On Friday 10 August 2007 16:17, Kathryn Blackmond Laskey wrote:
> In quantum physics, ... (01)
That's the one where if you claim to understand it you're lying? (02)
I kid, of course, and while I do find it fascinating, I can lay no claim
to understanding the math of it. If the truth were known, it was my
first modern physics class and my electrodynamics class that really
pushed me out of electrical engineering into computer science. (03)
Anyway, there are some so-called "interpretations" of quantum theory
that suggest a limited form of backward-in-time influence. I'm thinking
of John Cramer's "Transactional Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics"
and his "Generalized Absorber Theory." In this interpretation, both the
emitter and the absorber of a vector boson (a photon, e.g.) participate
equally in the act of transmitting energy and momentum from the emitter
to the absorber. (04)
As I understand it, Cramer asserts that the form of backward-in-time
effect (that carried by the so-called "advanced" waves) cannot be used
to communicate information, but it does seem to make clear that the
future configuration of matter and energy in the universe has some
influence over the ongoing evolution of an earlier configuration of
some (other) matter and energy. (05)
Given the chaotic nature of our universe, especially the aspect
of "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", a slight variation of
the direction of the emission of a photon (and thus of the momentum
transferred by that photon) of what we now see as the Cosmic Microwave
Background could lead to initially very small but eventually vast
change in the configuration of the matter and spacetime that was in the
vicinity of the emitting atom way back when. (06)
Personally, I find it delightfully mind-boggling. It's a bit like the
movie cliche where the protagonist, his head in the sniper's
cross-hairs, is spared because he trips, or sneezes, or spots a $20
bill on the ground and his sudden, unpredictable movement at the moment
the sniper fires keeps him from being shot. Thereafter, much is
different than it would have been had the sniper succeeded. So it is
with our movements (our presumably voluntary movements) and their
effect on which CMB photons we absorb and hence precisely how momentum
is transferred from the big-bang era to the present. (07)
My recommendation? Go dancing! Hmmm... Maybe _that's_ why Feynman liked
to dance? He was trying to alter the present via the long distant past! (08)
> ...
>
> K (09)
Randall Schulz (010)
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