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Comment Re:The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 1) 148

and there's absolutely no evidence against it.

Well, except for the math being used. You are implying that overlapping states are actually that, instead of just discrete possibilities for one state or another. Schrödingers cat is said to be neither dead or alive. Why? Simply because of the unknown state. It doesnt even have anything to do with atomic decay or whatever, just with the uncertainty provided by a random event generator.
Its even more hillarious when you look at Schrödingers millionaire. Schrödingers millionare is known to play the lottery every week. The chance of winning the lottery is well known, but you dont which numbers he is betting on. The only other thing that you know about Schrödingers millionare is that he will be in the pub every evening. If he wins the lottery he will be in the fancy "Le Pub", otherwise in the "Ye old pub". It is know impossible to know the location of Schrödingers millionaire, its an overlap of probalistic states of either being in "LePub" or being in "Ye old pub". You can however "collapse this function" by "experimental measurement", that is just going to either pub and looking for him. If you find him in "Ye old pub" you will know Schrödingers millionare is, in fact, not a millionare. If you dont find him there you know he is actually a millionaire. Vice versa if you go to "Le Pub" instead.
Assuming Schrödingers millionare is in fact a millionare you will even be able to access unreachable obverserver by collapsing the function, that is by asking the people when Schrödingers was last or first seen in the pub respectivly. You would even know his winning number in that case (assuming the lottery keeps a list of previous winning numbers). This would be equivalent to changing the experiment with Schrödingers cat to have the apperatus releasing the poison include a watch that stops at excactly the moment the poison is released.
From an outside view there is no difference in having an unreachable observer or no oberserver at all. If you actually believe that visiting the pub or opening a box collapses a wave function you also have to believe the other guests or the watch didnt know the real state before you collapsed the wave function.
Obviously you are free to believe your interpretation of the mathematical model used, that electrons actually move through both slits, that the cat is neither dead or alive and that Schrödinger millionaire existed in both pubs but that is obviously not the case since i have unmeasurable drunkions which are experimentaly undetectable reporting directly to me telling me the truth.

Comment Re:The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 1) 148

Simply put, if you extend the slit length, like in an interferometer, you will never detect "half an electron" in either side. So yes, all measurements indicate that every single electron only goes through exactly one slit.
Do an experiment that can somehow detect the presense of a partial electron and i will gladly change my opinion.

Comment Re:The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 1) 148

If the detectors aren't 100% efficient (or not present) any undetected photons will go on to produce the interference pattern - meaning they must have gone through both slits

No. Sorry to be pendantic, but its kinda necessary with stuff like this.
They merely behave like a classic wave. This does not mean the photon (or better a particle like an electron which actually has non-relativistic mass) actually goes through both slits. And barring some duplication or splitting and instant mass teleportation the "moment the universe needs to decide" (the measurement) it doesnt go through both slits at the same time. But paradoxly still behaves like classic wave.

It still is interesting, because (as I understand it) they detected the presence of neutrons only in one arm and their spins only in the other.

Well, they theoretice that. The measurements can only say for certain that a lot more neutrons entered one arm. I mean, if no neutrons entered that arm they might as well have sealed it off completely, after all the only "thing" that went through there are "abstract" properties and those shouldnt be effected by simple matter. Intereference requires that at least a small amount of the wave went through there as well, or in other words, particles at least now and then.

Comment Re:The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 1) 148

If it's like the standard double-slit experiment, each neutron travels through both arms of the interferometer.

Incorrect, quoting wikipedia:

Furthermore, versions of the experiment that include particle detectors at the slits find that each photon of light passes through one slit (as would a classical particle), but not through both slits (as would a wave).

The experiment might have been interesting if the scientists had shot single neutrons instead of stream of multiple neutrons.

Comment Re:The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 1) 148

Because they're scientists with more knowledge of physics than you or me?

I don't understand why you'd automatically assume they haven't measured the same neutron.

Because, quoting the article:

In this experiment, the neutrons pass through a magnetic field to ensure that the spins are aligned in the same direction.

Nice, get a couple of them, guaranteed to have the same magnetic properties. Sounds fine. Lets go on.

They then enter the interferometer where the beam is split so that the neutrons pass down both arms of the device before recombining to produce an interference pattern picked up by a pair of detectors.

Fine. Split them up like a normal double slit experiment. As stated, neutrons in both arms.
But now we have a paradox?

The paradox arises when the team carried out two weak measurements. The first found the presence of neutrons in one arm while the second noted their magnetic properties in the other arm.

As stated above, there are neutrons in both arms. They find evidence of presence of neutrons in one arm (obviously, since they are in both arms) and measure magnetic properties in the other arm (obviously, since there neutrons there as well).
The result is so blatantly obvious. And there is no reason given in the article to assume both measurements apply to the same neutron. Its not like there is an explanation i dont understand, i could live with that, there is no explanation given at all.

Perhaps they have got it wrong; time will tell. I think it's safe to assume that at the very least they remembered to rule out the obvious alternative explanations before publishing.

Perhaps they have ruled out the obvious explanation. In that case the article is utter crap for not mentioning it.

Comment The most insightfull part of TFA (Score 3, Interesting) 148

At issue is whether the result is really paradoxical or simply an ordinary consequence of the way the experiment is set up. For example, perhaps the experiment measures the properties of different neutrons in each of these places.

Personally i dont even understand why those guys are thinking they are measuring the properties of the same neutron.

Comment Re: Dream job (Score 1) 263

This, Samsung, BP, et al. have to pay someone to troll their competitors... Apple gets chumps to do it for free.

What makes you so sure about this?

I have yet to meet a real life apple fan (and yes, i know some people who have pretty much all available kit) that behaves anywhere near as stupid as the common internet troll. Sure, anonymity might have something to do about it, but i really doubt there are that many people who actually care about Apple like a religion.

Comment Re:News flash (Score 1) 470

Obviously there is an example in the first page of the paper. What follows is mostly a direct quote from there.

char *buf = ...;
char *buf_end = ...;
unsigned int len = ...;
if (buf + len >= buf_end)
return; /* len too large */
if (buf + len < buf)
return; /* underflow, buf+len wrapped around */ /* write to buf[0..len-1] */


char *buf = ...;
char *buf_end = ...;
unsigned int len = ...;
unsigned int buf_len= buf_end-buf;
if (len>buf_len) return; /* write to buf[0..len-1] */

There fixed it for ya.

They say they found this code in Chromium, Linux and Python.

If this had been some newb project i would have just frowned. But hearing those levels of incompetence reach so far hurts my head.

Comment Re:News flash (Score 1) 470

Maybe a developer has added logic like this - "if (someBadCondition) int x = 1 / 0;" to force an exception or fault to be thrown.

As opposed to "if (someBadCondition) exit(E_MYBADCONDITION);"? Actually might as well write to a log fire before exiting as well.

But sorry, if a dev actually uses something like in your example he should consider switching to a different job.

Comment Re:Wutend (Score 2) 280

Actually there are better examples from german history.
Under chancellor Bismark Germany had good relations and treaties with most european nations. After he was fired by the young Kaiser Willhelm those ties dissolved and soon after WW1 broke out.
Lesson to be learned, no matter how big you are (and Germany was a lot bigger back then), pissing off everyone isnt a good idea.

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