[FRIAM] two books

[Marcus Daniels]

Speaking as a utilitarian, what bothers me is that entanglement should be impossible.   It says something about the fabric of space time that should be impossible.
If it is not impossible, then there must be some exploitable properties of the universe that need to be investigated because they could be very valuable to exploit them.
Just being content with math that works seems like a failure of imagination.

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of Roger Critchlow <rec at elf.org>
Reply-To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Date: Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 3:05 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] two books

I just finished reading Philip Ball's Beyond Weird, Why Everything You Thought You Knew About Quantum Physics is Different, and while he doesn't really deliver on the book's subtitle, he does a very good job of laying out the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, and its discontents, and the later attempts to reformulate the question.

As one who learned quantum mechanics as a chemist, I have to say that the lack of reality that bothers the physicists never really bothers me.  I don't really care how an electron spreads itself in space to create a wave function.   I get electron densities from the wave function magnitudes, which serve to glue together nuclei of different elements into molecules, and changes of electron densities, which allow reactions to happen.

-- rec --

On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 11:02 AM Ron Newman <ron.newman at gmail.com<mailto:ron.newman at gmail.com>> wrote:
Frank,
And what's your view of "What is Real?", by Adam Becker?  I'm thinking of having a look at it.

Ron
Ron Newman, M.S., M.M.E.
Partner, Caditz-Newman<http://newman.caditz.us>, Smart Infrastructure for Autonomous Vehicles
Founder, IdeaTreeLive.com<http://www.Ideatreelive.com> Knowledge Modeling
Piano<https://www.ronnewmanpiano.com>
Blog<https://blog.ideatreelive.com>





On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 6:40 AM Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com<mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com>> wrote:
We decided that The Road to Reality was unreadable because it's neither here nor there.  It was very Advanced without being mathematical enough.  Kind of like a long badly written Scientific American article.

To make a long story short, we finally read Gauge Fields, Knots and Gravity by John Baez more or less successfully.  The first part of the book covers manifolds, differential forms and, in general, the math you need for general relativity and quantum field theory.  If you want another opinion ask Jon Zingale or Barry Mackichan.

Frank

Or travel back in time and ask Hywel.
-----------------------------------
Frank Wimberly

My memoir:
https://www.amazon.com/author/frankwimberly

My scientific publications:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Frank_Wimberly2

Phone (505) 670-9918

On Tue, Dec 4, 2018, 11:21 PM Nick Thompson <nickthompson at earthlink.net<mailto:nickthompson at earthlink.net> wrote:
Hi, Dave,

Missed this note the first time.  Frank and Hywel had a go at this a couple
of years ago, and I bought the book and tried to join them.  Whew!  It was
at that point I gave up on the notion that I could read anything if I tried
hard enough.  Hywel has since died, but I think there was at least one other
person involved, who, with Frank, might be able to give you some guidance.

Nick

Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
Clark University
http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/


-----Original Message-----
From: Friam [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>] On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2018 10:26 AM
To: friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] two books

I just finished reading What is Real? by Adam Becker. A straightforward
discussion of Quantum Physics and the "Copenhagen Interpretation," and the
arguments surrounding it. it offers an indirect but scathing study of how
science is really done and how far the practice of science is from the ideal
of a "scientific method." Also an interesting discussion of the relationship
between 'science' and 'phi8losophy'. Might be of interest to several
FRIAMers.

Starting to read Roger Penrose's, The Road to Reality: a complete guide tot
he laws of the universe. I would really like some advice / comments from the
mathematicians in the community as to the value of the book and the likely
hood that I might gain sufficient understanding of manifolds, symmetry
groups, etc. etc. to understand some of the conversations on the list and at
the mother church.

dave west

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Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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