Seriously thoughtful In science we Trust.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by nyrath

No, because the "information" is not being transmitted.
You are talking about Bell's Inequality.

A superficial reading of the situation would fool one into thinking this could be used to transmit information faster than light, or from inside a black hole's event horizon to the exterior. Sorry, that turns out not to be the case.

Say you have a source of quantum entangled particles. One particle goes off to your friend at Alpha Centauri. You measure the polarization of the particles pair you have, which instantly changes the polarization of the particle pair at Alpha Centauri. FTL communication, right?

Nope.

What you get at your end is a stream of random numbers. No information there. Your friend at Alpha Centauri has a stream of random numbers. No information there. However, if your friend sends you his stream of random numbers (either at the speed of light via radio, or slower than light by traveling by rocket), then you can compare the two sets of random numbers.

Which will tell you that, yes, sometime in the past, FTL information was transmitted. But the only way to get the information out of this is to compare the two lists, and the only way to compare the lists is to re-send the information slower or at the speed of light. Which sort of defeats the purpose of FTL.

It is even worse with the black hole situation, since it is impossible to transmit the second list out of the event horizon by slower or at the speed of light rates.

So no, you cannot use Bell's Inequality to send information out of an event horizon.

Actually, you can get equivalent result from a desktop experiment. It's easy to do, if you have the correct parts. You need a laser, a two slit device, two small pieces of polarizing film, two Large pieces of polarizing film, and a non-polarizing beamsplitter. (Finding a commercial source for two slits can be tough, the rest you can buy at an optical supply store for less that $20. excluding the laser.)


Take and attach the two small pieces of polarizing film to the two slit such that each side of the two slit goes through only one one of the polarizing films, while setting each polarizing file at a 90 degree polarization to each other. (A three o'clock position on an analogue clock)

Now shoot the laser through the two slit at a target. You'll get two dots, because the polarization contains the Welcher Weg information (Welcher Weg is German for which way. If you can tell which slit the photon went through, you don't get an entanglement interference pattern.)

Here's the fun part. Take one of the big pieces of polarizing film and set it in line with two dot, at the same polarized angle as one of the two dots. You'll get one dot. The other gets polarized out of existence. Now rotate the large polarizing film slowly, At 45 degrees you no longer get a dot you get an interference pattern. Hooray! You have just built a quantum eraser. If you keep twisting it you'll get one dot again (the other side) at 90 degrees rotation. You can make the localization information go away!

Now for the piece de resistance'. Throw the beamsplitter (remember that part?) in between the two slit and the target (and large) film. You'll get another copy of the two dots going to another spot. Put up another target and film and make another quantum eraser. In playing with them, you'll quickly find out the one does not affect the other.

The implication is that "localization" is strictly a local (at one spot) affair...

[Greg Anos]

The point I was trying to point out to Harry T was that a scientist can be as dogmatic as any fundamentalist religionist.

I'll use a medical example, instead. In the late 19990's years ago, a medical researcher, working in Alzheimer research, Decided that maybe Alzheimer's wasn't cause by the plaques in people's brains; that the plaques were only the body's way of trying to cope with the real cause. He gave a paper at a major convention. Half the entire group of his peer scientist got up and walked out during the presentation. (The only thing worse for a scientist is to be thrown out of science for plagiarism or data falsification.)

Some of the walked out scientists were interviewed about the walk-out. The comments were in the order of - how could he ignore proven science, obviously didn't understand the subject, ect.

10 years later, after all the drug trials blocking plaque had completed and the disease progression hadn't been stopped and in some cases made worse. Only then did they admit there might be something to the researcher's ideas. Note, they didn't try to test them, the test only ended up coming out as a byproduct of their own ideas.

Why? Because the Alzheimer's research world knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those plaques caused Alzheimer's. How did they know? They were there! <Bleep> it!

They had mistaken correlation with causality.


That's the problem with science today. Too much Dogma and too little "Hmm. that's an interesting experiment. I wonder what would actually happen..."

Too much finding the "right" subject for a grant (right being what gets funded, not what might actual advance knowledge). Too much getting published in the "right" journals, too much making certain you don't make the more senior scientists look bad (who will vote on your tenure). Too much "playing the game" to get ahead (or even stay in the game). Too much following the straight and narrow to have a wild breakthrough...

[Angst]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The point I was trying to point out to Harry T was that a scientist can be as dogmatic as any fundamentalist religionist.

I'll use a medical example, instead. In the late 19990's years ago, a medical researcher, working in Alzheimer research, Decided that maybe Alzheimer's wasn't cause by the plaques in people's brains; that the plaques were only the body's way of trying to cope with the real cause. He gave a paper at a major convention. Half the entire group of his peer scientist got up and walked out during the presentation. (The only thing worse for a scientist is to be thrown out of science for plagiarism or data falsification.)

Some of the walked out scientists were interviewed about the walk-out. The comments were in the order of - how could he ignore proven science, obviously didn't understand the subject, ect.

10 years later, after all the drug trials blocking plaque had completed and the disease progression hadn't been stopped and in some cases made worse. Only then did they admit there might be something to the researcher's ideas. Note, they didn't try to test them, the test only ended up coming out as a byproduct of their own ideas.

Why? Because the Alzheimer's research world knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that those plaques caused Alzheimer's. How did they know? They were there! <Bleep> it!

They had mistaken correlation with causality.


That's the problem with science today. Too much Dogma and too little "Hmm. that's an interesting experiment. I wonder what would actually happen..."

Too much finding the "right" subject for a grant (right being what gets funded, not what might actual advance knowledge). Too much getting published in the "right" journals, too much making certain you don't make the more senior scientists look bad (who will vote on your tenure). Too much "playing the game" to get ahead (or even stay in the game). Too much following the straight and narrow to have a wild breakthrough...

The advantage of science is that it is self correcting. Although it doesn't always happen immediately, improper reasoning is exposed and correct ideas flourish. When "cold fusion" can't be substantiated, it is rejected. When studying plaque as a cause for Alzheimer's failed, other avenues are examined. Science may not always be right, but it is always moving toward higher and more exacting knowledge.

Religion has no corresponding "correction" method. Hence, the pope has to say AIDS cannot be prevented by condoms, because the church has forbidden the use of condoms. (god cannot be wrong)

In short, scientists are willing to accept when they are mistaken, (if it can be proven), while theologians rarely do. It is the unwillingness to bend in the face of truth, that leads to the "dogma" stigmatism being applied to religion.

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by Angst

The advantage of science is that it is self correcting. Although it doesn't always happen immediately, improper reasoning is exposed and correct ideas flourish...snip...

Religion has no corresponding "correction" method.

No, Religion does have a corresponding "correction" method.
It's called the Inquisition.

[ardeegee]

"Science advances one funeral at a time."
--Max Planck

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by nyrath

No, Religion does have a corresponding "correction" method.
It's called the Inquisition.

That was after the dogmatic phase was reached. The Catholic Church used to debate philosophical issues wherever the Pope at the time was, to help determine what stand the church should take. That's where we got the term Devil's Advocate.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Angst

The advantage of science is that it is self correcting. Although it doesn't always happen immediately, improper reasoning is exposed and correct ideas flourish. When "cold fusion" can't be substantiated, it is rejected. When studying plaque as a cause for Alzheimer's failed, other avenues are examined. Science may not always be right, but it is always moving toward higher and more exacting knowledge.

Religion has no corresponding "correction" method. Hence, the pope has to say AIDS cannot be prevented by condoms, because the church has forbidden the use of condoms. (god cannot be wrong)

In short, scientists are willing to accept when they are mistaken, (if it can be proven), while theologians rarely do. It is the unwillingness to bend in the face of truth, that leads to the "dogma" stigmatism being applied to religion.

My point is it's only self correcting when somebody is actively doing some form of experiment that provides a test of existing views from another viewpoint. If nobody those sort of experiments, then no view will change. Being an old Micro/Molecular Biology student, I had my teeth rapped into the fact that even after the microscope had been invented, everybody still believed in Aristotle's spontaneous generation for another 200 years. It wasn't really buried until 1874!

A common joke is that the mark of insanity is doing the same experiment, under the same conditions, over and over again and expecting to get a different result.

My counterjoke is that the mark of being dogmatic is refusing to do the experiment over again, when the conditions have changed, because you already know the answer. And on top of it all, refusing to even listen as to why the conditions have changed, because, of course, they can't!

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

The point I was trying to point out to Harry T was that a scientist can be as dogmatic as any fundamentalist religionist.

I entirely agree, but that is a fault in the individual sicentist rather than in the "scientiific method". That is the fundamental difference between science and religion: science is based on evidence, and will change its views if the evidence contradicts the theory; religion is much less willing (or, alas, sometimes occasionally entirely unwilling) to do so.

[Joebill]

Speaking of Scientific Dogma.

Some years ago my mother told me of an encyclopedia her parents had purchased to help her in school. ( They purchased a different one for me in when I was in high school.)

In the ones they bought for her, leading scientists of the day proved humanity would never make it to the Earth's moon, nor to the planets.

What locomotion criteria did they use ? Steam locomotives traveling at 60 miles per hour.

Of course, we did get there. The Saturn V maxed out at around 17,000 miles per hour.

However, I haven't heard of any steam locomotives making the journey.

[Sparrow]

I like the story of the physicist, Lord Kelvin, arguing that the Sun could not have been around long enough for Darwin's evolution to have occurred on the Earth. It turned out Darwin was right.

http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/darwin..._age_of_earth/
"This story should be more widely told in textbooks and other science literature because it is a great example of good science in action. Here we have a revolutionary new idea clashing with older knowledge at several levels and requiring another dramatic discovery in a seemingly unrelated field in order to survive. When the new idea does survive, as happened with evolution, we gain additional confidence that science truly relates to an objective reality that is really out there."

[nyrath]

Well the poster child for a valiant scientist being snubbed by the scientific mainstream is Alfred Wegener, and his theory of continental drift.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Sparrow

I like the story of the physicist, Lord Kelvin, arguing that the Sun could not have been around long enough for Darwin's evolution to have occurred on the Earth. It turned out Darwin was right.

Yes - the fact that the Sun could not possibly have existed for more than a few million years (by any method known to 19th century science) without burning out was a major stumbling block when evidence emerged that the Earth was, at a minimum, hundreds of millions (as it eventually turned out, several billion) years old. Then, of course, nuclear physics was discovered, and it all made sense.

[Greg Anos]

To see how hard people can stick to a scientific theory, even in the face of opposing data, see phlogiston...

[Manichean]

Originally Posted by Joebill

Speaking of Scientific Dogma.

Some years ago my mother told me of an encyclopedia her parents had purchased to help her in school. ( They purchased a different one for me in when I was in high school.)

In the ones they bought for her, leading scientists of the day proved humanity would never make it to the Earth's moon, nor to the planets.

What locomotion criteria did they use ? Steam locomotives traveling at 60 miles per hour.

Of course, we did get there. The Saturn V maxed out at around 17,000 miles per hour.

However, I haven't heard of any steam locomotives making the journey.

Well, a scientist today might say similar things about our ability to reach other stars. It depends a bit on how it is phrased, I'll admit, but today, even the nearest stars (heck, the outer planets even) are as unreachable as the moon was at the time there were steam locomotives.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward

To see how hard people can stick to a scientific theory, even in the face of opposing data, see phlogiston...

But see the important thing here is that the Scientific Method worked.