From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Mon Jan 28 2002 - 01:01:53 MST
On 28 Jan 2002 at 1:22, L' Ermit wrote:
> [Joe Dees] Matter and energy have to be conserved, not information.
> Information is comprised of a configuration of matter/energy rather than
> matter/energy itself; Matter/energy can be transmuted, either into the
> other, but not created or destroyed; such conservation laws do not apply to
> information, for no logical or physical exigency demands that the sum total
> of configurational complexity, meaningful or otherwise, must be conserved. I
> can wipe out a detailed, complex sand-mandala into a practically random
> scattering of grains with a few wipes of my hand.
>
> [Hermit] There is such a law, which while an inevitable corollary to
> Heisenberg [Position or spin, but not both] is even more a consequence of
> the principles of quantum theory. Information cannot "evaporate" as
> otherwise I could e.g. figure out the spin of a particle today, and in a
> while work out it's location. In fact, I cannot do that. If I try it, the
> particle will evaporate. Thus the information has to be preserved at the
> quantum level. The question was generalized as the "Black Hole Information
> Paradox" which was one of the millennium physics challenges. Simplifying,
> when a particle in a quantum-mechanically pure state disappears into a black
> hole, its state changes to a thermal one; it now has a particular
> temperature. This constitutes a fundamental violation of the laws of quantum
> theory. Hawking has shown that this violation is resolved by addressing the
> color/location information, and that this must survive the evaporation of
> particles at the event horizon and has also shown that Hawking Radiation
> cannot carry information. So revoking this hypothesis which is now so well
> confirmed that it is regarded as a law, also revokes QM, superstring theory
> (which requires the persistence of information as a precursor) and what we
> currently accept as a workable model for understanding black-holes and
> universe formation.
>
This may apply on the quantum level, but it obviously does not apply on the
macro level at which i destroyed my sand-painting. Heisenberg's Uncertainty
principle states that the information we may simultaneously gain about a
particle's position and momentum cannot exceed a certain multiple of the terms.
More momentum info. means less position info., and verse-vice-a, and this has to
do with the empirical limits to which matter/energy can be pushed to investigate
itself. It was not, as you stated above, about spin, which does not change, but
about position and momentum, which are both changed by the influence of the
measuring light. I see no problem in ascertaining spin and then performing
measurements that give one momentum and/or positional info, with the
heisenbergian constraints that these will be different than they were before the
spin check, and can not be measured to a degree of precision beyond the
Heisenberg quotient.
>
> [Hermit] This is one of those places where QM drives over "common sense"
> with a steam-roller. I suggest that you visit:
>
> [url=http://www.physics.ucsb.edu/~strings/superstrings/][/url]
> [url=http://www.superstringtheory.com/][/url]
>
> for general background and
> [url=http://www.teorfys.uu.se/COURSES/exjobb/paradox.pdf]The Black Hole
> Information Paradox, Keizo Matsubara[/url] For a discussion of this issue in
> particular.
>
> [Hermit] You might also find
> [url=http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/055380202X/thehermit0d]The
> Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking[/url] offers an accessible
> discussion of the issue and Hawking's conclusions.
>
> [Joe Dees] The term "universii" is a contradiction in terms, if we hold to
> the definition of universe as all-that-is. If such a
> nodal-with-axonal-connections thing were discovered to exist, then it would,
> by definition, in its entirety be the universe, and its very discovery would
> be impossible without a transfer of matter/energy, whether informationally
> configured or otherwise.
>
> [Hermit] I think that we are having a disagreement between set theory and
> cosmology. The probable existence of an infinity of universii is an
> inevitable consequence of the fact that superstring theory predicts their
> creation, that their basic laws may be anything (as ours could have prior to
> the first three minutes(Weinberg)) and that within a Universe the laws have
> to be the same (Einstein). So a Universe within a Universe with different
> fundamental laws would be a far greater paradox than another Universe.
>
This may indeed be a problem - with the versions of string theory that propose
such many-worlds solutions.
>
> Regards
>
> Hermit
>
>
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