[extropy-chat] Off Topics

[scerir]

*Cold* plasma (great pic!)
http://www.ece.odu.edu/~mlarouss/
[ and some literature
http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/9/9/11 ]

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Nano-pendulum dowsing, by means of very special
pendulums - or pendula? - based on 'Bloch oscillations'
(expl. in the book by Mermin, about Solid State Phys.).
http://www.lens.unifi.it/articles/art564.pdf
http://www.lens.unifi.it/articles/art672.pdf
These papers are rather techn. indeed, but these devices
can measure forces with *extremely* high precision
(gravity, Casimir, etc.). Wondering if they can 'see',
under the earth, oil or gold or water or devil.

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Old (gold) days
http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/fsac/1a34000/1a34400/1a34447v.jpg

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Entanglements.

Lisa Randall, string theorist, writes (on the NYT) that ...
" 'The uncertainty principle' is another frequently 
abused term. It is sometimes interpreted as a limitation 
on observers and their ability to make measurements. 
But it is not about intrinsic limitations on any one
particular measurement; it is about the inability 
to precisely measure particular pairs of quantities 
simultaneously. The first interpretation is perhaps 
more engaging from a philosophical or political perspective. 
It's just not what the science is about."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/18/opinion/18randall.html?
ex=1284696000&en=da4ba5e712603a63&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

That 'simultaneously' is very puzzling (and possibly worse).

Asher Peres pointed out that
http://www.arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0310/0310010.pdf
in the 'EPR' article, the authors (Einstein, Rosen,
Podolsky) use the word 'simultaneous' no less than four times,
a surprising expression for people who knew very well
that this term was undefined in the theory of relativity.

The friendship between Eistein and Podolsky broke immediately
after Podolsky published (on the NYT, of course) a very short
piece about the 'EPR' paradox. 

The 'uncertainty principle' in Asher's outstanding book 
(QT: Concepts and Methods, 1993) is relegated to a single 
entry in the index, that points to  ... the same page 
of the index!