Lee Smolin Confirms C.S. Lewis’ Prediction

OT:

NIST team proves 'spooky action at a distance' is really real - November 12, 2015 Excerpt: Researchers showed the measured results not only were correlated, but also—by eliminating all other known options—that these correlations cannot be caused by the locally controlled, "realistic" universe Einstein thought we lived in.,,, The research team achieved this feat by simultaneously closing all three major "loopholes" that have plagued previous Bell tests. Closing the loopholes was made possible by recent technical advances, including NIST's ultrafast single-photon detectors, which can accurately detect at least 90 percent of very weak signals, and new tools for randomly picking detector settings. "You can't prove quantum mechanics, but local realism, or hidden local action, is incompatible with our experiment," NIST's Krister Shalm says. "Our results agree with what quantum mechanics predicts about the spooky actions shared by entangled particles.",,, The NIST results are more definitive than those reported recently by researchers at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. In the NIST experiment, the photon source and the two detectors were located in three different, widely separated rooms on the same floor in a large laboratory building. The two detectors are 184 meters apart, and 126 and 132 meters, respectively, from the photon source. The source creates a stream of photon pairs through a common process in which a laser beam stimulates a special type of crystal. This process is generally presumed to create pairs of photons that are entangled, so that the photons' polarizations are highly correlated with one another. Polarization refers to the specific orientation of the photon, like vertical or horizontal (polarizing sunglasses preferentially block horizontally polarized light), analogous to the two sides of a coin. Photon pairs are then separated and sent by fiber-optic cable to separate detectors in the distant rooms. While the photons are in flight, a random number generator picks one of two polarization settings for each polarization analyzer. If the photon matched the analyzer setting, then it was detected more than 90 percent of the time. In the best experimental run, both detectors simultaneously identified photons a total of 6,378 times over a period of 30 minutes. Other outcomes (such as just one detector firing) accounted for only 5,749 of the 12,127 total relevant events. Researchers calculated that the maximum chance of local realism producing these results is just 0.0000000059, or about 1 in 170 million. This outcome exceeds the particle physics community's requirement for a "5 sigma" result needed to declare something a discovery. The results strongly rule out local realistic theories, suggesting that the quantum mechanical explanation of entanglement is indeed the correct explanation. The NIST experiment closed the three major loopholes as follows: Fair sampling: Thanks to NIST's single-photon detectors, the experiment was efficient enough to ensure that the detected photons and measurement results were representative of the actual totals. The detectors, made of superconducting nanowires, were 90 percent efficient, and total system efficiency was about 75 percent. No faster-than-light communication: The two detectors measured photons from the same pair a few hundreds of nanoseconds apart, finishing more than 40 nanoseconds before any light-speed communication could take place between the detectors. Information traveling at the speed of light would require 617 nanoseconds to travel between the detectors. Freedom of choice: Detector settings were chosen by random number generators operating outside the light cone (i.e., possible influence) of the photon source, and thus, were free from manipulation. (In fact, the experiment demonstrated a "Bell violation machine" that NIST eventually plans to use to certify randomness.) To further ensure that hidden variables such as power grid fluctuations could not have influenced the results, the researchers performed additional experimental runs mixed with another source of randomness—data from popular movies, television shows and the digits of Pi. This didn't change the outcome. The experiment was conducted at NIST's Boulder, Colo., campus... http://phys.org/news/2015-11-nist-team-spooky-action-distance.html

bornagain

Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature

Men became scientific because they saw Law in Nature goodusername

It is better to be clear than to be clever. I am in big trouble. I am neither clear nor clever. Mung

Sagebrush How about lightening up a bit you know what's wrong with this world..... Everyone is way too serious. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_83KIChT_FU Andre

Lewis:

In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it.

There are also a few on the side of ID or Creation who believe in a Legislator yet doubt uniformity. daveS

Andre, It is better to be clear than to be clever. sagebrush gardener

aarceng Ever heard of sarcasm? Andre

Darwin never predicted anything based on natural selection. Virgil Cain

No @Andre, This is NOT exactly what Darwin predicted. Darwin never predicted that the laws of nature would change over time. aarceng

What is the difference between a scientist and anyone who applied a lot of thought to their profession? I say nothing. So it doesn't matter what scientists think about save the things they think about just like everyone. A scientist, surely, is a specialist and so only that speciality is what he has anything to say about. Nothing else anymore then anyone else. These days there should be and is a curve on the graphs about higher educated people and God/bible belief. It should be that the more intelligent are more non believers. This because they understand better that claims of God/genesis are great claims and need great evidence behind them. The vast majority of people simply carelessly assume God exists without thinking it through. If everybody thought it through like more intelligent people then possibl;y 80% of the pop would be non believers. Yet the most intelligent people will think it through and conclude there is a God and Christ. Its a curve in the graph. The folks far too much accept what they are brought up in. So scientists should be smarter and more disbelieving except for the smartest ones who believe. Belief in God/Christ is a great belief and should not be done in a careless way. Robert Byers

This is exactly what Darwin predicted. This is what we would expect if evolution is true. Andre