Posted to the ASA LISTSERV by Burgy
with the permission of Peter Zoller-Greer
---------- Forwarded Message ----------
From: INTERNET:Composia@aol.com, INTERNET:Composia@aol.com
TO: (unknown), burgy
DATE: 4/5/2000 7:44 AM
RE: Re: PERSPECTIVES, March 2000, your article
Hello Dear John,
First of all: Special thanks for your interest in my article. I'm glad for
any response, since this is the only way to learn...
Now to your remarks:
You wrote that from the "viewpoint" of the photons there is "no time" since
the photons are moving at the speed of light. That's a very remarkable
thought I didn't think about myself. According to Einstein's theory of
relativity you're right. An object that moves from a location A to B with the
speed of light wouldn't experience any time loss during its trip. On the
other hand, according to the same theory this is only possible for massless
particles, since the mass would become infinite at the speed of light (and
therefore all energy in the universe could not "drag" them to light-speed).
So when I am talking of "later" I am talking about the observer's spatial
system. An in this system there surly is a "before" and an "after". And as I
said in the article, our problem seems to be that there is an event here and
now ("after") which "influences" the past ("before"). This is consistent with
the mathematical description by quantum physics of the whole experiment. But
it is incomprehensible with our "common sense", since the law of cause and
effect seems to be reversed.
But let's turn back to your argument. The problem I see with your
argumentation is that experiments of that kind (like Scully's) can and were
performed not only with light particles, but also with "real" matter like
electrons or even with molecules. And in these cases one can't argument with
"no time loss" from the viewpoint of these particles, because since such
particles have a mass they surely don't have light-speed in these
experiments. Maybe you know that the "classical" two-slit-experiment was also
performed with electrons instead of photons, and the strange behavior was the
same as with light. So in these cases there definitely is a "later" even for
the corresponding particles themselves. But if this is so - one can really
talk about past and present regarding all involved parts of the experiment.
At the most there is a relativistic difference, but the general problem of
"before" and "after" is there for the particles as well as for the
observers...
I hope I could answer your question. So thank you very much for your mail. If
you have any further questions or remarks to my argumentation, please tell me
- I would appreciate it.
God bless you!
Peter.
Prof. Dr. Peter Zöller-Greer
University of Applied Sciences
Frankfurt am Main, Germany
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