Wormhole theory

[Kevin Aylward]

My moments of genius always come the next day. Once, at a job
interview, they gave applicants a test. One of the questions was to
write a program that prints out the primes up to 1000. I screwed it
up - probably because I don't work well under pressure. It's hard to
write spaghetti code in C, but that's about what I accomplished. I
didn't get the job. The next day, I wrote a Sieve of Eratosthenes in
three lines on the back of an envelope at the bus stop.

This is actually one of my major failings, especially at interviews. I
don't work well on the spot. I need time to think things out. Often
people claim that solving problems in 5 minutes demonstrates some sort
of greatness. It don't at all. In the real world very few things need
immediate action, that isn't a copy of what went before. e.g. sorting
out Apollo 13. Most *useful* new things take a lot of time and effort to
get right.

The best analogy, for interviews, I use is this. Would one expect an
experienced musician to be able to write a new song immediately on
request? This is what many daft interviewers expect. Why not ask, play
me one of your unknown songs that you have previously wrote. This would
demonstrate that the person is capable of new things in general.

Just about every time an interviewer asks a question he wants an
immediate response from, is because its one of the few that he has
already rehearsed, and therefore knows.


Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Rich Grise <[email protected]>

My moments of genius always come the next day. Once, at a job interview,
they gave applicants a test. One of the questions was to write a program
that prints out the primes up to 1000. I screwed it up - probably because
I don't work well under pressure. It's hard to write spaghetti code in C,
but that's about what I accomplished. I didn't get the job. The next
day, I wrote a Sieve of Eratosthenes in three lines on the back of an
envelope at the bus stop.

In the palmy days of the BBC Micro, a young lady (rather like SG, I
suppose) wrote to a magazine that she wrote such a program in BBC Basic,
but it took 90 minutes to run. So I tried, and mine ran in about 3.5
seconds (on a 4 MHz 6502). The fastest reported took 250 ms!

 

[~~SciGirl~~]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ~~SciGirl~~ <[email protected]>


Besides, we only have one experiment that appears to show that they
can't the double-slit experiment, they can't think which slot to go
through, so they all go through both.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

That doesn't make sense. Some go through one and others go through the other
and some don't go through at all. How can ONE photon go through TWO slits at
the same time? Pauli's exclusion principle says that no two can be in the
same state, and one condition of state is position, at the same time. So,
ONE should not be able to have TWO positions at one time, either.

Or... let me guess, I'm mistaken again?

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ~~SciGirl~~ <[email protected]>

That doesn't make sense. Some go through one and others go through the
other and some don't go through at all. How can ONE photon go through
TWO slits at the same time? Pauli's exclusion principle says that no
two can be in the same state, and one condition of state is position,
at the same time.

Photons are bosons, but the Pauli principle applies only to fermions.
Quote from:

http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch/exhibit/pauli/ausschliessung_e.html

"It turned out that the exclusion principle applies to particles with
half-integral spin, e.g. electrons and protons. If these particles are
described quantum statistically, then the so-called Fermi-Dirac
statistics are employed. Such particles are known as fermions. On the
other hand, particles with integral spin, e.g. photons, do not obey the
exclusion principle and follow Bose-Einstein statistics. Such particles
are known as bosons."

But this is not very relevant to the two-slit experiment.

So, ONE should not be able to have TWO positions at one time, either.

Or... let me guess, I'm mistaken again?

Yes. But don't be put off. It's one of the most initially astonishing
demonstrations of quantum effects in action. Google gives a lot of hits,
but this one seems to be pretty lucid:

http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/Harrison/DoubleSlit/Double
Slit.html

 

[Robert Monsen]

This is actually one of my major failings, especially at interviews. I
don't work well on the spot. I need time to think things out. Often
people claim that solving problems in 5 minutes demonstrates some sort
of greatness. It don't at all. In the real world very few things need
immediate action, that isn't a copy of what went before. e.g. sorting
out Apollo 13. Most *useful* new things take a lot of time and effort to
get right.

In the US, engineers are almost always judged by a 2 to 3 hour
interview, often a group interview. I hate those. I had an interview at
UC Berkeley recently, where I was 'gang-interviewd' by about 15 phd
candidates (1/2 my age), in groups of 5 or 6. I've always thought a 10
minute interview to weed out the liars, followed by a 2 week paid trial
period would be far more appropriate, and much more accurate.
Termination at the end of the trial would be manditory, followed by a 2
week cooling down period. After that, a rational mutual decision could
be reached.

The best analogy, for interviews, I use is this. Would one expect an
experienced musician to be able to write a new song immediately on
request? This is what many daft interviewers expect. Why not ask, play
me one of your unknown songs that you have previously wrote. This would
demonstrate that the person is capable of new things in general.

Usually, the basic idea is that they want to make sure you know the
simple tricks. Often, however, the questions are designed to put you
under pressure, just to see what happens. The guys at cisco used to
really love to brutalize folks during interviews. They would brag about
it afterwards, describing how some poor guy had folded under the pressure.

Just about every time an interviewer asks a question he wants an
immediate response from, is because its one of the few that he has
already rehearsed, and therefore knows.

When I graduated from college, I had a microsoft guy ask me how to build
a doubly linked list with a single pointer word per list element.
Happily, a CS professor has clued a group of us in to the XOR trick a
few weeks before. Store addr(L) xor addr(R) in each element. Then if you
have pointers to two sequential elements in the chain, you can go either
direction. It's a neat trick, but after nearly 25 years of writing
software ranging from user interfaces to communications protocols to
operating systems, I have yet to use it for anything.

--
Regards,
Robert Monsen

"Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis."
- Pierre Laplace (1749-1827), to Napoleon,
on why his works on celestial mechanics make no mention of God.

 

[Jim Thompson]

On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 15:55:36 -0800, Robert Monsen

[snip]

When I graduated from college, I had a microsoft guy ask me how to build
a doubly linked list with a single pointer word per list element.
Happily, a CS professor has clued a group of us in to the XOR trick a
few weeks before. Store addr(L) xor addr(R) in each element. Then if you
have pointers to two sequential elements in the chain, you can go either
direction. It's a neat trick, but after nearly 25 years of writing
software ranging from user interfaces to communications protocols to
operating systems, I have yet to use it for anything.

Such is the way of all cute tricks ;-)

...Jim Thompson

 

[Kevin Aylward]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ~~SciGirl~~


Photons are bosons, but the Pauli principle applies only to fermions.
Quote from:

http://www.ethbib.ethz.ch/exhibit/pauli/ausschliessung_e.html

"It turned out that the exclusion principle applies to particles with
half-integral spin, e.g. electrons and protons. If these particles are
described quantum statistically, then the so-called Fermi-Dirac
statistics are employed. Such particles are known as fermions. On the
other hand, particles with integral spin, e.g. photons, do not obey
the exclusion principle and follow Bose-Einstein statistics. Such
particles are known as bosons."

But this is not very relevant to the two-slit experiment.


No.

But don't be put off. It's one of the most initially astonishing
demonstrations of quantum effects in action.

Oh dear...we went all over this a while back. This two places at once
nonsense is nothing more then an ad-hoc metaphysical add on to QM. Its
not required in the slightest. Indeed, it is specifically excluded by
the postulates of QM, to wit:

The only possible measured value to result from a quantum mechanical
observable A is one of its eigenvalues.

It can only have one value, not two. What it does prior to measurement
is anybody's guess.


Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

In the US, engineers are almost always judged by a 2 to 3 hour
interview, often a group interview. I hate those. I had an interview
at UC Berkeley recently, where I was 'gang-interviewd' by about 15 phd
candidates (1/2 my age), in groups of 5 or 6. I've always thought a 10
minute interview to weed out the liars, followed by a 2 week paid
trial period would be far more appropriate, and much more accurate.

And these "phds" have what qualifications/experiance that enable them to
make judgments on someones suitability for a position?

Termination at the end of the trial would be manditory, followed by a
2 week cooling down period. After that, a rational mutual decision
could be reached.


Usually, the basic idea is that they want to make sure you know the
simple tricks.

But in my view, they are usually just the specific tricks that that
person knows. There are lots of other tricks that said person is usually
totally ignorant of, yet he dosnt consider that they should disqualifier
him from his own job if he dont know them.

Often, however, the questions are designed to put you
under pressure, just to see what happens.

And for no purpose. Just some seat of the pants waffle idea with no
scientific support that such tactics mean anything.

The guys at cisco used to
really love to brutalize folks during interviews. They would brag
about it afterwards, describing how some poor guy had folded under
the pressure.

Which, of course, is all completely pointless. The object is to hire a
suitable person for the job. None of this under pressure crap has any
value whatsoever. Individuals with back of the envelope 101 psychology
should confine their bedroom masturbations to the bedroom.

When I graduated from college, I had a microsoft guy ask me how to
build a doubly linked list with a single pointer word per list
element. Happily, a CS professor has clued a group of us in to the
XOR trick a few weeks before. Store addr(L) xor addr(R) in each
element. Then if you have pointers to two sequential elements in the
chain, you can go either direction. It's a neat trick, but after
nearly 25 years of writing software ranging from user interfaces to
communications protocols to operating systems, I have yet to use it
for anything.

Interviews should be about interviewing people on what the job actually
is about. If your a designer, show me how you design circuits. 95% of an
interview, should be geared towards the candidate explaining what he
has done, and why he has done it that way etc.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Kevin Aylward

Oh dear...we went all over this a while back. This two places at once
nonsense is nothing more then an ad-hoc metaphysical add on to QM. Its
not required in the slightest. Indeed, it is specifically excluded by
the postulates of QM, to wit:

The only possible measured value to result from a quantum mechanical
observable A is one of its eigenvalues.

It can only have one value, not two. What it does prior to measurement
is anybody's guess.

Yes, Kevin, but SciGirl is just starting out. She's going to read a lot
more of the 'conventional' descriptions of the experiment and its
results than descriptions based on your more up-to-date explanation.

Besides, by the time she is ready for your explanation, it may well, in
its turn, have been replaced by something even newer.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

That doesn't make sense. Some go through one and others go through
the other and some don't go through at all. How can ONE photon go
through TWO slits at the same time? Pauli's exclusion principle says
that no two can be in the same state, and one condition of state is
position, at the same time. So, ONE should not be able to have TWO
positions at one time, either.

Or... let me guess, I'm mistaken again?

No. With all due respect to John, he is mistaken. Nothing in QM demands
that particles go through two slits at once, i.e. can be in two
positions at once. Indeed, QM specifically prohibits any such
measurement from occurring.

The idea of two places at once is a ad-hoc additional interpretation to
QM that quite a few use as a bit of hand waving. Have a look here
http://www.anasoft.co.uk/quantummechanics/index.html

What people do is fluff one argument with another one, and say that the
later argument has relevance to the first. It don't. A typical example
of such erroneous logic is here:

http://www.qubit.org/library/intros/comp/comp.html

Fig. A and its experiment proves conclusively that photons are not two
places at once for that arrangement. To waffle around this Fig. B and
Fig. C are used with an argument to *infer* what *might* happen if the
detectors were not there. Well, this is completely irrelevant. Such a
set-up would be a different set-up, and hence completely meaningless to
the question posed for the first set-up.

Indeed, one other *interpretation*, Bohemian Mechanics, can actually
show trajectories that particles can take,
http://www.mathematik.uni-muenchen.de/~bohmmech/Poster/post/postE.html

Most of what one reads on QM, is all stuff dreamed up at the orignal
inception of QM. Many of those ideas have been replaced, many of them
are simply wrong. Unfortunately, layman's QM just hasn't kept place with
today's reality.

e.g (ref. above)

http://www.phys.tue.nl/ktn/Wim/qm11.htm

Dr Willem M. de Muynck, Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven
University of Technology:

"A related consequence of a realist version of an individual-particle
interpretation of the quantum mechanical state vector is that a
microscopic object must split if the state vector does so. For instance,
in neutron interference experiments of the type considered in Publ. 27
this would imply that a neutron traversing a neutron interferometer does
so while being split into two halves, each of which taking a different
path. Since this is in disagreement with all empirical data (strongly
suggesting that each neutron follows either one path or the other) a
realist individual-particle interpretation of the quantum mechanical
state vector is unattractive (as is the "suspended animation"
interpretation of the Schrödinger's cat state referred to above). It is
quite remarkable that nevertheless this interpretation is widely
entertained. This may be due to the popular idea of particle-wave
duality, having been developed in the Copenhagen interpretation during
the early stages of the development of quantum mechanics, but being
obsolete by now"

People just haven't moved on. They are still stuck in the 1920's

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Kevin Aylward

No. With all due respect to John, he is mistaken. Nothing in QM demands
that particles go through two slits at once, i.e. can be in two
positions at once. Indeed, QM specifically prohibits any such
measurement from occurring.

See my other post. You are likely to confuse SciGirl rather than
enlighten. In any case, my original statement was a JOKE about particles
'thinking'.

 

[~~SciGirl~~]

Oh dear...we went all over this a while back. This two places at once
nonsense is nothing more then an ad-hoc metaphysical add on to QM. Its
not required in the slightest. Indeed, it is specifically excluded by
the postulates of QM, to wit:

The only possible measured value to result from a quantum mechanical
observable A is one of its eigenvalues.

It can only have one value, not two. What it does prior to measurement
is anybody's guess.


Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

Wait a sec - are you saying I was actually right for once? That one particle
can't be in two places simultaneously?

 

[~~SciGirl~~]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Kevin Aylward


Yes, Kevin, but SciGirl is just starting out. She's going to read a lot
more of the 'conventional' descriptions of the experiment and its
results than descriptions based on your more up-to-date explanation.

Besides, by the time she is ready for your explanation, it may well, in
its turn, have been replaced by something even newer.
--
Regards, John Woodgate, OOO - Own Opinions Only.
There are two sides to every question, except
'What is a Moebius strip?'
http://www.jmwa.demon.co.uk Also see http://www.isce.org.uk

Well, here's another reason - simultaneous events are impossible. So even if
one photon could be in two places, it couldn't be at the same time... unless
maybe if you go by the QM definition of "Event" (from the Elementary
Particle Physics Glossary)

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that ~~SciGirl~~ <[email protected]>

Well, here's another reason - simultaneous events are impossible.

Where did you get that idea?

 

[Kevin Aylward]

Wait a sec - are you saying I was actually right for once?
Yep.

That one
particle can't be in two places simultaneously?

At some future date, in principle, there might well be a *new* theory
that redefines what a particle is and has it existing spread out in
space, but this would have absolute *nothing* to do with current quantum
mechanics, or definitions. By far the majority, e.g do a web scan, are
completely clueless on what QM actually says. QM is a mathematical
description of measurements. It simply doesn't care about all the ad-hoc
waffle that many use to try and "explain" the measurements.

Fundamentally, we can *only* "explain" things in terms of what we
already know. Everything has to be referred to some other existing
ideas. i.e explanations are all *relative*, in principle. Sooner or
later things pop up that can not be explained in terms of what we
already know, so we simple have to accept those things as a new
principle. If one doesn't do this, one is always going to end up with
nonsense in trying to explain these something's that can't be reduced to
existing axioms, to wit, a particle in two places at once is inherently
contradictory.

There is no known, accepted, way to explain QM in classical terms,
that's all there is too it.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[Rich The Newsgropup Wacko]

Wait a sec - are you saying I was actually right for once? That one particle
can't be in two places simultaneously?

When dealing with KA and his world-view, there is no way of distinguishing
one from the other.

If you're worried about a particle going through two slits simultaneously,
think about a wave going throuth two gaps in the sea wall.

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Rich Grise]

Well, here's another reason - simultaneous events are impossible.

Who, exactly, told you this?

Thanks,
Rich

 

[keith]

When dealing with KA and his world-view, there is no way of distinguishing
one from the other.

If you're worried about a particle going through two slits simultaneously,
think about a wave going throuth two gaps in the sea wall.

....and then think about the molecules that make up the water.

 

[Kevin Aylward]

When dealing with KA and his world-view, there is no way of
distinguishing one from the other.

If you're worried about a particle going through two slits
simultaneously, think about a wave going throuth two gaps in the sea
wall.

Indeed. The wave is just a macroscopic approximation to the statistics
of particle motion. What do you think a "water wave" is dude? Its
properties are quite well explained by the statistics of classical
particles. There is nothing *physical* in a water wave that goes through
both slits and once. Dah...

Look, as I have said many times, there was a lot of waffle going on when
QM was first invented. A lot of that waffle was wrong. Sure, there might
be ideas that go against what a closed mind mind not be able to see, but
this aint one of them.

Most simply don't understand the real subtlety of what QM is all about.
Its trivially obvious that the science greats of the past fully
understood that, e.g. water waves were due to the combined effect of
classical particles, and that a classical treatment completely accounted
for, e.g. diffraction patterns. There also realised that such
explanations failed for quantum particles. QM is much more deep.

Kevin Aylward
[email protected]
http://www.anasoft.co.uk
SuperSpice, a very affordable Mixed-Mode
Windows Simulator with Schematic Capture,
Waveform Display, FFT's and Filter Design.

 

[~~SciGirl~~]

Guess what? I finally got limits!!! (studying from Calculus For The Utterly
Confused). And I started with derivatives. It's like when I was trying to
understand relativity back in October, I thought about it for a long time
and then it randomly all of a sudden made sense.