Physics Frontiers

Randy and I have started up a companion podcast, Physics Frontiers, with shorter discussions of topics in physics. Check it out! Show notes at the Physics Frontiers website.

Schrodinger's Cat

I've put together a video describing Schrodinger's cat and explaining why its important to have an interpretation of quantum mechanics.  It doesn't give any answers, just explains why the question is so important.  We overview some of the answers in the next podcast, which I will hopefully get up tomorrow (I'm putting in the breaks right now.  I need to record the intro and upload it, so it's pretty likely).

Plus, I drew the pictures.

Videos

I've got the first of the explanatory videos up. Randy and I have talked about putting up videos to help explain what is going on in the experiments for almost a year now. It can be really hard for someone to visualize what's happening in the experiments for the paradoxes just from our description. I've even found that in writing descriptions: the more precise someone describes something, the harder it is for someone else to understand it.

That's just not how we talk.

Unfortunately, the vaguer the description the more easily the listener misconstrues what is being said. And it turns out it's not an easy needle to thread: it takes many years for someone to be able to reliably read a geometrical description of a problem without getting confused.

But never fear, video is here! I can draw out what I want to talk about for you, as I have in this video.

Measurement and Compensation

Unfortunately, I deleted much of the intro. I'll fix it later.

e-mail me if this is still here after September. Thanks!

In this episode, we talk about Aharonov and Rohrlich's Quantum Paradoxes, chapter 8: "Measurement and Compensation":



Please comment on our subreddit! It will help us respond to what you're saying if we can collect all the comments in the same place.

We're reading Quantum Paradoxes by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich. This is a technical book that is making an argument for a specific interpretation of quantum theory. The first half of the book uses paradoxes to explore the meaning of quantum theory and describe its mathematics, then after interpretations are discussed in the middle chapter, an interpretation of quantum mechanics is explored with paradoxes based on weak quantum measurements.

Early Edition Is Up!

I finally got Show 8 mostly edited and uploaded to Patreon. As per my promise there, I won't publish it here for a day or two, but I've got both of those working. Last month I tried to put up the special discussion we had on quantum interpretations and had a lot of problems for no known reason. Now that I've got that working, I'll try putting that up again in about two weeks. Show 8 is the first show that goes up early, so I wanted to inform people that I'd made the Patreon feed work the way it's supposed to. This is the last time I'll post about Patreon here unless there is some important change.

Quantum Measurements

How can you measure the velocity?

Randy and Jim discuss how difficult it is to measure quantities like velocity in quantum mechanics. In doing so they discuss von Neumann's five-requirement theory of quantum measurement and a mathematical treatment of the measuring process that involves a quantum mechanical treatment of the measuring device and the interaction between it and the system under measurement. In this episode, we talk about Aharonov and Rohrlich's Quantum Paradoxes, chapter 7: "Quantum Measurement."



Please comment on our subreddit! It will help us respond to what you're saying if we can collect all the comments in the same place.

We're reading Quantum Paradoxes by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich. This is a technical book that is making an argument for a specific interpretation of quantum theory. The first half of the book uses paradoxes to explore the meaning of quantum theory and describe its mathematics, then after interpretations are discussed in the middle chapter, an interpretation of quantum mechanics is explored with paradoxes based on weak quantum measurements.

New Things to Play With

Alright!

Sorry about the tardiness of the last post. I was in a rush to upload the previous one before Easter break, and I found out that I screwed up the upload somehow and so I couldn't get your post up while I was away. Then, after I got back to NOLA, I had a lot of other things to do for the end of the semester and so even though I got the podcast uploaded to Podomatic, I didn't get any blogging stuff done.

But today, I got two things up and running. The first is our YouTube page, which will feature supplementary videos about the things we're discussing. I'll get that in better order over the summer.

The second is our Patreon account, which has been waiting for a video to explain what the whole Patreon thing is. So now you have the option to help us out directly if you want to.