Quantum nonlocality, perhaps one of the most mysterious features of quantum mechanics, may not be a real phenomenon. Or at least that’s what a new paper in the journal PNAS asserts. Its author claims that nonlocality is nothing more than an artifact of the Copenhagen interpretation, the most widely accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Nonlocality is a feature of quantum mechanics where particles are able to influence each other instantaneously regardless of the distance between them, an impossibility in classical physics. Counterintuitive as it may be, nonlocality is currently an accepted feature of the quantum world, apparently verified by many experiments. It’s achieved such wide acceptance that even if our understandings of quantum physics turn out to be completely wrong, physicists think some form of nonlocality would be a feature of whatever replaced it.
The term “nonlocality” comes from the fact that this “spooky action at a distance,” as Einstein famously called it, seems to put an end to our intuitive ideas about location. Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so if two quantum particles can influence each other faster than light could travel between the two, then on some level, they act as a single system—there must be no real distance between them.
The concept of location is a bit strange in quantum mechanics anyway. Each particle is described by a mathematical quantity known as the "wave function." The wave function describes a probability distribution for the particle’s location, but not a definite location. These probable locations are not just scientists’ guesses at the particle’s whereabouts; they’re actual, physical presences. That is to say, the particles exist in a swarm of locations at the same time, with some locations more probable than others.
A measurement collapses the wave function so that the particle is no longer spread out over a variety of locations. It begins to act just like objects we’re familiar with—existing in one specific location.
The experiments that would measure nonlocality, however, usually involve two particles that are entangled, which means that both are described by a shared wave function. The wave function doesn’t just deal with the particle’s location, but with other aspects of its state as well, such as the direction of the particle’s spin. So if scientists can measure the spin of one of the two entangled particles, the shared wave function collapses and the spins of both particles become certain. This happens regardless of the distance between the particles.
The new paper calls all this into question.
The paper’s sole author, Frank Tipler, argues that the reason previous studies apparently confirmed quantum nonlocality is that they were relying on an oversimplified understanding of quantum physics in which the quantum world and the macroscopic world we’re familiar with are treated as distinct from one another. Even large structures obey the laws of quantum Physics, Tipler points out, so the scientists making the measurements must be considered part of the system being studied.
It is intuitively easy to separate the quantum world from our everyday world, as they appear to behave so differently. However, the equations of quantum mechanics can be applied to large objects like human beings, and they essentially predict that you’ll behave just as classical physics—and as observation—says you will. (Physics students who have tried calculating their own wave functions can attest to this). The laws of quantum physics do govern the entire Universe, even if distinctly quantum effects are hard to notice at a macroscopic level.
When this is taken into account, according to Tipler, the results of familiar nonlocality experiments are altered. Typically, such experiments are thought to involve only two measurements: one on each of two entangled particles. But Tipler argues that in such experiments, there’s really a third measurement taking place when the scientists compare the results of the two.
This third measurement is crucial, Tipler argues, as without it, the first two measurements are essentially meaningless. Without comparing the first two, there’s no way to know that one particle’s behavior is actually linked to the other’s. And crucially, in order for the first two measurements to be compared, information must be exchanged between the particles, via the scientists, at a speed less than that of light. In other words, when the third measurement is taken into account, the two particles are not communicating faster than light. There is no "spooky action at a distance."
Tipler has harsh criticism for the reasoning that led to nonlocality. “The standard argument that quantum phenomena are nonlocal goes like this,” he says in the paper. “(i) Let us add an unmotivated, inconsistent, unobservable, nonlocal process (collapse) to local quantum mechanics; (ii) note that the resulting theory is nonlocal; and (iii) conclude that quantum mechanics is [nonlocal].”
He’s essentially saying that scientists are arbitrarily adding nonlocality, which they can’t observe, and then claiming they have discovered nonlocality. Quite an accusation, especially for the science world. (The "collapse" he mentions is the collapse of the particle’s wave function, which he asserts is not a real phenomenon.) Instead, he claims that the experiments thought to confirm nonlocality are in fact confirming an alternative to the Copenhagen interpretation called the many-worlds interpretation (MWI). As its name implies, the MWI predicts the existence of other universes.
The Copenhagen interpretation has been summarized as “shut up and measure.” Even though the consequences of a wave function-based world don’t make much intuitive sense, it works. The MWI tries to keep particles concrete at the cost of making our world a bit fuzzy. It posits that rather than becoming a wave function, particles remain distinct objects but enter one of a number of alternative universes, which recombine to a single one when the particle is measured.
Scientists who thought they were measuring nonlocality, Tipler claims, were in fact observing the effects of alternate universe versions of themselves, also measuring the same particles.
Part of the significance of Tipler’s claim is that he’s able to mathematically derive the same experimental results from the MWI without use of nonlocality. But this does not necessarily make for evidence that the MWI is correct; either interpretation remains consistent with the data. Until the two can be distinguished experimentally, it all comes down to whether you personally like or dislike nonlocality.
Tipler himself is a controversial figure in the scientific community. He’s been called a crackpot by Astrophysicist Sean Carroll for his science fiction-like claim that life will evolve to become omnipotent in the moment before the end of the Universe. He’s also denied climate change and explored scientific mechanisms for the resurrection of the dead, getting him accused of engaging in pseudoscience by many in the scientific community.
He does have his defenders, such as physicist David Deutsch, who builds on some of Tipler’s work, though Deutsch rejects Tipler’s metaphysical conclusions. And even Carroll acknowledges that Tipler did good scientific work in his early career. That being the case, is Tipler’s new paper to be taken seriously?
In science, it’s not the reputation of the scientist that determines the validity of his or her work; it’s whether the work can be born out by evidence. And right now, that’s simply not possible here.
PNAS, 2014. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1324238111 (About DOIs).
124 Reader Comments
Um, after the first part, I think we can safely ignore anything else he has to say.... [/url].
Can you identify the logical fallacy you just engaged in here?
That was a logical fallacy indeed but you have to admit, if he did come out against climate change in this day and age (I have not done the research on the exact circumstances), it does bring down his credibility as an objective scientist.
It brings down his credibility as being objective, not as being a scientist.
Again, GIGO. Give him different data and he will come up with a different conclusion.
If one accepts the validity of General Relativity (which has been confirmed by every experiment to date), then nonlocality does not exist, since the speed of light is the fastest anything can travel, and therefore the multiverse of the Many-Worlds Interpretation logically must exist (i.e., due to the reason given in Prof. Tipler's present paper).
(...)
Account freshly created just for one post... This post reeks of fanatism and religious repetition of Tipler's work. Couldn't you at least be subtle in your evangelism?
Turns out that word was more accurate than you probably thought, eh?
I'm afraid so.
Well, at least his second post wasn't subtle any longer, and I can happily put him in my ignore list.
Hi, Ryuji. My postings are my own writings.
You are engaging in the fallacy of the Presumption of Antitheism. That is, you are simply assuming that God of course does not exist, and hence that any purported evidence for God's existence must be incorrect (and therefore that it can be safely ignored).
However, antitheism (i.e., holding a positive belief in the nonexistence of God) is an irrational position, since there exists no evidence that God does not exist. And the only way such evidence could exist is to a priori prove that an infinite computational state is mathematically contradictory, which will never come about since mathematics very much allows infinite computational states. Even if one had a physical Theory of Everything (TOE) which did not permit infinite computation, unless one a priori proved mathematically that infinite computation is not possible then one could never be sure that this TOE wasn't just an embedded subset of a larger TOE (and as said, such a proof will never be forthcoming, as mathematics definitely allows infinite computation).
Moreover, the evidence for God's existence is overwhelming. Physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof of God's existence, is now a mathematical theorem per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), of which have been confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. Hence, the only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject empirical science. As Prof. Stephen Hawking wrote, "one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem." (From p. 67 of Stephen Hawking, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time [New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1996; 1st ed., 1988].)
Additionally, we now have the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) required by the known laws of physics and that correctly describes and unifies all the forces in physics: of which inherently produces the Omega Point cosmology. So here we have an additional high degree of assurance that the Omega Point cosmology is correct. For much more on the Omega Point TOE, see my following article:
* James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708.
Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology has been peer-reviewed and published in a number of the world's leading physics and science journals.[1] Even NASA itself has peer-reviewed his Omega Point Theorem and found it correct according to the known laws of physics (see below). No refutation of it exists within the peer-reviewed scientific literature, or anywhere else for that matter.
Below are some of the peer-reviewed papers in physics and science journals and proceedings wherein Prof. Tipler has published his Omega Point cosmology (all of which papers are available online for free by doing a search):
* Frank J. Tipler, "Cosmological Limits on Computation", International Journal of Theoretical Physics, Vol. 25, No. 6 (June 1986), pp. 617-661, doi:10.1007/BF00670475, bibcode: 1986IJTP...25..617T. (First paper on the Omega Point cosmology.)
* Frank J. Tipler, "The Sensorium of God: Newton and Absolute Space", bibcode: 1988nnds.conf..215T, in G[eorge]. V. Coyne, M[ichal]. Heller and J[ozef]. Zycinski (Eds.), "Message" by Franciszek Macharski, Newton and the New Direction in Science: Proceedings of the Cracow Conference, 25 to 28 May 1987 (Vatican City: Specola Vaticana, 1988), pp. 215-228, LCCN 88162460, bibcode: 1988nnds.conf.....C.
* Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point Theory: A Model of an Evolving God", in Robert J. Russell, William R. Stoeger and George V. Coyne (Eds.), message by John Paul II, Physics, Philosophy, and Theology: A Common Quest for Understanding (Vatican City: Vatican Observatory, 2nd ed., 2005; orig. pub. 1988), pp. 313-331, ISBN 0268015775, LCCN 89203331, bibcode: 1988pptc.book.....R.
* Frank J. Tipler, "The Anthropic Principle: A Primer for Philosophers", in Arthur Fine and Jarrett Leplin (Eds.), PSA 1988: Proceedings of the 1988 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers (East Lansing, Mich.: Philosophy of Science Association, 1989), pp. 27-48, ISBN 091758628X.
* Frank J. Tipler, "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions for Scientists", Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science, Vol. 24, No. 2 (June 1989), pp. 217-253, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9744.1989.tb01112.x. Republished as Chapter 7: "The Omega Point as Eschaton: Answers to Pannenberg's Questions to Scientists" in Carol Rausch Albright and Joel Haugen (Eds.), Beginning with the End: God, Science, and Wolfhart Pannenberg (Chicago, Ill.: Open Court Publishing Company, 1997), pp. 156-194, ISBN 0812693256, LCCN 97000114.
* Frank J. Tipler, "The ultimate fate of life in universes which undergo inflation", Physics Letters B, Vol. 286, Nos. 1-2 (July 23, 1992), pp. 36-43, doi:10.1016/0370-2693(92)90155-W, bibcode: 1992PhLB..286...36T.
* Frank J. Tipler, "A New Condition Implying the Existence of a Constant Mean Curvature Foliation", bibcode: 1993dgr2.conf..306T, in B[ei]. L. Hu and T[ed]. A. Jacobson (Eds.), Directions in General Relativity: Proceedings of the 1993 International Symposium, Maryland, Volume 2: Papers in Honor of Dieter Brill (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 306-315, ISBN 0521452678, bibcode: 1993dgr2.conf.....H.
* Frank J. Tipler, "Ultrarelativistic Rockets and the Ultimate Future of the Universe", NASA Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Workshop Proceedings, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Jan. 1999, pp. 111-119; an invited paper in the proceedings of a conference held at and sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center, Cleveland, Ohio, Aug. 12-14, 1997; doi:2060/19990023204. Document ID: 19990023204. Report Number: E-11429; NAS 1.55:208694; NASA/CP-1999-208694.
* Frank J. Tipler, "There Are No Limits To The Open Society", Critical Rationalist, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Sept. 23, 1998).
* Frank J. Tipler, Jessica Graber, Matthew McGinley, Joshua Nichols-Barrer and Christopher Staecker, "Closed Universes With Black Holes But No Event Horizons As a Solution to the Black Hole Information Problem", arXiv:gr-qc/0003082, Mar. 20, 2000. Published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 379, No. 2 (Aug. 2007), pp. 629-640, doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11895.x, bibcode: 2007MNRAS.379..629T.
* Frank J. Tipler, "The Ultimate Future of the Universe, Black Hole Event Horizon Topologies, Holography, and the Value of the Cosmological Constant", arXiv:astro-ph/0104011, Apr. 1, 2001. Published in J. Craig Wheeler and Hugo Martel (Eds.), Relativistic Astrophysics: 20th Texas Symposium, Austin, Texas, 10-15 December 2000 (Melville, NY: American Institute of Physics, 2001), pp. 769-772, ISBN 0735400261, LCCN 2001094694, which is AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 586 (Oct. 15, 2001), doi:10.1063/1.1419654, bibcode: 2001AIPC..586.....W.
* Frank J. Tipler, "Intelligent life in cosmology", International Journal of Astrobiology, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Apr. 2003), pp. 141-148, doi:10.1017/S1473550403001526, bibcode: 2003IJAsB...2..141T.
* F. J. Tipler, "The structure of the world from pure numbers", Reports on Progress in Physics, Vol. 68, No. 4 (Apr. 2005), pp. 897-964, doi:10.1088/0034-4885/68/4/R04, bibcode: 2005RPPh...68..897T. Also released as "Feynman-Weinberg Quantum Gravity and the Extended Standard Model as a Theory of Everything", arXiv:0704.3276, Apr. 24, 2007.
* Frank J. Tipler, "Inevitable Existence and Inevitable Goodness of the Singularity", Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 19, Nos. 1-2 (2012), pp. 183-193.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, in which the above August 2007 paper was published, is one of the world's leading peer-reviewed astrophysics journals.
Prof. Tipler's paper "Ultrarelativistic Rockets and the Ultimate Future of the Universe" was an invited paper for a conference held at and sponsored by NASA Lewis Research Center, so NASA itself has peer-reviewed Tipler's Omega Point Theorem (peer-review is a standard process for published proceedings papers; and again, Tipler's said paper was an *invited* paper by NASA, as opposed to what are called "poster papers").
Zygon is the world's leading peer-reviewed academic journal on science and religion.
Out of 50 articles, Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper--which presents the Omega Point/Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE)--was selected as one of 12 for the "Highlights of 2005" accolade as "the very best articles published in Reports on Progress in Physics in 2005 [Vol. 68]. Articles were selected by the Editorial Board for their outstanding reviews of the field. They all received the highest praise from our international referees and a high number of downloads from the journal Website." (From Richard Palmer [Publisher], "Highlights of 2005", Reports on Progress in Physics website, ca. 2006.)
Reports on Progress in Physics is the leading journal of the Institute of Physics, Britain's main professional body for physicists. Further, Reports on Progress in Physics has a higher impact factor (according to Journal Citation Reports) than Physical Review Letters, which is the most prestigious American physics journal (one, incidently, which Prof. Tipler has been published in more than once). A journal's impact factor reflects the importance the science community places in that journal in the sense of actually citing its papers in their own papers.
For much more on these matters, see my above-cited article "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything".
-----
Note:
1. While there is a lot that gets published in physics journals that is anti-reality and nonphysical (such as String Theory, which violates the known laws of physics and has no experimental support whatsoever), the reason such things are allowed to pass the peer-review process is because the paradigm of assumptions which such papers are speaking to has been made known, and within their operating paradigm none of the referees could find anything crucially wrong with said papers. That is, the paradigm itself may have nothing to do with reality, but the peer-reviewers could find nothing fundamentally wrong with such papers within the operating assumptions of that paradigm. Whereas, e.g., the operating paradigm of Prof. Tipler's 2005 Reports on Progress in Physics paper and his other papers on the Omega Point Theorem is the known laws of physics, i.e., our actual physical reality which has been repeatedly confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. So the professional physicists charged with refereeing these papers could find nothing fundamentally wrong with them within their operating paradigm, i.e., the known laws of physics.
I refer you to a little piece by William of Occam
I refer you to a little piece by William of Occam
A logical contradiction is not parsimonious, and hence violates Franciscan Friar William of Ockham's epistemic razor, because every statement and its negation can shown to be true if a logical contradiction is accepted as valid:
P ∧ ¬P
P
P ∨ A
¬P
A
therefore A
QED.
Physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler's Omega Point cosmology, which is a proof of God's existence, is now a mathematical theorem per the known laws of physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics), of which have been confirmed by every experiment conducted to date. Hence, the only way to avoid the Omega Point cosmology is to reject empirical science. As Prof. Stephen Hawking wrote, "one cannot really argue with a mathematical theorem." (From p. 67 of Stephen Hawking, The Illustrated A Brief History of Time [New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1996; 1st ed., 1988].) The Omega Point cosmology has been published and extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals.
Additionally, we now have the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) required by the known laws of physics and that correctly describes and unifies all the forces in physics: of which inherently produces the Omega Point cosmology. So here we have an additional high degree of assurance that the Omega Point cosmology is correct. For much more on the Omega Point TOE, see my following article:
* James Redford, "The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything", Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708.
You must login or create an account to comment.