HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ddixon@nyx.cs.du.edu (David Dixon)
Subject: Re: Quantum reality silliness
X-Disclaimer: Nyx is a public access Unix system run by the University
	of Denver for the Denver community.  The University has neither
	control over nor responsibility for the opinions of users.
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 92 19:04:33 GMT

In article <1992Oct12.233651.19658@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> bhv@areaplg2.corp.mot.com (Bronis Vidugiris) writes:
>In article <1992Oct10.183406.6433@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> ddixon@nyx.cs.du.edu (David Dixon) writes:
>
>)Anybody want to invent a gamma-ray polarizer so the silly experiment can
>)be done properly with e+e- annihilation?
>
>I think it'd be easier to use e+ e- creation and Stern-Gerlach magnets for
>the polarization detectors.  Actually, there was some discussion in the
>Clauser et al. paper on really *good* tests of the theory (to eliminate
>the aux assumptions) - unfortunately, I've forgotten the details and mislaid
>the paper :-(.
>

Actually, the problem I was hoping to get rid of was that of three bodies
being involved in the creation of the two that are measured.  For example,
an atom radiating two photons.  I believe (brain is foggy, lack of coffee)
that e+e- creation by a gamma-ray requires (or is much more favorable) if
you have a heavy nucleus around, because it helps to satisfy some
conservation law (angular momentum?  anyone?).

At any rate, it occurs to me that it's been about six years since I really
looked at any of this stuff, so I think I'll shut up now and go review it
again.  I wrote a paper (unpublished) on the various experimental tests of
Bell's inequality, and if I feel ambitious maybe I'll post a summary so
the local deterministic realists can flame me to a cinder :-)

Dave
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA AND THE PRINCIPLE OF TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE
Date: 15 Oct 92 05:37:48 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <abian.719117674@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
>In <2072@snap> paj@uk.co.gec-mrc (Paul Johnson) writes:
>
>>In article <abian.718940281@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:
>
>>> The extreme violent Reaction to  provocation is the real explana-
>>>tion in the mechanism of the A and H bomb!  But I have explained that
>>>before.  
>
>>So if I go and cut down a tree, will it react to this provocation and
>>attempt to maintain its upright status by reaching down with its
>>branches and trying to strangle me?  I don't think so.  If your
>>"explanation" is not useful for making predictions then it is
>>considerably less real than mainstream science.
>
>        Yes, the tree will react and it will show the tendency of
>        maintaining its status quo.  However, as  I have mentioned, 
>        a weak provokee will succumb to a stronger provoker.  Although
>        the tree will try to resist (by giving you trouble in cut-
>        ting it, by burning your saw, etc) however, it will succumb
>        to your saw if the saw is sufficiently strong.
>        
>        There are trees which with their branches will strangle 
>        a weak provoker.  In fact, there are delicate flowers which will
>        capture provoking insects and will strangle them to death!

     Actually, it uses the opportunity to fall closer to the ground
     to be closer to the CAMEMBERT.  The tree knows that cheese is 
     usually closer to the ground.

                               dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Defining local, causal etc., was: Hidden variable theories
Summary: I am the true conservative.
Keywords: collapse
Date: 7 Oct 92 16:44:24 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <1992Oct6.180822.3884@sei.cmu.edu>, firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) writes:
> In article <5804@osc.COM> Joe Keane <jgk@osc.com> writes:
> 
> >I agree it's preposterous to say that a measurement here `instantaneously' has
> >an effect billions of light years away.
> 
> And guess what, I agree with you.  Where I part company with you and Paul
> is at the next milestone.  You seem to think that from the premise "P is
> preposterous" it is permissible to derive the conclusion "P is false".
> I don't; and the history of QM gives me some confidence in that opinion.

The thrust of my post on preposterous predictions was not that they are
necessarily false. They do however require extraordinary justification.
There is no justification for the predictions that locality is violated.

We have a deep and powerful understanding of the linear transformations
of the wave function. We do not understand the nonlinear
transformations. Physicists have glossed over this ignorance by claiming
there is no structure to these nonlinear changes. They simply occur
instantaneously like magic. They have replaced ignorance with stupidity.
This is a bit overstated, but I could not resist. The problems associated
with the singlet state and EPR effects are subtle and difficult. It is hard
to understand how a local model could account for the known experimental
results. That a problem is hard does not make it unsolvable and
does not justify abandoning locality.

I have advocated two distinct positions in my postings. I think the
universe is local and this constraint should be added to quantum mechanics.
This is a more conservative theory than standard quantum mechanics.
Of course you can argue that any deviation from the theory accepted by
the most physicists is radical. I do not want to engage in a semantic
argument about this. I simply regard it as radical to believe that
locality is violated, given the complete absence of experimental evidence.
Everything we know of macroscopic effects is consistent with locality.
A nonlocal universe is far more complex than a local one. In a nonlocal
universe events at any point in space-time can influence events at any
other point. There is no evidence for such complexity in our universe.

I have also suggested a class of discrete models that may be an alternative
basis for quantum mechanics. These ideas are speculative and radical.
They will require extraordinary experimental justification before
I would consider them to be science.

Paul Budnik
From: naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Value Rule, Bell, Kochen-Specker
Date: 8 Oct 92 14:17:42 +0200
Organization: University of Cape Town

Stuff deleted
 
> If BI needs VR then as far as I can see, an interpretation which is realist,
> deterministic, denies general Functional Correspondence and which also denies
> VR, then avoids all forms of Nonlocality, avoids BI and avoids the
> Kochen-Specker paradox.

Since I only had one reply to this posting I decided to ask Fluffy, the Quantum
Kitty what her opinion was. She had this to say:

Well the proof of the Bell Inequality certainly does break down in VR fails
(which it does often do). But we can still derive BI as follows. Repeat all the
steps of the proof up until one calculates the limiting averages. Now for each
of these lines in the proof add the phrase "almost always", where this means
that the line holds except possibly for some cases which occur with prob.=0.
When we get to the end of the proof the averaging process gets rid of the
anomalous cases.

Remember, if we say that an event has 0 prob. of occuring does not mean it can't
occur. But it does mean that it occurs so rarely that no matter how many
trials you take there is no guarentee that it will occur, and yet it may still
occur!

What is important about VR failure is that it gets rid of the Kochen-Specker
paradox quite nicely. Assuming VR, QM would require us to do something which is
equivalent to painting an N-dimensional hypersphere black and white in such a
way that:

1)  Points on the same ray have the same color.
2)  For any set of points lying in orthogonal directions only one is painted
    black, the rest must all be white.

Now this is mathematically impossible for N>2. The usual victim that gets the
blame is the claim that if an observable Q is related to two different
nondegenerate observables X,Z which don't commute, by Q = f(X) and Q = g(Z)
then f(X) = g(Z). (lets cal this "functionality"). Denying functionality gets
rid of our painting problem. However, in order to be able to do things with
QM we need to a assume a limited functionality which only works for
nondegenerate observables. This however leads to either ontological nonlocality
or evnironmental nonlocality IF WE ASSUME VR.

BUT if we deny VR, we only have to paint the hypersphere everywhere except on a
set with measure 0, which if I'm not mistaken is quite possible.

The best solution is to deny VR but keep functionality. Then we don't get
Kochen-Specker, and we don't get ontological or environmental nonlocality.
  

*****************************************************************************
* Baby Doc Naturman                                                         *
* USS Enterprise                           "It's life Jim,                  *
* Final Frontier                                  but not as we know it."   *
* naturman@uctvax.uct.ac.za                                                 *
*                                                       Spock of Vulcan     *
*****************************************************************************
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Einstein's energy equation
From: bob@1776.COM (Robert Coe)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 09:55:45 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: 1776 Enterprises, Sudbury MA

Can someone send me (or point me to) a derivation of Einstein's equation
E = mc**2?  (When I try to derive it, I always seem to come up with
(mc**2)/2.)  :^(    adTHANKSvance...........

   ___            _                                           -  Bob
   /__) _   /    / ) _   _
(_/__) (_)_(_)  (___(_)_(/_______________________________________ bob@1776.COM
Robert K. Coe ** 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 ** 508-443-3265
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: TIME HAS INERTIA AND THE PRINCIPLE OF TENDENCY OF MAINTAINING THE
Date: 11 Oct 92 01:17:59 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <abian.718746124@pv343f.vincent.iastate.edu> abian@iastate.edu (Alexander Abian) writes:

[discussion of the 'motivations' of inanimate objects deleted]

> you were indoctrinated with.  This is quite natural, and indeed this is
>how everybody and everything  acts until by brutal force or by force of
>a stronger persuasion one changes the status quo of his beliefs and
>forms a new status quo of beliefs.  Right now I am doing the same thing.
>I am exhibiting the tendency of maintaining the status quo of my beliefs.

     'Beliefs' are not science insofar as they are not falsifiable.

     Yours do not appear to be falsifiable, and are thus not science.

                                    dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: jennings@halcyon.com (James Jennings)
Subject: Re: Time to develop a crackpot index?
Organization: The 23:00 News and Mail Service
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 08:24:36 GMT

>> I think it's time to develop a crackpot index.

Have you seen Martin Gardner's 5 ways to tell a crackpot? They're listed
in his "Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science". (page 12,13 of the
Dover edition) Briefly, they are:

1) He considers himself a genius.
2) He regards his colleagues...as ignorant blockheads
3) He believes himself unjustly persecuted.
4) He has strong compulsions to focus his attacks on the greatest
scientists and the best-established theories.
5) He often has a tendency to write in complex jargon, in many cases
making use of terms and phrases he himself has coined.

Most of the items in your crackpot index can be reduced to one of these.
Perhaps Mr Gardner's experience is similar to yours. ;-)

My favorite of these is (5), which is sometimes written, "He thinks that
by nameing something, he understands it."

James
From: mcirvin@husc8.harvard.edu (Mcirvin)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Religion & Physics Don't Mix (?)
Date: 16 Oct 92 21:32:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc8.mcirvin.719271132
 <1992Oct15.180132.2769@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> <1992Oct15.221837.15717@asl.dl.nec.com>

terry@aslws01.asl.dl.nec.com (Terry Bollinger) writes:

[about religion and the assumption of parsimony in the grand design]
>It still is a doggone good heuristic in physics, only it is no longer
>explicitly associated with the Western monotheism from which it was
>largely derived.  Now it's just a precept, one that is generally taught
>in a distilled and highly abstract form that is relatively devoid of
>any specific religious content.  Doesn't change its ancestry, however.

The real problem with the "water and fire" comment that started this
subdiscussion was that it implied more than just a separation of religious
and scientific ideas-- it implied that science necessarily extinguished
religion, and vice versa.  This is demonstrably false.

-- 
Matt McIrvin, posting nonsense again
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Cracking the crackpots
From: bob@1776.COM (Robert Coe)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 12:41:26 EDT
Distribution: world
Organization: 1776 Enterprises, Sudbury MA

Has anyone else noticed that over at least the last couple of days, the
amount of bandwidth consumed in creating and discussing crackpot indices,
lists, filters, etc., etc. has GREATLY exceeded that consumed by the
crackpots themselves?

   ___            _                                           -  Bob
   /__) _   /    / ) _   _
(_/__) (_)_(_)  (___(_)_(/_______________________________________ bob@1776.COM
Robert K. Coe ** 14 Churchill St, Sudbury, Massachusetts 01776 ** 508-443-3265
From: hargrove@nobelium.asc.slb.com (Jim Hargrove)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Hannu is a wood-duck
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:07:41 GMT
Organization: Schlumberger Austin Systems Center
NNTP-Posting-Host: nobelium.asc.slb.com

In article <8081@public.BTR.COM>, rah@public.BTR.COM (Richard A Hyde  rah@btr.com) writes:
|> Why is it an insult to call someone a "wood-duck"?  What *is* a wood-duck?
|> Is it, perhaps, a foreign locution?
|> 
|> 
|> -- 
|> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|> |   Richard Hyde  |  RaH@btr.com  |    This space intentionally left blank   |
|> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
In the middle ages in England, the "village idiot" was called a "woodcock." In French, the same bird/word "becasse" is used to denote a simpleton. Perhaps the original sender meant "woodcock" instead of "wood-duck."
        -- jwh
Xref: sparky sci.physics:16200 sci.astro:10534 sci.math:12928 sci.philosophy.tech:3599
From: crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass)
Newsgroups: sci.physics,sci.astro,sci.math,sci.philosophy.tech
Subject: Re: STRUCTURE OF TIME
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:56:32 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

In article <1992Oct8.181622.3440@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes:
>In article <8OCT199210103877@csa2.lbl.gov> sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct8.154736.680@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, pratt@Sunburn.Stanford.EDU (Vaughan R. Pratt) writes...
>>> 
>>>A gedanken experiment is an act of faith.
>>> 
>>
>>Only if you do it wrong.  Experimental error is a major problem with
>>gedanken experiments.
>
>Major problem, eh?  I looked in the Guinness book of records for the
>largest experimental error ever made with a gedanken experiment,
>without success.  Anyone happen to know its order of magnitude?

    I just imagined a universe in which everything ground to a halt
    in a fixed  preferred reference frame unless it was under the influence 
    of a local external force.  Looking around, I'd have to say that
    my error is incalculable.  

    This 'looking around' is very very important in this discussion.

>to unexplored territory is an article of faith that the predictions of
>the best current theory will hold there too.  I would not object
>however to "extremely likely" in place of "inevitable."  (I too have
>faith.)
    
     This is not Faith, this is expectation.  If it were Faith,
     it would not matter if the predictions were satisfied or not.

     Faith has nothing to do with satisfying predictions and nothing
     to do with science.

                             dale bass
-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926
Newsgroups: sci.physics
From: phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de (Hartmut Frommert)
Subject: OQ (Open Question) on particles
Summary: What is a particle really ?
Keywords: OQ, (Elementary) particles
Organization: Dept. of Physics, University of Constance
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 12:26:38 GMT

The subject and summary says it.. Proposition for a new OQ:

* What is a particle really ?

In classical physics, particles are "usually" modelled by structureless
point particles [which by construction is an idealization which never claimed
to be strictly realized], described by its mass or eventually charge, or 
(less frequently) by small "patches", "spheres", etc. of unspecified mass 
and possibly charge density. Classical field theory implies also that there 
may be additional "degrees of freedom", or charges, which are assigned to 
fields describing the elementary particle under consideration.

Elementary QM has shown that this picture is not essentially true, since in 
one-particle QM the classical properties listed above are replaced by 
expectation values of observables, where wave functions, i.e. probability
amplitudes, are the foundations of the theory. Thus THE PARTICLE is described
by a set of probabilities to be found in the possible quantum states, i.e.
WHAT is found in the Qstates ? QFT is then based on creation and annihilation
operators to create or annihilate WHAT in some Qstate ? 

Being aware of some more phenomenological models (MIT bag, for example) the
question above seems to be still open, neither QM/QFT nor SR nor GR have 
provided any compelling hints how to answer it, at least to my knowledge.
(-:
    not taking into account the hardly enlightning claim, or definition:
    A particle is the quantum of a quantized field. 
:-)
 Hartmut Frommert                 <phfrom@nyx.uni-konstanz.de>
 Dept of Physics, Univ of Constance, P.O.Box 55 60, D-W-7750 Konstanz, Germany
                                           -- Eat whale killers, not whales --
From: rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu (Jeff Bytof)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Who is Alexander Abian and why is he doing this?
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 18:28:19 GMT
Organization: ucsd
NNTP-Posting-Host: lutherlab.ucsd.edu

>Subject: Who is Alexander Abian and why is he doing this?

I have searched our library's computer and have come up with
three books written by Alexander Abian (1925-):

    The Theory of Sets and Transfinite Arithmetic (1965)

    Linear Associative Algebras (1971)

    Boolean Rings (1976)

I find it hard to believe that the poster Alexander Abian is 
the same person who authored these books.  I think there is a 
good chance that we are dealing with an IMposter.

------------------------
rabjab@golem.ucsd.edu
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Night Thoughts on Bell's Inequality
Date: 10 Oct 92 15:43:49 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <1992Oct9.200550.24404@riacs.edu>, danforth@riacs.edu (Douglas G. Danforth) writes:
Robert Firth writes:
>...
> ]           Since the theories cannot be patched, their adherents are
>                                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> ]busy looking for loopholes in the experiments.  Good luck, folks.

Noting that the observed correlations do not have a space-like separation
is not a loophole. It is the central issue in the experiment. If you
cannot show this you cannot claim to have tested Bell's inequality.

> Well, I'm coming from a very different position and that is that any
> field theoretic model of quantum phenomena MUST include the condition
> of observable and nonobservable.  The reality is the field out of
> which particles and other fields are composed.  One can not, would not,
> expect to be able to experience this field under all circumstances since
> that which experiences the field is constructed from the field (us).
> "Particles" become an ill defined facet of the field, being simple
> quasi-stable states that are sometimes localized and sometimes dispersed.
>...

The nonlocal effects predicted by QM are not limited to polarizers. They
are pervasive, although they cannot usually be tested for
experimentally. There is a growing list of different experimental tests
for nonlocal effects. I believe there are mechanisms associated with
a quantum collapse process extended over space and time that account for
these effects. You seem to be postulating a new class of
physical phenomena that make it appear as if these correlations exist,
when they do not occur as predicted. Either it is impossible to
build detectors with the needed efficiency, because of some new
laws of physics or experiments using efficient detectors would show
that Bell's inequality is not violated. I am curious if you have any
reason for believing that these physical effects exist other than to
avoid violating locality.

Paul Budnik
From: sichase@csa2.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Time to develop a crackpot index?
Date: 15 Oct 1992 10:24 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.197
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <Oct.14.21.24.26.1992.5110@ruhets.rutgers.edu>, bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes...
> 
>Frankly, when you said "crackpot index" I was hoping for a sort of
>master list of crackpots who post to sci.physics, with brief
>descriptions of their "theories" or sins against Orthodox Physics (TM)
>and explanations of why they were wrong, or at least heretical.
>It could be posted periodically, saving the labor of refuting
>McElwaine, Abian et al every time they post silliness ...

Actually, I have been thinking of this, for the FAQ.  I think that a 
real physicist's review of Larson's books, for example, would be a nice
thing to which one would be able to refer whenever Larsony raises its ugly
head.  Is anyone interested in tackling Larson, or the Biological 
Transmutations guy (Kervran?) in the way of a scientific book review?

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"It is not a simple life to be a single cell,
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		 although I have no right to say so, having
				 been a single cell so long ago myself that I 
				 have no memory at all of that stage of my 
				 life." - Lewis Thomas