scientific word salad

[scruffy]

Here's a great piece of scientific word salad:

"we believe coherence and entanglement are operationally equivalent but conceptually different".

Physicists find quantum coherence and quantum entanglement are two sides of the same coin

(Phys.org)—Quantum coherence and quantum entanglement are two landmark features of quantum physics, and now physicists have demonstrated that the two phenomena are "operationally equivalent"—that is, equivalent for all practical purposes, though still conceptually distinct. This finding allows...

phys.org

Huh?

I'm trying to look at the reality, which is that coherence has a well defined mathematical meaning, whereas no one really knows what entanglement is

Here's some more annoying word salad courtesy of Google AI:

"Entangled wave functions are considered relatively stable, meaning that the correlation between entangled particles remains strong even when separated over large distances, as long as they are not significantly disturbed by external influences like environmental noise; however, this stability is not absolute and can be disrupted by decoherence mechanisms, which can cause the entanglement to degrade over time".

Hello? What is a "decoherence mechanism"? No one really knows. lol - "external mechanisms like environmental noise" - lmao

Shall we try to make some sense of this mumbo jumbo? Let's. Word salad in politics is bad enough, but in science it's downright embarrassing.

What is coherence?

Coherence is defined as:

C^2 = (Sxy)^2 / SxxSyy

Where S is the spectral density, which is the Fourier transform of the correlation. So Sxx is related to the autocorrelation, while Sxy describes the cross correlation.

Correlation "of what"? Where do we find coherence?

Well, lasers are the low hanging fruit. A laser generates a "highly coherent" beam of light. The beam of light consists of waves that are all the same frequency, whose phases all line up. Therefore we have monochromaticity and we have constructive and destructive interference. If the waves are all the same frequency and they have a fixed and invariant phase relationship, one can consider the STABILITY of the light beam as it traverses space and time

Rather than blaming "environmental noise", we can look at Heisenberg's uncertainty in an open system. Which would encompass both environmental noise and self noise, along with transfers of energy and information between the system and the bath.

So we could look at light, but entanglement also occurs in electrons and quarks, in atoms and even molecules. Maybe even in large gravitational objects like planets and stars and black holes. Still, lasers are easier, and cheaper too.

Let's do the fundamentals. A qubit has a spin state, the spin can be either up or down. A superposition is a combination of spin states, much like a pair of coupled oscillators. We have a wave function for the up state and a wave function for the down state, and generally they will be "coherent" because they have the same frequency and a stable phase relationship.

You can disrupt the coherence by altering the stability of either, for example you can pump the laser beam into an optical fiber and vibrate the fiber, so you get additional frequencies and additional phase relationships that affect the stability of the spectral densities. Another trick is, you can make a "measurement" by putting a detector in the path of the light beam, and it's intuitive that any such osculation would affect the stability of the light waves.

None of this explains why coherence becomes entanglement, nor does it explain how you get varying degrees of coherence from conjugate wave functions. The word salad people claim they understand it, but they don't. The topological types claim they can explain it but they can't.

Coherence (physics) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Two-state quantum system - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[BULLDOG]

Quantum physics is very confusing, especially for someone with no background or training in it. I suggest you do a little investigation and read up on the existing research before you try to say it's all a bunch of crap. A quick google search probably won't provide the knowledge and understanding needed to intelligently discuss the subject. Being a 5 minute google expert isn't very impressive.

 

[scruffy]

Quantum physics is very confusing, especially for someone with no background or training in it. I suggest you do a little investigation and read up on the existing research before you try to say it's all a bunch of crap. A quick google search probably won't provide the knowledge and understanding needed to intelligently discuss the subject. Being a 5 minute google expert isn't very impressive.

lmao

I've been following the existing research for the better part of 20 years. Google AI stinks, that's why I posted their idiotic word salad and corrected it with actual math.

I never said existing research was a bunch of crap. What I said is the WORD SALAD is a bunch of crap. Just the like the stuff that comes out of Harris's mouth (between cackles). You could use some better reading comprehension.

What the hell does that mean, "operationally equivalent but conceptually different"? That's like saying a cat is alive and dead at the same time. It's nonsense. Complete gibberish. The Google click baiters need to learn to speak English. There's so much garbage on Google it isn't even funny. And the AI makes it WORSE, not better.

I'm not the one who's confused. I can explain the situation in simple English.

Once again, for your benefit, let's look at the reality. What is the reality? The reality is, you can MEASURE both coherence and entanglement. When you do, you discover that the AMOUNTS are related. That doesn't mean they're operationally equivalent, not by a long shot.

What it means is there's a possible RELATIONSHIP between them that no one has yet succeeded in explaining. The first two words of the word salad should give you a big clue about how thoroughly clueless the click baiters are. "We believe". That's not science, it's religion. There's no such thing as "we" believe. Belief belongs to the individual. The only place you hear about "we" believe is in organized religion.

The click bait says "physicists have demonstrated that the two phenomena are operationally equivalent". Horseshit. They've demonstrated no such thing If they had, you could bet your bottom dollar there'd be some math attached to it.

 

[BULLDOG]

lmao

I've been following the existing research for the better part of 20 years. Google AI stinks, that's why I posted their idiotic word salad and corrected it with actual math.

I never said existing research was a bunch of crap. What I said is the WORD SALAD is a bunch of crap. Just the like the stuff that comes out of Harris's mouth (between cackles). You could use some better reading comprehension.

What the hell does that mean, "operationally equivalent but conceptually different"? That's like saying a cat is alive and dead at the same time. It's nonsense. Complete gibberish. The Google click baiters need to learn to speak English. There's so much garbage on Google it isn't even funny. And the AI makes it WORSE, not better.

I'm not the one who's confused. I can explain the situation in simple English.

Once again, for your benefit, let's look at the reality. What is the reality? The reality is, you can MEASURE both coherence and entanglement. When you do, you discover that the AMOUNTS are related. That doesn't mean they're operationally equivalent, not by a long shot.

What it means is there's a possible RELATIONSHIP between them that no one has yet succeeded in explaining. The first two words of the word salad should give you a big clue about how thoroughly clueless the click baiters are. "We believe". That's not science, it's religion. There's no such thing as "we" believe. Belief belongs to the individual. The only place you hear about "we" believe is in organized religion.

The click bait says "physicists have demonstrated that the two phenomena are operationally equivalent". Horseshit. They've demonstrated no such thing If they had, you could bet your bottom dollar there'd be some math attached to it.

There are loads of stuff we don't know for sure to be true, but the scientific community believes to be true. Surely you don't question that. Not sure about your cat, but I know what Schrodinger said about his.

 

[scruffy]

There are loads of stuff we don't know for sure to be true, but the scientific community believes to be true. Surely you don't question that.

Of course I do.

I absolutely do.

Scientists can be as full of shit as anyone else.

Not sure about your cat, but I know what Schrodinger said about his.

So you believe a cat can be both alive and dead?

lmao

Not very smart, are you?

 

[scruffy]

Of course I do.

I absolutely do.

Scientists can be as full of shit as anyone else.



So you believe a cat can be both alive and dead?

lmao

Not very smart, are you?

Here - I will bring a brand new way of looking at things, into this discussion.

It merges probability theory with algebraic topology.

Using the concept of affine sets on a probability manifold. The topologists call it "simplicial complexes". What it means is, you triangulate your manifold.

Or, in this case, since we're dealing with 4d, the triangles become tetrahedrons.

I won't bore you with the math. It has to do with homotopy theory, cochains of abelian groups.

Here's the basic idea - this is an example of triangulating a sphere.

We're going "tile" the sphere with triangles.

Now... this "could" be used in the context of spacetime, and in that case we get stuff like this:

The "k" stands for curvature. Much like differential geometry, this method let's us treat small sections of the manifold as "approximately Euclidean", which let's us do math in the familiar coordinate systems.

But we're not going to do spacetime, we're going to do something different. Our sphere is going to be the Bloch sphere, which as you know represents probabilities in a quantum context.

We're going to extend our manifold in time though, and consider the probability vector in terms of a random walk. We will consider the wave function in an OPEN system, and what that means is our qubit is constantly exchanging little bits of energy and information with the virtual particles in the vacuum.

When we look at it this way, we get what amounts to a "hairy ball". In math terms it's a stochastic manifold. Like this:

You can see why we need tetrahedra instead of ordinary triangles. Our random walk gives the SIZE of our sphere some variation, it's growing and shrinking because of the local interactions with the virtual particles in the vacuum.

In turn, the size of the sphere affects the length of the probability vector. It shrinks and grows along with the sphere. Here is what entanglement looks like on a Bloch sphere. The shaded surface is the plane of constant entanglement. You can plainly see that the probability vector has plenty of room to shrink and grow when it moves along this plane.

So what we're going to do now, is the Arrecibo trick. Did you ever see the radio telescope at Arrecibo? The tiles are 2 foot by two foot metal squares, and the computer adjusts their angles to tune the signal. If you look closely you can see the tiles in the dish in this image:

Our triangles are going to move exactly like these tiles. They'll be adjusting their positions and angles to exactly match the shape of the hairy ball at any instant.

This is where the math comes in, and why algebra is beneficial, rather than trying to calculate thousands of exterior stochastic derivatives. Because our hairy ball isn't as well behaved as Arrecibo. Instead, it looks more like this:

This is where the affine combinations and the homotopy become helpful. Because the longest hairs (fibers) you see in this pic, are the ones that are going to interact with the external environment.

Let's say there's another qubit right next to this one, and it looks the same way. The long fibers can't penetrate to the core of the ball, because there's too much hair in the way. However the hairy tips can touch other hairy tips, and this is where the exchange of information occurs.

Let's say furthermore, that every time two tips touch, there's an exchange of information, and it leads to a force between the tips. (Just like the exchange of virtual photons leads to a repulsive force between electrons - only, in our case it could be an attractive force too, we'll keep an open mind).

So now, when the tips get near each other, they will pull or push each other and cause our tiles to change their angles and positions. If they pull or push "enough", the core of the ball will open up resulting in a "hole" in the sphere. (Which in the math of homotopy is described by the Betti numbers associated with the topological chain). When these holes happen, it's the same as a vesicle fusing with the cell membrane, exactly the same math applies and the behavior is identical.

This results in "entanglement", which is to say, the wave functions underlying each Bloch sphere are no longer independent.

 

[scruffy]

Aha! Further progress. I've discovered that the string theorists are already halfway there.

In my proposed model, the idea is that the Bloch sphere vector is constantly spinning around, and shrinking and growing, due to the interactions with virtual particles in the vacuum (or any other open media). Sometimes it grows so much it basically pokes holes in the ball.

To relate this to what we can actually measure, you have to use an "all possible paths" approach, which is where my "tiling" method comes in. Well, check this out: here's the same problem formulated in a slightly different way by a string theorist.

[2207.03624] Quantum Entanglement in String Theory

And what, you may ask, is the Replica Method?

Well, here it is:

Replica trick - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They're doing exactly what we need to do, only in my case we have what basically amounts to a "discrete approximation", which is a whole lot easier than what they're trying to do with the partition function.

However their orbifold method is directly applicable to my algebraic topology. There should be a direct mapping between my tiles and their orbifold.

In the string theory, they tie this in with one of tiny little curled up "extra dimensions" in the string world. In other words their model is geometric. They invoke an "extra spatial dimension". Which of course no one can either see or prove. HOWEVER, I'm not even sure that's necessary. Because this can be treated the same way nonlinear (nonequilibrium) thermodynamics treats its long range interactions.

Note that in the latter world, they arrive at "stable spatial configurations" from very tiny long range interactions. The exact same thing happens in a spin glass, and there, you get regions of criticality that end up forming the boundary between the phases.

So all we really need to do, is map the Lyapunov surface that defines the stability of the system. Which is not entirely easy, but it's easier my way than theirs.

Entanglement is basically a "stable spatial configuration", that's pretty much exactly what it is. Using my tiling method we should be able to map this into the hairy Bloch ball to see if we get long range interactions from the quantum fuzz. And, determine whether any of the long range states are stable.

If they're not, it would be +1 cred for the geometric view with extra dimensions. But if they are, it would be -1 cred for the string theory and +1 for the standard model.

 

[ding]

So you believe a cat can be both alive and dead?

lmao

That was Schrodinger's point too but a cat is not an elementary particle.

 

[scruffy]

Here is some of the math around the method I'm proposing.

It is widely used in computer graphics, for "terrain mapping". It is a version of what they call "point cloud analysis".

This paper shows it applied to time series, but the method can be applied to just about anything

Notice the natural formulation of entropy.

Simplicial complex entropy for time series analysis - PMC

The complex behavior of many systems in nature requires the application of robust methodologies capable of identifying changes in their dynamics. In the case of time series (which are sensed values of a system during a time interval), several ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Notice also the intuitive relationship to probability, which happens because the simplicial coefficients have to add up to 1.

 

[scruffy]

Well, good news. The method fundamentally works. I have it running in the cloud with a Monte Carlo. 'Course that's a long way from real life lol. I don't have any gHz pulse lasers handy...

However I may give this to the quantum computing wizards at UCLA, they'll know what to do with it.

 

[Anathema]

Pretty much alll higher level science is word salad designed to allow the scientific community to feel importsnt and smart.

 

[scruffy]

Pretty much alll higher level science is word salad designed to allow the scientific community to feel importsnt and smart.

Well, I kinda get it, they look at stuff and then they see stuff and don't know what to call it, so they call it "something", and then they publish a paper and other people start calling it by the same name.

In this case I'm pretty sure they have the wrong word.

What they're doing is "synchronizing" two wave functions. Which is something quite different from making them "coherent".

Thing of two pendulums. You can "synchronize" them by pushing them in the same direction at the same time. Then you let them go, and they stay "synchronized" for a little while, but after a few seconds they start to diverge.

That's the same thing that happens with a qubit. You "synchronize" the wave functions by blasting them with a laser or something. But that's fundamentally different from coherence, even though when you're looking at them the probabilities stay in sync for a while.

Coherence is more like a hologram, when you shine a laser onto it it's important that the phases be the same all over, and stay that way. Every time you look at the hologram you have to use the same "coherent" wavelength of light with the proper spatial and temporal coherence.

Ya well, it's a subtle distinction but an important one. "Decoherence" is a little bit different from going out of sync.

 

[scruffy]

This is what got me on this in the first place:

The word "coherence" is more appropriately applied to an entanglement.

As long as the entanglement is unmolested it remains "coherent", which is to say the probabilities always come out right. It's like one is always perfectly out of phase with the other. ("When" they're measured, but maybe also when they're not being measured, no one really knows yet).

They have some experiments that try to measure the qubit state at the same time as the entanglement, but I'm not fully convinced that what they think they're measuring is what they're actually measuring.

I'm thinking of ways to distinguish the two phenomena, rather than trying to prove they're the same. The easiest approach is probably multi body entanglement, because it would involve a fundamentally different symmetry.

The requirement of retaining synchrony in a single qubit is troublesome. Yes it makes for useful quantum math, but they have to jump through hoops to get it to work. Nature is usually simple, it doesn't generally jump through hoops.