Category Archives: Brain Bubble

August 27, 2021

BB #75: Gloves and Shoes

Speaking of Bell tests, I’ve noticed that science writers often struggle to find a good metaphor that illustrates just what’s so weird about the correlation between entangled particles. Bell tests are complex, and because they squat in the middle of quantum weirdness, they’re hard to explain in any classical terms.

I thought I had the beginnings of a good metaphor, at least the classical part. But the quantum part is definitely a challenge. (All the more so because I’m still not entirely clear on the deep details of Bell’s theorem myself.)

Worse, I think my metaphor fails the ping-pong ball test.

35 Comments | tags: Bell's Theorem, particles, quantum mechanics | posted in Brain Bubble, Physics

August 19, 2021

BB #74: Which MWI?

By Wyrd Smythe

I finished The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality (2017), by Paul Halpern. As the title implies, the book revolves around the careers and lives of John A. Wheeler (1911–2008) and Richard Feynman (1918–1988). After Feynman graduated from MIT he became Wheeler’s teaching assistant at Princeton. The two men, despite very different personalities, became life-long friends and collaborators.

One of Wheeler’s many claims to fame is his promotion of Hugh Everett’s PhD thesis, The Theory of the Universal Wave Function. That paper, of course, is the seed from which grew the Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

The thing is, there are two major versions of the MWI.

3 Comments | tags: Many Worlds Interpretation, MWI, Paul Halpern, quantum mechanics, Sabine Hossenfelder | posted in Brain Bubble, Physics

August 13, 2021

BB #73: Wavefunction Collapse

By Wyrd Smythe

I’m two-thirds through my second Paul Halpern book this month. Earlier I read his book about cosmology, Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond (2012), which was okay. Now I’m reading The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality (2017), which I’m enjoying a bit more. In part because cosmology has changed more since 2012 than quantum physics has since 2017. (Arguably, the latter hasn’t changed much since the 1960s.)

I wrote about Halpern’s book, Einstein’s Dice and Schrödinger’s Cat (2015), last year. As the title implies, it focuses on two great names from physics. Quantum Labyrinth (as its title also implies) also focuses on two great physics names.

But today’s Brain Bubble (as the title implies) is about wavefunction collapse.

10 Comments | tags: Paul Halpern, quantum mechanics, Schrödinger Equation, wave-function | posted in Brain Bubble, Physics

April 9, 2021

BB #72: Perception of Time

By Wyrd Smythe

As people age, especially later in life, most report that time seems to pass faster. That is certainly true in my case — Mondays I often find myself surprised that it’s already laundry day again. Friends my age report the same thing; the weeks, months, and years, seem to pass at an ever faster rate.

My theory was it’s mainly due to percentages. At ten years old a year is 10% of a lifetime, but at 60 years old it’s just 1.666%.

Recently, a friend of mine floated an interesting alternate theory.

19 Comments | tags: got time, time, time passing | posted in Brain Bubble

February 21, 2021

BB #71: Brain Background

By Wyrd Smythe

Initially I thought, for the first time in the the Brain Bubbles series, I have a bubble actually related to the brain. When I went through the list, though, I saw that #17, Pointers!, was about the brain-mind problem, although the ideas expressed there were very speculative.

As is usually the case when talking about the mind and consciousness, considerable speculation is involved — there remain so many unknowns. A big one involves the notion of free will.

I just read an article that seems to support an idea I have about that.

20 Comments | tags: brain mind problem, computationalism, free will, human brain, human mind, theory of mind | posted in Brain Bubble

January 29, 2021

BB #70: January Bubbles

By Wyrd Smythe

It’s been a while since the last Brain Bubbles post. There remains something undefined in my mind about the Brain Bubbles category, and it’s lately been a way of posting about a bunch of topics too short to be worthy of a post. (I just can’t seem to get into short-form blogging.)

This post is no exception, and I’ll warn you some rants lie ahead — I’m still annoyed by various spammers, but more and more I’m fed up with certain kinds of clickbait I see in my newsfeed. I’ve blocked a few platforms for being sick of their crap.

On a more positive note, I finally bought a humidifier.

13 Comments | tags: die horribly spammers, humidifier, vanish from the earth spammers | posted in Brain Bubble

June 30, 2020

BB #69: Random Bubbles

By Wyrd Smythe

Alas (and also alack), with all that’s been going on lately, my Artistic Muse has temporarily fled (she’s almost as prone to suddenly vanishing as her sister, Lady Luck). As such, I’m not feeling much inspiration towards posting right now.

But my Nine Year Blog Anniversary is nearly here, and I’m determined to publish post #1000 to celebrate it. Pulling that off requires three posts between now and then (not to mention figuring out what to write for post #1000).

So today I thought I’d take care of a bunch of random notes.

13 Comments | tags: D.C. Fontana, Edward R. Murrow, Immanuel Kant, Kurt Gödel, lutefisk | posted in Brain Bubble

May 29, 2020

BB #68: Friday Bubbles

By Wyrd Smythe

I hadn’t planned to post today, but cool things I want to memorize and share continue to accumulate (it’s worse than having to dust — that I can ignore). I already had one Holy Cow! item paired with a So Cool! item, plus another little piece of beko mochi beauty to share.

Then this morning I read an OMG, Yes!! article about actress Michelle Gomez, and then a really touching piece by musician Rosanne Cash. Lastly (technically firstly, as it was the first item added), I have a cute bit of AI research to make you smile.

So once more unto the breach, dear friends,…

3 Comments | tags: AI, C.J. Cherryh, Doctor Who, Dr. Greg House, Dr. Lisa Cuddy, House M.D., Hugh Laurie, language, Lilith Sternin, Margaret Houlihan, Michelle Gomez, Rosanne Cash, Tom Scott | posted in Brain Bubble

May 8, 2020

BB #67: Friday Bubbles

By Wyrd Smythe

I’ve been on something of a mission to crank out posts in an effort to reduce my backlog of drafts and notes. (What’s discouraging is that I just found a pile of notes I’d tucked away and forgotten about. With any luck, most of those ideas will have aged out, and I can trash them.)

Since it’s Friday, I thought I’d burn off a bunch of small ones in a Brain Bubble post. As usual, these are small seeds that never grew into a full post, but I hate to just toss the seedlings.

Today’s theme: Things that annoy me, but only slightly.

12 Comments | tags: Apple Corporation, ear buds, static electricity, tennis shoes | posted in Brain Bubble

February 3, 2020

BB #66: Aspects vs Properties

By Wyrd Smythe

This post, and several that follow, veer into fairly trivial territory. Which, I suppose, is relative. To some, all my posts may be trivial, whereas to me none of them are. At least not totally, although some are less con carne than others. As it turns out, this week I’m serving salads.

More accurately, cleaning out my closet or, even more accurately, collection of — not even half, but — lightly baked post ideas. I’m one who jots down thoughts in case they grow into something interesting. Some do, but others never grow much beyond the seed.

Case in point: the difference, if any, between aspects and properties.

9 Comments | tags: aspect, epistemology, Many Worlds Interpretation, MWI, ontology, property, wave-function | posted in Brain Bubble