Quantum Memory Theory

Discussion of theories involving time as a dimension, time travel, relativity, branes, and so on, usually applying to the "real" universe which we live in.

Is this theory valid?

yes
4
40%
no
4
40%
This is a futile attempt at a loophole in Relativity
2
20%
 
Total votes : 10

Quantum Memory Theory

Postby The_Science_Guy » Sun Apr 23, 2006 9:30 pm

The Quantum Memory Theory states that every atomic/subatomic particle "remembers" everything and every event that ever happened to it, and every position it's ever been in. Therefore, this "memory" could be harnessed and utilized for psudo-time travel.
And in case you're wondering, I came up with this theory.

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Postby Hugh » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:04 pm

I believe this is actually possible. I've read a bit about quantum entanglement, and the interconnection between all particles. We don't understand it all yet, but I think that there are things that happen on the quantum level that are fascinating. Perhaps there is a flow, a pattern, a memory on that level that could be accessed. Time will tell.

Btw, welcome to the forum. :)
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:33 pm

Hugh wrote:I believe this is actually possible. I've read a bit about quantum entanglement, and the interconnection between all particles. We don't understand it all yet, but I think that there are things that happen on the quantum level that are fascinating. Perhaps there is a flow, a pattern, a memory on that level that could be accessed. Time will tell.

Btw, welcome to the forum. :)


1. Thanks

2. So you're saying that all particles would have enough energy to "remember" every position and event that ever happened to it?

3. By pseudo- time travel, I mean creating the illusion of time travel via harnessing the "memory" to revert all of n group of particles to a time and place that they were in the past. I could finally travel back to the 70's if this theroy is true...
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Postby houserichichi » Sun Apr 23, 2006 10:51 pm

Welcome to the forum.

I've no opinion either way on quantum memory, so to speak, but I do have issue with your final point about travelling back to the 70s. If all the particles local to you were to revert back to their 70s positions and orderings (a whole discussion full of paradoxes, holes, and logical contradictions unto its own) what would stop the ones in your body from doing so? That in mind what's to say that those that make up you and your body don't do the same or are we assuming that there's some sort of machine that can resolve this problem? Also, are we talking entanglement here or are you suggesting that particles essentially reverse direction and all processes they went through over the last 30 years to return to how they were? If that's the case then what about issues with superluminocity? You'd have neutrinos, for example, that have travelled 30 years at near-light speed having to return to their exact location in the past. We can't just "create" a new neutrino to take its place because that would be a problem for conservation laws.

Just a thought. If I could go back in time I might try the 70s for a week too...see how true to form the movies really are. Meet you at Studio 54?
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:26 pm

houserichichi wrote:Welcome to the forum.

I've no opinion either way on quantum memory, so to speak, but I do have issue with your final point about travelling back to the 70s. If all the particles local to you were to revert back to their 70s positions and orderings (a whole discussion full of paradoxes, holes, and logical contradictions unto its own) what would stop the ones in your body from doing so?
Simple. Don't aim the machine at yourself. in fact, you would be operating the machine. so there would be no need to worry.
Also, are we talking entanglement here or are you suggesting that particles essentially reverse direction and all processes they went through over the last 30 years to return to how they were? If that's the case then what about issues with superluminocity? You'd have neutrinos, for example, that have travelled 30 years at near-light speed having to return to their exact location in the past.
I don't know what entaglement is in this sense. :? Besides, only the particles that remain in the field that the machine affects would be affected.

Just a thought. If I could go back in time I might try the 70s for a week too...see how true to form the movies really are. Meet you at Studio 54?
I basically like the 70's because of disco, although there are many other reasons, some semi-personal.
On another note: I'm almost 15, so I've never lived out the 70's, 80's or the first year of the 90's.
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Postby Nick » Sun Apr 23, 2006 11:50 pm

I don't know much about this stuff, maybe someone can take the time to explain it to me.

I'm googling this stuff now, I'll vote later when I learn more about it.

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Postby houserichichi » Mon Apr 24, 2006 12:16 am

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Postby jinydu » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:05 am



I'm always suspicious about attempts to explain physics without math...

Regarding the main topic of this thread; I think it depends what you mean by "memory". Clearly, particles do not have "minds" like people do that can remember the past. However, if by "memory" you mean that the state of a system is completely determined by its state at some time in the past, then yes, I agree. For instance, if you know the wavefunction of a (nonrelativistic) quantum system,and the potential energy of interaction between all the particles that make up the quantum system, then you can use Schrodinger's equation to predict the wavefunction of the system at any time in the past or future. In fact, you don't even need quantum mechanics for this; an analogous fact is true in Newtonian mechanics: If you know the position and velocity of every particle in a system at some initial time, then you can predict the position and velocity of every particle at any time in the past or future.
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Postby houserichichi » Mon Apr 24, 2006 4:44 am

I only included the link because the mathematics (and physics) behind quantum entanglement is well beyond the majority of readers of these forums and would serve no purpose to reproduce. Rather, a boiled down version of the main topics almost as a teaser for the interested can at least get the main points across in language that everyone can understand. Clearly the picture is not nearly complete but at least everyone has some equal footing on which to derive their own results. Those who have some "real background" in the topic can then correct false impressions from the website with the minor details that the amateur can't get at without the math. Popular science isn't all bad, it's just very incomplete (though sometimes completely off base).

Again, this was just an aside to the one comment you made. Let the discussion continue!!!
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Mon Apr 24, 2006 8:39 pm

jinydu wrote:


I'm always suspicious about attempts to explain physics without math...

Regarding the main topic of this thread; I think it depends what you mean by "memory". Clearly, particles do not have "minds" like people do that can remember the past. However, if by "memory" you mean that the state of a system is completely determined by its state at some time in the past, then yes, I agree. For instance, if you know the wavefunction of a (nonrelativistic) quantum system,and the potential energy of interaction between all the particles that make up the quantum system, then you can use Schrodinger's equation to predict the wavefunction of the system at any time in the past or future. In fact, you don't even need quantum mechanics for this; an analogous fact is true in Newtonian mechanics: If you know the position and velocity of every particle in a system at some initial time, then you can predict the position and velocity of every particle at any time in the past or future.
I meant "memory" in the latter sense. Also, I submitted this idea of quantum memory to madsci.org,(basically a Q and A site for science questions) and they said that evidence seems to preclude my theory, and they also said that there's no way to predict past or future events, even based on knoledge of position and velocity at any initial time. I think that they're wrong when it comes to the latter at least, but, I'm not sure.
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Postby houserichichi » Mon Apr 24, 2006 11:12 pm

At the quantum level those guys are right. You can't predict and detect a particle's exact position on the quantum scale because the only way to see something is to bounce something smaller (like light) off of it. Bouncing light off a small particle inexorably results in a transfer of energy and so the system has changed from your predictions, thus the particle does not show up where you thought it would. Does that make sense?
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Tue Apr 25, 2006 3:13 am

houserichichi wrote:At the quantum level those guys are right. You can't predict and detect a particle's exact position on the quantum scale because the only way to see something is to bounce something smaller (like light) off of it. Bouncing light off a small particle inexorably results in a transfer of energy and so the system has changed from your predictions, thus the particle does not show up where you thought it would. Does that make sense?
Yes. But from what I can sumise from your post, the simple solution is to not measure it! :lol: (half joke). But seriously, it's looking like my theory is going belly up.
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Postby moonlord » Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:08 am

In order to detect info from a particle, you must interact with it. Applying Heisenberg's will give huge errors if you try to find out the state in a moment far away from the present. That and the paradox of Schroedinger's cat gave birth to QM.
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Postby jinydu » Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:10 am

The_Science_Guy wrote:I meant "memory" in the latter sense. Also, I submitted this idea of quantum memory to madsci.org,(basically a Q and A site for science questions) and they said that evidence seems to preclude my theory, and they also said that there's no way to predict past or future events, even based on knoledge of position and velocity at any initial time. I think that they're wrong when it comes to the latter at least, but, I'm not sure.


Of course you can predict the past and future; the problem is that position and velocity are not the most fundamental properties of a particle; instead quantum mechanics deals most fundamentally with the particle's wavefunction. You can predict the wavefunction at any time in the past and future; all you need is the wavefunction at this moment, which you can measure by performing a very large number of measurements on many identically prepared quantum systems. Then you can use the laws of quantum mechanics to predict the wavefunction at any time in the past or future with arbitrary accuracy. Finally, if you really want to know the particle's position and velocity at any time, all you have to do is operate on the wavefunction at that time using the correct quantum operator, and you will get a probability distribution for position or velocity.

So, Science Guy, your idea isn't wrong. In fact, it has been known since the founding of quantum mechanics.
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:06 pm

jinydu wrote:
The_Science_Guy wrote:I meant "memory" in the latter sense. Also, I submitted this idea of quantum memory to madsci.org,(basically a Q and A site for science questions) and they said that evidence seems to preclude my theory, and they also said that there's no way to predict past or future events, even based on knoledge of position and velocity at any initial time. I think that they're wrong when it comes to the latter at least, but, I'm not sure.


Of course you can predict the past and future; the problem is that position and velocity are not the most fundamental properties of a particle; instead quantum mechanics deals most fundamentally with the particle's wavefunction. You can predict the wavefunction at any time in the past and future; all you need is the wavefunction at this moment, which you can measure by performing a very large number of measurements on many identically prepared quantum systems. Then you can use the laws of quantum mechanics to predict the wavefunction at any time in the past or future with arbitrary accuracy. Finally, if you really want to know the particle's position and velocity at any time, all you have to do is operate on the wavefunction at that time using the correct quantum operator, and you will get a probability distribution for position or velocity.

So, Science Guy, your idea isn't wrong. In fact, it has been known since the founding of quantum mechanics.
So you're saying that my theory isn't new?
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Postby jinydu » Sat Apr 29, 2006 8:14 pm

The_Science_Guy wrote: So you're saying that my theory isn't new?


Nope. In fact, I would say that it is more or less taken for granted.
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Mon May 01, 2006 4:18 pm

jinydu wrote:
The_Science_Guy wrote: So you're saying that my theory isn't new?


Nope. In fact, I would say that it is more or less taken for granted.
So particles do have "memory" that can be manipulated for pseudo-time travel?
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Postby jinydu » Tue May 02, 2006 9:36 pm

As I said earlier in the thread, particles have "memory" in the sense that the current state of a system completely determines its past and future states. I don't see what that has to do with time travel.
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Thu May 04, 2006 4:11 pm

jinydu wrote:As I said earlier in the thread, particles have "memory" in the sense that the current state of a system completely determines its past and future states. I don't see what that has to do with time travel.
It doesn't. By pseudo-time travel, I mean that a machine would revert n group of particles to a state and position that they were in sometime the past, thereby creating the illusion of "time travel". Do you see what I'm saying here? :?
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Postby jinydu » Thu May 04, 2006 10:50 pm

The_Science_Guy wrote:It doesn't. By pseudo-time travel, I mean that a machine would revert n group of particles to a state and position that they were in sometime the past, thereby creating the illusion of "time travel". Do you see what I'm saying here? :?


Provided that you performed an accurate enough measurement of the original system, I don't see any reason why that can't be done. Of course, the larger the system, the more difficult it would be to do this...

However, I don't see what this has to do with quantum mechanics. In fact, quantum mechanics makes this more difficult (compared to classical mechanics) because in order to accurately measure the state of a system, you have to perform a very large number of measurements on identically prepared systems.
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Postby darthbadass » Fri May 26, 2006 9:22 pm

The_Science_Guy wrote:I basically like the 70's because of disco, although there are many other reasons, some semi-personal.
On another note: I'm almost 15, so I've never lived out the 70's, 80's or the first year of the 90's.


Disco!? You like disco!? You're flaming mad.
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Postby bo198214 » Fri May 26, 2006 10:27 pm

Jinydu, it looks as if you speak out of arrogance than out of careful reasoning. At least your argumentation is quite flawy.

jinydu wrote:Of course you can predict the past and future;

Prediction means prediction of a certain system.
You can predict the wavefunction ... which you can measure by performing a very large number of measurements on many identically prepared quantum systems.

Now I ask you, how you want to copy the original system identicly to perform your measures? As already was pointed out, measuring the system changes the system, was that reaching you?

and you will get a probability distribution for position or velocity.
Is a probability distribution a prediction?
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Postby jinydu » Sat May 27, 2006 6:27 pm

bo198214 wrote:Now I ask you, how you want to copy the original system identicly to perform your measures? As already was pointed out, measuring the system changes the system, was that reaching you?


I was told by my chemistry professor that there are ways to prepare many systems identically, although I'll admit I'm not yet very familiar with the details. Of course, performing a measurement on the system causes the wavefunction to collapse to an eigenfunction (or so I was taught), but if your goal is to make a copy of the system just before the wavefunction collapses, that shouldn't be a probelm.

Is a probability distribution a prediction?


Yes, it is a statistical prediction. It also allows summarizing predictions such as expectation value and standard deviation (i.e. uncertainty).
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Postby bo198214 » Sat May 27, 2006 6:41 pm

jinydu wrote:but if your goal is to make a copy of the system just before the wavefunction collapses, that shouldn't be a probelm.

Make a copy of the universe ;)

Yes, it is a statistical prediction. It also allows summarizing predictions such as expectation value and standard deviation (i.e. uncertainty).

And is not what one usually understands by
jinydu wrote:Of course you can predict ... future;

, i.e. to foresay what will happen or whether an event will happen or not. A probability value is normally not verifyable (in opposition to whether an event happens or not). For example if the weather forecast says 30% probability for rain, I can not verify it, because I can not repeat the current weather situation some thousand times.
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Postby The_Science_Guy » Mon Jun 05, 2006 6:40 pm

darthbadass wrote:
The_Science_Guy wrote:I basically like the 70's because of disco, although there are many other reasons, some semi-personal.
On another note: I'm almost 15, so I've never lived out the 70's, 80's or the first year of the 90's.


Disco!? You like disco!? You're flaming mad.


I would like to make a quote from an old Paul McCartney song back in 1975: "...What's wrong with that?..." :wink:
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Postby papernuke » Sun Jul 09, 2006 2:16 am

i dont really think this is possible because if it remembers everything that happens to it and whatever, then how would it be used as a lightspeed device? it would be better used as a memory device that can store lots of memory
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Postby PWrong » Sun Jul 09, 2006 9:09 am

Suppose every atom remembers everything that happens to it. If you could extract the memory from a system, and create a copy of what it used to be in the past, then destroy the original, then you would have sent the system back in time. That's the idea being suggested here.
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