No Big Bang? Quantum equation predicts universe has no beginning

[RetroGrow]

Indian girl born with elephant’s 'trunk’ hailed as Hindu god

Indian girl born with elephant’s 'trunk’ hailed as Hindu god

A baby girl born with a protrusion resembling an elephant’s "trunk" is being hailed as the reincarnation of a god in northern India.

The yet-to-be-named girl was born with a bulge that obscures her nose in the Uttar Pradesh province Thursday, according to the Times of India.

Doctors said a gene mutation combined with possible malnutrition gave the girl the protuberance.

But people in the area said there was something more divine at work.

The girl looks like the Hindu god of success, Lord Ganesha, who has an elephant's head on a human body, locals said.

People rejoiced at her birth, singing and dancing in the streets.

So many visitors lined up to see the girl and give her offerings at her home in Aligarh that police had to keep the crowd under control.

The girl's father, Om Prakash, said he hopes the girl brings his family of six good luck because they could use it — he makes the equivalent of $4 a day as a fruit seller.

The girl’s mother, Sarvesh, was still recovering Friday.

The family can choose to have the girl undergo corrective surgery when the girl is older.

It’s not the first time a baby in India has been worshipped as a deity.

In 2008, a baby girl born with two faces was called the reincarnation of the Hindu goddess of valor, Durga.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-sty...hant-trunk-hailed-hindu-god-article-1.2168069

As we evolve, new gods are continually being born.
People really believe in this, with all their hearts.

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."

 

[ghostmade]

Lol well i guess this is it.life is just a random and with out meaning (i should say our lives and existence). So our notion of right and wrong is irrelevant. I really dose not matter the feeling of rape murder and mayhem is wrong.is just some social structure.crafted be people who know how to transform there will into rule . guess so.
Our conscientious state of mind is just one big joke.its pointless. I guess we are only going to live forever once our all mighty understanding through science is fulfilled.
Hmmm i think i heard about this befor.i dont know where. I think it was a forewarning.
But na im triping.
Im just going to believe what i was told. Fuck the old school there out of date.
Shit the ancient people didn't know shit.they didn't have the internet or modern technology.there for there imput in our society is rendered irrelevant
Sure thing buddygood luck with that.
Haters gonna hate
On a side note. Im not into any church scene.its just a perverted institution.
most of time religion, just like the goverment, social pratice and the arts, have been perverted.twisted to fit the agenda of the few not the many.
Science like most religions also claims to be the absolute truth.its the same shit just difrent toilet. I really have no idea whats whats in the external reality.who can ?
Lol i dont live or dwelle on the external but the eternal.i am that i am.just like GOD the supreme being. The true omniscient being.the conscientious existence. Or should I say existence in the conscientious state.
For all the non believers full of hate and doubt.perverted to blind you of the nature of things.think why are you ashamed or hateful towards these claims?because you were led to belive this is it?and your angry becuase why? I just dont get it. Im all for people believing what they want.i do it. Just the hateful tone what gets me. Well what can you expect from some one who belives this is it.there miserable in their own idea of there existence.lol trips me out its insanity.
I pray for yall.hope you find strength and happyness in your preception of reality.good luck on your prospective on your preception. Your going to need it.
P.s. God has no religion.and you can live life as if nothing is a miracle,or as if everything is.ill choose the latter.its seems like I'll live a much fuller and happier life.
Peace

 

[Jericho Mile]

Enlightenment is understanding the value of humanity

There isn't one specific belief that will get you there but based on interpretation beliefs can will keep you from ever achieving it.

The purpose of this thread was to illustrate the evolving nature of science.

There is no place for bias in discussions like this so I ardently oppose it whenever I see it.

If your only agenda is being entertained. playing internet douche bag becomes quite apropos

There are enough of you for a party, 4/20 is coming soon, you guys should plan a 4/20 meet and greet.

Says it all. I do believe you oppose everything outside your computer, dude.

I'll tell you what: I'll drop off IC Mag for a few months. If I come back on...and find this thread is still going strong...and you still without any sunshine...I'll puke on it some more.

I see you...for what you've become. You don't...but I do.

Have at it...waste away

 

[genedigger]

i dig it ghostmade.well said.

 

[Wö£fëñxXx]

but that escapes you.
Albert Einstein wrote a letter in which he dismissed belief in God as superstitious and characterized the stories in the Bible as childish.
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

Einstein was mortal man, but he's dead.

Friedrich Nietzsche use to prance about declaring "God is dead" and a little while later Nietzsche died.
His tombstone now reads;
Nietzsche is dead-
signed God.

 

[D. B. Doober]

I'm a hominid. I'm part of the ape family. My ancestors evolved in Africa over 8 million years ago.

 

[Weird]

Do you think that attacking my character bolsters the logic of your arguments? It simply shows the true measure of your mind and your capacities.

Do you think avoiding my direct questions like asking you to prove belief effects people exactly the same, and to the same detriment.

Every time you talk stupid shit and I counter it with another "scientific" finding it lets everyone who reads this thread to come to their own logical conclusions

My logical conclusion is that belief is open to interpretation and does not work the same what in every mind. I backed that up with scientist guided studies where they used brain scans to prove this point.

The 3 little trolls however, have only come up with religion = delusion, which based on additional scientific information in this thread, has been proven inaccurate.

I also proved that the sciences evolved form religion, proof in the thread.

Argue the proofs, keep on attacking my person and ill give it back to 10x

Ive dealt with far bigger, brighter and more dangerous personalities before, this is a cakewalk, not much of a challenge

in fact, based on some of the science I posted, I find it highly likely that retro, ,dr fever and jericho would have very similar brain scans, that is, the part of the brain most people use normally, is abnormal in them, just as it is in religious zealots/fanatics.

If the shoe fits, wear it

Attacking my character without acknowledging logical scientific argument is equivalent to saying you win.

If your a fanatic your never going ot be rational so I let go of those expectations a while ago

I won't condemn your fanaticism as a genetic limitation, but it begs the question if if matters. The simple point being is that while it may not be a genetic defect that causes fanaticism it could be a genetic lack of intelligence.

I am pretty sure science has something to say on that to, but if I take 2 minutes to google and post some stuff up you might think I spent a day "researching" instead of it being what it is

common sense backed up by science

 

[Weird]

stop slandering albert einstein

your showing that your not smart enough to quote someone and represent them with integrity and fidelity

he wasn't dumb enough to close him mind blindly

Albert Einstein's religious views have been studied extensively. He said he believed in the "pantheistic" God of Baruch Spinoza, but not in a personal god, a belief he criticized. He also called himself an agnostic, while disassociating himself from the label atheist, preferring, he said, "an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being".[1][2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein

read up johnny, im gonna aggressively call stupid out and attack the genes that command it

Einstein used many labels to describe his religious views, including "agnostic",[4] "religious nonbeliever"[5] and a "pantheistic"[6] believer in "Spinoza's God."[7]

 

[Weird]

albert was smart enough to see atheism as limiting humanity



are you?

 

[SPG.]

Einstein was mortal man, but he's dead.

Friedrich Nietzsche use to prance about declaring "God is dead" and a little while later Nietzsche died.
His tombstone now reads;
Nietzsche is dead-
signed God.

lol

 

[trichrider]

Physics: Bell’s theorem still reverberates
Howard Wiseman
19 June 2014

Fifty years ago, John Bell made metaphysics testable, but quantum scientists still dispute the implications. Howard Wiseman proposes a way forward.


In 1964, Northern Irish physicist John Bell proved mathematically that certain quantum correlations, unlike all other correlations in the Universe, cannot arise from any local cause1. This theorem has become central to both metaphysics and quantum information science. But 50 years on, the experimental verifications of these quantum correlations still have ‘loopholes’, and scientists and philosophers still dispute exactly what the theorem states.

Quantum theory does not predict the outcomes of a single experiment, but rather the statistics of possible outcomes. For experiments on pairs of ‘entangled’ quantum particles, Bell realized that the predicted correlations between outcomes in two well-separated laboratories can be profoundly mysterious (see ‘How entanglement makes the impossible possible’). Correlations of this sort, called Bell correlations,were verified experimentally more than 30 years ago (see, for example, ref. 2). As Bell proved in 1964, this leaves two options for the nature of reality. The first is that reality is irreducibly random, meaning that there are no hidden variables that “determine the results of individual measurements”1. The second option is that reality is ‘non-local’, meaning that “the setting of one measuring device can influence the reading of another instrument, however remote”1.

Most physicists are localists: they recognize the two options but choose the first, because hidden variables are, by definition, empirically inaccessible. Quantum information scientists embrace irreducible randomness as a resource for secure cryptography3. Other physicists and philosophers (the ‘non-localist camp’) dispute that there are two options, and insist that Bell’s theorem mandates non-locality4.

Such views seem contradictory. But I believe that these two camps can be partially reconciled5 by delving into what ‘causation’ means. Doing so reveals the depth of the real principles at stake, the challenges facing each camp, and the future priorities for closing the loopholes in experiments to observe Bell correlations.



How entanglement makes the impossible possible


Consider an impossible square — a square divided into nine smaller squares, each containing a 0 or a 1, such that the number of 1s in every column is even, and the number of 1s in every row is odd. Why is this impossible? Because the total number of 1s, from the column-rule, is even + even + even = even, but the total number of 1s from the row-rule is odd + odd + odd = odd.

Two shady characters, Rowan and Colin, approach you, claiming to have a large supply of these impossible squares. When you ask to see one, Rowan says: “No, it doesn’t work like that. For each of our squares, I will reveal one row, and Colin one column. But you can choose which row and which column you want to know.” You reply: “Do you think I was born yesterday? In each instance, Rowan can say any of his four possible answers (001, 010, 100 or 111) and Colin can choose whichever of his (000, 011, 101 or 110) do not conflict with Rowan’s. For example, if I ask for the second row and the third column, and Rowan says ‘001’, then Colin just has to choose an answer with 1 as the middle entry, either 011 or 110.”

But Colin persists: “What if you prevent me from hearing not only Rowan’s answer, but even the question put to Rowan? Take us far apart, and lock us in rooms that shield all forms of communication. We will still give consistent answers 100% of the time.” You think to yourself: “In this case, their best strategy would be to each carry (or memorize) a predetermined list of answers to all possible questions. In a given trial, the respective answers that Rowan and Colin carry would have to correspond to squares that differ in at least one of the nine entries, because of the constraints on the rows and columns. If I conduct enough trials, choosing the questions at random, I will catch them with inconsistent answers soon enough.”

So you agree to the trial as suggested; you ask questions in one room and an assistant in the other. To your consternation, Colin and Rowan give consistent answers every time. How is this possible? Are they communicating, despite all your efforts? No, they are using pairs of ‘entangled’ quantum particles — each pair of particles was jointly prepared in the same way, and then one kept by Rowan and one by Colin. With each trial, Rowan picks the next particle in his store, measures one of three different properties (depending on which row you ask for), and gives you one of his four possible answers based on the result of his measurement. Colin similarly processes his next particle, the one paired with Rowan’s. By the ‘magic’ of quantum entanglement, their results are correlated precisely so as to simulate an impossible square10.

The moral (Bell’s theorem): quantum correlations falsify the hypothesis that, in any laboratory, nature carries the answer to any question which may be put there, and answers without knowing which questions are being put elsewhere.

More

Free choice

Many localists cite Albert Einstein’s 1905 principle of relativistic causality as a reason to reject non-locality. This principle says that causal influences cannot propagate faster than light. That is, one event can cause another (later) event only if they are close enough in space that the ‘effect’ could have been reached by a beam of light from the ‘cause’. But the non-locality option must involve faster-than-light causal influences, contrary to Einstein’s principle, for measurements made far enough apart and close to simultaneous. Bell correlations under these circumstances have been observed many times since 1982 (ref. 2), using photons with entangled polarizations.

Although the two camps disagree on whether Bell experiments imply faster-than-light causal influences, neither think that these experiments allow faster-than-light communication. Faster-than-light communication has never been observed. Its impossibility follows from Einstein’s principle of relativistic causality and the following axiom of causation: if an event is seen to depend statistically on a freely chosen action, then that action is a cause of that event.



Nature special: The quantum atom

For example, if a radio comes on when and only when I choose to flip a switch, then my action must cause the sound. Combining this with Einstein’s principle (no faster-than-light causal influences) implies that if I freely choose the time to flip a switch on Earth, a radio on the Moon cannot be expected to come on at that exact time. There must be a delay of at least 1.3 seconds (the time it takes light to travel to the Moon).

It is wrong to argue (as some localists do) that the impossibility of faster-than-light communication rules out non-locality. Locality, as Bell introduced it in 1964, is a stronger concept than no faster-than-light communication. That is, nature could be non-local without allowing faster-than-light signalling.

For localists to derive locality from the principle of relativistic causality, they need a stronger version of the above axiom of causation: the phrase “is seen to depend on” must be replaced by “depends, in theory, on”5. The point is that it may not be possible to see the theoretical dependence if there are other, hidden variables on which the event also depends. This is the case in the versions of quantum theory favoured by the non-localist camp4.

Another theorem

Bell himself was a non-localist, an opinion he first published in 1976 (ref. 6), after introducing a concept, “local causality”, that is subtly different from the locality of the 1964 theorem. Deriving this from Einstein’s principle requires an even stronger notion of causation: if two events are statistically correlated, then either one causes the other, or they have a common cause, which, when taken into account, eliminates the correlation.

Colloquially, this “principle of common cause” says that correlations have explanations. For example, if you and I never communicate, but one day we both become concerned about a looming war in Ruritania, then there must be a common cause for our thoughts (such as news reports).

In 1976, Bell proved that his new concept of local causality (based implicitly on the principle of common cause), was ruled out by Bell correlations6. In this 1976 theorem there was no second option, as there had been in the 1964 theorem, of giving up hidden variables. Nature violates local causality.

It is unfortunate that quantum scientists seldom distinguish the 1976 theorem from the 1964 theorem. It is doubly unfortunate that Bell sometimes used “locality” as shorthand for “local causality”6, adding to the confusion. Non-localists maintain that the two theorems are the same, that locality is the same as local causality, and thus that hidden variables played no essential part in Bell’s 1964 paper4. But, as I have shown5, these claims do not hold up under careful analysis.

Reconciling the camps


Related stories
•Quanundrum
•Quantum entanglement
•Physics: QBism puts the scientist back into science

More related stories

The contradictory claims by the two camps thus arise because they mean different things by ‘Bell’s theorem’ and different things by ‘local’ (or ‘non-local’). For localists, Bell’s theorem is the 1964 one, and the preferred choice is to keep locality and forgo hidden variables. For non-localists, Bell’s theorem is (or should be) the 1976 one, which leaves no choice but to forgo local causality.

But one can go further, by recalling that local causality rests on two principles: Einstein’s principle of relativistic causality, and the principle of common cause. Thus Bell’s 1976 theorem can be restated as: either causal influences are not limited to the speed of light, or events can be correlated for no reason.

This, I suggest, is the best way to reconcile the two camps. It enables them to agree on a single Bell’s theorem, and what logical options it offers, even if they prefer different options.

Those who insist that correlations are explicable must conclude that causal influences can go faster than light. A challenge for these non-localists is: why does nature nevertheless conspire to prevent faster-than-light signalling?

Those who hold Einstein’s principle to be inviolable (the localists) must conclude that some events are correlated for no reason. A challenge for them is: if correlations do not necessarily imply a cause, when should scientists look for causes, and why?

The path forward

Bell correlations can be seen as a problem, or an opportunity. They present us with a dilemma; each of the principles at stake (relativistic causality and common cause) underpins a vast mesh of scientific inference and intuition, and yet one must be forgone. But Bell correlations also present us with a marvellous information-technology resource: measurement outcomes that cannot possibly be known to anyone before they occur.

Before investing too much angst or money, one wants to be sure that Bell correlations really exist. As of now, there are no loophole-free Bell experiments. Experiments in 1982 by a team led by French physicist Alain Aspect2, using well-separated detectors with settings changed just before the photons were detected, suffered from an ‘efficiency loophole’ in that most of the photons were not detected. This allows the experimental correlations to be reproduced by (admittedly, very contrived) local hidden variable theories.




“Before investing too much angst or money, one wants to be sure that Bell correlations really exist.”

In 2013, this loophole was closed in photon-pair experiments using high-efficiency detectors7, 8. But they lacked large separations and fast switching of the settings, opening the ‘separation loophole’: information about the detector setting for one photon could have propagated, at light speed, to the other detector, and affected its outcome.

There are several groups worldwide racing to do the first Bell experiment with large separation, efficient detection and fast switching. It will be a landmark achievement in physics. But would such an experiment really close all the loopholes? The answer depends on one’s attitude to causation.

The issue is whether the settings in one laboratory are uncorrelated with variables (hidden or otherwise) in the other. If they are correlated, then the experiment violates the assumptions of Bell’s theorem, opening the free-choice loophole, so called because of how it can be closed: the only things correlated with free choices are their effects, so (by Einstein’s principle) settings that are freely chosen late enough would be uncorrelated with the other variables, as desired.

Human choice and action are slow, so Bell experiments thus far have used random-number generators rather than free choice to change the detector settings. There is no reason for such random numbers to be correlated with anything on the other side. But if one is inclined to reject the principle of common cause (as localists are) then one must admit that correlations can occur without any reason. Thus, to be rigorous, experimenters must choose the settings freely.

Using human free-choice while closing the separation loophole would require separating the experimenters by much more than one Earth diameter (only 40 light-milliseconds). Putting one experimenter on the Moon (1.3 lightseconds away) would also allow time for them to consciously register the results — a requirement to rule out a fourth and final loophole, the ‘collapse loophole’9. This arises from the possibility that the set of potential results recorded by a detector does not ‘collapse’ to an actual individual result until observed by the experimenter, so that before the experimenter gets involved the result could be influenced, long after the photon arrives, by some bizarre (but not faster-than-light) causal influence from the distant laboratory.

thought is faster than light and could be correlated to 'spooky action at a distance' to quote Einstein.

the noosphere could be consciousness of the Aether,and your thoughts might have been influenced or caused by anothers' elsewhere simultaneously.

yes science evolves along with our understanding. it must or we wouldn't advance intellectually, we would be happy with fruit of the tree. trouble is, we would still be living in it.

but science is not infallible, and new discoveries abrade and amend dogma constantly, altering our long-held beliefs and providing insights into understanding.

dark energy and dark matter. unaccounted for, yet factored at around 85% of the universe.

electromagnetic signature in the cosmos indicating enormous electrical potentials and currents ignored because of no apparent causation.

everything is electric, everything has polarity, everything with a dipole moment affecting everything else instantly yet ignored or marginalized.

spooky action at a distance...very scientific.

 

[waveguide]

I'll tell you what: I'll drop off IC Mag for a few months. If I come back on...and find this thread is still going strong...and you still without any sunshine...I'll puke on it some more.

false advocacy... perception management.. and tag teamed..

 

[trichrider]

What is the Relation between Science and Religion

William Lane Craig



Examines several ways in which science and theology relate to each other.


Back in 1896 the president of Cornell University Andrew Dickson White published a book entitled A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom. Under White’s influence, the metaphor of “warfare” to describe the relations between science and the Christian faith became very widespread during the first half of the 20th century. The culturally dominant view in the West—even among Christians—came to be that science and Christianity are not allies in the search for truth, but adversaries.

To illustrate, several years ago I had a debate with a philosopher of science at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver , Canada, on the question “Are Science and Religion Mutually Irrelevant?” When I walked onto the campus, I saw that the Christian students sponsoring the debate had advertised it with large banners and posters proclaiming “Science vs. Christianity.” The students were perpetuating the same sort of warfare mentality that Andrew Dickson White proclaimed over a hundred years ago.

What has happened, however, in the second half of this century is that historians and philosophers of science have come to realize that this supposed history of warfare is a myth. As Thaxton and Pearcey point out in their recent book The Soul of Science, for over 300 years between the rise of modern science in the 1500’s and the late 1800s the relationship between science and religion can best be described as an alliance. Up until the late 19th century, scientists were typically Christian believers who saw no conflict between their science and their faith—people like Kepler, Boyle, Maxwell, Faraday, Kelvin, and others. The idea of a warfare between science and religion is a relatively recent invention of the late 19th century, carefully nurtured by secular thinkers who had as their aim the undermining of the cultural dominance of Christianity in the West and its replacement by naturalism—the view that nothing outside nature is real and the only way to discover truth is through science. They were remarkably successful in pushing through their agenda. But philosophers of science during the second half of the 20th century have come to realize that the idea of a warfare between science and theology is a gross oversimplification. White’s book is now regarded as something of a bad joke, a one-sided and distorted piece of propaganda.


Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/what-is-the-relation-between-science-and-religion#ixzz3WjvXiu1R

 

[trichrider]

http://deoxy.org/gaia/index.htm

 

[mr.brunch]

'Definite Evidence' Of Alien Life Within 20-30 Years, NASA Chief Scientist Says

This artist rendering shows Kepler-11, a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. A planet-hunting telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life, including more than 50 potential planets that initially appear to be in habitable zones. The agency's chief scientist said Tuesday there will be "strong indications" of alien life within a decade.
This artist rendering shows Kepler-11, a sun-like star around which six planets orbit. A planet-hunting telescope is finding whole new worlds of possibilities in the search for alien life, including more than 50 potential planets that initially appear to be in habitable zones. The agency's chief scientist said Tuesday there will be "strong indications" of alien life within a decade.

NASA/AP
There will be "strong indications" of alien life within a decade and "definite evidence" of it within 20 to 30 years, NASA's chief scientist has said.

"We know where to look. We know how to look," Ellen Stofan said during a panel discussion Tuesday on NASA's search for alien life and habitable worlds. "In most cases, we have the technology, and we're on a path to implementing it."

But she was quick to add: "We are not talking about little green men. We are talking about little microbes."

Her colleague John Grunsfeld, a former astronaut and associate administrator for the agency's Science Mission Directorate, agreed.

"I think we're one generation away in our solar system, whether it's on an icy moon or on Mars, and one generation [away] on a planet around a nearby star," Grunsfeld said at the same discussion.

Jeffery Newmark, NASA's interim director of heliophysics, added: "It's definitely not an if, it's a when."

You can watch the full discussion below:

Scientists have been searching for extraterrestrial life for years. One way, as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel reported last year, was by searching for alien air pollution.

And recent discoveries suggest that several nearby planets — and their moons — could support some form of life. For example, Geoff reported last month, scientists said they thought there was a warm ocean on Saturn's moon Enceladus. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reported last month that NASA scientists confirmed that Jupiter's moon Ganymede has a salty ocean below its surface. Scientists believe that the presence of water is one possible sign of life.

 

[igrowone]

Physics: Bell’s theorem still reverberates
Howard Wiseman
19 June 2014

Fifty years ago, John Bell made metaphysics testable, but quantum scientists still dispute the implications. Howard Wiseman proposes a way forward.
...

thank you trichrider for bringing locality into the mix
'thank you' may be a little strong since this is a very messy part of modern physics
recall that Einstein once characterized quantum mechanics as being an abomination
he did have a point

 

[Weird]

 

[Weird]

I thought I posted this, maybe I didn't maybe someone else did?

http://phys.org/news/2015-03-quantum-imply-causation.html

Quantum correlation can imply causation

Does taking a drug and then getting better mean that the drug made you better? Did that tax cut really stimulate the economy or did it recover on its own? The problem of answering such questions - of inferring causal relationships from correlations - reaches across the sciences, and beyond.

Normally, correlation by itself does not imply causation. But new research from Perimeter and the Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) has found that in the case of quantum variables, it sometimes can.

The new work, just published in Nature Physics, is the result of a collaboration between Perimeter Faculty member Robert Spekkens, IQC Faculty member Kevin Resch, PhD student Katja Ried, MSc students Megan Agnew and Lydia Vermeyden, and Max Planck Institute senior research scientist Dominik Janzing.

As a practical illustration of the difference between correlation and causation, consider a drug trial: some people take a drug, and some of them get better. Even more promising, the doctors find that among people who took the drug, 60 percent recover; among people who didn't take the drug, only 40 percent recover. What conclusions can the doctors draw?

At first blush, it may look as if the drug caused the recovery, but the doctors would need more information before drawing that conclusion. It might be that more men than women chose to take the drug, and more men than women tended to spontaneously recover. In that case, a common cause, gender, could potentially explain the correlation.

This imaginary drug trial shows how tricky it can be to distinguish cause-effect correlations from correlations springing from common causes. That's why the caution "correlation does not imply causation" is drilled into the heads of every researcher for whom statistics is of even passing importance.

Over the last century, scientists, mathematicians, and philosophers have developed a powerful toolkit for untangling webs of cause, effect, and correlation in even the most complex evolving system. The case of systems with only two variables - like the drug trial above - turns out to be the hardest one. If you want to avoid introducing assumptions about what's happening, you need to intervene on variable A - in this case, taking the drug. That's why a real drug trial would be carefully randomized, assigning some people to take the drug and others to take a placebo. Only active intervention on variable A can establish its causal relationship with variable B.

But what of quantum variables? This new research shows that certain kinds of quantum correlations do imply causation - even without the kind of active intervention that classical variables require.

The new research is both theoretical and experimental. Ried, Spekkens, and Janzing worked from the theoretical end. They considered the situation of an observer who has probed two quantum variables - say, the polarization properties of two photons - and found that they are correlated. The measurement is carried out at two points in time, but the observer doesn't know if she's looking at the same photon twice (that is, probing a cause-effect relationship) or looking at a pair of photons in an entangled state (that is, probing a common cause relationship).

The theorists' crucial insight was that the correlations measured between a photon at one time and the same photon at another time had a different pattern than the correlations measured between two entangled photons. In other words, they discovered that under the right circumstances, they could tell cause-effect from common cause.

Meanwhile, at the Institute for Quantum Computing, Agnew, Vermeyden, and Resch had the tools to put this remarkable idea to the test. They built an apparatus that could generate two entangled photons, A and B. They measured A, and then sent the pair through a gate that either transmitted photon A, or switched photon A and photon B and transmitted B.

Crucially, this gate could swap between the two scenarios, choosing one or the other based on the output of a random number generator. On the other side of this gate, the researchers conducted another measurement while blind to which photon they measured. Just as the theorists predicted, they saw two distinct patterns of correlation emerge.

This means that researchers measuring quantum variables can do something researchers measuring classical variables cannot: tell the difference between cause-effect and common cause in a system with only two variables, without making an active intervention on the first variable.

This discovery has significance for both quantum information and quantum foundations.

The work establishes a new class of things that quantum systems can do which classical systems cannot. It's too early to say how that may play out, but such quantum advantages underpin the promise of quantum technologies: quantum entanglement, for instance, underlies quantum cryptography, and quantum superposition underlies quantum computation.

The discovery of new quantum advantages has historically led to interesting places, and the researchers are hopeful that this new quantum advantage will follow suit.

For those interested in quantum foundations, this work provides a new framework to ask basic questions about quantum mechanics. There is a lively and long-standing debate in the field concerning which quantum concepts are about reality, and which are about our knowledge of reality - for instance, whether the quantum uncertainty about (say) the polarization of a photon means that the photon itself has no defined polarization, or if it means that the observer of such a photon has limited knowledge.

Because correlations are about what observers can infer, while causal relations are about the physical relations among systems, this research opens a new window on such questions.

The team describes the work as opening the door to many more lines of inquiry, such as: How can these techniques be generalized to scenarios involving more than two systems? Is the menu of possible causal relations between quantum systems larger than between classical systems? And most broadly and excitingly: How should we understand causality in a quantum world?

Explore further: Correlations of quantum particles help in distinguishing physical processes

More information: Nature Physics, www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3266.html

Journal reference: Nature Physics search and more info website

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Doug_Huffman

5 / 5 (2) Mar 23, 2015
The preprint http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.5036
russell_russell

not rated yet Mar 23, 2015
Astonishing. When(ever) the undefined loses ground to the physical science is to blame.
Limited or not.
Bookmarked.
Downloaded.
Thanks.
arom

1 / 5 (4) Mar 23, 2015

For those interested in quantum foundations, this work provides a new framework to ask basic questions about quantum mechanics….

Because correlations are about what observers can infer, while causal relations are about the physical relations among systems, this research opens a new window on such questions.

The team describes the work as opening the door to many more lines of inquiry…. And most broadly and excitingly: How should we understand causality in a quantum world?



We all know that quantum (mechanics) phenomena is physical – not a magic one, i.e. it is correspond to causality principle. And in order to understand the cause – effect relations, we must know its physical mechanism; maybe this idea could help ….http://www.vacuum...19〈=en
JVK

1 / 5 (1) Mar 24, 2015
The de novo creation of light-induced amino acids links quantum physics to metabolic networks and genetic networks via RNA-mediated substitutions of amino acids that stabilize the organized genomes of all genera in the context of their physiology of reproduction.

Top-down causation is the sun's biological energy as exemplified by photosynthesis in plants linked to cell type differentiation in animals. Cause and effect is also recognized by serious scientists in the nutrient-dependent pheromone-controlled physiology of reproduction in species from microbes to man.

Clinically Actionable Genotypes Among 10,000 Patients With Preemptive Pharmacogenomic Testing -- was among the studies reported in this 2 minute video https://www.youtu...G_9EEeeA

It links top-down causation to amino acid substitutions and takes the biophysically constrained chemistry of protein folding from theoretical physics and correlations to biologically-based cause and effect.
swordsman

1 / 5 (2) Mar 24, 2015
Throw in the concept of "quantum", and any conclusion works.

Please sign in to add a comment. Registration is free, and takes less than a minute. Read more

 

[RetroGrow]

Do pilots believe in UFOs? Many of them do and here is my close encounter story

Do pilots believe in UFOs? Many of them do and here is my close encounter story

People love to ask pilots questions. But my favorite, and certainly the most interesting, is "Have you ever seen a UFO while flying?"

The answer is yes. And here's how it happened.

It was April 10, 1989 and early in my career. I was still a first officer at a regional airline. It was about 8 p.m. and we had just taken off from Kansas City International Airport bound for Waterloo, Iowa. It was a beautiful evening, with a full moon, clear skies and crisp early spring temperatures. The weather forecast for Waterloo was as nice, with clear skies and unlimited visibility.

After a short taxi and take-off, Air Traffic Control (ATC) cleared us to our cruise altitude of 15,000 feet. We established a Northeasterly heading, pointed strait at Waterloo, about 200 miles ahead. There were thin wispy clouds all around us, illuminated by the light of the full moon that shone through the captain's-side window at our left. Despite the presence of these clearly visible wispy clouds everywhere, we weren't flying through any of them. There was also a white disc dimly but clearly visible through those clouds just off to our right.

We flew on and I commented to Bruce, the captain, about this dimly visible disc. He said that he'd been watching the same thing since we had leveled off. It looked similar to the moon faintly visible though thin fog, except the two were visible at the same time on opposite sides of our cockpit. We looked down below for search lights, you know, the kind that's sometimes used for aerial light displays or advertising at a car dealer, but there was no beam of light coming from the ground, no search light from an airport either. The captain and I had cumulatively spent many years flying and were accustomed to seeing — day and night — all manner of airplane, blimp, hot air balloon, satellite and bird. But neither of us had any idea what this disc could be.

We spent 20 to 30 minutes at our cruise altitude, all the while staring at this white disc dimly visible through some clouds that we somehow never seemed to fly through. Within about 40 miles of Waterloo, ATC confirmed the weather, still clear skies and unrestricted visibility at our destination as we began to descend. We got busy with our flying duties and for a short while, maybe for a minute, both of us had looked away from the disc, but when I looked up at it again I saw something that has been burned into my memory.

I yelled to Bruce, "Holy s--t." He immediately looked over from what he was doing. Above the clouds, where the white disc had been, was a now giant red ball. It was big and bright and just sat there above the clouds. It wasn't intense enough to illuminate us with a red glow but it was still plenty bright. We sat there in stunned silence. We obviously didn't want to hit it but quickly saw that it was flying parallel to our course. We weren't on a collision course and we also weren't gaining on it. Time became a blur as we continued our descent, this giant, red ball holding its course.

We slowly lost altitude and at around 13,000 feet, the brightly glowing ball began a gradual descent, too. As it did, it slowly started disappearing behind those wispy clouds. In about 30 seconds, like a setting sun but not nearly as bright, it vanished behind the clouds. The instant it fully disappeared, hundreds of lights began flashing from within the clouds.

As I looked on in disbelief, the flashing lights were brighter than ever and I could see that the section of the cloud that the glowing red ball had descended behind was starting to stretch apart like a piece of "Silly Putty," two halves being pulled slowly apart with the middle getting thinner and thinner. This continued until the halves grew so thin that it tore apart and, pop! Everything was gone. The dimly lit disc, the flashing lights, the thin wispy clouds that we had with us for the last 40 minutes; all of it, gone. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. Only the full moon remained off to our left.

Bruce and I just looked at each other. "Oh my God, what the f--k was that", was all I could muster. My colleague just stared out the windscreen, mesmerized. We discussed whether we should report what we had just witnessed. After a few minutes, I picked up the radio mic and asked the Kansas City Center controller if they had anything on radar. "Nope, nothing but you," came the response. "No, not right now but a couple minutes ago, at our one to two o'clock," I replied. "No," he repeated, "It's a slow night. I've got the entire sector between Kansas City and Waterloo and you're all that's been in it for the last hour." Bruce and I again just looked at each other, completely dumbfounded. "So for the last say 40 minutes or so you've had no traffic at all, not at our one or two o'clock?" I asked. "No sir, not at your one or two o'clock, not anywhere, you're all there is," he assured us.

A minute or so later, from over the radio came, "Air Midwest , do you want to report a UFO?" We looked at each other for a couple seconds and Bruce nodded his head. "Yes sir, we do," I finally replied. "OK, take down this number and call when you get on the ground."
After deplaning we called the number. "National UFO Reporting Center" said the voice from the other end. At the time I didn't even know such a place existed, but they took collect calls from pilots and air traffic controllers. Bruce told the person on the other end of the line that we wanted to report a UFO. We were interviewed separately, first the captain and then me. When my interview was finished the man on the other end of the line said that we would never hear from him again and would never receive any additional information, this was going to be our first and only contact regarding the sighting. I asked, "Can I ask just one question, do you think we're crazy, has anyone else ever reported something like this?"
"Oh no, you're not crazy at all," he replied. "This very same thing has been reported by pilots countless times." And while neither of us had any idea what we had saw one thing we were certain of, it wasn't from here.

Our airline had no official UFO policy (nor did any that I ever worked for), but at the time we were both young with long and promising careers in front of us. We knew through the grapevine that pilots weren't supposed to talk about UFOs so we swore the station agent on duty to secrecy and agreed not to talk about our incident to any of our co-workers.
That was more than 25 years ago. Today I'm older, wiser and at the end of my career. In my last few years of flying the subject of UFOs occasionally came up in the cockpit. If it was brought up at all, it was usually by a younger, newer first officer who'd say something with much trepidation. More than a few pilots have shared their UFO stories with me, too. I'm not going too far out on a ledge to say that virtually all pilots believe in UFOs. Little green men, "close encounters", alien kidnappings,... not so much, but with billions of stars and trillions of planets out there, "ya gotta believe", and almost all of us do.

Andrew Danziger is a 28-year airline veteran, with experience in turboprops and Boeing aircraft. He was an international 757/767 captain for the last 14 years. He has served as an airline ground school instructor and check pilot in both simulators and aircraft and was one of the pilots to fly Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/guest-column-pilots-ufos-article-1.2177099

When we finally and inevitably make contact, and prove alien organisms exist, even in single celled forms, the creationists and bible thumpers are going to go insane. It didn't say THAT in the bible. Why, it didn't even prophecy the Kardashians.

 

[Weird]

When we finally and inevitably make contact, and prove alien organisms exist, even in single celled forms, the creationists and bible thumpers are going to go insane. It didn't say THAT in the bible. Why, it didn't even prophecy the Kardashians.

unless they are consistent with the description of aliens that are found in the bible and other religious cultures histories.

do you think that people made pure fairy tale or perhaps there have been external fores at play, alien, otherworldly or otherwise?

how come every time you share something you gotta add a twist as if it is meant as an attack against something? Why can't you keep the discussion to things scientific or at least congruent with your belief of atheism (yeah its a belief, your brand of atheism at least)

your turning into the poster child of why kids should be breast fed and hugged