[ExI] Aranoff-Bohm Effect (was Precognition on TV)

[Lee Corbin]

Serafino wrote

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "scerir" <scerir at libero.it>
Sent: Monday, March 19, 2007 11:06 AM

> The electron interference (electron wavefunction entering
> both slits of a Young interferometer; electron wf
> choosing both paths in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer;
> etc.) is, in principle, more interesting than photon 
> interference.
> 
> Because, with electrons, the interference pattern also 
> depends on the (possible) existence of a magnetic field,
> inside the interferometer. Even when this field
> is completely and perfectly shielded, the amplitudes
> of the electron can feel, nonlocally or via action
> at a distance, the existence of a magnetic field, 
> and the interference pattern changes.

My God.  Even though the electrons are TOTALLY
SHIELDED other electrons (in QM experiments,
at least) can "feel" their effect.  As I understand it,
this "Aharonov-Bohm" effect that you mention really
depends on electromagnetic *potential*.  Heretofore,
was not this potential merely a mathematical convenience?
(I mean that as a serious question.)

Anyway, 25 years after the advent of quantum mechanics,
this comes out of nowhere.  (For others, see the full story:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aharonov-Bohm_effect )

> There are several problems, or difficulties, with the
> principles of conservation here, due to that action
> at a distance, but this is another story.

Why action at a distance??  Can't potential be looked
upon as a field phenomenon?  After all, look at 
gravitational potential, which is so much easier for
us amateurs to think about. Sure, preRelativity folks
would say that *everything* about the trajectory
of an object in a grav field followed Newton's Laws
to a T. (No pun intended.)  But now we know that
even if you magically had "gravitational shielding"
the clock would run more slowly depending on
gravitational *potential* nothing more nothing less.

Lee

 (I'm not sure, but the young 
> Zeilinger perhaps performed neutron interferometry 
> experiments, and found that the interference pattern 
> depends on the gravity field).
> 
> Having two beams of entangled electrons, and two
> interferometers, and two shielded magnetic fields, 
> it is possible to check that the second order 
> interference (the output of one interferometer versus 
> the output of the other interferometer) depends 
> on the difference between the two magnetic fields,
> even when the two interferometers are in separated 
> regions (spacelike separated also I suppose). This 
> is a sort of double nonlocality, that is two say EPR 
> nonlocality + Bohm-Aharonov nonlocality.