|
 
Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! Please  login or  register to post messages and view our members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, encrypted messages, file attachments, board customizations, and much more!
|
 photon
Stranger
Registered: 05/29/08
Posts: 2
Last seen: 5 months, 4 days
|
 An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis
#8458803 - 05/29/08 07:43 AM (5 months, 23 days ago) |
|
|
The following is a clear implication of the many worlds hypothesis. It is simply that for any person up to any point in time there may be multiple universes with vastly different histories, but which have in common that person's life history. So, if you consider the history of the world, there is not one answer. Surely this concept was known to the ancients, but why is it not discussed in philosophy or physics books?
I came up with an experiment to definitively test the many worlds hypothesis which if correct, produces a device that acts like magic. It may also provide the principal behind an information time machine. I don't believe a time machine could be this simple. I present this as an experiment in logic. I believe Stephen Hawking already knows about time machines and the type of time travel obtained by my design is not the model explained in his book The Future of Spacetime. Perhaps the theory of time travel invalidates the many worlds hypothesis.
Consider a box consisting of a light source that emits single photons at a time, a beam splitter, and an array of photomultipliers. The beam splitter splits the light source into n + 1 paths. N of the photomultipliers are connected to a red light out of the box, and one is connected to a blue light out of the box. According to the many worlds hypothesis, once a photon passes through the beam splitter, n + 1 universes are formed – one universe in which the photon is detected by the photomultiplier connected to the blue light, and we get a blue flash, and n universes in which the photon is detected by a photomultiplier connected to the red light, and we get a red flash. After each emission, the n universes in which the red light flashes will be identical on the outside of the box. Thus, according to the many worlds hypothesis, once the light source is turned on, an observer would in general get a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes, no matter what number n is. This is difficult to explain, but the following may be helpful. Suppose n = 1; after a series of emissions an observer would in general get a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes; now suppose we just add on to this scenario identical universes in which the red light flashes. We get the same situation. Thus, we obtain a device that if the many worlds hypothesis is correct, acts like magic. Suppose each photomultiplier is connected to a light in the box that indicates which photomultiplier detects a photon. If the box is closed and we do not look in it, an observer would get a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes. However, once the box is opened an observer would get a n:1 ratio of red to blue flashes.
Suppose the box remains closed and a recording device is kept in the box that records which photomultipler sets off a red flash. After a series of emissions, the decision is made to either erase or read the device's log of detections. If the information is erased, an observer would have gotten a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes. However, if the information is read, an observer would have gotten a 1:n ratio of blue to red flashes. Thus, an information time machine is obtained!
|
 johnm214
 
Registered: 05/31/07
Posts: 6,924
Loc: Americas
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: photon]
#8458822 - 05/29/08 07:57 AM (5 months, 23 days ago) |
|
|
|
deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 529
Loc: ausländer.ch
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: johnm214]
#8458874 - 05/29/08 08:39 AM (5 months, 22 days ago) |
|
|
You made an error in your induction from N=1 to arbitrary N>1. You assumed that when there's only one red and one blue light, the universe would have additional split only with red flashes, like there would be a preference for red lights. But there will be just as many additional ones in which the blue flashed.
In other words, the initial situation for N=1 gives a totally symmetric situation, but for some reason you assumed only branching worlds with red flashing lights.
Then when you have N red lights and 1 blue lights, the branching stays linear in N such that the ratio of universes in which the light flash red to the number of those where the light flash blue is still N:1.
No funny information time machine for you today.
edit: And welcome to the Shroomery ! 
Edited by deimya (05/29/08 09:01 AM)
|
deimya
tofu with monocle
Registered: 08/26/04
Posts: 529
Loc: ausländer.ch
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: deimya]
#8463349 - 05/30/08 11:09 AM (5 months, 21 days ago) |
|
|
Major puppet or what ? One shouldn't be afraid of his/her past 
|
photon
Stranger
Registered: 05/29/08
Posts: 2
Last seen: 5 months, 4 days
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: photon]
#8532360 - 06/17/08 02:06 AM (5 months, 4 days ago) |
|
|
 Picture2.pdf (2,984,324 bytes)
12 downloads [Copyrighted?]
I still believe I am correct. Suppose you have a box with a button on it and two lights – a red light and a blue light. When the button is pressed, multiple universes are formed – one universe in which the blue light flashes and n identical universes in which the red light flashes. After a series of button pressings an observer would obtain a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes. Here is the diagram of the set-up (see attached picture). Photomultipliers are detectors that can detect single photons.
I might as well add to this post one of my philosophical theories. Consider a one second interval of human conscious existence (for example, walking down a hallway). This includes thoughts both conscious and subconscious, memory retrieval, and sensory perception (what that person sees, hears, feels, etc.) The total number of distinguishable one second intervals will be finite although it may be in the hundred billions. Now suppose that in all that exists, a machine is built that can produce any one of these one second intervals. Suppose it simulates every one of these intervals (the order does not matter); then every possible human life would be produced. The only explanation for why we do not see nonsensical things like monsters coming out of the ground, and why we see an order to our world is that in all that exists such a machine is never built, perhaps for ethical reasons. It seems to me that using biological matter, humans in the future can build a machine that can simulate a chosen one second interval. Now, suppose we enumerate every one of these one second intervals on a computer and choose an interval using a quantum experiment and know that in parallel universes all other intervals are chosen. Then the chosen interval is simulated. Why do we see an order to our world?
|
undergrounder
Registered: 11/10/06
Posts: 1,271
Loc: NSW
Last seen: 3 hours, 4 seconds
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: photon]
#8533222 - 06/17/08 10:33 AM (5 months, 3 days ago) |
|
|
I think i understand the first example, using that pic you uploaded..
I don't see what the implication is for the posisble worlds hypothesis, or how it works by magic.
Let me get one thing straight... Im assuming that the beam splitter is randomly sending the light in one of n + 1 directions after each signal, not that the beam splitter is splitting the single beam of light into n + 1 parallel beams, because that would make both blue and red lights turn on at the same time, no matter how you split it. If there's some unexplained function of the photomultipliers, could you explain that... otherwise im assuming that by a 'beam splitter' you're saying that it randomly sends the light in one of n + 1 directions, 1 of which turns on a blue light and n of which turn on a red light...
Now.. If you repeat the test heaps of times, then for a single observer in one world, It seems to me that the observer on the outside of the box would record that the lights turns on in a 1:n ratio, not 1:1. The light beam is being split evenly and randomly, in 6 possible ways. Let n = 5 (as in your diagram). 5/6 times, the light will turn red, 1/6 times the light will turn blue. The observer on the outside won't record a 1:1 split.
Now just going back over the possible worlds thing... yes, as the beam gets split, 6 worlds would be created, one for each of the possible paths of the beam. but you're statement:
"Thus, according to the many worlds hypothesis, once the light source is turned on, an observer would in general get a 1:1 ratio of red to blue flashes, no matter what number n is."
.. appears to me to be wrong. 5 of the observers in their own separate world would see a red light flash on the outside of the box and 1 would see the blue light flash.
--------------------
 RIP
Bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher in other words sucka there is no other...
  
|
undergrounder
Registered: 11/10/06
Posts: 1,271
Loc: NSW
Last seen: 3 hours, 4 seconds
|
Re: An Experiment To Test The Many Worlds Hypothesis [Re: undergrounder]
#8533277 - 06/17/08 10:58 AM (5 months, 3 days ago) |
|
|
Oh i forgot to say...
you were saying noone mentioned possible worlds in Philosophy? i can only name one guy directly, but i think the concept has been around for ages...
look up Gottfried Leibniz early 18th Century Philosopher, Mathemetician, co-inventor of calculus, all-round brilliant guy, who had an alternate theory of 'Monads' (as opposed to 'atoms') for the matter of the universe. He had a famous fight ongoing fight with Isaac Newton over the Newtonian theory of Gravity, and although he was said to have lost the argument at the time, he was basically arguing for the General Theory of Relativity 200 years before Einstein and has since been vindicated.
Ayway one implication of his 'Monadology' was that the world is just one of an infinite number of possibilities. In a very broad sense, many basic ideas of his monadology are being shown to be true with the advent of Quantum Mechanics. It's way too complicated to talk about here, but going on your interest, it'd be a good read. If you can get it, look for:
Lawrenz, J. (2004). The Renaissance of Leibniz's Cosmology and Natural Philosophy in the Present-day Scientific Environment. Sydney, Australia: Sydney College of Divinity
Although i don't know if it's widely published. Otherwise:
Phemister, P. (2005). Activity, Passivity and Corporeal Substances in Leibniz's Philosophy. Liverpool, UK: Springer.
.. and any papers by J. Lawrenz you can find on the net.
--------------------
RIP
Bigger and bolder and rougher and tougher in other words sucka there is no other...
| |
|
|
|
Previous
Index
Next
Threaded
Edit 
Reply 
Quote 
