agrees with observation only for complex number QM.

If the other foundation problems through experiment lead to the same conclusion, the implication is “that nature is even more non local than QM already is”” and complex numbers have a physical reality.

Being in the ‘shut up and calculate’ camp, complex number QM works well as a model; why it should work instead of real number QM seems more like a metaphysical question and is not science.

Interesting .. I can assure I haven't given up on this one because, frankly, where one does give up on the entire idea that physics is about finding undiscovered universally distributed 'truths', sprinkled throughout the universe by a 'some thing' awaiting us to discover, then their issue doesn't even register as an issue.
I'll try to consume the info in that link when my head-space returns shortly, (hopefully).

See, science builds its notion of what's real on the basis of objective experiments, yes? The end result is a repeatedly, independently verifiable, contextually dependent inference which leads us to the conclusion as to whether something exists objectively. Its that process, (ie: the objective process or scientific method), which distinguishes what science means by 'what exists' and not 'the thing itself'. Its the context as defined by the process that's important there .. and not so much the end result of it (namely because we always expect the end result will change, with new data).
Believers (of any variety) come up with their version of 'what exists' based on the belief in the sprinkled undiscovered truths awaiting our discovery .. and that group of believers can include scientists as well as religious (faith based) people. I have a sneaking suspicion QM folk may not have checked in their own beliefs and left them at the door before entering the QM world .. (but I'm quite open to being dead-flat wrong about that).

Aside: I found the paper (downloadable here) and am having a read. They make an interesting statement in the abstract: 'Physics however aims to explain, rather than describe, experiments through theories'. I'm not so sure that distinction is clear cut when examining questions like 'are imaginary numbers real?' because imaginary numbers are part of physic's descriptive language for explaining observations(?)

 

[SelfSim]

Being in the ‘shut up and calculate’ camp, complex number QM works well as a model; why it should work instead of real number QM seems more like a metaphysical question and is not science.

Ha .. from the Physicsworld article:

He hopes these experiments will further inspire physicists to examine questions such as the meaning of complex numbers – and to do so through experiments. He says, “We used to ‘shut up and calculate’, but now is a good time to rethink many foundational problems in quantum mechanics and test them with quantum computers”.

So he sees it as being about finding a meaning for the term 'complex numbers', eh?

 

[sjastro]

Interesting .. I can assure I haven't given up on this one because, frankly, where one does give up on the entire idea that physics is about finding undiscovered universally distributed 'truths', sprinkled throughout the universe by a 'some thing' awaiting us to discover, then their issue doesn't even register as an issue.
I'll try to consume the info in that link when my head-space returns shortly, (hopefully).

See, science builds its notion of what's real on the basis of objective experiments, yes? The end result is a repeatedly, independently verifiable, contextually dependent inference which leads us to the conclusion as to whether something exists objectively. Its that process, (ie: the objective process or scientific method), which distinguishes what science means by 'what exists' and not 'the thing itself'. Its the context as defined by the process that's important there .. and not so much the end result of it (namely because we always expect the end result will change, with new data).
Believers (of any variety) come up with their version of 'what exists' based on the belief in the sprinkled undiscovered truths awaiting our discovery .. and that group of believers can include scientists as well as religious (faith based) people. I have a sneaking suspicion QM folk may not have checked in their own beliefs and left them at the door before entering the QM world .. (but I'm quite open to being dead-flat wrong about that).

Aside: I found the paper (downloadable here) and am having a read. They make an interesting statement in the abstract: 'Physics however aims to explain, rather than describe, experiments through theories'. I'm not so sure that distinction is clear cut when examining questions like 'are imaginary numbers real?' because imaginary numbers are part of physic's descriptive language for explaining observations(?)

I had a quick look at the paper and my reaction was "so what?".
It's a thought experiment or as the authors express it a game which makes predictions but there is no actual experiment which can either support or disprove the predictions.

Einstein's EPR paradox which reflected Einstein's view of reality also started off as a thought experiment; it took around thirty years before Bell's inequality was formulated from which Bell type tests were first devised in the early seventies and have disproven Einstein's reality.

As an interesting side story while QM utilizes complex numbers z = x + yi, in the field of fluid mechanics the use of complex numbers is so advanced that functions of the complex variable z are used.
You are familiar with common real valued functions such as f(x) = sin(x), f(x)= log(x) or f(x)= 1/x to name a few; there are the corresponding functions of complex variables f(z) = sin(z), f(z)= log(z) or f(z)= 1/z.
Complex functions provide considerably more simplified models to describe the flow of fluids around obstructions such as corners or cylinders than real valued functions but I have never heard of anyone making the case for why nature prefers complex valued functions over real functions.

 

[SelfSim]

Complex functions provide considerably more simplified models to describe the flow of fluids around obstructions such as corners or cylinders than real valued functions but I have never heard of anyone making the case for why nature prefers complex valued functions over real functions.

Surely its not 'nature preferring complex functions' .. its us preferring to use using them because it works better for us in coming to a better understanding of how fluids behave(?) The same applies for EM signal analysis, electronics design etc.
I just don't get how the mental things/tools that we invent and then use, somehow end up being imposed on the thing being studied and then somehow, miraculously, the expectation becomes that they must therefore 'be real'?

 

[AV1611VET]

However, this would require Jesus to walk on water several times, with me setting up certain conditions for each one so I could eliminate any flawed hypotheses.

Correct.

This would require Jesus' cooperation.

 

[Kylie]

Correct.

This would require Jesus' cooperation.

But that's unlikely to happen, isn't it?

 

[jayem]

Not to get off topic, but I'd rather have verification of Samson--blinded, but with his hair grown back and strength restored--wrecking the temple of Dagon, and killing 1000s of Philistines. Like Victor Mature did in the movie. That's a heckuva lot cooler than walking on water.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

No it is verified, they just are just the worst aerodynamic creature out there. Their little wings beat at incredible speed, if you got enough flapping you can make anything fly. Humans could easily fly at a fraction of the speed if we beat our arms back and forth many many times per second.

They don't need aerodynamic bodies at the speeds they fly. But their wings are excellent examples of aerodynamics - they create lift by vortex shedding, achieved by horizontal (backwards & forwards) flapping. It's just a different way of producing low-pressure air above the wings.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Matthew 14:22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.

How would you scientifically verify Jesus walking on water, even if you were there when He did it, and had the technology at your disposal that you have today?

(Keep in mind the ship is being tossed with waves.)

You have all the equipment and knowledge at your fingertips.

How would you verify it?

Meh...

 

[AV1611VET]

Meh...

That's "meh" to you, because someone used smoke and mirrors to walk across CALM water?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

That's "meh" to you, because someone used smoke and mirrors to walk across CALM water?

People can be fooled by stories more easily than by their own eyes - and even their own eyes can fool them.