Welcome friends!
I was watching an episode of the popular science program Nova the other day and I was rather surprised to end up with the uneasy suspicion the academic brainiacs and eminent eggheads I was watching on the tube were making epistemological errors similar to those I’ve previously ascribed to religious conservatives in the sense of confusing the world with their stories about the world. Can’t be real can it? Must simply be the result of my lack of familiarity with contemporary physics or at least my inability to comprehend the information the program was trying to impart? Or maybe it wasn’t me at all. Maybe the usually reliable program fell down for once and just didn’t explain things very clearly? Well, it’s a fun sort of issue to talk about so maybe this time out we can have a little holiday from my usual preoccupation with the most unfortunate anti-social philosophy around today, the multi-headed monster of contemporary conservatism, as championed here in the USA by the Republican Party and their current champion President Trump. Let’s play amateur scientist for the day shall we? Might at least be useful as a little exercise in the ways popular explanations of scientifically complex ideas can sometimes run off the rails.
According to the program the theory of quantum physics involves the notion sub-atomic particles do not really “exist” in any conventional sense except as a “cloud of probabilities” prior to being observed or measured, a concept the program portrayed visually with the particles starting out as fart-like clouds of vapor that snap into focus to become fancy decorative light bulbs when we get around to measuring them. Turns out for reasons the program did not fully explain the mathematics associated with quantum physics suggests one can create two particles or groups of particles or whatever the heck it was, not important here so let’s just say particles, from a single source that will be related in such a way that if you measure one of the particles hence causing it to spring into existence and assume certain properties the related particle will also spring into existence and assume the same properties. This theoretical phenomenon is called “quantum entanglement” and was portrayed as implying one could manipulate one particle and have the effect apply automatically and instantaneously to the related particle no matter the distance involved, thus contradicting conventional notions of space and time. This intriguing state of affairs was illustrated a number of times with the image of a stage magician flipping over a card at one end of a table and having a similar card simultaneously flip over at the other end of the table as if by magic. Our amazing capacity to now cause things to happen instantaneously over vast distances led to all manner of rather inadequately explained speculations about the unreality of the observed world and so on. The whole thing was done in a breathless “isn’t physics weird and hard to understand?” manner I found more irritating than educational.
A refreshing dose of boring convention appeared in the form of some old quotes from Albert Einstein, who appears to have remained unimpressed with quantum physics throughout his lifetime opining instead we apparently don’t yet understand some things about subatomic particles. He rejected the notion they don’t really exist in any conventional sense until we measure them with the quip, “Do you really believe that the moon isn’t there when nobody looks?” He derisively referred to the idea we could ever instantaneously affect particles over great distances using the postulated quantum entanglements as “spooky action at a distance.” Sounded rather sensible to me. Although the quotes were introduced in the context of the ascendency of quantum physics and how special it was that even Mr. Einstein couldn’t get it I was left with the uneasy feeling that when someone like Albert Einstein wants to tell you something about physics one might do well to hear him out.
Interestingly the program then made a very big deal about a historical experiment that supposedly settled the dispute once and for all. Seems some physicists created pairs of particles from a source, put them through filters, and showed they were statistically more similar to one another than one would have expected without quantum physics. This supposedly sealed the case in favor of quantum physics and we were off to the races with stage magicians flipping cards all over the place and academics explaining how we apparently live inside a soccer ball of illusion while reality plays out on the surface.
I was prepared to be astounded. I waited to be astounded. I wanted to be astounded. Alas, I must admit feeling distinctly underwhelmed. I just wasn’t getting it. It seemed to me all the experiment showed was we can create pairs of particles that are more similar than we would have expected without quantum theory so apparently the theory is picking up something. It certainly didn’t show anything satisfyingly weird like the particles turned out to be always identical. Just a bit more similar than we would have otherwise expected. And it certainly didn’t illustrate what I thought we were talking about: spooky action at a distance. I suppose if one accepts the notion both particles didn’t exist except as metaphorical farts until we caused one to exist properly by partially measuring it in the sense of putting it through a filter then the spooky action at a distance would be the entangled particle simultaneously springing into existence or taking concrete form or whatever and going through the same filter more often then we would have otherwise expected. But wasn’t the notion these particle don’t really exist until we measure them part of the issue Mr. Einstein had with the whole enterprise? Wouldn’t we see the same thing if we were simply creating somewhat similar particles for reasons we don’t fully understand then discovering the similarity when we measured them? Wouldn’t that be the simplest explanation? If someone wanted a really conclusive experiment wouldn’t it have made more sense to have manipulated the particles in some way beyond simply measuring them so we could unambiguously see the effect occurring simultaneously in the quantum entangled particle some distance away as advertised?
Leaving all reasonable questions unanswered the program then abruptly changed gears to explain the theoretical debate was all over now anyway because quantum physics was already being used in all sorts of practical commercial applications. Seemed a bit odd. Why the sudden hurry to jump to the conclusion? Did the studio catch fire? I suppose it would have been fine if they had shown people were already using spooky action at a distance so it was all proven in action but again I didn’t see anything like that. Honestly. I looked. I was interested. I said, “Show me the spooky action!” What I got was a Chinese scientist talking about encrypted data and a Google engineer talking about quantum computing. Great, but how do those technologies actually work? I was left wondering if perhaps they were simply taking advantage of our ability to create particles that are similar in ways and for reasons we don’t fully understand rather than actually acting on one particle and having the effect apply instantaneously to a quantum entangled particle some distance away. Bummer. I guess it doesn’t matter that much. A partial theory is certainly better than none and if it allows us to do something practical then that’s what will happen although hopefully it won’t blow up in our faces later for reasons we don’t understand. I’m fine with that. But I did feel a bit like someone was trying to pull a fast one on me. The old bait and switch.
I ended up with the familiar feeling some people will go to great lengths to avoid saying they don’t know something and will happily jump between the world and their ideas about the world to bridge the gap. Ignorant uneducated religious conservatives do it all the time. They have a convenient and appealing story for everything they see no matter how unlikely or fanciful that story may be. But I think maybe it’s not just them. Going to the far side of the galaxy some spectacularly intelligent and educated people appear loathe to admit there is anything their theories can’t explain and I suspect may also conflate theory and reality or anyway jump confusingly between the two. But as I said maybe this was all simply an artifact of my own lack of education or intellectual limitations or perhaps an unfortunate encounter with a flawed presentation of an admittedly complicated idea. Well, one day I’ll straighten it all out. But for now wouldn’t it be grand to be able to do things at one location and have the effect apply instantaneously billions of miles away? We may need that kind of technology if we’re ever going to get to distant galaxies and so on. Or can we already do that? It’s a done deal right? Oh never mind. I don’t really know what we’re talking about at this point. I think I’ll just wait for the update.
