A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.First of all, why "Otherwise" distinguished? Did they lose their distinction because the NYT writer thought the idea was silly? Also, the scientists said nothing about the particle being "abhorrent to nature", in fact, scientists believe higgs bosons are integral parts of all atoms. They are just trying to separate them to see if they exist. And the scientists simply theorized that the particles would move backwards in time, rather then forwards, not that they would "stop the collider before it could make one"
Maybe Bush was better than the alternative choices?Maybe... but if so, then clearly the alternative was a universe-destroying Higgs boson from the future.
The amplifier circuit is in a consistent causal loop--when first switched on, it can permanently assume either 0 or 1 without contradiction. The loop with the inverter, on the other hand, is a simple case of the classical time travel grandfather paradox, a paradoxical causal loop. An input of 1 to the inverter gives an output of 0, which is brought back in time to contradict the input. It takes some quantum mechanics to make sense of the situation, and we will have to say something about how the signals are physically represented. Most digital circuits represent signals as electrical voltages or currents in wires, which is inconvenient because electrons interact with each other and with matter in complex, hard to analyze ways. Some experimental circuits use much simpler space-crossing beams of light . Let's suppose 1 and 0 are encoded as coherent light beams of opposite phase (perfectly out of step with one another--one crests where the other has troughs). In that case a 0 that meets meets a 1, as in the inverter circuit, will simply cancel . Either alternative would have zero net probability, and the circuit (perhaps containing a charged laser, ready to emit a beam) should simply fail to turn on (ignite) at all, somewhat like a ball balanced on a knife edge that, against all odds, teeters indefinitely instead of falling to one side or the other. This is Niven's law at work in the small. The circuit finds itself perpetually in a dark fringe of an interference pattern.posted by empath at 11:14 PM on October 14, 2009 [5 favorites]
This theory is dubious at best, the LHC fails to start once and it must be something from the future that caused it? What the hell kind of logic is that?I don't think that you'll be able to find anyone who doesn't think that the idea is dubious; not even the two physicists who proposed it.
Flunkie: As I read it, or at least read the abundant commentary, their experimental protocol appears to be non-falsifiable. Perhaps the probability of their card trick would be affected, perhaps not if this effect is so broad as to include congressional action. Perhaps they have a good point regarding the calculation of quantum improbability, non-local effects, and imaginary numbers and choose to use a highly misleading and easily misinterpreted metaphor ala Schrodinger's Cat.Their theory is easily falsifiable (assuming it is false). I predict it will be falsified soon. Get LHC up and running at full steam.
For a theory to be falsifiable, it must offer a limited range of predictions. If the theory is so broad as to encompass a magnet quench and a congressional vote, then there are few practical bounds on the kinds of predictions we can make.With all due respect, I think you're missing the point.
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posted by Joe Beese at 2:05 PM on October 14, 2009 [7 favorites]