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[Urist Da Vinci]

[img]http://s12.postimage.org/is0sj64d9/image.png[/img}

So you saved before reading the description of an artifact blowgun that had "an image in birch" and each time, the image was different.

The other parts of the artifact's descriptions were the same, so we can conclude that artifact descriptions are only semi-set before you view them. The only part that changes depending on when you view it is what images have been placed on the artifact. An artifact that had no images would have the same description each time.

[muzzz]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

[GreatWyrmGold]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

What about when the quantum-level effects of a handful of atoms affected the macroscopic world, most crudely via computers doing something if sensors they are hooked up to detect something? Which is pretty much what Schrodinger's Cat is...
Take out the cat, and after an hour the flask is half shattered and half unshattered, because no one has observed the atom's decay or any of its effects. Is this essentially correct, and if not where does the flaw in my reasoning lie?

[Kilroy the Grand]

If a dwarf dies trying to make an artifact, the name of said artifact will be inscribed on his slab.

[muzzz]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

What about when the quantum-level effects of a handful of atoms affected the macroscopic world, most crudely via computers doing something if sensors they are hooked up to detect something? Which is pretty much what Schrodinger's Cat is...
Take out the cat, and after an hour the flask is half shattered and half unshattered, because no one has observed the atom's decay or any of its effects. Is this essentially correct, and if not where does the flaw in my reasoning lie?

In the assumption that quantum superposition is a phase that lasts until the effects are observed. Variations of the double-slit experiment have shown that simply creating the possibility of observation is enough to collapse superposition. Even if that observation would be after the fact.

[GreatWyrmGold]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

What about when the quantum-level effects of a handful of atoms affected the macroscopic world, most crudely via computers doing something if sensors they are hooked up to detect something? Which is pretty much what Schrodinger's Cat is...
Take out the cat, and after an hour the flask is half shattered and half unshattered, because no one has observed the atom's decay or any of its effects. Is this essentially correct, and if not where does the flaw in my reasoning lie?

In the assumption that quantum superposition is a phase that lasts until the effects are observed. Variations of the double-slit experiment have shown that simply creating the possibility of observation is enough to collapse superposition. Even if that observation would be after the fact.

It's official: Quantum physics are insane.

[King Mir]

Quantum mechanics only works on a small scale (except when it doesn't), because if there is too much interaction with the outside system, or it's too hot, quantum states will decohere just like if they were observed.  It's a well known phenomena.

But it is true enough that quantum states are in a superposition, neither one or the other, until they are observed or decohere. And if you were to manipulate quantum states, they behave differently when they are coherent and when they are not.

[krenshala]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

What about when the quantum-level effects of a handful of atoms affected the macroscopic world, most crudely via computers doing something if sensors they are hooked up to detect something? Which is pretty much what Schrodinger's Cat is...
Take out the cat, and after an hour the flask is half shattered and half unshattered, because no one has observed the atom's decay or any of its effects. Is this essentially correct, and if not where does the flaw in my reasoning lie?

In the assumption that quantum superposition is a phase that lasts until the effects are observed. Variations of the double-slit experiment have shown that simply creating the possibility of observation is enough to collapse superposition. Even if that observation would be after the fact.

It's official: Quantum physics are insane.

I like Feynman's comment about it: Anyone that says they understand quantum physics clearly doesn't.

I can't remember if he said this about QP or quantum mechanics, but I think it fits either way.

[edit]Did a bit of googling, and one page attributes it to Niels Bohr, while another to Feynman (specifically, Chapter 6, Probability and Uncertainty, where he states "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.").

Quick now, somebody has to edit one of the earlier posts to quote a later one!

Why would we need to do that?

[Trif]

Quick now, somebody has to edit one of the earlier posts to quote a later one!

[muzzz]

[snipped]
It's official: Quantum physics are insane.

I like Feynman's comment about it: Anyone that says they understand quantum physics clearly doesn't.

I can't remember if he said this about QP or quantum mechanics, but I think it fits either way.

I've actually read some quotes postulating that our brains are physically incapable of truly comprehending things like a-causality and discrete time.

[sadron]

Now the goal is to get two artifacts to have images of each other. Maybe easiest with a pair of planepackeds.

I also assume that, as a result of the delay in content generation, you need to read the description before it gets added to the history (if unrevealed)?

Do images on artifacts interact with the likes/dislikes of dwarves? Like if Urist McMayor detests flies and the artifact is a statue of a dwarf, will Urist like the statue until you read the description which makes it be covered with images of flies?

Does the same mechanic for artifact descriptions also apply to general statues and possibly engravings?

I have a planepacked type adamantine weapon rack worth 73827600☼ I think it shattered the spacetime continuum upon creation...

[Nyan Thousand]

Going back to QM and the observer effect: in the realm of classical mechanics, wouldn't there be so many observers that all matter is observed to be in one state at all times? Going back to that cat analogy, the cat is itself an observer, which renders Schrodinger's thought experiment moot (Schrodinger addressed this, I believe). We could also say that in the macro scale, we are all observers of ourselves and of everything we see. What I'm trying to say is that there's no way a superposition of states could possibly happen in the macro scale, because something's observing something at all times.

I need to sleep. I'm sorry.

[Tharwen]

[snipped]
The general idea is sound. Why should individual atoms work differently than whole scads of atoms?

Issues of scale. For example: I have no issues with individual atoms, or even small compounds, entering my bloodstream. I would not, however, like to find out what happens if an entire cat made it's way in there.

If your bloodstream was big enough, it wouldn't matter. Besides, the analogy is faulty--a better analogy might be comparing what happens if some weird quantum effect happens to an electron and asking why that couldn't happen to or affect a person.

But my bloodstream isn't big enough, that's the point. Quantum effects don't scale up to our everyday, classical-mechanics scale. And we should be thankful for that. 9 out 10 times, the answer to "what would happen if X did scale up like that?" is "the universe as we know it wouldn't exist".

And even if I accept your premise, what about when the effects of quantum thingies affect the macroscopic world, a la the exact thought experiment we were talking about?

They only do so in a statistical sense. That's the big flaw in the quantum-cat scenario.

What about when the quantum-level effects of a handful of atoms affected the macroscopic world, most crudely via computers doing something if sensors they are hooked up to detect something? Which is pretty much what Schrodinger's Cat is...
Take out the cat, and after an hour the flask is half shattered and half unshattered, because no one has observed the atom's decay or any of its effects. Is this essentially correct, and if not where does the flaw in my reasoning lie?

In the assumption that quantum superposition is a phase that lasts until the effects are observed. Variations of the double-slit experiment have shown that simply creating the possibility of observation is enough to collapse superposition. Even if that observation would be after the fact.

It's official: Quantum physics are insane.

I like Feynman's comment about it: Anyone that says they understand quantum physics clearly doesn't.

I can't remember if he said this about QP or quantum mechanics, but I think it fits either way.

I thought that was Einstein...

Anyway, as for the cat-in-a-box thing, quantum mechanics (as the name implies) is only really usable at the subatomic level, which Schrodinger failed to take into account when creating the thought experiment.

I don't understand it very well. Feynstein was right.

[muzzz]

Going back to QM and the observer effect: in the realm of classical mechanics, wouldn't there be so many observers that all matter is observed to be in one state at all times? Going back to that cat analogy, the cat is itself an observer, which renders Schrodinger's thought experiment moot (Schrodinger addressed this, I believe). We could also say that in the macro scale, we are all observers of ourselves and of everything we see. What I'm trying to say is that there's no way a superposition of states could possibly happen in the macro scale, because something's observing something at all times.

I need to sleep. I'm sorry.

The whole observer thing turned out to be a bad analogy. When performing the double-slit experiment with different polarization filters behind each slit (i.e., tagging a photon with information about the slit it passed through), the superposition collapsed even when the 'tag' wasn't inspected. To make things even more !!Fun!!, superposition seems to appear again* if the 'tag' is erased before the photon hits the final detector.

*) 'appear again' should be interpreted liberally. AFAIK, it's unknown whether the waveform actually reappears, never disappears, or a different superposition is created.

[Man of Paper]

I come in wanting to read about fun artifact features and instead get some brainy science things first thing in the morning.

Bay12: Where great minds go to derail threads and play with dwarves.