Via quantum mechanics? (New understanding of charge transport reveals an exotic quantum mechanical regime (that cannot be explained by the standard model):
Caltech scientists for the first time have developed a way to predict how electrons interacting strongly with atomic motions will flow through a complex material. To do so, they relied only on principles from quantum mechanics and developed an accurate new computational method.
Studying a material called strontium titanate, postdoctoral researcher Jin-Jian Zhou and Marco Bernardi, assistant professor of applied physics and materials science, showed that charge transport near room temperature cannot be explained by standard models. In fact, it violates the Planckian limit, a quantum speed limit for how fast electrons can dissipate energy while they flow through a material at a given temperature.
Robert Perkins, California Institute of Technology, “New understanding of charge transport reveals an exotic quantum mechanical regime” at Phys.org
How about?: The Standard Model is terrible—until you compare it to string theory and the multiverse
See also: Post-modern physics: String theory gets over the need for evidence
and
The multiverse is science’s assisted suicide
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
I’m confused at this post, What does this have to do with intelligent design, or comparing it to string theory and multi-verse?
Wooden finding holes in the standard model be counterintuitive to intelligent design
There are many holes like this in quantum physics that the standard model can’t exactly explain
But I’m not sure quite the point of this one
I generally take it as a bad thing because anytime a whole is found in the standard model we get wild series of the multi verse in string theory models that will attempt to explain it immediately
And these holes often are used to validate these theories
So I was just wondering if somebody could give me a explanation on that and the point of this post
I’m not being rude I hope nobody takes me as being rude
I think we see a lot of references on UD to the weirdness of Quantum effects with the idea that Darwinism, for example, declares all kinds of certainties about physical constructs but they are actually all subject to doubt.. But once that happens, as you said, it fuels speculations about a multiverse, and also some will deny the principle of causality, which really puts an end to science and rationality.
As I see it, ID is really based on the standard model. As quantum theory shows more “exotic” results it becomes more difficult to equate certain effects with intelligent design.
I think posts like this assume (maybe correctly?) that the purpose of ID theory is really to undercut and falsify Darwinism. But if quantum theory alone destroys the Darwinian mechanisms, then most of the discussion around ID is not necessary.
Sometimes, it seems to me, that a Darwinian claim is met with something like “yeah, but quantum effects are so weird you don’t know what you’re talking about” and that basically puts an end of Darwin.
As I think you’re pointing out, it doesn’t do much for ID really, but if the purpose is to clear out all of the stupid claims of Darwinian theory, then whenever we find a “hole” in the standard model of physics, that does the job well-enough (I suppose?).
The fallout from that is support for a multiverse concept. I don’t see how ID can have anything to say about a multiverse – it’s unobservable.
For myself, I’ve taken a lot more interest in Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy which really give the slam-dunk proofs against materialism, even with a multiverse, than ID can do.
As I see it, ID is a very good refutation of Darwinism because it uses the same terms and models as evolutionary science. But if those traditional evolutionary concepts are refuted by physics, then ID really isn’t needed for that any more.
As far as I can see, this has nothing to do with “the standard model of the universe”, it’s about the standard model of how electrons move through materials:
This doesn’t have much of anything (other than being based on QM/QFT) to do with either the standard model of Big Bang cosmology or the standard model of particle physics.
First a little background: The standard model grew out of the success of Quantum electrodynamics (QED)
And QED unifies special relativity with quantum mechanics,,,
Whereas the ‘renaissance’ of Quantum Field Theory (QFT), which led to the Standard Model, is the result of the combination of classical field theory, quantum mechanics, and special relativity. To wit “The Standard Model successfully describes all fundamental interactions”
Thus to rely only on quantum mechanics in order to make accurate predictions for fundamental interactions in a material, i.e. strontium titanate, is to find another hole in the standard model which, among other things, supposedly successfully describes all fundamental interactions”
This is not a minor hole to find in the standard model, which is not to say the other holes found in the standard model are not also very troublesome: To wit: “it (the standard model) leaves some phenomena unexplained and falls short of being a complete theory of fundamental interactions. It does not fully explain baryon asymmetry, incorporate the full theory of gravitation[3] as described by general relativity, or account for the accelerating expansion of the Universe as possibly described by dark energy. The model does not contain any viable dark matter particle that possesses all of the required properties deduced from observational cosmology. It also does not incorporate neutrino oscillations and their non-zero masses.”
Of supplemental note:
Richard Feynman (and others) were only able to unify special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics by quote unquote “brushing infinity under the rug” with a technique called Renormalization.
One of the more interesting facets of “brushing infinity under the rug” in QED is that, interestingly, “Although quantum field theory is fully compatible with the special theory of relativity, a relativistic treatment of quantum measurement has yet to be formulated.”
That is to say, although they unified special relativity and quantum mechanics together in QED by “brushing infinity under the rug”, this unification between special relativity and quantum mechanics into Quantum Electrodynamics has come at the unacceptable cost of leaving the entire enigma of Quantum Measurement on the cutting room floor.
Quantum measurement is precisely where conscious observation makes its presence fully known in quantum mechanics.
And since there would be no reality for us in the first place unless there is first conscious observation of that reality then, as should be needless to say, to leave measurement on the cutting room floor is simply completely unacceptable for any theory that purports to be the right step towards a ‘theory of everything’.
BA77 @ 4:
Again, that’s not the “standard model” they’re talking about here. There is more than one thing called “the standard model”, because there’s more than one thing that people model. There’s a standard model of this, a standard model of that, a standard model of the other thing…
The standard model that’s being talked about here is a perturbative approximation to compute how electrons interact with the matter they’re passing through. From the article:
So, they found a situation where the standard computational approximations didn’t work well, and found a new approximation that works better (at least in this situation). This has nothing to do with fundamental physics.
Back to BA77:
There’s no credible evidence that consciousness has any special status in QM. The various effects that’re sometimes claimed to show that conscious observers are special also work with non-conscious observers (i.e. measuring equipment), and in fact are usually demonstrated that way. Bell theorem tests are normally done with non-conscious observers, so are delayed choice experiments (including the quantum eraser versions), so are quantum zeno effect tests, etc.
If you want to claim that conscious observation is special, you at the very least have to explain why non-conscious observation has the same effects. But even if you do that, you’ll have to explain why you think it’s different from non-conscious observation… even though they have the same effects.
My observations are special in this respect to me, and yours are to you, and the same is true for everyone else. But that doesn’t mean that any of our observations are special in any non-subjective sense.
Folks, take these as a reminder that physics etc and science in general are works in progress. Science is never truly settled and is always full of anomalies and unsettled questions, whether condensed matter physics (seemingly the focal technical question in the OP) or cosmology or quantum theory and relativity, which drive the frames of thought. KF
after I laid out the overall history of the mathematical formulation of the Standard Model of particle physics, Gordon Davisson claims that
Really??? I note that Gordon did not specify exactly which other standard model that he thought they were talking about:
I’ll give him a hand. Here you go Gordon, tell us exactly which other standard model you think they are talking about:
Next Gordon gives his ‘this is not the standard model’ bluff away with this,
But then Gordon doubles down and states this whopper
OH MY GOSH! You just can’t make this stuff up. Gordon, directly after quoting extensively from the article itself about the exact ‘fundamental physics’ involved,,,
After citing that, again Gordon had the audacity to state
Well golly gee whiz, I guess, instead of fundamental physics they must instead be talking about the price of tea in China. 🙂
But seriously, Gordon’s post is, as usual for atheists, pathetic.
They were trying to extend “the mathematical formulation of the Standard Model of particle physics” so as “to predict how electrons interacting strongly with atomic motions will flow through a complex material”. As they state in their paper, this “remains an open challenge. ”
And as they themselves stated in the article in the OP, in order to make ‘accurate’ predictions they relied ONLY on quantum mechanics and found that “charge transport near room temperature cannot be explained by standard models.”
Bottom line, when they tried to extend “the mathematical formulation of the Standard Model of particle physics” so as “to predict how electrons interacting strongly with atomic motions will flow through a complex material” they failed and were only able to make accurate predictions by using quantum mechanics alone.
And again, this is yet another gaping hole that is found in the standard model of particle physics, and is yet another blow against its claim to be a correct step towards the theory of everything:
Gordon, goes on to state,
Contrary to what Gordon, as an atheist, wants to desperately believe beforehand, there is a EXTREMELY tight correlation between defining attributes of the immaterial mind, (i.e. consciousness), and the experimental results that are now being obtained from quantum mechanics:
Gordon then claims
Quantum mechanics itself could care less what Gordon wants to believe beforehand. This recent 2019 experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment established that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.
Bottom line, Gordon either purposely, or through ignorance, has made major and serious errors in the claims of his post. If he had any integrity he would admit his mistakes, apologize, and move on. But alas, he is an atheist first and foremost, evidence to the contrary be damned, so he is extremely unlikely to admit his serious mistakes since to do so is to, basically, concede that his atheistic worldview is false.
BA77
You made that very clear – thank you. They’re talking about “the Standard Model of particle physics”. The observed effects “cannot be explained by standard models” so they used quantum mechanics.
BA77 @ 7:
Actually, I did; you just missed it (probably because it doesn’t use the phrase “standard model”). Here’s the section of the article I quoted:
The “simple perturbative approaches” mentioned here — that’s the standard model in question. If the fact they’re not explicitly called “the standard model” bothers you, go read the full paper. You’ll find that the phrase “standard model” doesn’t appear anywhere in it. In fact, the word “standard” isn’t even there. “Model” is mentioned a number of times, but — funny thing — it’s mostly in relation to models of electron motion in solids (there’s also one mention of a “model Hamiltonian”). It refers to the Holstein model (their reference 3: “Studies of polaron motion: Part II. The ‘small’ polaron”) and the Fröhlich model (reference 4: “Fröhlich polaron and bipolaron: recent developments”)… but there’s no reference to the standard model of particle physics.
Take a look at the “Research areas” listed as related to the paper: Electrical conductivity, Electron-phonon coupling, Polarons, and Transport phenomena. It’s all about solid-state physics, which is a whole different field from particle physics!
Read the “Conclusion” section of the paper:
Again, nothing there about the standard model of particle physics; we’re purely in the land of solid state.
For contrast, let’s take a look at some actual particle physics. Here’s a diagram of the particles that make up the standard model. Do you see anything about phonons or polarons? Nope, because those aren’t part of the standard model of particle physics. Phonons and polarons are quasiparticles, higher-level (emergent) phenomena that arise from interactions of the more funtamental particles.
So, no, it’s not about the same thing at all. You are completely out to lunch here.
If you’re still so deep in the Dunning-Krueger fog that you think I’m wrong, I have a suggestion to settle this: one of us could email one of the authors and ask them.
Now, let me turn to the question of a special role for consciousness in QM. Quoting BA77 again:
I tried to make it through this once, but I gave up. It’s basically a Gish gallop of misunderstandings, misrepresentations, and wishful thinking. (Note: I’m not accusing you of dishonesty; I’m sure you honestly believe all of this. It’s just all wrong.) Let’s take this latest example:
Did you actually read the research paper referred to? Hint: they didn’t use conscious observers (in fact, two of the observers were basically just photons), so the effect has nothing to do with consciousness. From the paper (with my emphasis added):
And:
This fully supports what I said earlier:
…but I guess I need to add another qualification to that last paragraph: you have to first face the reality that these experiments are actually done with non-conscious observers.
Gordon, trying to save face, claims that ” It’s all about solid-state physics, which is a whole different field from particle physics!”
BALONEY! Solid-state physics studies how the large-scale properties of solid materials result from their atomic-scale properties. And if you try to claim that the standard model is not about ‘atomic-scale properties’ you are living in a fantasy land.
Moreover, If the standard model cannot be extended into solid state physics, (as the paper showed, and which Gordon is, ironically, trying to claim) , then that directly underscores the main point that I was trying to make in that the standard model is “NOT” the correct first step towards a ‘theory of everything’ as it is currently believed to be by many in the physics community, i.e. Sabine Hossenfelder for example, and is of extremely limited utility beyond the most basic of particle interactions.
Gordon, then, once again, (I think he has claimed this four or five times now), tries to say that the measuring device, all by its lonesome, can be the observer, yet, the measuring device is an inanimate object that cannot possibly make ‘decisions’ as to what it will measure or when it will measure. And our free will decisions as to how to set up the measuring device figure centrally in quantum mechanics
As Steven Weinberg explains, In the instrumentalist approach (in quantum mechanics) humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level.,,, the instrumentalist approach turns its back on a vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.,,, In quantum mechanics these probabilities do not exist until people choose what to measure,,, Unlike the case of classical physics, a choice must be made,,,
In fact Weinberg, an atheist, rejected the instrumentalist approach precisely because “humans are brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level” and because it undermined the Darwinian worldview from within. Yet, regardless of how he and other atheists may prefer the world to behave, quantum mechanics itself could care less how atheists prefer the world to behave.
As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”
The Kochen-Specker theorem undermines atheistic determinism in the most fundamental way possible in that “it would not even be possible to place the information into the universe’s past in an ad hoc way.”
As well, with contextuality we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”
Moreover, although there have been several major loopholes in quantum mechanics over the past several decades that atheists have tried to appeal to in order to try to avoid the ‘spooky’ Theistic implications of quantum mechanics, over the past several years each of those major loopholes have each been closed one by one. The last major loophole that was left to be closed was the “setting independence” and/or the ‘free-will’ loophole:
And now Anton Zeilinger and company have recently, as of 2018, pushed the ‘free will loophole’ back to 7.8 billion years ago, thereby firmly establishing the ‘common sense’ fact that the free will choices of the experimenter in the quantum experiments are truly free and are not determined by any possible causal influences from the past for at least the last 7.8 billion years, and that the experimenters themselves are therefore shown to be truly free to choose whatever measurement settings in the experiments that he or she may so desire to choose so as to ‘logically’ probe whatever aspect of reality that he or she may be interested in probing.
Moreover, here is another recent interesting experiment by Anton Zeilinger, (and about 70 other researchers), that closed a technical loop-hole and insured the complete independence of the measurement settings in a Bell test by using the free will choices of 100,000 human participants instead of having a super fast randomizer determine the measurement settings (as is usually done in these quantum experiments).
Thus regardless of how Steven Weinberg and other atheists, (such as Gordon), may prefer the universe to behave, with the closing of the last remaining free will loophole in quantum mechanics, “humans are indeed brought into the laws of nature at the most fundamental level”, and thus these recent findings from quantum mechanics directly undermine, as Weinberg himself stated, the “vision that became possible after Darwin, of a world governed by impersonal physical laws that control human behavior along with everything else.”
(Since Gordon has been a big champion of decoherence in the past) Of supplemental note to decoherence:
The following video explains why decoherence does not solve the measurement problem: The irresolvable problem of deriving the “Born rule” within the MWI is discussed at the 4:30 minute mark of the following video,
As well, Steven Weinberg himself rejects decoherence:
As well, at the 16:34 minute mark of the following video, the reason why detector interference does not give a coherent explanation of why the quantum wave collapses is explained (i.e. observation changes the nature of what we are observing not just the activity of what we are observing):
Moreover, if decoherence really explained the measurement problem, then how is it even remotely possible that a photon is able to survive all the way to detection at the retina? The following paper found that the human eye can detect the presence of a single photon, the researchers stated that “Any man-made detector would need to be cooled and isolated from noise to behave the same way.”,,,
Moreover, they are seeking to “probe our understanding of quantum reality” by using human eyes themselves as detectors.
I am extremely confident that the results of using humans themselves as detectors, will be, as the experiments always have been in quantum mechanics, extremely disappointing for atheistic materialists:
Okie dokie, back to Gordon’s claim that the “standard models’ mentioned in the paper is not the standard model of particle physics:
Gordon claims:
So are “simple perturbative approaches” part of the standard model of particle physics or not?
Yes they are:
etc.. etc.. etc..
You would think that Gordon would try to save himself this embarrassment over and over again and do a little research first?
Oh well.
BA77, you’re still way way way off base here. I’ll try to explain why you’re talking nonsense, but I doubt I’ll be able to get through to you, so I emailed Marco Bernardi (the corresponding author of the research paper) asking for an authoritative answer. If he answers, I’ll post it here.
Meanwhile, I’ll take a quick skim through what you’ve said:
By that standard, chemistry would be part of the standard model of particle physics. So would all of material science, and fluid dynamics, and…
You’re also wrong about the standard model being about “atomic-scale properties” — it’s about SUBatomic particles, not composite particles like atoms. No, I’m not living in a fantasy land, I just have some idea what the standard model is actually about.
Let’s review the connection between the charge transport research and the standard model of particle physics. The analysis of charge transport directly involves electrons, phonons, and polarons. Electrons are (as far as we know) elementary particles, and are directly part of the standard model (again, here’s a diagram), but their properties are very well studied & understood (at least at the level they’re relevant here). If the standard model were wrong enough about electrons for it to affect charge transport, we’d have known about it for a long time.
Photons (note: phoTons, not phoNons) (also part of the standard model) are also fairly directly involved, since they (in the form of the electromagnetic force) mediate the interactions between electrons and the atoms in the crystal (as well as between the atoms). But like electrons, they’re well studied and understood, and not where the the standard model might be wrong.
The other directly-involved players, phonons and polarons, are quasiparticles with no direct connection to the standard model. They are epiphenomena that arise from interactions between the atoms and/or electrons. But not from atoms as individuals, but from the entire crystal acting as a (complex) unit. The crystal is made of atoms, but it’s really the crystal / bulk properties level that’s relevant here.
And even if we step past that to the atom level, they still aren’t part of the standard model. Atoms are made of electrons and a nucleus.
Nuclei are made of protons and neutrons, but even those are still not part of the standard model!
The things that make up protons and neutrons, quarks and gluons, finally are part of the standard model. But we’re something like 5 levels of structure away from the phonons and polarons that’re the main concerns of the charge transport analysis!
A replacement for the standard model might do something like explain baryon asymmetry (totally irrelevant to charge transport in crystals), unify it with gravity and the graviton (also irrelevant), extend it to include something like sterile neutrinos (also irrelevant) or supersymmetric partners of the standard particles (still irrelevant)… So in addition to the charge transport analysis being pretty far separated from the standard model, the the parts of the standard model that’re likely to change are also pretty far from the parts that’re at all relevant to charge transport.
But the problems for your claim don’t end there, because the type of “model”s used in the paper are a bit different from what the standard model is. The models in the paper are computational models — techniques for doing computations about physical situations that’re too complex and messy to compute out in full detail. Doing full brute-force simulation of the quantum dynamics of systems involving many components (e.g. large numbers of atoms) is out of reach of direct computation (at least until quantum computers get much better), so we have to simplify the problem to the point we can actually run the computation. Different models — different ways of simplifying the problem — work better or worse for analyzing different things. What they’ve done in the new research is to find a new computational model that works better for a situation where the standard models — the usual ways of doing the simplification — didn’t work well at all.
The standard model of particle physics, on the other hand, isn’t oriented toward making computations tractable. It’s about describing the elementary particles, and their relations and interactions with each other.
In your next comment, #12:
Nope. They are a class of mathematical techniques which can be used in a variety of contexts. They certainly can be — and are — used with the particles that make up the standard model of particle physics, but claiming that makes any subject they’re used on part of the standard model is just plain silly.
Ok, let’s turn to the question of QM and consciousness. Your reply at #10 was basically your usual Gish Gallop of wrongness. But this time I do need to accuse you of dishonesty, because you’re using it to distract from the fact that you were clearly and unambiguously wrong about the Wigner’s friend experiment. You held it up as showing that conscious measurement has a special role in QM, but it actually used non-conscious observers. Worse for you, it was based specifically on a theory that doesn’t distinguish between conscious and non-conscious observers.
And it worked.
It gave the predicted results, despite substituting non-conscious observers for the conscious kind.
So, rather than getting distracted by the smokescreen you’re throwing up, I’ll repeat the challenge I gave at the end of my comment #9 in more direct form:
1) Are you able & willing to admit that the Wigner’s friend substituted non-conscious observers… and still worked?
2) Can you explain why it worked despite substituting non-conscious observers?
(Ok, I’ll admit the second question is easy… if you understand the principles involved. But if you understood them, you wouldn’t have cited it in the first place. So the real point of this part of the challenge is: how good is your understanding the principles here?)
Well golly gee whiz, whom am I going to believe, G.D. or the reference that says,,, “We explain the use of Feynman diagrams to do perturbation theory in quantum mechanics. Feynman diagrams are a valuable tool for organizing and understanding calculations.”
G.D. accuses me of throwing up a smokescreen when I pointed out that the free will loophole was closed. That is laughable. G.D. is the reigning king of bluff and bluster. In actuality the free will loop-hole being closed is simply devastating to his atheist worldview. The smoke he sees is his cherished, but meaningless, atheistic worldview being blown to smithereens
Moreover, G. D. proves he does not really understand quantum theory. He quoted this as somehow being antagonistic to my position:
Apparently unbeknownst to GD, this is part of the measurement problem,
GD, I may have been a bit hasty in the first part of my critique of your denial that involved the standard model. I now see that you put much thought and effort into clarifying exactly why you think they were not talking specifically about ‘extending’ the standard model. I apologize for my hastiness in dismissing your concerns. I will genuinely be interested in the co-authors response if he makes one.
But still, I don’t think the answer is nearly as clear cut as you think: To repeat:
The thing GD, is that the ‘standard model’, and Feynman diagrams in particular, is basically ‘built up’ from a combination of QM and special relativity. Thus for them to use only quantum mechanics is a dead give away that they subtracted an important part away from their apparently hybrid model for phonons/electrons that they were originally trying to use.
Again, this is not nearly as clear cut as you seem to believe.
Of note, “The Standard Model is far more than elementary particles arranged in a table.” And is of no comfort to atheists