It's not a subject I know much about. Can you point me in the direction off the documentary? Thanks in advance.

To be fair, special relativity rules out travel faster than light, since it would lead to the travelling object having more than infinite mass and having a more than infinite time dilation.

But it doesn't rule out instantaneous movement, since this doesn't really involve any motion - in the EPR paradox example, is anything moving at all, relative or otherwise, when the spins are measured?

How do you entangle one photon with another when at least one of those photons existed prior to the entanglement process?

So your argument is that two wrongs (even if one of them is hypothetical) do indeed make a right?

You're mixing up two different definitions of what 'compression' means.

I think I agree with you. I prefer the Copenhagen view as it suggests that we just don't really understand how nature really works (I know I'm reliving Einstein and Bohr's' arguements), whereas the MW seems to close off the debate. Neither are supported by and testable (i.e. disprovable) science.

And there is obviously a revision needed, either fundamental or trivial, to reconcile the quantum and the relativistic theories.

But (and back to my sounding like an indignant Einstein) the newer ideas, such as string theory and loop gravity, are much more ontologically satisfying than quantum mechanics - they make a claim about what is happening in nature rather than just stating abstract maths that seems at odds with logic as well as intuition.

It seems very disappointing that physics ended up in a position where it can't actually describe what the world is like - since around 1930 it isn't possible to describe what is being talked about, even by greatly simplifying it. Can anyone find a laymen's book about Chromodynnamics? About Symmetry and Noether's theorem? About weak interactions? Unless you look at it purely mathematically it isn't really possible to get into these things.

In principle, yes.

Keep in mind that (in the standard QM theory) the waveform describe by the Schrodinger equation is a probability wave - which is to say that the intensity (amplitude squared) of the wave at any one point in spacetime describes the probability of finding the particle at that point in spacetime.

So if you have two waves which meet, and they are exactly 180 degree out of phase, then there will be no point in spacetime that has a non-zero probability and so you won't find any particle anywhere (presumably this can't actually happen, as it would violate all sorts of conservation laws for a particle to suddenly have a zero probability of being anywhere - I suspect relativity will give us a way out here).

If the waves are not exactly out of phase, then you will have places with destructive superposition where the probability is low or zero (hence, the particle will not be found there) but other places where it might be.

What is the consensus on the metaphysical messiness of the many worlds interpretation. I would argue it is the very opposite of Occam's Razor at work - it invokes and assumes so much (new universes being created every plank time) that can't be explained that it seems little better than saying God chooses which measurement will happen.

The principle benefit seems to me to be that it renders the interpretation as being outside of science as it is logically not possible to test a many worlds theory. Whereas logically you could test a waveform theory, we just don't know of any way to do it

For example, there might be a way to measure it using gravity, but we don't have first clue how to manipulate gravity in order to figure this, whereas a many worlds theory doesn't lead to any possibilities, even hypothetical, whereby it could be tested.

So, it seems it's main use is in making the interpretation problem go away.

David Hume has a lot to answer for.

Except, it can't be that simple.

In an atom, you can only describe the electrons in a consistent way if you describe them as being standing Schrodinger waves vibrating around the nucleus. But they are vibrating around the nucleus because they are confined by the electric charge of the nucleus and electrons. That is an interaction, an electrical one between different fermions. Most material interactions are electrical.

So, an atom ought to collapse immediately as the electrons' wave functions immediately collapse and the electrons spiral into the nucleus.

Now you could say that the electrons are not interacting all the time with nucleus, but are confined by it in some way that doesn't include constant interaction. But then the same problem would occur when atoms interact with other atoms, the new electrical interaction with the other atom would cause the electrons' WF to collapse and molecules wouldn't form.

So, if matter is to exist in any real macroscopic way it can't be that ALL interactions cause a waveform collapse.

But if macroscopic interactions (measurements) do cause a collapse, then there must be some demarcation between macro and micro scopic. But what would this be, in a scientifically and ontologically meaningful way?

Our definitions are completely arbitrary. We say subatomic, but we have observed quantum behaviour in things as big as a virus. And a virus interacts macroscopically.

Hence, the well known 'measurement problem'.

If you took all the dollars and pounds and euros, etc. in bank accounts and compared them to all the dollars and pounds and euros as notes and coins, you'd find there was a huge amount more money in the accounts than in the cash.

Most money exists as records in a computer rather than as physical currency.

Have you read 1984?

I agree even more. Really what you want is from half way through series 3 to the end of series 4. Around 30 episodes.

The earlier stuff is largely episodic star-trek style nonsense, and the later stuff is damaged because they tried to setup large stories and then the series finished prematurely so they didn't get to work them through properly.

I'm currently reading "Alas, Babylon" which I am really enjoying - I'm about 1/3rd through it so far.

Just finished "Reamde" by Neal Stephenson, which I enjoyed, but I felt it was about 1/3rd too long for its own good.

My favourite book I've read this year has been "Use of Weapons" by Iain M Banks.

As has been explained several times, if I invoice you for a service, and you pay my invoice (thus, implicitly accepting the agreement), then I have a risk - that you will want me to provide services to the value of the invoice.

The only way out is to have a contract behind the invoice stating the (lack of) activity required to validate the invoice.

But then clearly the author of story is trying to hide the money from management (or more likely, their accountants).

In summary, he is asking an OSS company (or perhaps group of individuals) to take on a load of legal risk.

Also, there is the ethical issue that it isn't his mone to spend. If thheir department has come in under budget, then it isn't his job to decide what to do with the surplus. He is being presumptious in assuming that he should make that decision.