Post by mrsonde on May 2, 2018 6:22:54 GMT 1
On monday C4 interviewed Carlo Rovelli, the author of an unaccountably bestselling popular physics book, who repeated his oft-repeated claim that "Now" doesn't exist. Well, his usual barmy claim is that time doesn't exist, so at least this one was a bit more specific and backed up by theory - Einstein's Special Relativity, to be precise.
But this is very, very odd, because Rovelli is also a supposed expert on quantum gravity, and works with various institutions at the frontiers of theoretical physics. So I spent much of yesterday checking up on the latest progress on the bizarre world of quantum entanglement - Bell's Theorem, all the experimental investigations into it, including the now highly sophisticated delayed choice quantum eraser experiments. No, this whole line of enquiry has not been found to have been a giant hoax, after all - au contraire, it is, allegedly at least, said to have now been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt.
So what the bugger is Rovelli on about? And why is he being interviewed by a C4 journalist who apparently knows nothing about the subject he's asking about? You claim that there is no Now, professore, and quote Einstein's century old theory to prove it (falsely, in my view - and, more importantly, falsely in Einstein's later view) yet quantum entanglement claims that there is a Now, throughout the entire Universe, beyond even the observable horizon, does it not? How do you account for this contradiction? And, for just one indication that this is the most fundamental problem Physics has ever been presented with, is it not the quite self-evident ground on which quantum mechanics and relativity must ultimately be reconciled?
And, if the quantum eraser demonstrations definitively show that faster-than-light, universally instantaneous communication is not only possible but inevitable, as seems to be the inescapable implication, then...well, I'll leave it to those religiously inclined to pursue that thought themselves, and let it slowly sink in to the atheistic ones what a very strange universe it's turned out to be where Physics has now demonstrated they had this question wrong all along.
But this is very, very odd, because Rovelli is also a supposed expert on quantum gravity, and works with various institutions at the frontiers of theoretical physics. So I spent much of yesterday checking up on the latest progress on the bizarre world of quantum entanglement - Bell's Theorem, all the experimental investigations into it, including the now highly sophisticated delayed choice quantum eraser experiments. No, this whole line of enquiry has not been found to have been a giant hoax, after all - au contraire, it is, allegedly at least, said to have now been demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt.
So what the bugger is Rovelli on about? And why is he being interviewed by a C4 journalist who apparently knows nothing about the subject he's asking about? You claim that there is no Now, professore, and quote Einstein's century old theory to prove it (falsely, in my view - and, more importantly, falsely in Einstein's later view) yet quantum entanglement claims that there is a Now, throughout the entire Universe, beyond even the observable horizon, does it not? How do you account for this contradiction? And, for just one indication that this is the most fundamental problem Physics has ever been presented with, is it not the quite self-evident ground on which quantum mechanics and relativity must ultimately be reconciled?
And, if the quantum eraser demonstrations definitively show that faster-than-light, universally instantaneous communication is not only possible but inevitable, as seems to be the inescapable implication, then...well, I'll leave it to those religiously inclined to pursue that thought themselves, and let it slowly sink in to the atheistic ones what a very strange universe it's turned out to be where Physics has now demonstrated they had this question wrong all along.