On Mon, 16 Feb 2004 20:16:56 -0700, The_Sage <theeSage@azrmci.net>
wrote:

Reply to article by: Michael Gray <fleetg@newsguy.spam.com>
Date written: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 14:14:36 +1030
MsgID:<sqe0309gktotof8s9lbjf51j9vfddme3jk@4ax.com>

I was enjoying it, and mainly agreeing with it, until this mentally
jarring claim stopped me in my tracks:

At this point in time, there is no difference between Alchemy and Quantum
Mechanics. Many modern day sciences started off as fringe sciences (alchemy led

That assertion couldn't be further from the truth if you gave it to
Dubya, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld to re-write!

Quantum Mechanics, in particluar Quantum Electrodynamics is by a long
way the most successful scientific theory to date!

Define success.

Accuracy of predictions.

You don't really believe that, as you prove later on in this post...

Both of those assertions are outright lies.
Your arrogance astounds me.

By the way, science defines success of a theory as the ability to predict new
and never before seen phenomenon.

Get your Greek plurals right lad!
Write "Phenomena" out a hundred times...
I supose "The Sage" is Latin after all.
But self-annointed, it does seem a bit arrogant.
As he proves "later on in this post".
You just don't get the same quality in Sages these days, I find...

Alchemy is not very successful.

Alchemy led to the developement of chemistry so it was very successful.

It made no successful predictions.
I'd call that a dismal success rate.
Having a smart child doesn't make it smart itself.

No one said Alchemy was smart or made accurate predictions, just simply that
without it, chemistry would not exist. Chemistry was the greatest acheivement of
Alchemy.

You both directly and indirectly implied it by asserting that alchemy
is the same as QM.
You can't worm your way out of it with laughably inept sophistry as
that.
You keep repeating the tired canard that "alchemy is the same as QM
because it fathered chemistry".
Even the village idiot can see that the comparison is totally
fallacious.

By *your* previous definition of the success of a theory:
"the ability to predict new and never before seen phenomenon (sic)",
it FAILED UTTERLY!
I repeat: BY YOUR DEFINITION.

By your definition: QED is 100% successful.
By your definition: Alchemy is 0% successful.

And you still claim them to be on a par?
The SAME THING!?!
Gimme a break, will ya?!
My heavy-duty irony meter is already smoking from your previous
response.

Why do you insist on one definition of success for QED, and another
for Alchemy?
Vis:
QED must have make successful predictions.
Alchemy must sire successful disciplines.
(That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer, as do most of the
others reading this)

QED has to make accurate predictions, whereas Alchemy is excused.
That is a fair comparison?

QED *has* made many accurate predictions, in fact EVERY SINGLE ONE OF
Its PREDICTIONS has been supported by physical evidence to the most
exquisite accuracy.

Alchemy made many documented predictions, and THEY ALL FAILED!

That is the nub of the matter, and yet you still assert that they are
the same thing?!?!
Who / What am I dealing with here?
You come across as a reasonably intelligent, but isolatedly
self-educated, and more than a little self-possessed and overly
narcissistic.

The vast sweep of its precise explanations, and its successful
predictions swamp any other theory for volume and accuracy.

Quantum Mechanics still cannot explain the dual-slit experiment -- one of the
key quantum experiments upon which all quantum mechanical theories reside.

Where did you get that idea?

>From actual research into the matter.
"Actual Research into the matter" is a thoroughly evasive and
meaningful response.
I find this sort of response usually comes from someone who wants to
cover the fact that they have had no training whatsoever, formal or
otherwise.

If you had any formal experience or training in QM or QED then I
expect you would be boasting about it way before now.

I have to assume that you looked up your buzzwords on the web.

The only theory that DOES 'explain' it is Quantum Electrodynamics.
And it does so thoroughly, to an exceptional accuracy that has
withstood the most exacting tests.

It has never *explained* it, it only has *described* it. Can QM demonstrate for

Pedantic bullshit.
Explain: "To make plain"
Describe: "To give an account of"
Don't give us any more of this deliberately distracting hair
splitting.

us whether wavefunction is physically real of not? No. Can QM tell us where a
photon disappears to when it goes down both paths of a dual-slit path? No. Can QM

This is such a false account of QM and QED that I don't believe that
you understand what you are regurgitating.
In QM and QED, there is no such thing as a single photon that can go
down one of two paths.
This concept was abandoned by most Quantum Physicists *around* the
1940s, when Richard Feynman proposed an alternative.
If you know as much as you claim, then describe it to me.
In detail.
Not from the web. (I've looked already, its not there.)
Hint: You might have to go to a University Library.
A challenge!
I recall acing you: "Do you understand Quantum Mechanics?"
And your response? "More than you will ever know."
Whatever that meant, apart from a childish boast that would be an
embarrassment coming from an eight year old in a school playground.
Now's the childish braggart's chance to prove it.

tell us what a photon is, if it is neither a wave, nor a particle, nor both a
particle and a wave yet is both? No. Can QM tell us if wavefunctions are real or
not? No. Can QM tell us that if wavefunctions collapse, what are they collapsing
from? No.

You are demonstrating your ignorance there.
Talk to a Professor of Quantum Physics and see what they have to say
about those dated and answered distractions.
I'm not going to do ALL your homework for you!
You've got enough to do with revising your Greek plurals as it is.

The predictions of (QED) have been shown to be accurate to an
astounding level.
It does not make sense to even compare it with alchemy, let alone
claim that they are effectively the same thing!

Take a look at how physicists typically explain the dual-slit experiment, for
example, the ever-popular Copenhagen interpretation: "an unobserved quantum
entity exists in a 'coherent superposition' of all possible 'states' permitted
by it's 'wave function', but as an observer attempts to make a measurement
capable of distinguishing between those states, the wave function 'collapses'
and the quantum entity is forced into a single state". Nobody has ever seen a
wave function and by definition they cannot be seen to exist because they
"collapse", therefore the only way to know that a wavefunction exists, it to
pretend it does by blind faith. Superpositions, collapsing wavefunctions,

Quantum Electrodynamics does not rely on the interpretations you
mention.

Since QED is a subset of Quantum Mechanics, and scientists cannot yet determine

Another lie.
Or it could be a misunderstanding, or born of ignorance.
I'll settle for both.
QED is *not*, repeat: *NOT* a subset of Quantum Mechanics.

if wavefunctions are real or not real, it is impossible for QED to explain what
it describes without interpretation...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_of_quantum_mechanics

2>
This refers to the so-called "Copenhagen Interpretation", which was
current in 1927!
It even explicitly says so in the article you quoted.
Get with it man!
Are you still driving a Stanley Steamer?!
Feynman has removed the need for that.
You really need to update your "Junior Encyclopaedia of Crap"

I don't hold them to be true.
For me, this is a straw man.

Obviously you don't know what you are talking about then...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

What's that noise I hear?
A kind of gushing trickling?
No, that 's the lurkers pissing their pants laughing.
No, its a different sound...
Oh yes, it's my irony meter totally overloading!
Bzzst!#$ 
*I* don't know what I am talking about?!?!
You should go on the stage with an act like that!
Very Funny!
(FYI: I do know a tiny little itty bit about the "Copenhagen
Interpretation". If I told you how, I'd have to kill you though.
Mmm... Thinks to self, how can I tell him?)

nonlocality, and other Quantum Mechanical (metaphysical) constructs don't
actually exist anywhere except on paper.

The same could be said of magnetic fields.
The equations describing them exists only on paper.

But very very much unlike QED wavefunctions, magnetic fields don't magically
"collapse" and disappear when you try to observe them.

Will you give it up about wavefunctions "collapsing" already.
By continuing to do so, you are exposing your outdated ignorance for
all to see.

If you were intellectually honest, you would therefore state
categorically that there is no difference between magnets, gravity
and alchemy?

If you were properly educated in the matter, you would see there is no
comparison between magnetic fields and wavefunctions.

Let's take this one ignorant assertion at a time:
"If you were properly educated in the matter..."
I am properly educated in this matter.
I assume that you are not.
My assumption comes from your astoundingly stupid and puerile response
to an enquiry that I posed the past, Vis:

Q:"Where and when did you study Quantum Electrodynamics?
What qualifications did you get for your studies?"

A: "Prove me wrong and you will prove I don't understand QM. I have
been proving you are wrong. So far you are losing."

Next please?
Oh yes: (and I quote)
"you would see there is no comparison between magnetic fields and
wavefunctions."
Please explain.
Give examples.
I would welcome your sage-like understanding and instruction on
exactly what those respective things are, and why there is no
comparison between them.
Another challenge!

We use QED formulae, even they only exist on paper, because they WORK.

Blind faith works better but it isn't real.

Come again?
By your definition "works better" must mean: "the ability to predict
new and never before seen phenomenon (sic)",
Are you suggesting that "Blind Faith" can do this with superior
results to QED?
Now you MUST be joking?
Please, someone, tell me he *is* "having a lend" of me.
Pulling my leg.
Taking me for a Charlie.
You know what I'm thinking right now...

The results those formulae come up with correspond to reality to an
astounding degree.
No-one really understands why, no-one pretends to, just as no-one
really understands magnetic fields or gravity.

Einstein's theory of general relativity corresponds to reality to an "astounding
degree" too but that doesn't mean it tell us anything at all about what gravity
is made of or what specifically causes things to contract at near-relativistic
speeeds.

The theory doesn't pretend to answer mangles questions, which is what
yours are.
Gravity is not made of anything.
If I can pose an analogy:
Q: Where is 'Running".
A: It's not anywhere. "running" is a process, and activity, not a
"thing".
Similarly, there is no "thing" that "causes" stuff to contract at
speed.
It is a phenomenon, a process, not a thing.
No more than "running" is a thing.
By the way, I actually like (seriously) your mis-typing of the word
"speeeds"

The original proposition was " there is no difference between Alchemy
and Quantum Mechanics"
You have yet to address that dichotomy.
Perhaps you meant "The theory of...".

I will address that issue again, so this time pay attention...

I assure that I shall.

Alchemy relied on all kinds of make believe constructs, like the Philosopher's
Stone in order to work. Likewise, QM has replaced the Philosopher's Stone with
imaginary contructs like always unobservable magically collapsing wavefunctions
and Hilbert Spaces.

Have you completed your degree at the "wikpedia" University?
Your so-called "collapsing wavefunctions", which seem to be the
foundation stone of your understanding, ceased to exist some 30 years
ago, as Feynman showed, with an evidently similar irritation that I am
experiencing now.
"Hilbert Spaces" to the unvitiated are akin to algebra, and sums.
That is the name given to a special mathematical process.
Not a 'thing' that might be imaginary.
If your analogy is correct, then "running" is imaginary, as it doesn't
exist anywhere.

But the predictions and practice of Quantum Mechanics, in particular
QED, has led to some spectacular successes that Alchemy only dreamed
of.
For example: LEDs, Lasers, Optical tweezers, Holograms, Hall Effect
devices, SQUIDs, optical standards, and many more.
You will no doubt be able to add to the list.

Now you are contradicting the definition you gave earlier. You are describing the
success of engineering (to take a scientific idea and make technology from it)
not the ability of QM to predict new and never before seen things.

Now that takes the cake!
These things, and many many more, arose DIRECTLY from the predictions
of QED.
The list is growing each day.
Nearly every new bit of "success of engineering" in the
microelectronics field is a direct result of the accuracy and
predictions of QED.
Where have you been?
Where are you getting your information from?
Take my advice and sack them immediately.
Oh, and start by subscribing to some solid state physics journals.
It's obvious to me that you:
1) Don't get them
2) Don't read them
3) Don't understand them
Although, in your defence, I get the impression that you are capable
of great things, should you remove your mental blocks.**
** You know what they are.

Very much like Alchemy.

Traditional alchemy never came up with a single successful prediction.

Even if it did, would that make it right?

Eh?!?
I don't recall ever suggesting that alchemy was "right".
Paint that one as a BIG distraction from the argument at hand.

Your definition of success of a theory was: oh do I have to repeat it
again?

Traditional alchemy never came up with a single successful prediction.

You never answered the objection.
Evasion noted.
Logged as inability to admit that you were wrong.

Any useful knowledge that it did arrive at was by accident.

We only know that by hindsight, not by foresight.

So, by *your* definition, you admit that alchemy FAILED to be a valid
theory.
It doesn't matter one pinch-o-poop *when* it failed.
It failed.
Hindsight, foresight, whatever.
It failed.
At least we are getting somewhere now.
Or are you suggesting that the timing of recognition of failure of a
so-called theory is of material bearing to it's being called the same
thing as Quantum Mechanics?
Answer please.
Not in Pseudo-Gobbledegook.

It is not at all like Alchemy, except in a pedantically abstruse and
useless philosophical manner.

You have been corrected.

What a thoroughly arrogant and quite incorrect statement.
I most certainly have not.

Do you understand Quantum Mechanics?

More than you will ever know.

I'll take that as an smug and deliberately insulting way of saying:
'yes'.
Where and when did you study Quantum Electrodynamics?
What qualifications did you get for your studies?

Prove me wrong and you will prove I don't understand QM. I have been proving you
are wrong. So far you are losing.

This is in no way an answer to my enquiry.
And you are quite incorrect on your 3 assertions contained therein.

"Proving me wrong"?
Bullshit.
You have been doing a better of job of demonstrating your lack of
understanding than I have been able to so far.

"Losing"?
I had no idea that the search for truth was a contest.

If you are game to give another response, I shall consider it an
evasion of damning proportions should you not provide an answer to the
questions which I have already asked, and had inexpertly dodged, and
therefore will ask again, just in case you are hard-of-reading:

Where and when did you study Quantum Electrodynamics?
What qualifications did you get for your studies?

I think I now know the answer, but I wan't hear it directly from the
arrogantly and apparently inappropriately self-titled:
"The Sage"

The Sage

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