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From: hallam@dxal18.cern.ch (Phillip M. Hallam-Baker)
Subject: Re: Collapse of wave function ripples outwards
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Organization: Wot!!! Me ????
References: <3cn9fk$3uq@ixnews1.ix.netcom.com> <D18Irr.Ho2@cunews.carleton.ca> <3ec3bm$5ab@fred.cs.city.ac.uk> <D1wEME.KrC@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> <3eh0m4$cmh@fred.cs.city.ac.uk>
Date: Sat, 14 Jan 1995 14:57:28 GMT
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In article <3eh0m4$cmh@fred.cs.city.ac.uk>, jampel@cs.city.ac.uk (Michael Jampel) writes:
|>Andrzej Pindor <pindor@gpu.utcc.utoronto.ca> wrote:
|>>Michael Jampel <jampel@cs.city.ac.uk> wrote:
|>
|>>>Anyway, Einstein never denied the good results which QM delivered, he
|>>>just denied that this was the final perfect theory. It would appear that
|>>>he is wrong; QM is final, which might lead to a need to rethink
|>>>relativity.
|>>
|>>This is a silly word game. Einstein clearly thought that EPR (thought)
|>>experiment proved QM to be incomplete, since he was not prepared to accept
|>>conclusions from the experiment (non-locality). He WAS WRONG about QM (remeber 
|>>his famous "God does not play dice"? It seems that God does :-)) in a sense 
|>>that actual experiments seem to confirm EPR thought experiment surprising
|>>conclusions.
|>
|>OK, I was being a bit facetious. But I would like to reiterate that
|>Einstein was wrong (which I admitted in my early posting, quoted above),
|>but he was NOT mad / silly / senile / whatever.

No Einstein was not wrong, he was merely not entirely correct. It is well
known that QCD and gravity has not been sucessfully combined. I very much
suspect that such combination requires a paradigm Khunian shift.


|>>And there is no indication that relativity is wrong - QM effects do not seem 
|>>to make possible for information (or anything else) to travel faster than 
|>>light (various unsubstantiated ravings notwithstanding).

There is actually suprisingly little evidence that relativity is right. The
behaviour of LEP and other synchrotrons confirm the equations, some astronomic 
observations concur but the evidence is far from complete. There is ample room 
for a theory in which relativity is only a localised phenomena of a more 
comprehensive theory.


|>General relativity makes it worse: special relativity says that no
|>_mechanisms_ can exist for superluminal messages/causes/information.
|>Well maybe QM comes up with some magic mechanism which Einstein didn't
|>think of, or maybe QM's nonlocality does not cause problems in this
|>regard.  BUT _general_ relativity is not about mechanisms and motion,
|>but about the fundamental nature of space-time itself: space has a
|>certain _structure_ which prohibits certain mechanisms from existing.

This structure is confined to the macroscopic scale. We cannot apply the same 
structure at the quantum level. Ergo the theory is incomplete.

|>In other words QM doesn't just violate the clever-telephone which
|>`various unsubstantiated ravings' mention, but violates the fundamental
|>nature of the space-time manifold, perhaps.

QCD does not `violate' anything. Using subjective language in that manner
suggests that it is nature that has got it wrong rather than the theory being
incorrect.


The fundamental result of relativity is that absolutism with regards to 
frames of reference is unnecessary. All frames of reference ar equally valid.
I see no real difficulty reconcilling that assertion at the quantum level.
It merely means that some of our predjudices from living at the macroscopic
scale of matter are prevgenting us from seeing the true picture.

--
Phillip M. Hallam-Baker

Not Speaking for anyone else.
