Virtual particles and entanglement

[subtillioN]

Originally posted by Tail
And mass is just concentrated energy.

And what is energy? The ability to do work? How can the ability to do work be concentrated?

Energy is a mystery to the Standard Model. It is no wonder that 99% of the Universe is supposedly made of "dark matter/energy"?

Mystery indeed.

 

[jcsd]

Originally posted by Tail
I don't see the contradiction there. It becomes real AND represents the negative energy.

Well, you can't talk about the particle being real once it is beyond the event horizion.

Okay it is silly to talk in terms of virtual particles and entanglement, but clearly they demonstrtae entangled behaviour in this instance, In otherwords they have a combined wave function that will collapse when one is subject to a quantum measurement.

 

[elas]

I think you're interpreting that response wrong. The comment about not relating to reality is not a snide remark that addresses the reliability of the work in any way. Rather, what they mean is more likely that there are no direct applications of the work at this time

I did not intend my observation to be taken as a snide remark, but as a factual statement. My point being that subscribers are using a purely theoretical work to comment on experiments when the relationship between Hawking's theory and reality has not been established.
With regard to relativity, Einstein used so much of other peoples work that he requested the publishers that the work be published without any mention of an author. For this reason the committee felt Einstein could not be awarded a prize for Relativity and selected one of his other works.
My own view is that Newton, Einstein and Hawking are amongst the greatest mathematicians that ever lived, but whether they are also great scientist is open to question, given that only a predictive interpretation can be placed on their work; the questions 'how' and 'why' are still with us.
I blame Newton for this state of affairs he invented the name 'gravity' when the term 'vacuum' allows an explanation of 'how' and 'why'. Creating undefinable new names remains in fashion to this day, Lord Ockham is writhing in his grave!.

 

[ahrkron]

Originally posted by subtillioN
What do you mean when you say "forced"? Do you actually see something different happen to the other meson?

It is not something you can "see" directly, especially because we are talking about the effect on the unmeasured side. However, the behavior you find is just as predicted by QM, with its "collapse" and all.

This is somewhat difficult to explain without the math (Fourier analysis in particular). I don't have much time now, but I'll try to come back with some illustration of it.

Or do you mean that its flavor was indeterminate until the moment of the collapse?

The moment you measure the flavor of one, the other collapses into the opposite flavor. It is not just a matter of our knowledge.

If the latter then how do we know it wasn't already this flavor before its partner was measured?

Because QM says so :)

No, really. Because if we decided to measure something else, then the other side would show a different behavior, which is incompatible with that of a different measurement selection.

Remember I mentioned the article by Mermin? I wrote to him and got the reference:

``Hidden Variables and the Two Theorems of John Bell'', Revs. Mod. Phys. 65, 803-815 (1993).

I'll try to summarize the main idea here later.

How does one measure "flavor"?

It basically means determining if the particle was a B0 or an anti-B0. The difficulty arises from two factors: 1. both are neutral states (hence no trace left, and it decays in the same number of positive and negative particles), and 2. They oscillate into each other!

Can you give me a time breakdown of this experimental procedure?

Here's a link to a http://hep.ph.liv.ac.uk/babar/talks/Durham.pdf. I know it is a bit technical and sketchy, but it may be helpful (also, it includes something about the detectors and analysis). Look at page 13 (21 has a sketch also).

 

[Janus]

Mentor Note:

I split off the thread at this point and moved the remaining posts to TD, which I felt was a better place considering the direction things were going. You can find the new thread at:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?threadid=3884