Prime Ideas

I am not going to claim that I know everything there is to know about Quantum Physics or Quantum Computing but then, who can? It would be like making the statement that there is a single person on earth that understands the current IRS tax code here in the United States. There are lots of assumptions and a lot of things stated as proven fact, but in the end, there is very little truly understood.

Take for a moment superposition: This is a word used to try to explain the fact that a particle exists in more than one position at the same moment in time, and that only the measurement of that particle causes it to choose one position over another. For example: In an earlier post I tried to explain the 2 slit experiment in which physicists say that a single electron fired towards 2 slits, travels through both slits at the same time. And that only our measurement (or attempted measurement) causes it to choose a single hole or the other. See my earlier post as to why I think this might be wrong, but for now I want to assume they are correct.

In today’s world of computers, we typically use 8 bits of memory to hold a single character. These memory bits hold either a 0 or a 1 and we have a possible 255 characters we can make up. This combination of 0’s and 1’s allows us to represent massive amounts of information and processes. Computer programs use this information in order to determine what a user just typed at the computer keyboard, or what is currently displayed on the screen. Now watch this!

Quantum Computing is the attempt to use electron states to represent this 0 or 1 by measuring the particles spin, and using that value to represent information. But as we just stated above, in the world of Quantum Physics, a particle exists in all places at once, or at least until we measure them. Physicists use this behavior to state that it’s now possible to represent an entire character set with only 8 bits. In the old system, you would have 2 states multiplied times 8 positions which yields 255 different combinations. In the Quantum Computing methodology, they claim you’d only need the 8 positions, since all 8 particles are representing all possible combinations at once.

They go on to tell us that it will be possible to have computers that can overrun time itself, due to the fact that according to Quantum Physics, and supposed tests, particles can actually communicate information with no respect to Einstein’s theory of relativity and the speed of light.

So, let’s consider for a moment a computer made from particles that are interpreted via the rules of Quantum Physics. What would it tell you? I want to store the word “mouse” in it’s memory. How would one accomplish this? According to Quantum Physicists, the computer would require a lot less memory to store the entire word and would be capable of communicating this information faster than the speed of light, heck, instantly. But thinking through the logical use of this computer gets a little crazy. I mean, lets consider a computer that could store information as quantum bits instead of our current magnetic type bits.

The first hurdle we have to face, is how do you move them from one location to another if they just instantly pop in and out of existence? Once you figure that out, we’d next have to determine how to preset a state for the particle before we transmit it. Then we need to somehow, magically transmit this bit of information from point A to point B. Let’s just say we figured this out. We get our little computer pumping little quantum bits out like the mad physics machine it is. We now want to try to have it remember something.

Hmm, remember what we said in the beginning? According to Quantum Physics, our little bits don’t really have a state at all until we actually measure them. In fact, we really don’t even know where the little things are until we measure them. Oh, and to make it even more interesting, we can’t really know where it is at all because we can only measure one thing at a time. We can find it, or we can measure it’s spin. Since it’s the spin we’re after, let’s just stay focused on it.

So we figured out all of our problems and now want to store the word mouse. So we set out to measuring our little quantum bits to determine what they are set to, but we actually want to adjust them to be set to a letter “m” for the first letter we want to send across the wire. So let’s say we get this done and give it a little push onto our wire. Well, we don’t really know where it is and since it pops up wherever and whenever we measure it and exists everywhere in every possible state until then, it would seem a difficult task to push it, but lets say we do.

Now we’re at the other end of the wire and we’re ready to see what it says. Remember that the other end of the line has no idea we sent an “m” to them. So they attempt to measure it, but hold up, taking seriously what was said about this little devil, we also need to assume that no one else tried to measure it along it’s way. If so, they would have effected the bit and perhaps changed its state. Perhaps even a small blemish in the line in which it was sent caused it to pop into existence along the way and change its state.

Ok, we’ll assume we have a perfect straight path and all is good, so now how to measure? Just like bit which is on or off, an electron has a spin up or a spin down, so we will just measure it to see which it is. But unlike a normal bit, we have to make some pretty major assumptions that everything is still working the same as when it left. We also have to initiate the read since the electron really doesn’t exist anywhere until we try to read it. It would seem we still only get a possible of 2 states from a single bit so the comments of a single quantum bit being able to somehow store more information than a current memory bit does, well, seems a bit strange. Yet they always do end Quantum conversations with the fact that no one really understands a thing about it.

The point to this article is that while experimentation is great and we learn a lot from it, I personally feel that we’ve give Quantum Physics a life of it’s own that might just be too far fetched to be real.

I’m sure that there are many aspects of these Quantum Computers that I just don’t understand and may never be able to understand. However, I feel that at the moment, we waste a tremendous amount of time and money, in search of magic. Either Quantum Physics is wrong, which is what I lean towards, or Quantum Computing just makes no sense.

Who’s to know? At this point, no computer has been built using this technology and the tests that have been done to show it works have been flimsy at best. Yet years have already been invested and most likely billions of dollars moved towards making the illogical logical… After all, a computer is 100% logic and nothing more…

– glenn hancock

I’ve been busy trying to think through more test results, setting up new tests and trying to come up with any explanation at all that explains the results.  The old claim that light moves as a wave and a particle just doesn’t sit well with me and I hope that I can either make sense of the claim, or show that its not true.  Perhaps we’ll do nothing more than confirm the old results, but along the way, I hope to gain more understanding into the movements of our only true friend.

The real problem outside of me not understanding the claims, are that I can’t confirm them.  I’ve done a pretty good job of setting up my tests in ways that should have duplicated the old test results seen by others, yet I am unable to see them.  While I do see lines on the wall, they can’t be explained using wave theory as has been used by so many before.  The reason, it would seem, is that waves interact with each other, requiring more than a single wave.  Something has to happen to cause the wave to change, such as it running into another wave and creating a third wave formation.  To explain a single wave, simply brushing by the edge of an object and causing an interference pattern at some point just makes no logical sense.

As an example, I took 2 books and set them up in a dark room and used an LED flashlight to shine between them.  The result was a pattern on the back wall, yet, thinking through this using wave theory, you’d have to be looking for a second wave.  What I should have gotten is a single wave coming out from the slit and spreading uniform across the back wall, not a pattern of light and dark lines.  I then removed one of the books and allowed the light to flow past the book.  Again, if you look, you will see more patterns of light and dark lines.  While a water wave for example would bend around the edge of the object, it doesn’t cause a pattern of high and low spots on the back wall that it eventually contacts.

Moving to my shop and getting back to testing with the laser, I confirmed the results I saw inside with the LED’s.  I removed the slits and used a single piece of material, both thin and thick to see what differences they made.  The results consistently were patterns on the wall. 

Then I tested using a single peice of thin aluminum to split the light with no other objects around to interfere with its path.  The result this time was no pattern, which again somewhat conflicts with stories I’ve read on the tests performed.

So, I may regret ever sharing this information but I want this blog to be a real time log of my thoughts and experiments so to keep things honest, here is what I think today:

I believe the statement that light moves as a wave and a particle is just wrong.  I think its only a particle and that it moves at a constant speed as it passes by objects on its way to the eternal abyss.  I think that the fact that light moves at a constant speed is a very important aspect of why we see what we see when it hits objects.  I think this consistancy in speed is what makes the uniformed patterns we see and then try to explain using formulas that just don’t fit.

If one thinks of the movement as a particle, then what logically would happen as it hit an object?  Some of the particles would be injected into the main stream of particles and would bounce off.  Not only would they bounce off, but they would also set off a chain reaction of other particles bouncing back and forth into a pattern that we might see on a wall as it strikes the wall.  In fact, the initial particles would be bounced off the main stream and at some angle outside of the main stream, causing the appearance that they were bending around the object.

This chain reaction could also explain the patterns we see on the wall, as well as why I didn’t see them with a single thin object in my earlier tests.  The reason would seem to be, that as the stream bounces off both sides of the object, they are bounced back into the main stream on the other side and no pattern is seen. Adding a slit where the two sides are actually injected into the larger stream, you would have a much larger flow of injected particles into the stream and therefore might expect that things eventually make it out the other sides as they bounce back and forth.

Again, this is only a theory at this point as I have nothing substantial to back up my claims.  I will continue to experiment and see if there is something I can do to prove my theories, right or wrong…

–

glenn hancock

Light has been of interest to me for some time, one of those strange things that most people don’t even consider, yet drives our very existence.  Through the years I’ve read many books and articles on what science thinks of the strange substance, how we think it moves, how fast it moves and so forth, yet, for all the things we know about it, there are that many more we don’t.  One of its most fascinating properties to me, is the fact that it moves as a wave and a particle, or at least that is what we believe.  The duplication of the experiment that proved this, is the purpose of this article.

The experiment is called the “Two Slit Experiment”, and its mentioned in many of the books I’ve read related to Quantum Physics, Physics, Light…, yet despite many hours of searching, I’ve found very little on the actual experiment itself.  As a result, I’ve set out to try to duplicate the experiment and see for myself what it proves or disproves. 

The Proof: 

It was believed for many years that light was small packets of energy that moved in straight lines through space, bouncing off things that it hit.  But there were other strange properties that were seen, and eventually Thomas Young performed a rather simple experiment where he broke a beam of light into two pieces and documented what he saw.  To do this, he used a card, positioned edge wise, and shined a tight beam of sunlight across the edge.  He was thinking that he’d get two seperate areas of light with a darkspot in the middle, but what he really got was much more strange.  He saw a series of light and dark bands across the wall which resembled in every detail, what you’d expect to get if you crashed two waves together.  The light spots being spots where the two waves enhanced each other, and the dark bands where they destroyed each other.

As the single light wave hit the edge of the card, it creates two seperate waves that continue to move towards the back wall.  However, once created, they continue to spread out like a water wave would do, and begin to bump into each other on the other side of the card.  These interactions cause the wave to begin cancelling and enhancing itself until it eventually runs into the back wall and is shown for what it is, A Wave!

The Setup:

I wanted to be sure that I built a device that allowed me to change different parameters of the test without having to build a bunch of different pieces.  The design I ended up with consists of 4 pieces, mounted on a board which is then mounted to a tripod for easy placement.  The 4 pieces are designed to allow me to change the center divider thickness so that I could test different variations.  Once the divider is in place, the other two pieces are opened in order to create the slit openings.  So with this basic setup, I can change the slit width as well as the slit openings themselves.

I then purchased a lazer pointer to use as my light source because its necessary to use a light source that is steady.  Otherwise, it would cancel itself out due to the variations of light waves being sent and would never provide a good test subject.  Perhaps its what my problem is and I”m looking into it, but for now I have to assume the $60 I spent on the pointer was worth it.  I purchased a little nicer pointer to be sure it was steady.

Results:

I started the test out by leveling and aligning all the pieces.  I wanted to start out producing the lines and then work through the math to see if I could determine the wavelength of light I was using (which of course I already know).  But no matter how many times I redid the math or changed the position of the elements, I couldn’t get anything close to what I expected. During the process of moving things around, I removed the divider to try a new one, but when I removed it, I noticed that I still had an interference pattern on the wall.  This shouldn’t be possible!  I should only see the pattern if I’m breaking up the light, but I’m seeing a clear, absolute pattern, just by breaking up the beam.  Not by splitting it, just by interferring with it.

I’ve done the test over and over and get the same results.  I’ve tried narrower pieces of material to see if the pattern changed due to the thickness, but nothing changed.  The closer I put the two walls, the wider the pattern on the wall, but its there and its very steady.  So now you are probably wondering like me, what gives?  Well, at this point I can’t offer a solution to that question, but am still experimenting to see if I can figure it out.  I’ve also been in contact with the local high school to see if I can figure out how they do these experiments, but so far its been a complete dead end.

I’ll post new material when I get more information on what is going on.  At this point, I can only assume I’m doing something wrong, but will keep looking until I determine what is happening.

Here is the result with the dual slit in place:

And finally, the result with only a single slit in place:

–glenn hancock

I wanted to take a few minutes to explain for those interested exactly what a valence shell is and how its used to figure out how things will blend together when you mix up combinations of different atoms.  I’m going to try to keep this post as basic as possible to help you understand, and I’m not going to show fancy images of the way each shell moves.  The fact is, these are all just opinions anyway, as its physically impossible for us to actually see an electron to know how it spins around the nucleus.  What Scientist have done is to prove these paths as closely as they can using mathematical models that seem to work most of the time.

All atoms contain a nucleus that has Neutrons and Protons and then an outer shell that contains electrons. To help keep these things separate we say that a proton has a positive charge of 1 unit and an electron has a negative charge of 1 unit.  Compared to the relative size of the atom, the shells are a pretty long ways away from the nucleus and the electrons spin very fast.  The average atom that you might find in nature is usually going to be balanced electrically, which means that it will have the same number of protons and electrons.  However, each atom can at any time have different variants of electrons and neutrons.  The protons always stay the same as far as the number found in a certain type of atom.

The Valence shell is nothing more than the outer most shell of an atom.  The reason shells are discussed is that after many years of research and experimenting, they seem to be an observable fact.  The simplest atom is that of Hydrogen, which is something we have been trying hard on this site to capture from water.  If you look on the Periodic table you will see that it has a “1″ above it and shows up in the first column on the chart.  This tells you that it has a single electron in its valent shell and helps us determine if it will mix with other elements or if it will want to stay by itself.  Noble gases, the far right column on the chart are atoms that are full of electrons and therefore very stable.

Elements that have valence shells that are not full, are the ones used to mix up other compounds.  Before we get too far I want to describe as simply as possible what shells exist and how they fill.  We’re going to start at the closest shell to the atom and work our way outward. 

Each layer has a number that tells you which shell we’re discussing, however, each number can have multiple letters that go along with it.  Each letter can only have 2 electrons within that shell layer and it has to have an opposite spin to the other.  So if we were to say that the He (Helium) atom has the 1S layer full, then we can assume that one of the electrons has an up spin, and the other has a down spin.  We are not going to get into what all this means here, but just remember they spin opposite directions.

So here is an easy way to remember how many shells exist, and remember, each can contain multiple letters layers and that each layer can contain 2 atoms maximum.  Ready?  Because this is really hard…  Here is how many Shells layers you have 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 3, 2.  Remember that your Periodic table contains 7 rows from top to bottom (forget the two always exploded out as they are for something else that we’ll explain shortly).  So starting at the top row on your chart, you know that there is only 1 Shell for all elements on that row.  Moving to the second row, there are 2 Shell Layers.  The 3rd row there are 3 and so on.  By the time you get to the 6th row you start reversing and by the 7th and final row you are back to 2.

Next we’re going to get into the actual sub shells that make up each Shell layer.  These layers have names associated with them such as Px, Py, Pz and so on but we won’t worry with that here as its not important for this discussion.  For now we only want you to remember the number of sub layers in each shell.

To remember how many electron sets go with each layer, we’ll only count by odd numbers.  Here I’m going to give you your letters to remember.  S = 1, P = 3, D = 5, F = 7. 

Here is a list of how things fill up from the inner most layer to the outer most layer.

1S,  2S,  2P,  3S,  3P,  3D,  4S, 4P,  4D,  4F, 5S, 5P, 5D, 5F,  6S, 6P, 6D, 7S, 7P

Using these figures and looking above for how many physical shells exist in each layer, we can determine the first shell always has a maximum of 2 electrons in the shell.  Since all S shells only have 1 layer, that means ALL S layers have only 2 electrons maximum.  Looking above at our P shell we see that it has 3 sub-layers so we can multiply 3 * 2 and get 6, which means that all P shells can have a maximum of 6 electrons.  So looking here, our second shell (2) has a 2S and a 2P layers, which means it can hold a total of? You guessed it, 8 electrons (S)1*2 + (P)3 * 2 = 2 + 6 = 8. 

So for example:  I tell you that we have an Oxygen atom and I want to know how many electrons are in the valence shell.  To determine this, we first look at the Periodic table and determine that the Atomic number for Oxygen is 8.  Our next job is to take the information we learned above and figure out how many we have in the outside shell and how many more we’d need to fill the layer completely. 

Looking above, you’ll see that our first layer is a 1S layer.  Writing 2 down on our paper we now have accounted for 2 of the electrons and we have 6 more to go.  So next we write down 2S because it is the next shell layer we need to add up.  Again, All S layers can only have 2 electrons max so we’ll write down 2 more for a total of 4.

The next shell we have is the P shell, and looking above we see that P has 3 layers, each having 2 electrons in them.  This means that since we have 4 more to fill, that we’ll end up in the P shell and we’ll have 1 of the P layers left over with nothing in it. 

So remembering how many layers are in each shell, you can figure out how many electrons fit in each.  For example, we know there are 3 layers (2 electrons each) for the P shell, so multiplying 3 x 2 = 6, which means we can have a total of 6 electrons in that layer.  A 4D layer has 5 layers in the D shell and therefore has 5 x 2 = 10 electrons in that shell layer.

I’ll mention here that things have a certain way of filling up, but we won’t go into great detail as to how this works in all cases.  But to give you an example: when your P shell fills, it fills 1 electron in each shell layer, then goes back and adds a second to each layer.  When you go from a P layer and are about to start filling the D layer, the electrons will jump up and fill the next higher S shell, before finishing the D shell of the previous shell.  However, for most conversations this is not going to hurt you to not know, but if you want to learn exactly how scientists think things fill up, then you can research it a little more and learn it.

One more example:

How many electrons exist in the valence shell of the Al (Aluminum) atom?

Al Atomic Number = 13…  (1S =) 2 + (2S =) 2 + (2P =3layers * 2 electrons each =) 6 + ( 3S =) 2 + (3P = ) 1 for a total of 13 electrons.  So as you can see, we will end up with a single electron in the 3P shell.  So if I were to ask you how many more electrons that atom could have in its valent shell to fill it, your answer should be a total of 8 in that shell minus 1 = 7 electrons.  However, remember that it could also more easily loose 1 electron to eliminate the 3P shell and backup to the 3S shell as its full valence shell.

Valent shells are a very important aspect of atoms because all atoms want to have their outer most shells full which is why things mix in the first place.

I hope I haven’t lost anyone with all the math, but learning how electrons flow around an atom is actually quite simple, at least in theory…  Look for more entries to come on other aspects of Chemistry and how things mix… 

–glenn hancock

Quantum Physics is a rather strange bird indeed.  Most people that study and use its numerous wave functions to make predictions of the locations of very small particles, do so without the vaguest idea of what exactly it means.  We use Newton’s laws everyday and they make sense to us.  Quantum Physics on the other hand, makes very accurate predictions of all sorts of strange things, yet the why remains a mystery sealed from our eyes.

There have been numerous experiments done all around the world that purport to prove these very small things communicate at speeds greater than the speed of light.  That they do so instantly, even, beyond the realm of time itself.  In fact, it is hypothesized that these levels of communication actually reverse time in order to play out.  That they some how run ahead of time to determine what is going to happen, and then backup to perform their duty.  Particles in these states are often referred to as entangled.  I’m not really sure about the exact manor in which one entangles particles, but its said that they can entangle them, transport them to the opposite sides of the earth, and then anything done to one will immediately be seen in the other.

I’ve searched the Internet for signs of any details of how they performed these tests.  Such as what the process is that entangles, how did they transport to opposite sides of the earth, how did they determine they were communicating instantly when we can’t?  There are hundreds of questions one would have in a conversation such as this and I assume only that they take the stance of religious teachers in that its beyond our understanding so why try to explain.  I’ve purchased many books on the subject and they all talk about it, but provide no details.

I’ve also watched very nice documentaries on the subject such as “What the Bleep do we know?” and “What the Bleep, Down the Rabbit Hole”,  yet none talk at length on this subject.  In the “What the Bleep” film, I heard one person talking about the visual viewing of a single particle taking up 2 and up to 3000 different places in space at the same point in time.  Yet, again, no real information.

One thing I can tell you for fact, is this:  A lot of speculation has been added to the subject of Quantum Physics that makes one question the very foundation of his/her beliefs.  Some may be beneficial, some may not, and making a distinction between the two might prove impossible at best.  The real problem as I see it however, is that the very people doing the experiments are talking about the results as if they are factual and understood, when in fact, they are the furthest from the truth.

The good old two-slit experiment, of which I’ve done quite a bit of research and actually have built a device to start testing, has been the foundation of a lot of speculation within Quantum Physics.  Quantum Physics predicts quite a bit of fairly accurate results over and over, and therefore, tests along with their appeared results are given this magical property before anyone really has time to digest them.  In my opinion, the 2 slit experiment is but one example.

Its safe to say that a lot of the magical properties given to Quantum Physics originated from the results of this single experiment carried on many years ago.  You won’t purchase a single book or article attempting to explain the wonders of Quantum Physics that doesn’t mention this experiment in detail.  I’ve been able to find no detailed documentation about the experiment to date, but have figured out the majority of its pieces.  Its final results have caused physicists world round, to think of many-world universes, Quantum Logic, NeoRealism and many more intriguing topics.  It stems from the thought that single electrons fired through the 2 slits, still interfere with themselves, which made everyone assume that they must exist in all places at once.

Perhaps all of this is true, however, the fact remains, that Science has a bad habit of stating a hypothesis as fact to the world, even though within its ranks, it’s still unproven.  Science, to those of us looking in from the outside is very much a religious organization, unwilling to open itself up to the world.  If you don’t have the degree and the years of paid study, then you are not worthy of participating.  Its a shame they feel this way, because there may be people all across the world with points of view that might aid in a final answer, but don’t have a way to voice the information.

So as an example, we’ll end with another point of view on the subject of communication between particles.  Of course, if in fact these particles were sent to the other sides of the world my hypothesis might be incorrect.  But one has to ask how they are even seeing these particles that are millions of times smaller than a particle of light.  You could liken it to trying to look at a water drop by throwing other water drops at it.  But speaking of water, what would happen if you had two sticks floating just under the surface of water and you did something to disturb the water?  Would both sticks appear to move instantly as one?  Perhaps there are hundreds of other possible explanations, but until one figures out how exactly they are looking at these things, so small that you can’t even see them in an electron microscope, its hard to know if such thoughts are worth while.

 –glenn hancock