Because we all like science.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Monday, June 27, 2005
It's Monday
And that means that I'll post to my blog instead of doing actual work. I love having a job where I sit by a computer all day long.
Last week was good. I thought I was coming down with a cold in the beginning of the week, but it passed quickly. Boxing on Tuesday was mediocre. There were an odd number of people boxing, so I had to group up with the newbies and help the instructor demonstrate. That meant that I didn't get to do much actual boxing, but I won't complain too much since I was getting over the aforementioned cold. Wednesday afternoon I donated blood. I didn't wind up getting light headed like I usually do when I lose that much blood, so that's a plus. After work I went up to Paul's house and we then went to his pool. Wednesday nights at his pool are 21 and up, and you don't have to be a member (though a member does have to let you in.) So we hung out with his brother, this guy Dylan, and Tracey's sister (a lifeguard) would occasionally sit down with us. Tracey got there a bit late, since she had field hockey that evening. Not much to say here; we went swimming, then we left. It's a pool. What do you want?
Thursday I went up to Tracey's house with the intent to watch a movie, which never happened. I got there as she and her brother were making dinner, then we all got in their hot tub. (Just once I would like to live in a house with a hot tub.) At some point whilst hot tubbing we heard some voice calling for help. It was one of their neighbors; he had fallen down a few stairs and couldn't get up. This guy was old, feeble, and from what I'm told not too mentally stable or nice. Still, Tracey's brother and I hopped the fence and helped him up. This was a long and arduous task; this guy seemed pretty shaken, and didn't want to move that fast. Two middle aged men came by to help, and we got him on his way. Only afterwards did I realize that one of the men who came to help was Tracey's dad; he had just gotten home. I'm not sure what kind of first impression I made there. On one hand, I was helping someone who had fallen. On the other hand, I was in a bathing suit, as was Tracey, and the hot tub was on. I hope that the fact that Tracey's brother was there, and was also in a bathing suit, convinced him that we weren't fooling around in his hot tub.
Friday I went up to Paul's to play poker. Tracey and Danny are good at poker. Paul and I lack skill. I should read up on poker strategy some time before the next time we play. My only real consolation is that we don't play for real money.
Saturday Tracey and I went to the pool in my new neighborhood. I'm not sure how I feel about this pool. On the one hand, it's fairly large, and close. On the other hand, there's no grassy area (it's all concrete,) and there's little area to sit. Later that evening we got dinner at Ricciuiti's and then went to Cold Stone for ice cream. Cold Stone is an interesting place. They follow the logic that people who want ice cream also want to get it at some goofy place... a place that Willy Wonka would design if he were lazy and didn't feel like breeding more Opmpa Loompas. For starters, the people working behind the counter have to sing a little song, of which there appear to be many, every time you give them a tip. From what I can tell the song they choose is mostly random, but I think they may have special ones when the tip surpasses a dollar. Also, they are too crazy to follow conventional size names. Small, Medium, and Large are too straightforward. They don't even go with the big American trend of forgoing Small and having Medium, Large, and Extra Large. They avoid that whole mess and have names like "Like it", "Love it", and "Gotta have it" which make ordering, in my opinion, almost too stupid to be worth the ice cream you get in return. "Hi, I'd like a gotta have it of lobster cheesecake ice cream." Okay, the flavors aren't that bad, but they are somewhat goofy too. One last rant with this ice cream establishment: the actual portions. The bowls they have on display for the various sizes look like they differ by about 25% at the most. I figure, I'm in the mood for ice cream, I may as well get the large, um, "gotta have it." So I get it, and the thing is huge. From what I can tell they fill up the smallest bowl half way for the smallest portion, and for the largest portion they fill up the largest bowl so that you have a 50-50 chance of spilling the thing before you leave the store. I couldn't finish mine, so I threw it out. I was half tempted to drop it in their tip jar just to see if they'd have to sing.
I took Tracey home, then headed down to Laurel. Kevin and I shower (he was coming from work, me from a hot day and a chlorinated pool), separately, and I drive us down to Santa Fe where people were, get this, drinking. Only Kevin forgot his ID and we had to drive back up to Laurel, then down again to the bar. I have a few beers, but don't get shitfaced since I'm the designated driver, and eventually we leave. I'm growing less and less fond of bars, not that anything particularly bad happened there. It's just not my scene.
I'll have to have Tracey come down to the place in Laurel more often, so more of you people can meet her. She's only met Kevin so far, and I'd like her to see the whole spectrum of assholes I hang out with.
Last week was good. I thought I was coming down with a cold in the beginning of the week, but it passed quickly. Boxing on Tuesday was mediocre. There were an odd number of people boxing, so I had to group up with the newbies and help the instructor demonstrate. That meant that I didn't get to do much actual boxing, but I won't complain too much since I was getting over the aforementioned cold. Wednesday afternoon I donated blood. I didn't wind up getting light headed like I usually do when I lose that much blood, so that's a plus. After work I went up to Paul's house and we then went to his pool. Wednesday nights at his pool are 21 and up, and you don't have to be a member (though a member does have to let you in.) So we hung out with his brother, this guy Dylan, and Tracey's sister (a lifeguard) would occasionally sit down with us. Tracey got there a bit late, since she had field hockey that evening. Not much to say here; we went swimming, then we left. It's a pool. What do you want?
Thursday I went up to Tracey's house with the intent to watch a movie, which never happened. I got there as she and her brother were making dinner, then we all got in their hot tub. (Just once I would like to live in a house with a hot tub.) At some point whilst hot tubbing we heard some voice calling for help. It was one of their neighbors; he had fallen down a few stairs and couldn't get up. This guy was old, feeble, and from what I'm told not too mentally stable or nice. Still, Tracey's brother and I hopped the fence and helped him up. This was a long and arduous task; this guy seemed pretty shaken, and didn't want to move that fast. Two middle aged men came by to help, and we got him on his way. Only afterwards did I realize that one of the men who came to help was Tracey's dad; he had just gotten home. I'm not sure what kind of first impression I made there. On one hand, I was helping someone who had fallen. On the other hand, I was in a bathing suit, as was Tracey, and the hot tub was on. I hope that the fact that Tracey's brother was there, and was also in a bathing suit, convinced him that we weren't fooling around in his hot tub.
Friday I went up to Paul's to play poker. Tracey and Danny are good at poker. Paul and I lack skill. I should read up on poker strategy some time before the next time we play. My only real consolation is that we don't play for real money.
Saturday Tracey and I went to the pool in my new neighborhood. I'm not sure how I feel about this pool. On the one hand, it's fairly large, and close. On the other hand, there's no grassy area (it's all concrete,) and there's little area to sit. Later that evening we got dinner at Ricciuiti's and then went to Cold Stone for ice cream. Cold Stone is an interesting place. They follow the logic that people who want ice cream also want to get it at some goofy place... a place that Willy Wonka would design if he were lazy and didn't feel like breeding more Opmpa Loompas. For starters, the people working behind the counter have to sing a little song, of which there appear to be many, every time you give them a tip. From what I can tell the song they choose is mostly random, but I think they may have special ones when the tip surpasses a dollar. Also, they are too crazy to follow conventional size names. Small, Medium, and Large are too straightforward. They don't even go with the big American trend of forgoing Small and having Medium, Large, and Extra Large. They avoid that whole mess and have names like "Like it", "Love it", and "Gotta have it" which make ordering, in my opinion, almost too stupid to be worth the ice cream you get in return. "Hi, I'd like a gotta have it of lobster cheesecake ice cream." Okay, the flavors aren't that bad, but they are somewhat goofy too. One last rant with this ice cream establishment: the actual portions. The bowls they have on display for the various sizes look like they differ by about 25% at the most. I figure, I'm in the mood for ice cream, I may as well get the large, um, "gotta have it." So I get it, and the thing is huge. From what I can tell they fill up the smallest bowl half way for the smallest portion, and for the largest portion they fill up the largest bowl so that you have a 50-50 chance of spilling the thing before you leave the store. I couldn't finish mine, so I threw it out. I was half tempted to drop it in their tip jar just to see if they'd have to sing.
I took Tracey home, then headed down to Laurel. Kevin and I shower (he was coming from work, me from a hot day and a chlorinated pool), separately, and I drive us down to Santa Fe where people were, get this, drinking. Only Kevin forgot his ID and we had to drive back up to Laurel, then down again to the bar. I have a few beers, but don't get shitfaced since I'm the designated driver, and eventually we leave. I'm growing less and less fond of bars, not that anything particularly bad happened there. It's just not my scene.
I'll have to have Tracey come down to the place in Laurel more often, so more of you people can meet her. She's only met Kevin so far, and I'd like her to see the whole spectrum of assholes I hang out with.
Sunday, June 19, 2005
Another weekend
Another two days without work. Really, I consider my weekends to begin Friday nights and end Sunday afternoons. What was that? You don't care?
Friday night Paul and Danny (Pauls brother) and Tracey all came over to play Poker with Kevin and me. Tracey is a friend of Pauls that I met at his graduation party. We played a couple games with no buy in, and one with a $1 buy in. We're big spenders over here. I won no game. I didn't even come in second place in any game. I suck at poker, but I'm learning. Slowly. We'll probably try to play again on Friday, but we'll see. All are welcome, anyway. Before she left I asked Tracey about seeing a movie, but I'm going cronologically so we'll get to that later.
Sunday began slow. I went home to trade cars with my dad so that my brother could have a car to drive that wasn't standard. There's something seriously wrong with my dads car. When you run the AC it smells like something died, and some clear nonalcoholic liquid drips from inside the dash onto your ankles. Still, if you don't run the AC and just roll the windows down instead it's quite the nice ride. I went to the liquour store down the street and customized a couple six pacs for my dad, picking beers I've had at some of these beer tasting festivals. He's been asking me a lot about all the beer we've been brewing and the odd beer we've been trying at the house, so I figured it would make a good fathers day gift. Then, I went up to Catonsville to pick up Tracey. We got diner and saw Batman. If any of you out there haven't seen Batman, see it. Not because it's a great movie; though it is quite good. But rather because it's the first batman movie I've seen that isn't laced with mind-numbingly idiotic conversations between unconvincing characters. It's a real movie. Honest-to-god. Someone's finally done a batman movie well. Anyway, it was a good evening.
Sunday I went home. I wanted to go to the pool, but it didn't get hot enough for me to feel like it was worth it. I didn't go. I did go to Best Buy with my dad so that we could look at routers. They're getting fiber optic internet at the house sometime next month and he's trying to understand what he'll need to do various things. He wasn't to clear about the whole wireless-wired thing at first, nor about the differences between hubs, switches, and routers, but he's a quick learner with computer stuff. I'm not sure why he wanted to go to the store, instead of just talking about it at home. Maybe seeing the products in his hand while I described it made it easier. Around 5 I headed back to the place in Laurel (the town) so that I could give Kevin my pool pass so he and Laurel (the girlfriend) could go to the pool. Kevin's not a member, but he looks enough like me to get by with my pool ID. I doubt they care that much anyway. I came back to my parents place and we had dinner. After dinner we played some poker. Once again I didn't win or come in second, and with only 4 of us playing I guess I should be happy that I didn't lose entirely. I did beat my dad... I guess we're not that nice, my family, not letting my dad win on fathers day. I went out shortly after him, and Jeremy and my mom decided to quit then, my brother having more chips.
I'm probably going to see Tracey again this week. Wendesday or Thursday or something. Who wants to start placing bets on how long I take to screw this up?
Friday night Paul and Danny (Pauls brother) and Tracey all came over to play Poker with Kevin and me. Tracey is a friend of Pauls that I met at his graduation party. We played a couple games with no buy in, and one with a $1 buy in. We're big spenders over here. I won no game. I didn't even come in second place in any game. I suck at poker, but I'm learning. Slowly. We'll probably try to play again on Friday, but we'll see. All are welcome, anyway. Before she left I asked Tracey about seeing a movie, but I'm going cronologically so we'll get to that later.
Sunday began slow. I went home to trade cars with my dad so that my brother could have a car to drive that wasn't standard. There's something seriously wrong with my dads car. When you run the AC it smells like something died, and some clear nonalcoholic liquid drips from inside the dash onto your ankles. Still, if you don't run the AC and just roll the windows down instead it's quite the nice ride. I went to the liquour store down the street and customized a couple six pacs for my dad, picking beers I've had at some of these beer tasting festivals. He's been asking me a lot about all the beer we've been brewing and the odd beer we've been trying at the house, so I figured it would make a good fathers day gift. Then, I went up to Catonsville to pick up Tracey. We got diner and saw Batman. If any of you out there haven't seen Batman, see it. Not because it's a great movie; though it is quite good. But rather because it's the first batman movie I've seen that isn't laced with mind-numbingly idiotic conversations between unconvincing characters. It's a real movie. Honest-to-god. Someone's finally done a batman movie well. Anyway, it was a good evening.
Sunday I went home. I wanted to go to the pool, but it didn't get hot enough for me to feel like it was worth it. I didn't go. I did go to Best Buy with my dad so that we could look at routers. They're getting fiber optic internet at the house sometime next month and he's trying to understand what he'll need to do various things. He wasn't to clear about the whole wireless-wired thing at first, nor about the differences between hubs, switches, and routers, but he's a quick learner with computer stuff. I'm not sure why he wanted to go to the store, instead of just talking about it at home. Maybe seeing the products in his hand while I described it made it easier. Around 5 I headed back to the place in Laurel (the town) so that I could give Kevin my pool pass so he and Laurel (the girlfriend) could go to the pool. Kevin's not a member, but he looks enough like me to get by with my pool ID. I doubt they care that much anyway. I came back to my parents place and we had dinner. After dinner we played some poker. Once again I didn't win or come in second, and with only 4 of us playing I guess I should be happy that I didn't lose entirely. I did beat my dad... I guess we're not that nice, my family, not letting my dad win on fathers day. I went out shortly after him, and Jeremy and my mom decided to quit then, my brother having more chips.
I'm probably going to see Tracey again this week. Wendesday or Thursday or something. Who wants to start placing bets on how long I take to screw this up?
Friday, June 17, 2005
Modest Mouse Concert
I went down to D.A.R. Constitution Hall last night to see the Modest Mouse concert with Tim, Parker, and Leonard. We took the Metro downtown, and on the way there we shared a train with Chevaun, a woman I know through some friends I used to get high with. Haven't seen her in years, though. She seems to be doing well, still talks to Leslie every now and then.
There was some confusion with our seats when we got there (the usher working by us didn't know Section L from her ass, and it was dark so don't blame us) but it got cleared up before Modest Mouse came on. The concert was good, but not great. I felt they had a lot of energy, but didn't channel it well so it just sounded unproduced (yeah I know, it was a live show) and the lyrics were unintelligible. Lots of screaming, which doesn't work well with their style of music. Still, I would see them again. The opening band, whose name I cannot recall but I'm sure Tim could tell you, was also fairly good.
On the way back to Greenbelt, on the green line, I bumped into some guy whom I apparently went to elementary, middle, and highschool with. I can't remember his name, but I don't think I ever hung out with him anyway so I'm not too concerned with that. Nothing interesting to note here, the conversation was that kind of forced you get when you throw two people together who should know each other, but have nothing in common. The more I talk to people who I went to school with, but never hung out with, the more glad I am that I chose to hang out with the people I did, or glad that they chose to hang out with me, or glad that none of the cool people would hang out with me, or something else like that. Highschool cool doesn't really translate to real world cool; I'm under the impression (delusion?) that I am real world cool. Hell, people even read my blog. I'm a celebrity.
There was some confusion with our seats when we got there (the usher working by us didn't know Section L from her ass, and it was dark so don't blame us) but it got cleared up before Modest Mouse came on. The concert was good, but not great. I felt they had a lot of energy, but didn't channel it well so it just sounded unproduced (yeah I know, it was a live show) and the lyrics were unintelligible. Lots of screaming, which doesn't work well with their style of music. Still, I would see them again. The opening band, whose name I cannot recall but I'm sure Tim could tell you, was also fairly good.
On the way back to Greenbelt, on the green line, I bumped into some guy whom I apparently went to elementary, middle, and highschool with. I can't remember his name, but I don't think I ever hung out with him anyway so I'm not too concerned with that. Nothing interesting to note here, the conversation was that kind of forced you get when you throw two people together who should know each other, but have nothing in common. The more I talk to people who I went to school with, but never hung out with, the more glad I am that I chose to hang out with the people I did, or glad that they chose to hang out with me, or glad that none of the cool people would hang out with me, or something else like that. Highschool cool doesn't really translate to real world cool; I'm under the impression (delusion?) that I am real world cool. Hell, people even read my blog. I'm a celebrity.
Sunday, June 12, 2005
having trouble with the whole "title" thing
<disclaimer-speak>
Damnit. I just wrote a huge post, but the keybindings in Firefox are different from Safari and I just erased the whole damn thing. If this post doesn't seem up to par, blame it on that.
</disclaimer-speak>
This weekend went quite far in bringing me back to my normal happy self. I should probably be less dramatic in the future.
Friday night a bunch of us were planning on going out to Santa Fe. Kyle and Katie were coming up from D.C., and I hardly get to see them so I was looking forward to that. Kevin and Laurel were also planning on coming, and so was Karen and some of her high school friends. Everybody but me takes longer than expected to get there, and Kevin called on the way to tell us that they were bringing Amy, Laurels sister, who is 19. That means, of course, that we cannot go to a bar since all the College Park bars are 21 and up. I start thinking that the night is going to suck, because things aren't going according to plan and I like plans. Plans make doing things easier. Breaking plans is worse than not having plans. I need to lighten up. We go to Town Hall to pick up some booze and come back to the old house. We stay in and drink there. After a few beers a bunch of us decide we're drunk enough to walk down to 7-11. I zip up a beer in one of those huggies and we start walking. At the store Laurel buys a couple cans of that aerosol whipped cream, so she and her sister can fight later. I don't know whose idea that was, but I want to shake their hand. When we start walking back Kyle tells me to run to the house, then back to them. I drunkenly oblige. It was about a half mile to the house, and I got there sweaty and hot, so I drop off my shirt figuring I don't want it any more and it will serve as proof that I got to the house. I then run back to everybody. Man am I suggestible while drunk. Later at the house, we're hanging out on the deck, and Laurel and Amy start fighting with the whipped cream. For some reason they decide to attack me, still shirtles. It wasn't a fair fight, but I wasn't so drunk that I would demand a friends girlfriend and her little sister to take their tops off. I am a gentleman. So this gentleman takes those whipped cream cans and start spraying back. It gets messy. At some point during the brawl a can gets launched off the deck. Amy goes for the stairs and Kevin, in his constant attempt to get my pants off, is pulling on them partially to keep me from going over the side of the deck. The only way for me to get that can is to take my pants off and jump off the edge, so I do it. I know it wasn't a good idea, but at the time the 5 beers in me were doing a good job convincing me. So I get the can, and the fight continues. At some point my pants get thrown in a tree, then lost. The party slows down after that, and around 5 in the morning I drive Kyle and Katie up to my place in Laurel (the town, not the whipped-cream-wrestler.) By the way, if you get covered in whipped cream and sweat, take a shower. It will dry and smell like vomit. I took a shower and went to sleep.
The next morning after we all get up I drive Kyle and Katie to Rockville so they can meet up with a friend, and I head home to switch cars with my dad so my brother has a non-manual car to drive over the weekend. I hang out at the pool some trying to get a tan, then head home and get ready for Paul's graduation party. His party was pretty good, lots of people and the conversations were engaging. The party starts to dwindle but stays interesting. We start a couple poker games. I came in third out of five the first game, and the second game I won. Winning at Texas holdem was a new experience for me. We decide we should make it a regular event, poker night, and I hope we manage to do it. Paul's friends seem like decent people.
Today was uneventful, relaxing, and I heard back from my uncle, the physics professor, and he says that he doesn't think the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment has been verified. He sent me to these two pages:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm
and
http://www.tardyon.de/ko2.htm
That's all for now. I'll probably have more by the end of the week.
Damnit. I just wrote a huge post, but the keybindings in Firefox are different from Safari and I just erased the whole damn thing. If this post doesn't seem up to par, blame it on that.
</disclaimer-speak>
This weekend went quite far in bringing me back to my normal happy self. I should probably be less dramatic in the future.
Friday night a bunch of us were planning on going out to Santa Fe. Kyle and Katie were coming up from D.C., and I hardly get to see them so I was looking forward to that. Kevin and Laurel were also planning on coming, and so was Karen and some of her high school friends. Everybody but me takes longer than expected to get there, and Kevin called on the way to tell us that they were bringing Amy, Laurels sister, who is 19. That means, of course, that we cannot go to a bar since all the College Park bars are 21 and up. I start thinking that the night is going to suck, because things aren't going according to plan and I like plans. Plans make doing things easier. Breaking plans is worse than not having plans. I need to lighten up. We go to Town Hall to pick up some booze and come back to the old house. We stay in and drink there. After a few beers a bunch of us decide we're drunk enough to walk down to 7-11. I zip up a beer in one of those huggies and we start walking. At the store Laurel buys a couple cans of that aerosol whipped cream, so she and her sister can fight later. I don't know whose idea that was, but I want to shake their hand. When we start walking back Kyle tells me to run to the house, then back to them. I drunkenly oblige. It was about a half mile to the house, and I got there sweaty and hot, so I drop off my shirt figuring I don't want it any more and it will serve as proof that I got to the house. I then run back to everybody. Man am I suggestible while drunk. Later at the house, we're hanging out on the deck, and Laurel and Amy start fighting with the whipped cream. For some reason they decide to attack me, still shirtles. It wasn't a fair fight, but I wasn't so drunk that I would demand a friends girlfriend and her little sister to take their tops off. I am a gentleman. So this gentleman takes those whipped cream cans and start spraying back. It gets messy. At some point during the brawl a can gets launched off the deck. Amy goes for the stairs and Kevin, in his constant attempt to get my pants off, is pulling on them partially to keep me from going over the side of the deck. The only way for me to get that can is to take my pants off and jump off the edge, so I do it. I know it wasn't a good idea, but at the time the 5 beers in me were doing a good job convincing me. So I get the can, and the fight continues. At some point my pants get thrown in a tree, then lost. The party slows down after that, and around 5 in the morning I drive Kyle and Katie up to my place in Laurel (the town, not the whipped-cream-wrestler.) By the way, if you get covered in whipped cream and sweat, take a shower. It will dry and smell like vomit. I took a shower and went to sleep.
The next morning after we all get up I drive Kyle and Katie to Rockville so they can meet up with a friend, and I head home to switch cars with my dad so my brother has a non-manual car to drive over the weekend. I hang out at the pool some trying to get a tan, then head home and get ready for Paul's graduation party. His party was pretty good, lots of people and the conversations were engaging. The party starts to dwindle but stays interesting. We start a couple poker games. I came in third out of five the first game, and the second game I won. Winning at Texas holdem was a new experience for me. We decide we should make it a regular event, poker night, and I hope we manage to do it. Paul's friends seem like decent people.
Today was uneventful, relaxing, and I heard back from my uncle, the physics professor, and he says that he doesn't think the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment has been verified. He sent me to these two pages:
http://www.bottomlayer.com/bottom/kim-scully/kim-scully-web.htm
and
http://www.tardyon.de/ko2.htm
That's all for now. I'll probably have more by the end of the week.
Friday, June 10, 2005
Time Machine
So, back to my crazy self, I've been thinking about physics. Mainly, quantum physics. I think I've found something wrong with either the theory, or my understanding of it. However if I'm right about this, then we should be able to setup a very simple experiment that violates causality. Still there? Okay, first, some background...
The double slit experiment is fairly simple and has been tested and confirmed. There're details here, and wikipedia does a much better job at explaining it than I could. There's something interesting to note, now. If you place something in front of each slit that sets the spin of the photon (don't worry if you don't understand spin, just accept that it can be set, and then determined later,) and make sure that the spin set by one slit is around a different axis than the spin set by the other slit. Have the detector modified so that not only can you determine where on the detector the photon hit, but also its spin. Doing this will get rid of the interference pattern. The photon can't have two different spins when it's detected, so is must have gone through one of the slits, but not both. Here's the weird part: If you place something after the double slits but before the detector that sets the spin of every photon to be the same, regardless of what it was before, the interference pattern will come back. The reasoning behind this is that since the detector can't determine which slit the photon passed through (the spin set by the slits has been erased by the new spin-setting filter in front of the detector), the photon actually passed through both, and therefore will produce an interference pattern. Oddly, it seems you can erase information, and in doing so you can erase the fact that the information ever existed and any affect that information had on a system.
There's a way to modify the experiment where rather than using a laser and two narrow slits in an otherwise opaque barrier, you split the laser into two beams using a double mirror, then recombine the two beams on the detector. I'll try to describe this process now, since it will make my next suggestion easier to follow:
Imagine you have a square. The top left corner has a laser beam directed at it from further left (the laser is pointing to the right, and is located to the left of the top-left corner). This top-left corner has a half-mirror slanted at a 45 degree angle, so its two sides are facing up-and-right and down-and-left. This mirror will split the laser so that half of it continues along it's original path heading towards the top-right corner of the square, and the other half will be reflected down towards the bottom-left corner of the square. Now, at the top-right and bottom-left corners you place mirrors that redirect the photons to the bottom-right corner of the square. To sum up, the laser starts at the top-left corner of the square and can either go right then down, or down then right, and ends up either way at the bottom-right corner of the square. You place the detector at the bottom-right corner, and you get an interference pattern. This is really the same experiment as the double-slit experiment, except that the paths that the photons can take are more widely separated.
Like in the first example I gave, with photon spin being used to detect which path the photon took, you can place a device called a downconverter along the two paths the photon could take. A down converter converts a photon into two photons with half the energy of the original. One of these photons (called the signal) is sent on the path the original would have taken, and the other (the idler) can be detected. Thus, we can listen for idlers coming from the two downconverters and determine which way around the square a photon went, and in doing so we destroy the interference pattern. That happens because information about which way around the square a photon went is recorded. The photon can't go both ways at the same time since it had to decide at the downconverters if it was either 100% on that path, or 100% on the other path. The downconverter makes the photon decide before the detector which way it went, so its wavefunction can't wait and recombine later at the detector. No wavefunction recombination = no interference pattern.
Here's the odd part: What if we take the two idlers and send them to a double mirror. You can set up the experiment so that once an idler passes through or is reflected off of the double mirror, you have no way of telling which downconverter produced the idler. When you do that, the information about which way the photon went is irrelevant. It could have gone either way around the square, and the results would be the same. When this happens, you get the interference pattern back. That's pretty cool. Even though you know the photon passed through one of the downconverters (earlier, we knew it had some definite spin), it doesn't matter since the path information held by the idlers is erased (earlier, the spin was set to be the same for all photons.) Erasing which-path information can affect the signal photons, even if you don't touch them after the downconverters and only look at the idlers. Somehow the idlers can tell the signal photons whether or not they can act like they took both paths and produce an interference pattern, or if they have to decide one way or the other, and produce two bright spots (one for each path.)
That's weird enough, but it's not that bizarre if you accept quantum entanglement or "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein called it. The real problem is when we start to look at this from a causality perspective. Imagine that we send the idlers along some path that takes a very long period of time, like a second or two. Lets setup a lab on the moon that can either accept the idlers from earth and pass them through a double mirror, or if it wants it can detect each idler independently. If it passes the photons through the double mirror we should see an interference pattern develop back on earth, and if it detects each idler (and the path it took) without erasing the path information, we should just get two bright spots on our detector here on earth. What's wrong here is that we made the observation (interference pattern or no) more than a second before the idlers are detected. Someone on the moon, a second from now, could thus send information back to earth using the photons the earth sent it. The information would travel backwards through time. Increasing the distance a light year or so, and sending a bunch of idlers, we could use Morse code (or any binary language) to send messages from the future when the idlers are detected back to the present when we conduct the experiment.
What if we set up another experiment where the people detecting the idlers have a separate interference-pattern detecting device that sends its idlers back to earth. It'll take a year to get here, and when the idlers do we can decide if we want to produce an interference pattern or not on the detector a light year away and a year in our past. Assuming the people a light year away are nice enough, they could in theory copy the message we sent them and send it back to us. They would do this by looking at the presence or absence of an interference pattern on their end, and combine the idlers we sent them when they detect an interference pattern at their end (thereby inducing an interference pattern at our end), and when they don't see an interference pattern on their end they could detect the idlers we sent them independently (thereby preventing an interference pattern at our end.) This would, in effect, allow us to send messages 2 years into the past.
This, obviously, violates causality. So what's the deal? What don't I understand here? Is it actually possible to send information backwards through time? I'm betting that this is like the perpetual motion machine I designed years ago: it looks good on paper to novices, but once you really understand what's going on it's obvious why it won't work.
The double slit experiment is fairly simple and has been tested and confirmed. There're details here, and wikipedia does a much better job at explaining it than I could. There's something interesting to note, now. If you place something in front of each slit that sets the spin of the photon (don't worry if you don't understand spin, just accept that it can be set, and then determined later,) and make sure that the spin set by one slit is around a different axis than the spin set by the other slit. Have the detector modified so that not only can you determine where on the detector the photon hit, but also its spin. Doing this will get rid of the interference pattern. The photon can't have two different spins when it's detected, so is must have gone through one of the slits, but not both. Here's the weird part: If you place something after the double slits but before the detector that sets the spin of every photon to be the same, regardless of what it was before, the interference pattern will come back. The reasoning behind this is that since the detector can't determine which slit the photon passed through (the spin set by the slits has been erased by the new spin-setting filter in front of the detector), the photon actually passed through both, and therefore will produce an interference pattern. Oddly, it seems you can erase information, and in doing so you can erase the fact that the information ever existed and any affect that information had on a system.
There's a way to modify the experiment where rather than using a laser and two narrow slits in an otherwise opaque barrier, you split the laser into two beams using a double mirror, then recombine the two beams on the detector. I'll try to describe this process now, since it will make my next suggestion easier to follow:
Imagine you have a square. The top left corner has a laser beam directed at it from further left (the laser is pointing to the right, and is located to the left of the top-left corner). This top-left corner has a half-mirror slanted at a 45 degree angle, so its two sides are facing up-and-right and down-and-left. This mirror will split the laser so that half of it continues along it's original path heading towards the top-right corner of the square, and the other half will be reflected down towards the bottom-left corner of the square. Now, at the top-right and bottom-left corners you place mirrors that redirect the photons to the bottom-right corner of the square. To sum up, the laser starts at the top-left corner of the square and can either go right then down, or down then right, and ends up either way at the bottom-right corner of the square. You place the detector at the bottom-right corner, and you get an interference pattern. This is really the same experiment as the double-slit experiment, except that the paths that the photons can take are more widely separated.
Like in the first example I gave, with photon spin being used to detect which path the photon took, you can place a device called a downconverter along the two paths the photon could take. A down converter converts a photon into two photons with half the energy of the original. One of these photons (called the signal) is sent on the path the original would have taken, and the other (the idler) can be detected. Thus, we can listen for idlers coming from the two downconverters and determine which way around the square a photon went, and in doing so we destroy the interference pattern. That happens because information about which way around the square a photon went is recorded. The photon can't go both ways at the same time since it had to decide at the downconverters if it was either 100% on that path, or 100% on the other path. The downconverter makes the photon decide before the detector which way it went, so its wavefunction can't wait and recombine later at the detector. No wavefunction recombination = no interference pattern.
Here's the odd part: What if we take the two idlers and send them to a double mirror. You can set up the experiment so that once an idler passes through or is reflected off of the double mirror, you have no way of telling which downconverter produced the idler. When you do that, the information about which way the photon went is irrelevant. It could have gone either way around the square, and the results would be the same. When this happens, you get the interference pattern back. That's pretty cool. Even though you know the photon passed through one of the downconverters (earlier, we knew it had some definite spin), it doesn't matter since the path information held by the idlers is erased (earlier, the spin was set to be the same for all photons.) Erasing which-path information can affect the signal photons, even if you don't touch them after the downconverters and only look at the idlers. Somehow the idlers can tell the signal photons whether or not they can act like they took both paths and produce an interference pattern, or if they have to decide one way or the other, and produce two bright spots (one for each path.)
That's weird enough, but it's not that bizarre if you accept quantum entanglement or "spooky action at a distance" as Einstein called it. The real problem is when we start to look at this from a causality perspective. Imagine that we send the idlers along some path that takes a very long period of time, like a second or two. Lets setup a lab on the moon that can either accept the idlers from earth and pass them through a double mirror, or if it wants it can detect each idler independently. If it passes the photons through the double mirror we should see an interference pattern develop back on earth, and if it detects each idler (and the path it took) without erasing the path information, we should just get two bright spots on our detector here on earth. What's wrong here is that we made the observation (interference pattern or no) more than a second before the idlers are detected. Someone on the moon, a second from now, could thus send information back to earth using the photons the earth sent it. The information would travel backwards through time. Increasing the distance a light year or so, and sending a bunch of idlers, we could use Morse code (or any binary language) to send messages from the future when the idlers are detected back to the present when we conduct the experiment.
What if we set up another experiment where the people detecting the idlers have a separate interference-pattern detecting device that sends its idlers back to earth. It'll take a year to get here, and when the idlers do we can decide if we want to produce an interference pattern or not on the detector a light year away and a year in our past. Assuming the people a light year away are nice enough, they could in theory copy the message we sent them and send it back to us. They would do this by looking at the presence or absence of an interference pattern on their end, and combine the idlers we sent them when they detect an interference pattern at their end (thereby inducing an interference pattern at our end), and when they don't see an interference pattern on their end they could detect the idlers we sent them independently (thereby preventing an interference pattern at our end.) This would, in effect, allow us to send messages 2 years into the past.
This, obviously, violates causality. So what's the deal? What don't I understand here? Is it actually possible to send information backwards through time? I'm betting that this is like the perpetual motion machine I designed years ago: it looks good on paper to novices, but once you really understand what's going on it's obvious why it won't work.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Jeremy's Graduation
Jeremy just graduated from Springbrook yesterday, so I took off work to go to the ceremony at D.A.R. Constitution Hall. Once we got there and sat down, the Ralphs sat down next to my family. My sister was good friends with Colleen, and they also have a daughter older than my sister, Bridget (my age), and one my brothers age, Emily, who walked in the procession next to my brother... coincidence? I think so. The ceremony was typical for a highschool graduation. Uninspiring speeches by people who will soon probably be flipping burgers at Taco Bell [sic]. At seemingly random points throughout the event people from the crowd would yell their friends names, and sometimes someone on stage would do a little dance or pimp walk or something. Also, people would clap during a musical performance, rather than after, which is typically expected. So people don't know how to act in public: no news here, and nothing changed from 4, 5, or 7 years ago, when I attended other highschool graduations. One thing I thought was funny was that my dad and sister would comment on how rude people were being, and then when they were reading out the names and the graduates were walking across the stage my dad tried to go to sleep. Now, being disrespectful like that is nowhere near the kind of inconsiderate hooting and hollering while whoever's talking/performing on stage that other people were doing, I still found it ironic that he would do it after being so critical of everybody else. Ah well, that's my snobby hypocritical family for you. After the ceremony we went out to dinner at a French bistro, "Mon Ami Gabi" in Bethesda, and not only did I work on a group project in my U.S. government class a year or two ago with the hostess, but I also knew our waiter from a few years back; I used to get high with him. It was kindof awkward being waited on by a guy I'm used to thinking of as a friend (or at least a friendly acquaintance, since we typically only saw each other through mutual friends.) At least he hung out by the table every now and then so we could catch up, and not about the specials they had that day. I was just worried that my parents would make a scene and I would have to wind up apologizing for them at some random party in the future. They behaved. Now I just hope they tipped well.
Monday, June 06, 2005
Pissed off
I'm not sure how to go about describing my current state of mind, but it's not good. I've been pissed off at a lot of people lately and I'm not sure if it's something wrong with me, or them, or both. Most of this has happened since moving into the new house, but I think the roots of it go further back. It's a shame that I don't understand this better. I have a couple guesses as to what's going on. First, it's some kind of hormonal thing, possibly brought on through to my newfound addiction to swimming and lifting weights, that is making me notice things now that would have previously gone undetected, or at least ignored. I'm not so sure that's it, though, since my malaise seems to be directed at specific people, not everybody I see. I guess I could have also hit some kind of tipping point where I'm just tired of ignoring all the stupid shit I have to put up with. An alternative is that I am, in fact, surrounded by people who aren't as decent as I thought. Now I'm not saying that I'm some kind of saint, nor that I'm any better than any of you. I know I can be a jerk sometimes, and I'm working on that. I'm just used to feeling like I'm surrounded by smart, honest, decent people, and now I'm getting the impression that I'm not and it's frustrating. I think this is all compounded by the fact that everybody whom I think really understands me isn't ever around, or even in the state. This isn't the first time I've felt this way, but usually it only lasts a day or so before I revert to my indifferent, coping self. This time, it keeps getting compounded by my interactions, so I'm going to actually try to do something about it. What, I'm not sure, but I'm going to need to affect major change in the way I live my life if I'm ever going to get out of this rut.
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