Quantum computing

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
There are levels of understanding, if you were a philosopher you would know this. I am not interested in the mathematics, i have already stated this, i am interested in the concepts. The great Einstein himself used many fine illustrations, of sitting in rooms with pretty ladies to explain his idea of relativity, it is not necessary for the layperso ...[text shortened]... ptual basis of their idea so that those who are not initiated into its intricacies can grasp it.

The link explains one of the concepts and not just the maths so I don't know what you are talking about here.
You are talking out of your ass.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
no offense but your site is essentially useless for the layperson. Even the site that I originally cited is considerably better despite its errors.

In other words, it is beyond your understanding. But not to people that are smarter than you. You not understanding it doesn't change the fact that it explains one of the concepts. It isn't just pure mathematics as you seem to think.
The uncertainty principle IS a concept.

Originally posted by humy
In other words, it is beyond your understanding. But not to people that are smarter than you. You not understanding it doesn't change the fact that it explains one of the concepts. It isn't just pure mathematics as you seem to think.

There are many levels of understanding and many things i do not understand, but it has nothing to do with being smarter, otherwise i could cite my chess rating as evidence that I am smarter than you, chess being a logical and cognitive intellectual exercise. If you were a philosopher you would know this, but you are not so you make the erroneous assumption that equates the assimilation of knowledge with intellect unaware that it takes little talent to identify a thief once captured. Have you never read Stuart Mills essays on the nature of genius?

Originally posted by humy
The link explains one of the concepts and not just the maths so I don't know what you are talking about here.
You are talking out of your ass.

sigh insults the sign of a truly weak and beggarly argument. The site that I cited is vastly superior in terms of introducing the layperson to the concepts of quantum mechanics despite its inaccuracies.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
There are many levels of understanding and many things i do not understand, but it has nothing to do with being smarter, otherwise i could cite my chess rating as evidence that I am smarter than you, chess being a logical and cognitive intellectual exercise. If you were a philosopher you would know this, but you are not so you make the erroneous ass ...[text shortened]... dentify a thief once captured. Have you never read Stuart Mills essays on the nature of genius?

There are many levels of understanding and many things i do not understand,

yes.

Originally posted by humy

There are many levels of understanding and many things i do not understand,

yes.

Sooooo you are telling me something I knew already, gee thanks for that.

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
Sooooo you are telling me something I knew already, gee thanks for that.

my name isn't Sooooo 😀

Originally posted by robbie carrobie
There are many levels of understanding and many things i do not understand, but it has nothing to do with being smarter, otherwise i could cite my chess rating as evidence that I am smarter than you, chess being a logical and cognitive intellectual exercise. If you were a philosopher you would know this, but you are not so you make the erroneous ass ...[text shortened]... dentify a thief once captured. Have you never read Stuart Mills essays on the nature of genius?

The difficulty is that the conceptual framework is unavoidably mathematical. The problem of measurement is quite extreme in quantum theory. This is built into the mathematical theory using things called commutator brackets - algebraic objects which encoded the difference between orderings of measurements. If one makes a position measurement followed by a momentum measurement then the result is different from the measurements with the observations reversed, the difference is proportional to Plank's constant. One obtains the uncertainty principle from that. It is very difficult to gain any understanding of quantum theory without understanding the mathematical framework.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The difficulty is that the conceptual framework is unavoidably mathematical. The problem of measurement is quite extreme in quantum theory. This is built into the mathematical theory using things called commutator brackets - algebraic objects which encoded the difference between orderings of measurements. If one makes a position measurement followed b ...[text shortened]... lt to gain any understanding of quantum theory without understanding the mathematical framework.

The Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn't have much to do with measurement (as in wavefunction collapse), but is simply a statement following from the wave nature of the wavefunction. The uncertainty principle holds even in a system where the time evolution is deterministic.

Originally posted by DeepThought
The difficulty is that the conceptual framework is unavoidably mathematical. The problem of measurement is quite extreme in quantum theory. This is built into the mathematical theory using things called commutator brackets - algebraic objects which encoded the difference between orderings of measurements. If one makes a position measurement followed b ...[text shortened]... lt to gain any understanding of quantum theory without understanding the mathematical framework.

Very good. Let me just add a few things:
1 - sometimes variables do commute (kinetic energy and momentum for instance) and that in those cases the commutator vanishes.
2 - and what is this commutator that these strange people are speaking of. The commutator is a mathematical operation that picks up two mathematicl objects and calculates AB-BA. Well AB-BA=0 if A and B are numbers (or functions, or vectores, etc.) but for some mathematical objects that multiplication operation isn't commutative and AB-BAis different than 0 (incidentally the same behaviour does occur in classical mechanics if one uses a more complex mathematical machinery).

I also believe that without some mathematical formalism quantum mechanics isn't learned. Even if one seems literate while talking about it, one only seems literate while talking about it.

As important (or even more important) than a little bit of mathematical knowledge is the ability to solve exercises. And this is valid for everything not just quantum mechanics. If you can't solve the exercises (naturally exercises that are adequate to the subject matter) than you don't understand it.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The uncertainty principle holds even in a system where the time evolution is deterministic.

Like for example systems described by the Schroedinger equation (which is a deterministic partial differential equation).

As long as a phenomenon is described by a proper wave packet than somekind of an uncertainty principle will hold.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle doesn't have much to do with measurement (as in wavefunction collapse), but is simply a statement following from the wave nature of the wavefunction. The uncertainty principle holds even in a system where the time evolution is deterministic.

I always thought it was the other way around - that the wave nature arose from the uncertainty principle.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I always thought it was the other way around - that the wave nature arose from the uncertainty principle.

Theoretically, there are several options for the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, and it is possible to take the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as one of them. Another option is to define the momentum operator in a certain way, and derive the Heisenberg uncertainty principle from it. So in that sense, you are right. But from a more empirical perspective, the wave nature of particles is just a fact of nature, from which Heisenberg's uncertainty principle also follows.

Originally posted by adam warlock
If you can't solve the exercises (naturally exercises that are adequate to the subject matter) than you don't understand it.

Although I agree that you won't have a full understanding of something without being able to do the math, I still think a rudimentary understanding of various physics is obtainable without it.
For example, most of us have an intuitive understanding of waves, or gravity, without necessarily knowing the equations or the math. Someone could explain reflection of waves, or even refraction without any math whatsoever.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Although I agree that you won't have a full understanding of something without being able to do the math, I still think a rudimentary understanding of various physics is obtainable without it.
For example, most of us have an intuitive understanding of waves, or gravity, without necessarily knowing the equations or the math. Someone could explain reflection of waves, or even refraction without any math whatsoever.

I also agree with you. I really do. The key word that you use there is rudimentary.

But I was actually stressing two points that you seem to be conflating into just one point (if not accept my apologies):

1 - A thorough understanding of Physics needs math (there really is no way around it). A theory like Quantum Mechanics is very mathematical in nature and you have to dabble in it in order to fully apprehend what's going on.
2 - You know that you know something when you can apply it. That's why I said that you have to able to solve exercises (again exercises that are adequate to one's exposition to the subject matter)

If one's missing in those two points the knowledge acquired is, like you said, rudimentary. And there's nothing with that.