DOCSLIB.ORG

People and Things

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
People and Things People and things Vadim Genrikhovich Knizhnik 1962-1987 tributions to the foundations of On people quantum mechanics, and in particu­ lar for the formulation of the fa­ Jean Saudinos, Deputy Director of mous 'Bell's inequalities', while the French National Saturne Labora­ John Dowel I of Birmingham and tory at Saclay receives the honour Peter Kalmus of London's Queen of Chevalier de I'ordre national du Mary College, and both of the UA 1 merite. collaboration at CERN, jointly re­ ceive the Rutherford Medal and In this year's UK Institute of Phy­ Prize for their contributions to the sics awards, John Stewart Bell of discovery of the W and Z particles CERN receives the Paul Dirac Medal at CERN in 1983. and Prize for his distinguished con­ Ideals and Realities belied - was that someone would start the discussion spontaneously. Now published by World I was sitting at one of Scientific is the second edi­ these long tables next to Di­ Vadim Genrikhovich Knizhnik 1962- tion of 'Ideals and Realities', a rac, waiting for the session to 1987 collection of non-scientific es­ start, when Feynman came says by, or on, Abdus Salam. and sat down opposite. Feyn­ Vadim Genrikhovich Knizhnik, a The first edition (1984) was man extended his hand to­ brilliant young theoretician from translated into Arabic, Chi­ wards Dirac and said 7 am Moscow's Landau Institute, died in nese, Italian, Persian, Ruman­ Feynman.' It was clear from December at the age of 25. A stu­ ian, Russian and Spanish, and his tone that it was the first dent of A.M. Polyakov, he gained under C.H. Lai the new edition time they were meeting. Dirac recognition with his work on exact­ incorporates valuable recent extended his hand and said 7 ly solvable two-dimensional models material, reflecting more fully am Dirac.' There was a si­ and became a permanent staff Salam s deep commitment to lence, which from Feynman member at the Landau Institute in physics, his love for Islam was rather remarkable. Then 1986. and its culture, and his untir­ Feynman, like a schoolboy in ing efforts to promote the presence of a master, science in the Third World. said to Dirac It must have felt Superconducting cyclotron beams In the book, his presenta­ good to have invented that tion at the 1985 particle phy­ equation.' And Dirac said 'But The K800 cyclotron of the US Na­ sics history conference at that was a long time ago.' Si­ tional Superconducting Cyclotron Fermilab recounts how Feyn- lence again. To break this, Di­ Laboratory at Michigan State Uni­ man met the universally ad­ rac asked Feynman 'What are versity has accelerated internal mired Dirac at the 1961 Sol- you yourself working on?' beams of helium 3 and carbon 12 vay Conference. Feynman said 'Meson theo­ to 165 and 660 MeV respectively. 'At the old Solvay Confer­ ries' and Dirac said 'Are you Beam from the electron cyclotron ences one sat at long tables trying to invent a similar resonance source was injected on arranged as if one was going equation?' Feynman said 11 February and after several inter­ to pray. Like a Quaker gather­ 'That would be very difficult.' im trials accelerated to full radius ing, there was no fixed agen­ And Dirac, in an anxious on 22 February. After the very da; the expectation - seldom voice, said 'But one must try.' smooth startup, beam tests pre­ cede the first experimental runs, scheduled for the summer. CERN Courier, May 1988 31 UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD STAFF MEMBERS- THE DEPARTMENT OF NUCLEAR PHYSICS PRINCIPAL and THE QUEEN'S COLLEGE INVESTIGATOR The Physics Division at the Los Titular Lecturership Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) in Experimental Particle Physics invites applications for the position of Staff Member, Principal Investigator Praelectorship and Official of an experimental program to mea­ sure the gravitational acceleration of Fellowship in Physics the antiproton. This exciting project is' the basis for an approved experiment Applications are invited for an official Fellowship and Praelectorship in with an international collaboration at Physics with effect from 1 October 1988 or a later date to be arranged. CERN's Low-Energy Antiproton The appointment will be made by the College in conjunction with the Facility (LEAR). The Principal Investi­ Board of Faculty of Physical Sciences and the title of University Lecturer will be conferred upon the successful candidate, who will be expected to gator will direct all phases of the LANL carry out the normal duties of a University Lecturer and Official Fellow. segment of the experiment as well as The present research programme of the Nuclear Physics Department includes preparation for experiments with the DELPHI detector at LEP interface the LANL effort with the (CERN) and ZEUS detector at HERA (DESY), the measurement of neutrino other collaborating institutions and mass, the search for proton decay and the development of solar neutrino funding sources. and cryogenic detectors. Further details may be obtained from Professor D.H. Perkins FRS, Nuclear Physics Laboratory, Keble Road, Oxford, 0X1 3RH. Among the technical tasks involved Further particulars of the appointment may be obtained from the College are the construction of Penning-style Secretary, The Queen's College, Oxford, OX 1 4AW to whom nine copies of applications (one only from overseas candidates) should be sent to ion traps, the development of ion cool­ arrive not later than 31 May. These should include a curriculum vitae, ing and transport techniques, and the list of publications, and a statement of research interest and teaching construction of ultra-uniform electro­ experience, and the names of three referees. Referees should be asked to send references direct to the College Secretary to arrive by the above magnetic field drift tubes. date. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed in Oxford on the 13th and 14th Applicants should be able to demon­ June. All applicants are asked to indicate a telex, fax or telephone number strate the ability to lead and inspire a where they can be contacted during the period 31 May to 11 June. diverse technical team in a complex, long-term project. Applicants must have an outstanding record of techni­ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE cal accomplishments demonstrated by past performance and evidenced by publications. The position also re­ SENIOR FACULTY POSITION quires the ability to interface with inter­ IN EXPERIMENTAL PARTICLE national research groups. Experience interfacing with funding agencies PHYSICS should be explained if applicable to professional background. RESEARCH POSITIONS Applicants should have a Ph.D. in one IN EXPERIMENTAL PARTICLE or more of the following fields: Atomic, Nuclear, High-Energy, Accelerator, or PHYSICS Low-Temperature Physics. The Physics Department is seeking a senior experimentalist at the rank of Associate Professor (with tenure) or Full Professor. An appointment will be considered in any area of elementary particle physics, including acce­ Los Alamos National Laboratory pro­ lerator, neutrino, and cosmic ray physics, etc. The existing program at vides excellent compensation and UCI includes accelerator experiments at Fermilab, LASL and BNL, studies of proton decay (1MB), neutrino oscillations (SRP), double beta decay, benefits. To apply, submit detailed ultra high energy astronomy (CYGNUS experiment), and gravitational resume to: Richard O. Garcia (MS studies. Planned experiments include studies of solar and astrophysical P205), Employment Group 80085-V, neutrinos and high energy gamma rays. An SSC program is anticipated. The successful applicant will be expected to play a leadership role in the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los existing program and/or contribute a new research area. He or she will Alamos, New Mexico 87545. teach at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Experimentalists for research positions are sought to participate in expe­ riments at Fermilab (Experiment E 760, a study of charmonium formations Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity in antiproton-proton collisions) and the Brookhaven National Laboratory Employer (Experiment E791, a search for separate lepton number violation and for direct CP violation in K° decays), as well as for the 1MB and Cygnus programs. Positions are anticipated for the Sudbury Neutrino Observato­ ry (SNO) and for the Large Cerenkov Detector (LCD) experiment at LAMPF. Appointments at a level from postdoctoral fellow to research physicist are available depending on the candidate's qualifications. Applicants should send a curriculum vitae, a statement of present and University of California future research interests, and the names of at least 4 professional refe­ rences to Professor J. Schultz Chair, Physics Department U.C. Irvine, Irvine, California 92717 An Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. CERN Courier, May 1988 Bakeout of the LEP vacuum chamber with superheated water. LEP progress The first 1.5 kilometre (3x474 m) section of vacuum pipe in the LEP ring has been pumped down to the design level of about 10~11 torr. With these vacua, a high energy LEP electron could circulate for a third of a light year be­ fore running a serious risk of colliding with a residual gas molecule I When operating, synchrotron radiation from the circulating electrons and positrons will affect the LEP vacuum, giving a few 10~9 torr, when the particles' aver­ age undisturbed circulation time would be about a day. The vacuum in LEP's lead- clad aluminium beam pipe is now a permanent feature, and awaits initial test beams this summer. Several kilometres of LEP magnets are how installed in the 27 kilometre tunnel, in line with the goal of having the mammoth machine com­ plete next summer. Mean­ while the huge magnet for the L3 experiment at Point 2 takes shape, and work gets underway at Point 4 150 metres below the surface for final assembly of the Aleph experiment. Staff of the US National Superconducting Laboratory at Michigan State University took advantage of the last opportunity to pose before the concrete wall being built for the K800 cyclotron will hide it from view.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Question of Quantum Reality 24 September 2020
    A question of quantum reality 24 September 2020 virtuality. Bell spent most of his working life at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, and Bertlmann first met him when he took up a short-term fellowship there in 1978. Bell had first presented his theorem in a seminal paper published in 1964, but this was largely neglected until the 1980s and the introduction of quantum information. Bertlmann discusses the concept of Bell inequalities, which arise through thought experiments in which a pair of spin-½ particles propagate in opposite directions and are measured Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain by independent observers, Alice and Bob. The Bell inequality distinguishes between local realism—the 'common sense' view in which Alice's observations do not depend on Bob's, and vice versa—and Physicist Reinhold Bertlmann of the University of quantum mechanics, or, specifically, quantum Vienna, Austria has published a review of the work entanglement. Two quantum particles, such as of his late long-term collaborator John Stewart Bell those in the Alice-Bob situation, are entangled of CERN, Geneva in EPJ H. This review, "Real or when the state measured by one observer Not Real: that is the question," explores Bell's instantaneously influences that of the other. This inequalities and his concepts of reality and theory is the basis of quantum information. explains their relevance to quantum information and its applications. And quantum information is no longer just an abstruse theory. It is finding applications in fields as John Stewart Bell's eponymous theorem and diverse as security protocols, cryptography and inequalities set out, mathematically, the contrast quantum computing.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Copy 2020 11 26 Stylia
    This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from Explore Bristol Research, http://research-information.bristol.ac.uk Author: Stylianou, Nicos Title: On 'Probability' A Case of Down to Earth Humean Propensities General rights Access to the thesis is subject to the Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International Public License. A copy of this may be found at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode This license sets out your rights and the restrictions that apply to your access to the thesis so it is important you read this before proceeding. Take down policy Some pages of this thesis may have been removed for copyright restrictions prior to having it been deposited in Explore Bristol Research. However, if you have discovered material within the thesis that you consider to be unlawful e.g. breaches of copyright (either yours or that of a third party) or any other law, including but not limited to those relating to patent, trademark, confidentiality, data protection, obscenity, defamation, libel, then please contact [email protected] and include the following information in your message: •Your contact details •Bibliographic details for the item, including a URL •An outline nature of the complaint Your claim will be investigated and, where appropriate, the item in question will be removed from public view as soon as possible. On ‘Probability’ A Case of Down to Earth Humean Propensities By NICOS STYLIANOU Department of Philosophy UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL A dissertation submitted to the University of Bristol in ac- cordance with the requirements of the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in the Faculty of Arts.
    [Show full text]
  • Disproof of John Stewart Bell
    Disproof of John Stewart Bell T. Liffert 4th October 2020 Abstract The proof of John Stewart Bell [1] [2] is based on wrong premises. A deterministic model for a hidden mechanism with an parameter λ is therefor possible. This model is possible by an integration of the experimental context into the wave function 1 The basic experiment The following considerations are based on an experiment with a pair of en- tangled photons, each of them meets a polarisation filter. The crucial phe- nomenon consists of the fact, that, if the polarisation filters are adjusted identically, the photons react always identically: Either both will be ab- sorbed or both will be transmitted. For the angular difference Φ between the polarisation filter adjustments the probability, that both photons give identi- cal measurement results, is the square of the cosine of that angular difference (law of Malus)[3]. The set of the possible measurement results is a binary one, it can be referred to by expressions like f0; 1g or f+1; −1g. For later considerations of serie experiments and related expected values I use the set f+1; −1g, for the treatment of the proof variant according to Wigner-Bell I choose the set f0; 1g. I use the following assignments for measurement results and eigenstates • 0 j0i ! 1 • 1 j1i ! −1 May α denote the measurement result of the left photon and β the one of the right photon. The upper proposition for the conditional probability P of identical measurement results given the angular difference Φ one would write like this: P (α = βjΦ) = cos2 Φ (1) 1 1.1 The quantum mechanical doctrine In the literature that I know there is a strict separation between the quantum state jΨi of the pair of photons on the one hand and the experimental context, consisting of nothing more than the angular difference of the polarisation filters or the polarizers, on the other hand.
    [Show full text]
  • John S. Bell's Concept of Local Causality
    John S. Bell’s concept of local causality Travis Norsena) Department of Physics, Smith College, McConnell Hall, Northampton, Massachusetts 01063 (Received 15 August 2008; accepted 6 August 2011) John Stewart Bell’s famous theorem is widely regarded as one of the most important developments in the foundations of physics. Yet even as we approach the 50th anniversary of Bell’s discovery, its meaning and implications remain controversial. Many workers assert that Bell’s theorem refutes the possibility suggested by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) of supplementing ordinary quantum theory with “hidden” variables that might restore determinism and/or some notion of an observer- independent reality. But Bell himself interpreted the theorem very differently—as establishing an “essential conflict” between the well-tested empirical predictions of quantum theory and relativistic local causality. Our goal is to make Bell’s own views more widely known and to explain Bell’s little- known formulation of the concept of relativistic local causality on which his theorem rests. We also show precisely how Bell’s formulation of local causality can be used to derive an empirically testable Bell-type inequality and to recapitulate the EPR argument. VC 2011 American Association of Physics Teachers. [DOI: 10.1119/1.3630940] I. INTRODUCTION theory could be rendered compatible with local causality by following Newton and by denying that the theory in question In its most general sense, “local causality” is the idea that provided a complete description of the relevant phenomena. physical influences propagate continuously through space— This changed in 1905 with Einstein’s discovery of special that what Einstein famously called “spooky actions at a dis- relativity, which for the first time identified a class of causal 1 tance” are impossible.
    [Show full text]
  • In the Dirac Tradition
    In the Dirac tradition The late Richard Feynman - 'a way of looking at things so they appear not so mysterious'. It was Paul Dirac who cast quantum mechanics into the form we now use, and many generations of theo­ reticians openly acknowledge his in­ fluence on their thinking. When Dirac died in 1984, St. John's College, Cambridge, his base for most of his lifetime, institu­ ted an annual lecture in his memory at Cambridge. The first lecture, in 1986, attracted two heavyweights - Richard Feynman (see page 1) and Steven Weinberg. Far from using the lectures as a platform for their own work, in the Dirac tradition they pre­ sented stimulating material on deep underlying questions. (The lectures - 'Elementary Parti­ cles and the Laws of Physics' by Richard P. Feynman and Steven Weinberg - are published by Cam­ bridge University Press.) Richard Feynman When I was a young man, Dirac was my hero. He made a break­ through, a new method of doing tic quantum mechanics. However, cles, then to get the new wave- physics. He had the courage to the puzzle of negative energies that function from the old you must put simply guess at the form of an the equation presented, when it in a minus sign. It is easy to de­ equation, the equation we now call was solved, eventually showed monstrate that if Nature was non- the Dirac equation, and to try to in­ that the crucial idea necessary to relativistic, if things started out that terpret it afterwards. Maxwell in his wed quantum mechanics and relati­ way then it would be that way for day got his equations, but only in vity together was the existence of all time, and so the problem would an enormous mass of 'gear antiparticles.
    [Show full text]
  • Is the Quantum State Real in the Hilbert Space Formulation?
    Is the Quantum State Real in the Hilbert Space Formulation? Mani L. Bhaumik Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, USA. E-mail: [email protected] Editors: Zvi Bern & Danko Georgiev Article history: Submitted on November 5, 2020; Accepted on December 18, 2020; Published on December 19, 2020. he persistent debate about the reality of a quan- 1 Introduction tum state has recently come under limelight be- Tcause of its importance to quantum informa- The debate about the reality of quantum states is as old tion and the quantum computing community. Almost as quantum physics itself. The objective reality underly- all of the deliberations are taking place using the ele- ing the manifestly bizarre behavior of quantum objects gant and powerful but abstract Hilbert space formal- is conspicuously at odds with our daily classical phys- ism of quantum mechanics developed with seminal ical reality. The scientific outlook of objective reality contributions from John von Neumann. Since it is commenced with the precepts of classical physics that rather difficult to get a direct perception of the events cemented our notion of reality for centuries. Discover- in an abstract vector space, it is hard to trace the ies starting in the last decade of the nineteenth century progress of a phenomenon. Among the multitude of revealing the uncanny quantum world in the microscopic recent attempts to show the reality of the quantum domain shook that perception. state in Hilbert space, the Pusey–Barrett–Rudolph With the particular exception of Einstein, who was the theory gets most recognition for their proof.
    [Show full text]
  • Strong Loophole-Free Test of Local Realism*
    Selected for a Viewpoint in Physics week ending PRL 115, 250402 (2015) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS 18 DECEMBER 2015 Strong Loophole-Free Test of Local Realism* † Lynden K. Shalm,1, Evan Meyer-Scott,2 Bradley G. Christensen,3 Peter Bierhorst,1 Michael A. Wayne,3,4 Martin J. Stevens,1 Thomas Gerrits,1 Scott Glancy,1 Deny R. Hamel,5 Michael S. Allman,1 Kevin J. Coakley,1 Shellee D. Dyer,1 Carson Hodge,1 Adriana E. Lita,1 Varun B. Verma,1 Camilla Lambrocco,1 Edward Tortorici,1 Alan L. Migdall,4,6 Yanbao Zhang,2 Daniel R. Kumor,3 William H. Farr,7 Francesco Marsili,7 Matthew D. Shaw,7 Jeffrey A. Stern,7 Carlos Abellán,8 Waldimar Amaya,8 Valerio Pruneri,8,9 Thomas Jennewein,2,10 Morgan W. Mitchell,8,9 Paul G. Kwiat,3 ‡ Joshua C. Bienfang,4,6 Richard P. Mirin,1 Emanuel Knill,1 and Sae Woo Nam1, 1National Institute of Standards and Technology, 325 Broadway, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA 2Institute for Quantum Computing and Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1 3Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA 4National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA 5Département de Physique et d’Astronomie, Université de Moncton, Moncton, New Brunswick E1A 3E9, Canada 6Joint Quantum Institute, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Maryland, 100 Bureau Drive, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20899, USA 7Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91109, USA 8ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain 9ICREA-Institució Catalana de Recerca i Estudis Avançats, 08015 Barcelona, Spain 10Quantum Information Science Program, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada (Received 10 November 2015; published 16 December 2015) We present a loophole-free violation of local realism using entangled photon pairs.
    [Show full text]
  • The Quantum World the Disturbing Theory at the Heart of Reality
    The Quantum World The disturbing theory at the heart of reality NEW SCIENTIST 629462_The_Quant_World_Book.indb 3 3/11/17 12:37 PM First published in Great Britain in 2017 by John Murray Learning. An Hachette UK company. Copyright © New Scientist 2017 The right of New Scientist to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by it in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Database right Hodder & Stoughton (makers) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographic rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, John Murray Learning, at the address below. You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: a catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: on file. ISBN: 978 1 47362 946 2 eISBN: 978 1 47362 947 9 1 The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that any website addresses referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher and the author have no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content will remain relevant, decent or appropriate.
    [Show full text]
  • Physics in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century JOSÉ MANUEL SÁNCHEZ RON
    the world after the revolution: physics in the second half of the twentieth century JOSÉ MANUEL SÁNCHEZ RON The great revolutions of the twentieth the state of movement of the observer, and mass, m, century is equivalent to energy, E (the famous expression E= m·c2, where c represents the speed of light), opened During the fi rst half of the twentieth century—actually, new doors for understanding the physical world. For the fi rst quarter—there were two major scientifi c example, this theory helped explain how it was possible revolutions. Those cognitive cataclysms took place in that radioactive elements (uranium, polonium, radium, physics, and are known as the relativist and quantum thorium) that had been studied for the fi rst time by revolutions. They are respectively related to the special Henri Becquerel (1852-1908) and Marie (1867-1934) and general theories of relativity (Einstein 1905a, and Pierre Curie (1859-1906), emit radiation in a 1915), and quantum mechanics (Heisenberg 1925, continuous manner with no apparent loss of mass. Schrödinger 1926). And then there was the general theory of relativity, which explained gravity by converting space—actually, Relativity four-dimensional space-time—into something curved, Much has been written, and will be written in the and with variable geometry! It was immediately future, about the importance of those theories apparent that, compared to Newton’s universal and their effect on physics as a whole, even before gravitation, Einstein’s new theory made it much easier to the middle of the century. Created to resolve the understand perceptible phenomena in the solar system increasingly evident “lack of understanding” between (it solved, for example, a century-old anomaly in the Newtonian mechanics and the electrodynamics of movement of Mercury’s perihelion).
    [Show full text]
  • User:Guy Vandegrift/Timeline of Quantum Mechanics (Abridged)
    User:Guy vandegrift/Timeline of quantum mechanics (abridged) • 1895 – Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers X-rays in experiments with electron beams in plasma.[1] • 1896 – Antoine Henri Becquerel accidentally dis- covers radioactivity while investigating the work of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen; he finds that uranium salts emit radiation that resembled Röntgen’s X- rays in their penetrating power, and accidentally dis- covers that the phosphorescent substance potassium uranyl sulfate exposes photographic plates.[1][3] • 1896 – Pieter Zeeman observes the Zeeman split- ting effect by passing the light emitted by hydrogen through a magnetic field. Wikiversity: • 1896–1897 Marie Curie investigates uranium salt First Journal of Science samples using a very sensitive electrometer device that was invented 15 years before by her husband and his brother Jacques Curie to measure electrical Under review. Condensed from Wikipedia’s Timeline of charge. She discovers that the emitted rays make the quantum mechanics at 13:07, 2 September 2015 (oldid surrounding air electrically conductive. [4] 679101670) • 1897 – Ivan Borgman demonstrates that X-rays and This abridged “timeline of quantum mechancis” shows radioactive materials induce thermoluminescence. some of the key steps in the development of quantum me- chanics, quantum field theories and quantum chemistry • 1899 to 1903 – Ernest Rutherford, who later became that occurred before the end of World War II [1][2] known as the “father of nuclear physics",[5] inves- tigates radioactivity and coins the terms alpha and beta rays in 1899 to describe the two distinct types 1 19th century of radiation emitted by thorium and uranium salts. [6] • 1859 – Kirchhoff introduces the concept of a blackbody and proves that its emission spectrum de- pends only on its temperature.[1] 2 20th century • 1860–1900 – Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann produces a 2.1 1900–1909 primitive diagram of a model of an iodine molecule that resembles the orbital diagram.
    [Show full text]
  • 0707.0401.Pdf
    J.S. Bell’s Concept of Local Causality Travis Norsen Marlboro College, Marlboro, VT 05344∗ (Dated: March 3, 2011) John Stewart Bell’s famous 1964 theorem is widely regarded as one of the most important devel- opments in the foundations of physics. It has even been described as “the most profound discovery of science.” Yet even as we approach the 50th anniversary of Bell’s discovery, its meaning and impli- cations remain controversial. Many textbooks and commentators report that Bell’s theorem refutes the possibility (suggested especially by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen in 1935) of supplementing or- dinary quantum theory with additional (“hidden”) variables that might restore determinism and/or some notion of an observer-independent reality. On this view, Bell’s theorem supports the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation. Bell’s own view of his theorem, however, was quite different. He in- stead took the theorem as establishing an “essential conflict” between the now well-tested empirical predictions of quantum theory and relativistic local causality. The goal of the present paper is, in general, to make Bell’s own views more widely known and, in particular, to explain in detail Bell’s little-known mathematical formulation of the concept of relativistic local causality on which his theorem rests. We thus collect and organize many of Bell’s crucial statements on these topics, which are scattered throughout his writings, into a self-contained, pedagogical discussion including elaborations of the concepts “beable”, “completeness”, and “causality” which figure in the formula- tion. We also show how local causality (as formulated by Bell) can be used to derive an empirically testable Bell-type inequality, and how it can be used to recapitulate the EPR argument.
    [Show full text]
  • The Age of Entanglement
    CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations A Note to the Reader Introduction: Entanglement 1: The Socks 1978 and 1981 The Arguments 1909–1935 2: Quantized Light September 1909–June 1913 3: The Quantized Atom November 1913 4: The Unpicturable Quantum World Summer 1921 5: On the Streetcar Summer 1923 6: Light Waves and Matter Waves November 1923–December 1924 7: Pauli and Heisenberg at the Movies January 8, 1925 8: Heisenberg in Helgoland June 1925 9: Schrödinger in Arosa Christmas and New Year’s Day 1925–1926 10: What You Can Observe April 28 and Summer 1926 11: This Damned Quantum Jumping October 1926 12: Uncertainty Winter 1926–1927 13: Solvay 1927 14: The Spinning World 1927–1929 15: Solvay 1930 INTERLUDE: Things Fall Apart 1931–1933 16: The Quantum-Mechanical Description of Reality 1934–1935 The Search and the Indictment 1940–1952 17: Princeton April–June 10, 1949 18: Berkeley 1941–1945 19:Quantum Theory at Princeton 1946–1948 192 20: Princeton June 15–December 194 21: Quantum Theory 1951 22: Hidden Variables and Hiding Out 1951–1952 23: Brazil 1952 24: Letters from the World 1952 25: Standing Up to Oppenheimer 1952–1957 26: Letters from Einstein 1952–1954 Epilogue to the Story of Bohm 1954 The Discovery 1952–1979 27: Things Change 1952 28: What Is Proved by Impossibility Proofs 1963–1964 29: A Little Imagination 1969 30: Nothing Simple About Experimental Physics 1971–1975 31: In Which the Settings Are Changed 1975–1982 Entanglement Comes of Age 1981–2005 32: Schrödinger’s Centennial 1987 33: Counting to Three 1985–1988 34: “Against ‘Measurement’” 1989–1990 35: Are You Telling Me This Could Be Practical? 1989–1991 36: The Turn of the Millennium 1997–2002 37: A Mystery, Perhaps 1981–2006 Epilogue: Back in Vienna 2005 Glossary Longer Summaries Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Permissions About the Author Copyright For my father If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is.
    [Show full text]