Carlo Rovelli, Physicist
Rating= ♥♥∑ƒ∞√ ( a bit involved ) !
This last monday, January 16th 2012, Catherine participated to a very interesting discussion at the Institut de France, about Carlo Rovelli’s new interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM). Here is her field report of this event.
The discussion was led by the great physicist and Templeton price Bernard d’Espagnat and were present physicists, philosophers and personalities with some interest beyond pure physics. The theme of the day was to discuss in depth he the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics that physicist Carlo Rovelli has recently proposed to the scientific community.
Carlo was present at the discussion, but his theory was presented by a young philosopher. Here is a small summary of what Catherine understood ( sorry Carlo if it is not completely complete, but I will make it as simple as possible) .
The discussion was about the EPR paradox. EPR stands for Einstein, Prodolsky, Rozen, and the paradox was suggested by the EPR team to the scientific community at the beginning of the century in order to shed light on one of the most astonishing properties of QM, namely non locality. Suppose two particles are entangled into a single quantum state at time zero. Say those two particles are constituted of one electron and one positron (a positive electron) which are entangled in a singlet of spin. At later time we split the pair and the electron is sent to the left and the positron is sent to the right. Now two observers are present, Alice ( to the left) and Bob ( to the right). Alice observes and measure the spin of the electron and she finds one result (spin up). Now Bob, who stands to the right, far away form Alice, has no idea about what is the result that Alice has obtained. If Bob makes an independent measure of the spin of the positron he will find that his result is precisely the opposite of the one of Alice. But Bod and Alice didn’t talk, didn’t exchange information. Everything happens as if the quantum system itself had kept a memory of the time when it was entangled : the spin of the positron sort of “remembers” that its electron companion, now very far away, had the opposite spin with it. Since the electron and the positron are now far away form each other, we say that there is a non local correlation of information between the two, or we say, in simpler words that this property denotes the non locality of quantum mechanics. Einstein didn’t believe that this property would ever be observed, since he wanted until the end of his life QM to be deterministic, and in that sense he was proven wrong by numerous experiments, the last in date, and definitive one, being the one of Alain Aspect.
Recently Carlo has proposed a very interesting new interpretation of QM which put in perspective the notion of observer and observed. In very short, Carlo advocates that the notion or proper states per se of QM doesn’t exist without relation to an observer. Namely you cannot say anymore that a particle is in state |α> anymore, but you have to say that the particle is in the state α as observed by observer O; we note this |α>O. This simple shift of concepts enables him to give a very elegant interpretation of the EPR paradox. Suppose Alice make her measurement first. When Bob makes his own measurement, it is believed in the usual theory of QM that Bob knows nothing about Alice’s findings. But Carlo says this is not true, Carlo says that when Bob makes his measurement, since Alice has already made her own, Bob knows “something” about Alice’s results and as such his own measurement will be corrupted with Alice’s one. In a sense the system Alice + Bob itself is entangled in time, and the measurement of Alice will influence the one of Bob.
To understand in greater depth what a revolution it is one has to come back to the notion of what is a measurement. Typically, a measurement, is made by an observer which is a classical object. By classical,we mean a big enough object having roughly 10 ^23 particles, or 10 0000000000000000000000 ( 23 zeros should be there) particles. Any kind of measure apparatus in you house has at least this number of particles. It is believed that classical systems such as this one behave classically. If two such systems are sufficiently far away in space, there is separation, and it is impossible for one observer to know what the other one is doing without contact through a physical force. What Carlo is telling us, is that even big classical systems Alice and Bob are not fully separated, that they remain entangled, even for a very very very tiny bit.
In Carlo Rovelli’s interpretation of QM , total separation doesn’t exist, all the objects of the universe are entangled, although sometimes it is for a very very tiny portion of all the information they carry. Roger Balian told me he came to the same conclusion with his own interpretation of QM.
I find extremely enlightening that two very bright and most respected scientists of our time do find new interpretation of QM which seems to go in the same direction of the perennial Truth of non dual Traditions : we are all One.
If you would like to be an author on this blog, please send us an e-mail,; we will be happy to welcome you in the Kosmic Bureau…
Creative Evolution 
It seems to me that with the Alian Aspect experiment, we still have determinism. If the e- and e+ are two wave-loops braided together and entangled with each other, when one particle-wave entangles with a measuring instrument, the other wave is going to be, by mechanical necessity, of the opposite handedness. A
wave is actually the interaction of right and left handed electromagnetic energy, as we know from the fact light is polarized. When a wave interacts with mass, one side of the wave collapses into the mass leaving the other side of the wave deployed. Since fermions, such as an the electron/positron pair, have mass, they too can collapse into an atom, which if connected to a measuring device record the energy impulse and its handedness thus identifying it to be a e- or e+.
As an EM wave, it cannot be told which wave is right handed or left handed. The only way to separate e- form e+ is interact them with a mass which causes one side or the other to collapse. Once EM wave collapses into a mass, it is possible to separate e- form e+. As a deployed wave the two spins are are identical. it is only when you entangle a wave with a mass that one side of the wave or the other collapse. The other handedness remains deployed and should it be subsequently collapsed through an entanglement of its own with another separate measuring instrument, will always be the chiral counterpart of the first.
This can be modeled. If you take two sections of rope and braid them together, the flat ropes now becomes wavy, they develops frequency and srings rotate around each other. This is the deployed state of the wave and is analogous to an electromagnetic wave, or binary e- and e+ entangled particles. (Note: In this view, particles are bound and condensed EM waves.) If the wave entangles with a mass (the measuring instrument), the e- (or e+) will condense into the energy system of the entangled mass depending on whether the mass is real or anti-matter mass. If for example we have created a binary pair of e- and e+ (through particle decay), and we collapse the e- side into a real mass atom in the measuring device, the other particle e+ remains entangled but deployed. Should that deployed e+ particle entangle with a measuring device it will always be the chiral opposite of the first particle that got entangled. This is why the Aspect experiment only works with waves/particles that are conjoined in the same quantum system.
This is completely deterministic and non-paradoxical when seen in this manner. What has been missing is the proper structural paradigm of a wave, be it a boson wave (a radiant wave) or fermion (a localized wave). The problem with QM is that it does not have a proper understanding of structure. It has not seen the fact bosons are nothing more (or less) than deployed fermion wave energy, and the reverse, that fermions are in fact condensed boson wave energy.
In this physics, the supposed missing anti-matter is total present and accounted for. Since all energy and matter are states of electromagnetic energy having a right and left handed rotations, Field Structure Theory shows us that if we recognize that the right handed rotation of the EM wave is labeled positron and the left handed side electron when the e- side of the wave set collapses, it forms the electron and when the right handed side collapses the wave forms the positron. This is KTS (known to science). What hasn’t been recognized is that when the positron subsequently collapse due to energy saturation, it comes a proton. The proton has the same handed as the positron but is vastly more energetic because when the positron collapses all but one unit of the original EM wave set is taken with it and condensed into a tight domain 6 powers smaller than the deployed Em wave. That is why the frequency of the proton is so much more energetic than the positron. All this can be structurally modeled.
The idea that the viewer is involved is not necessary. The particles know what to do without a viewer having to know what’s going on. The universe has been working this way a long time before anyone looked into the process. The universe can get along fine without us. We have the privilege of observing and the opportunity to entangle ourselves in the process, but it is my humble view whether we are here to see it or not the tree still falls in the forest. We are special only in that we can be the witness, but process is not going to await on our involvement.
Dear field structure, I feel most of our readers will need some introduction to field structure theory to be able to appreciate your comment. Why don’t you post to us the most simple possible summary of what field structure theory is and how it does interact with the main stream science. Do it very simple, so that we can follow.
Ok, field structure, let’s go slowly in the discussion so that non specialists can try to follow us. What you want to debate in your answer is the need for an observer. This I didn’t completely get. I mean : if you do physics or any kind of science, one needs an observer. In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum Mechanics, the observer is a classical system, which means that it is alone, disentangled with any other classical system.
What is it in your interpretation ? is it that the observer doesn’t exist ? that the observer is classical, like in the the Copenhagen interpretation ? or that the observer, although classical is not dis-entangled with other objects and with the world in general ?
Let’s try to go very very slowly here so that ideas are appear in their original beauty !
Love, C.
Dear Catherine, what an immense joy to see that you are starting a blog!! It is a real gift to the world. I am immediately fascinated by what you are writing even though at this point I do not dare to respond to it. My interest is awakened again and I am totally inspired to pick my study up and focus on this immensely interesting field. Thank you so much for writing and looking forward to your next posts!! Love Liesbeth
Love C.
My interpretation of Copenhagen is that the world at the atomic and particle scales are just as deterministic as they seem to be at our medcro sale (human scale: 10-4 to 10+4). I’ll try to explain as succinctly as possible. Here is why?
As I see it, the quantum mechanics in 1920 came to the conclusion that momentum and position could not be know concurrently, because of the mathematics and the underlying geometry being used. Not having a clear conception of structure, they relied on the structural notions that are rooted in Euclidian and Cartesian geometry. These geometries stipulates lines of action meet at points and intersect. It uses points having no dimension. Intersecting vectors means two or more things converge, conjoin and transmute into a third thing at which the two (or more) lines that intersected in the first instance are no more. The have become something else.
Meanwhile, my study indicates nature never intersects, never losses connectivity with the past, or with the future. Nature interacts rather than intersects. This changes everything, as they say. This means lines of action are not destroyed and do not lose their integrity when they interact. They adjust, adapt, and accommodate, but they do not terminate. Seeing no geometry based on interaction, I have developed a geometry called, “Structural Skew Topology”. Form building is through the interaction of action loops. The loops, which are lines of action, have dimension. The loops build hierarchies of interaction by looping and twisting, the two things that can be done with a loop. Structure is produced and maintained by the topology of the interacting loops. They produces a new family of three-dimensional forms and at the same time introduce “structure” as a consideration in form.
With appologies, at this point, to make any sense I have to get somewhat technical and specific. Without being able to show the actual working 3-D models that illustrate each assertion, it may not be possible to follow the word description, never the less, I’ll try.
What loops interact in three-dimension without intersecting, fields are produced. These fields have of quantifiable energy and mass qualities. These forms are called “Fieldstructures”. They are made entirely of twisted loops. Energy is added by twisting the loop and mass is added by looping the loop. Each loop has a fixed number of twist which is the square of the number of loops in the structure. When the models are build, it is found that the momentum and position can be known. The loops tell us the position and the twist tell us the momentum. By knowing the number of loops and number of twist, you know momentum and position. That is why this way of modeling quantum events is more exact and deterministic than quantum mechanics, which can only generalize about position and momentum by considering the probabilities of a large number of events, the more the number the better the prediction but it is never discrete.
For that reason quantum mechanics in spite of its incrediable success has prevented physics unification because it has made determinacy impossible which makes it impossible to model structure. Hence we have no make sense model for particle and atomic structure. We still puzzle over what an electron or a nucleus looks like. The best thing that happened to physics is equally the worse thing that happened to physics since it denied us a structural model.
Fieldstructures can determine where an electron is in the electron cloud surrounding the atom simply by knowing two variables. Surprisingly Fieldstructures reveal that the electron(s) in the atomic cloud has multiple positions at any given instant. Each position is where the electron can be found. The number of places it can be found is a function of the energy in the system. This phenomenon is called “Multiple Certainties”. It means the electron of a certain energy has an exact number of positions it can be in the atomic cloud and no others. Where something is, is not effected by anything other than the energy in the system. If an observer puts energy into the system, of course, the system readjusts and positions everything according to the new energy dictates.
Also because these Fieldstructures are entanglements of interacting loops, the question is do we humans in our effort to conduct experiments, put energy into the system or not. If we do, we change things. If we can be the silent detached observer, then our input is of no consequence.
Does all this make make any sense?
Don
Don, with all due respect I feel it is almost impossible for our reader to understand you… what do you call for example a localized wave? maybe it would be really good to write a post that we could discuss together, defining all the concepts.
Let me reformulate the question a bit differently. You say your theory field structure is a deterministic quantum theory. Now suppose you do a measurement on he spin of an election along the axis z. According to the laws of quantum mechanics, once the measurement is done the indeterminacy of the spin on the other axes is huge, almost infinite. How do you account for this infinite indeterminacy with your deterministic theory ? David Bohm was advocating one hidden variables, that we don’t’ see but are around, so save determinism. Do you have also hidden variables ?
Love,C.
You are right! How to keep this simple enough so that a reader of the blog will be able to understand?
Dear Moo and Don, actually I am learning like all of us with this issue of simplicity and communicating interesting ideas. A friend ( A.M. ) just suggested that for a start, we put some spices on our blogs to indicate the difficulty level. Maybe it is a good idea… ? as far as Field Structure Theory is concerned, I feel an important point is to put the context and give some perspective. In the simplest way possible. For example, Don claim that Quantum Mechanics (QM) got it wrong. Well this may be true of course, and two scientists mentioned in this post ( Carlo Rovelli and Roger Balian) are at the moment re-visiting the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics of last century. The point though is that QM is a Mammoth, a very very big Mammoth to which most of the biggest brains of the last century gave some thought. I mean the feathers of QM are still considered among the greatest scientists ever. Take for example Wolfgang Pauli, in his interaction with CG Jung, it is Pauli which had the supper hand personality. Apparently Jung never could face him and sent one of his brightest women co-workers ( If I am not mistaken it was ML von Franz) to do the analysis. Pauli impressed Jung so much that he published a book about him, “ the case of a veer high intellect”. In any case, it is not to say that one hundred years of investigations with a few thousand of scientific big names is enough to assert the veracity of a theory, but… if you want to go beyond it, somehow you have to pay your respects, and first slowly take the reader to who your new theory accounts for the established truths of the old one.
As I said I am learning as well, on how to share ideas in a simple way without losing depth… my suggestion would be to post first a very very simple summary of FST, for our readers. Have Moo check it out !!
Love, C.
“In a sense the system Alice + Bob itself is entangled in time, and the measurement of Alice will influence the one of Bob.”
I’m not sure could agree with this statement..
i) how the entanglement is made, if these 2 persons ( both being very complex and huge macro bodies) have never been in contact: through the entangled photon ? doesn’t make sense: an entangled tiny and sensitive particule , such a photon cannot co-create the entanglement of macro bodies..
ii) If Alice + Bob are entangled , what does it means physically: what is a quantum state of a complex living macrobody ?
iii) why they cannot communicate this connection between themselves and they do need an entangled photon to realize that entanglement ?
often, physicists find explanations which seems seem simpler and nicer at the beginning, but then when one digs into them, one find they are creating more problems than they solve : another example is the Higgs Boson, the superstring theory, etc..sorry for my friends physicists, that is a personal opinion only..no offense ..
Domphi
Don,how your theory relates to “”loop quantum gravity”, also promoted by Carlo Rovelli , by the way?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loop_quantum_gravity
it seems that they are some similarities ..
domphi
hello Dom,
here is a tentative answer to your questions above.
i) how the entanglement is made, if these 2 persons ( both being very complex and huge macro bodies) have never been in contact: through the entangled photon ? doesn’t make sense: an entangled tiny and sensitive particule , such a photon cannot co-create the entanglement of macro bodies..
ii) If Alice + Bob are entangled , what does it means physically: what is a quantum state of a complex living macro body ?
Actually that is the whole point of those new interpretations if quantum mechanics, advanced both by Carlo Rovelli and Roger Balian in a bit different ways. What they have in common is to challenge the Copenhagen interpretation which states ( as you mentioned) that a macro-syste, the one able to perform a measurement, is not entangled, but separate with the universe. Those two physicists claim that it is true except for avery tiny part of the order of 10 ^(-27) which remains entangled no matter what. It usually goes un-detected, so you can safely describe the big system in a classical way, as newton would have done, but in some cases it plays a role, for example in a case where you have only two choices ( spin up and spin down).Somehow Alice knows due to her tiny entanglement with Bob what is the measure of his spin. This, even though a very very tiny information is able to influence her own measurement.
It works a bit like a statistical theory of phase transitions, for example a transition to a magnetic state. The spin of the magnet can be up or down mad what decides it, are impurities in the material. Although impurities are in a very low number compared to the number of atoms in the system ( again of the order of 10^(-27) they are enough to influence the transition.
Phase transitions are leaps, are rapid changes of states. In the car of a rapid change of state, the system becomes extremely sensitive to impurities ( and fluctuates enormously). The idea of those two physicists above, could be summarized as saying that measurement itself is a rapid change of state, a phase transition.
Thank you Cath for giving me was these explanations, really appreciated.
But if I understand correctly entanglement, it means that 2 quantum systems have been in contact first ( or have been “born” from a common origin, so that they quantum state is the same ) , then they must travel apart , but have absolutely no interaction with any other systems on the way , until their respective quantum state is being measured and compared , at a distance from each others. Then, one finds out that their quantum state ( here spin up/down) is the same .I do not see such a protocol between Alice and Bob.. so how can they be entangled even at a very tiny level.. We have not even sure that Alice and Bob have ever been ever in contact with each other’s, so no entanglement of any sort is made possible, I would say.
I would not put Alice and Bob in the middle.. It complicates the understanding, and still doesn’t say what is the deep meaning of entanglement ..
Just a thought, good night All,
The confusion comes front he definition of Entanglement. In very short two systems are entangled when they are in the same quantum state.
No need to separate and travel apart, this is part oft he specifics of the EPR experiment.
With this definition in head, you can see what Carlo and Roger have in mind for them there always remain a little bit of entanglement for all systems, even for classical systems.
Seen like this, their conclusion is really close to the primordial Intuition of the spiritual sages : we are all one.
Love, C.
Thank you Catherine, I appreciate your explanation and understand what you mean.
However, I’m still not convinced, in particular by the notion of “little bit of entanglement between all systems ”
which little bit is that? How does it work?
In the experiment you mention, it is a very strange coincidence that the supposed little bit, is precisely the photon which have been experimentally entangled, and that is being measured…
In addition, a physical person,( Bob, Alice, you, Carlo, Roger, any of us reading these messages..) , is an extremely complex and dynamic classical body . It is made of 300 trillions of cells , each of them having the complexity of a large city, and the dynamim of a Chinese factory…, and being constantly connected and exchanging with the outside world ( just think of the breathing process). I don’t know if you realize from a physical and quantum state point of view, what means a human body. We are not talking anymore about atoms and molecules, but about an enormous system where trillions of trillions of quantum processes are being managed every fraction of a second.
How come that within these quantum processes, a tiny bit of them remain entangled, even more, when there was no previous contact between two physical persons (Bob and Alice), and even more again, when you tell us that we can measure that little bit of entanglement, measuring photons “already entangled”through an experiment…. Sorry I cannot buy this..
Finally, you have to explain me, how quantum systems can be entangled without having a previous contact. By the way, when you look at the definition of entanglement on the Internet, (eg Wikipedia ), it always says that entanglement needs a previous contact. The contact allows the physical systems to align their quantum state, and therefore to get entangled. Otherwise, how entanglement is produced?
Having said all that, we still do not have explained how entanglement works, in particular at a distance: how quantum state remain the same between two physical systems, which are apart from each other’s?
What is the hidden mechanism which is behind it ?
This is still a mystery…
That is all for now.
Best,
Domphi
Yes the internet is not very precise on this subject. Actually I must refine the definition of entanglement : two systems are entangled to the degree that their wave functions are not orthogonal.
Dom, actually all this is a question of Interpretation of quantum mechanics. What I understand from Carlo and Roger is what they are saying us is that it is impossible to disentangle completely classical system. They stay entangled up to a tiny fraction. As far as having be in contact in the past, it is a bit of a rhetorical point since you cal always cook up a cosmology of the origins where everything is in contact with everything before evolution. This would be for us a boundary condition in a theory.
In the case of the EPR experiment, Alice and bob are in contact wen they exchange the information. They are also indirectly in contact because they have been separately in contact with an entangled system. So plenty of contact to create a correlation between their measurements.
If course you can stick to the Copenhagen interpretation, which says that Alice and Bob, as classical objects are simply not in contact at all at the quantum level. But the one of Carlo is also valid and pretty attractive. Thats where we see that QM is interpretative : at the moment it i impossible to decide. Both interpretations describe the observations in a correct way.
But in this new interpretation, you still do not explain what is entanglement…. You just say the entanglement of the photons is the consequence of the entanglement of the “little bit”part of macro complex bodies.
So another words , you try to explain a simple entanglement, by a more complex one, which itself is not explained..
This reasoning reminds the same one which is used to explain the mass. As no one can not explain as is originated the mass of the particules of the standart model, it is proposed another particule ( the famous Higgs boson, never experimented…), that would have itself a mass ( still not explained, what is the mass, and how this higgs boson gets it…), and would selectively transfer it to all the other particules ( nobody’s knows how this would,be done. And why..).
It looks like a trick that physicists use often when they are stucked: they explain something ( entanglement or mass ) by transfering it to a more complex process, still not explained, and even more that cannot be validated.
To be frank, I have a lot of difficulties to accept this way of putting under the carpet, something that nobody understands yet..
Hope you don’t mind my controversial reaction. Nothing personal , you know it well.
All the best
dear Dom no I don’t mind, and especially in physics there is never anything personal… especially when explaining the theories of others ( !) I didn’t expect to have so many tough questions from you (this is areal compliment !) and I feel it is probably due to the fact that I was not perfectly clear. So let me try to clarify again.
1) the EPR experiment within the Copenhagen interpretation. Two particles, at time zero are in an entangled quantum state. In that case, they share the same wave function. Let’s not detail which wave function it is. Now the system is split into two identical parts (let’s call it particle A and particle B) at time t, and each part is traveling it own way, to the left towards Alice (particle A) and to the right towards Bob (particle B) . Now it is naively believe that the two systems are independent, that they’ don’t exchange information through any physical mean ( like light or other know forces). Alice and Bob now make their measurement independently, and what is found is that the result of what Bob finds depends on what Alice has measured. But how can Bob know what Alice has measured ? it is as if, in the Copenhagen interpretation, the particle traveling towards Bob had “noticed” that Alice had already made her measurement on its partner. But how could the particle know since it has not interacted with its partner after their separation ?
2) what Carlo in introducing is the fact that macroscopic systems are entangled, even a tiny bit. So what happens according to Carlo, is that when Alice makes her measurement, her own quantum system is taking notice of the information that she has got from particle A. No tis quantum system being entangled a tiny bit with Bob, enticingly Bob got some information on what Alice has measured and this influences his own measurement a tiny bit. A tiny little bit, but just enough to get the right “ collapse” of the wave function on particle B.
is it clearer of do you have the same issues ? again the measurement safe exactly the same. All that changes is a question of interpretation. I personally like the idea that we are all united by a tiny bit of entanglement, no matter what. That your wave function, mine and the one of “the universe” are not orthogonal at least to the proportion of 10^(-23) of our mass.
Love, Catherine
It is very clear, Cath, and thank you for being so open, and for elaborating this topic at this level of details.
However, what you’re describing, is exactly what I understood from the beginning of this conversation. 🙂
So I am back with my remarks.
Explaining a simple entanglement ( between 2 photons ) by a more complex entanglement ( the one of the 2 tiny bits of Bob and Alice ,) still does not explain entanglement..
What is a physical process which is behind entanglement, can you or Carlo explain it?
With all due respect to physicists, this kind of explanation reminds me, as said earlier, the explanation used for the mass, with the Higgs Boson.
Do you see what I want to say?
Sorry to be a bit insisting..
Then I ma sure our reader will be very happy for the good fortune of a second explanation…
to answer your question , you are right. We scientists don’t have any deep explanation of what we call entanglement. I mean we can describe it mathematically but with all QM tho reaches a level where the deep philosophical and intuitive meaning is difficult to access (almost impossible).
So if you have a good idea, we will be happy to hear you !
Thanks for your honnest and appreciated reply. It is often said that entanglement may be managed through non local hidden variables , so beyond or below what we call space. As you were saying at the beginning of the post, a sort of Oneness process may still to be discovered .. .David Bohm was very thrilled by this idea , and had many explorarory discussions with Krishnamurti for eg..
see some interesting videos at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1806753623176869477#
First of all I want to say excellent blog! I had a quick question which I’d like to ask if you don’t mind.
I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing.
I have had difficulty clearing my mind in getting my ideas out.
I do enjoy writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes
are usually lost simply just trying to figure out how to begin.
Any recommendations or hints? Many thanks!