Talk:Afshar experiment/Archive 13

message: If an article were added to wikipedia describing all the reasons why Afhsar might be wrong, this article would not adhere to wiki policies, because it would be original research, conducted not a non-neutral point of view.  As such I made the changes to history.  Additionally, there is a critisism section, so it is redudant to also litter the rest of the article with critique. Dndn1011 17:34, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether it is OR or not depends on the presence and reliability of the sources, not the content. You are arguing back to front: you don't like the balance, so you argue that it is OR.  Better to argue that it is not NPOV and add extra sourced balance.  --Michael C. Price talk 17:41, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Can't you give it a break, man!  If someone collects too many sources on a subject together at a certain point it becomes OR.  The more you scrabble around trying to throw in every concievable argument the more I tend to think it is driven by a fear that Afshar might be right.  Just back off a little would be my advice.  The world is not full of gullible people with no sense of reason.  There is more than enough information to get interested people into the debate, and search engines also provide further information.  Science is about a search for the truth via experimentation, debate and reasoning.  Afhsar's experiment has caused so much controversy perhaps due to it not being trivially rebutted.  Many people have put in effort to add their interpretation to the experiement.  Thus whether or not Afshar is correct, he has certainly contributed to the debate in an interesting and constructive way.  And since there are still many questions to be resolved in explaining the universe in general, and QM in particular, controversy has to be a good sign of progress being made.  Relax man. Dndn1011 18:01, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You are wrong about collecting sources => OR.  That you think I am afraid of Afshar being right I find quite amusing, but no matter.  As for the experiment being interesting and constructive, you will find that I have already said the same thing a couple of times.  --Michael C. Price talk 18:17, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I did not say collecting sources => OR.  I said do that too much and it becomes OR.  I am glad I amused you.  Sorry I missed those positive statements.  Dndn1011 18:32, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're still wrong about OR and sources, but I'll guess you find that out the hard way... eventually. --Michael C. Price talk 19:47, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Sigh.  Many research papers (as I understand it) are merely collections of references with some inference drawn from an analysis of that collection.  I submit this is what you were doing.  This is how too many sources grouped together to present a particular view or state a case or present an idea (in this case that Afhsar is wrong) can become OR.  As for your "find out the hard way", it is a cheap shot and I can throw it back at you. Dndn1011 12:06, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You're still wrong: if the inference drawn from the sources is correctly implied then it's not OR; if the inference drawn from the sources is not implied then it's OR.  OR simply has nothing to do with the number of sources.  Let's take a concrete example.  I could find huge number of sources for the Earth being flat: citing them all would NOT be OR. Okay?  Nor would mentioning that the pro sources outnumber the cons be OR: that would be an issue of balance.--Michael C. Price talk 12:24, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: No, I disagree.  As an example, if I can prove X but to do so requires a complex argument that does nothing more than manipulate existing sources, this is OR Even if this proof appear correct and unarguable.  For instance, if Pythargoras' theorem had not yet been discovered, and he himself presented his theorem in wikipedia, with all supporting references, it would still be OR.  This is because readers would have to conduct their own research in order to verify the validity of the proof.  This is one of the definitions of OR for the purposes of wikipedia.  In reality perhaps the OR rule represents an ideal than can not always be met without make wikipedia less useful.  Of course this creates much in the way of grey areas, admittedly. Dndn1011 13:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, so OR can a measure of the complexity of the inference from the sources -- still not the number of sources BTW.  Well I'll grant you that is a grey area, since complexity is a subjective matter.  However the two resourced critiques I've reinserted into the article really are as simple as A=>B & B=>C implying A=>C, so this is not an issue anymore.  --Michael C. Price talk 15:46, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  In your opinion Dndn1011 16:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You misunderstand (and I could have been clearer): the subject (QM) and sources are complex, but the grammar and logic is simple.  We can debate the veracity of the sources but, if we accept them then, the logic really as simple as A=>B & B=>C implying A=>C. --Michael C. Price talk 18:17, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  My last changes 

message: I like this version.  I would call for it remaining essentially as it is now.  No doubt Mr. Price will want to add more to the critique section.  If at the very least I could ask him to place critism of the experiement only in that section. In my opinion there there is quite enough as it stands.  But certainly there is no need for critique to be anywhere other than in the critque section.  Dndn1011 18:07, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Boy, you sure make a lot of assumptions.  Perhaps you didn't notice that I proposed making exectly the same changes to the critique section  three minutes before you actually made them?  :-)  --Michael C. Price talk 18:13, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Heh, no.  Nice coincidence.  I got an edit conflict with you on the talk we obviously were doing stuff at teh same time.  Anyway, thank you, I am glad we are reaching a solution. Dndn1011 18:29, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, if you're happy and I'm happy we must be getting somewhere.  I do have one extra problem which needs addressing, and that is that the experiment does not reveal interference and which-way information for any individual photon.  All photons that are focussed by the lens, to reveal which-way info, must, by definition, have failed to leave a record of interference earlier.  Trying to build a statistical argument seems flawed because otherwise we could simply go to the conventional double slit experiment and simply stop every other photon at the double slits to reveal which-way info (i.e. see which slit they each get blocked at) and build up interference fringes from the remaining photons that we don't block.  I think this is the problem that troubles Drezet.  --Michael C. Price talk 20:04, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  18:03, 17 November 2006 version