I LOVE these quotes.. :-)

[nigel]

Only the experiment of an observer forces the atom to indicate a position, a colour and a quantity of heat. - Werner Heisenberg


In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it. - Martin Rees


According to quantum physics the observer has indeed a new relation to the physical events around him in comparison with the classical observer, who is merely a spectator. - Wolfgang Pauli


Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real. - Niels Bohr.


Research into quantum physics proves that a system changes simply by someone observing it. Therefore, all you have to do is be awake and aware of your environment, and that enables you to transform everything around you. It sounds like hocus pocus, but scientists are coming to realize that just thinking about something can make it happen. Turns out maybe faith can move mountains. - Christine Anderson


Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it. - Pascual Jordan


All the qualities of the atom of modern physics are derived, it has no immediate and direct physical properties at all. - Werner Heisenberg


The "paradox" is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ought to be. - Richard Feynman


Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists “out there” independent of us, that view can no longer be upheld. - John Archibald Wheeler


A philosopher once said, 'It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.' Well, they don't! - Richard P. Feynman


The observations are spectacular and the conclusions are stunning. It shows that galaxies are nothing but quantum mechanics writ large across the sky. - Brian Greene


Quantum physics says that you can't have a Universe without mind entering into it, and that the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is perceived. - Fred Alan Wolf


If quantum theory is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science. - Albert Einstein.


The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with facts established by experiment. - Bernard d'Espagnat


Atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts. - Werner Heisenberg

I have learned that everything outside of me is a mirror of what is inside of me. - Christine Anderson

[JimOttley]

Old Albert wasn't keen on Quantum Mechanics but of the three most successful theories in Physics, two of them are his and the other is Quantum Mechanics or more specifically Quantum Electro Dynamics (QED).

Special and General relativity are classical theories, they deal with the very very big, QED on the other hand deals with the very very small, all of these theories have been proven to work incredibly well and most of our modern world including the computer thingy you are using to communicate this stuff to others, would not work if QED was very wrong.

The predictions of QED work incredibly well, likewise the predictions of General relativity work very very well indeed, so much so that every time they test it they just add decimal places to it's accuracy.

However there is a fundamental problem in that QED and General relativity are very different kinds of theory, you can't explain the very small using General relativity and you can't explain the very big using QED.

The prime objective of physics in recent times has been to unify these theories in a GUT (Grand Unified Theory) or the Theory of Everything as it is sometimes known, so far while there has been progress it has been slow and none of the candidates for a unified theory are entirely satisfactory. The best one so far appears to be String theory but it still has a lot of problems.

However even if we ever get a successful GUT, it may well explain the "how", of where everything came from but it is very unlikely to explain the "why".

Physics alone will never address all of the "Life the Universe and Everything" question it will only do a bit of it. The reality we see around us emerges from the components and rules that make up the universe like atoms, photons etc, it forms the basis on which all the other stuff happens but stuff like conciousness while it is an emergent property of the universe is not explained and is unlikely to ever be explained by a Grand Unified Theory.

Quantum physics says that you can't have a Universe without mind entering into it, and that the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is perceived. - Fred Alan Wolf

This one is just a plain wrong assertion, we don't know in any definite way that an observer is required it is only one interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (collapse of the state vector and all that, I talked about this just a few months back on here).

Heisenberg, Bohr, Dirac, Pauli and particularly old Albert and Richard Feynman are people whose genius is so great that we should all respect their profound contributions to our modern world. Feynman in particular is a name that far too few people know, he almost single handedly reformulated the work of Schrodinger, Dirac, Heisenberg and many others to developed an understandable approach to the quantum world.

The "World is not really there" idea arises from the "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics proposed by Bohr and Heisenberg, the basic idea being that nothing is really there until an observer interacts with it and collapses the wave function of all the particles that make up the observation, until the observer observes, the observed, is in a superposition of all possible quantum states, in other words it's all just probabilities until someone makes a measurement of some kind. These ideas are old they were proposed back in the late 1920's, the Einstein Rosen Podolsky interpretation on the other hand sought to point out contradictions in the Copenhagen view.

In the beginning there were only probabilities. The universe could only come into existence if someone observed it. It does not matter that the observers turned up several billion years later. The universe exists because we are aware of it. - Martin Rees

I respect Martin Rees enormously but the idea he is expressing here is the Anthropic principle, a lot of this kind of stuff is getting so close to faith that it's getting hard to view it as science but rather an expression of someone's personal belief's.

This is a seriously hard subject and as I've said before it's fascinating but I get tired of preaching it these days, best to leave it to those who have the genius to truly understand and research it, the rest of us mere mortals would be better served by living our lives as best we can and trying to enjoy sharing our lives with our partners and children, there is a great deal of beauty in this world that is just as fascinating and wonderful as the science.

[stevewool]

god i thought this was a silly , i love these quotes, like dont pull that face if the wind changers it will stop like it,

[JimOttley]

Nae luck Steve, Nigel is still on the loose

[stevewool]

well hes been quite lately so let it run or just agree

[nigel]

Gosh you've got an in depth understanding of physics Jim! There's words in your post that I don't even know the meaning of!

You don't seem to believe in Law Of Attraction which is interesting, I believe in it COMPLETELY I live my life by it!

I'd be interested to know what you think of that 'peer through the object' speculation thing I talked about on the You can relate to this don't say you can't thread I started?

The thing where a guy can be hypnotized to believe an object in the room is invisible, in his perception is he peering through the object and observing things behind it? (it makes me excited to think that might be true!)

Or is his own mind 'pasting in' what supposedly or expectedly should be there?
It seems the 'pasting in' thing is whats happening...it makes me so excited to think that we can peer through objects though..

[JimOttley]

Another time Nige

I'm knackered tonight, going to have an early night, I'll have a search for your thread tomorrow and try to understand it.


Jim

[joebloggs]

You don't seem to believe in Law Of Attraction which is interesting, I believe in it COMPLETELY I live my life by it!

Nigel how has it work for you ? did you get the money and jobs you were after many months ago ??

[nigel]

Nigel how has it work for you ? did you get the money and jobs you were after many months ago ??

I'm not that much of a career person anyway....although I once tried to attract £81 billion pounds! It's supposed to be no harder than attracting £1 so I thought I'd try it, I suppose somewhere in my mind I didn't have faith that it would work...and that would be the reason why it didn't work! REALLY this is what I believe.

I've certainly attracted cashiers in shops to give me too much change, I only do it to demonstate to myself that attraction is still on! When I am given too much change it tends to be in the shop that I wasn't expecting... what I've learnt from this is that attraction "don't come in the box you thought it would" because of this "don't come in the box you thought it would" thing people think good or bad things are happening to them by chance...well they're NOT! It's ATTRACTION!

Law Of Attraction can't be proven but you can prove it to yourself when playing sports perhaps...if you pre-imagine yourself scoring strike after strike at a ten pin bowling game, imagine how good it's going to feel, have passion for it! You can hear your pals cheering already!

People who are good at sports tend to be passionate about it...I think they picture they're spectacular performance in advance of them doing it! I'm convinced this plays a part in what makes us successful!

If you imagine an old freind you haven't seen for years...remember how you used to laugh together etc... that person will turn up in your life...maybe they will pop up on facebook, maybe they will call you, or: maybe YOU will walk into a bar and say "Wow there's my old pal haven't seen him in years!"

Attraction doesn't come in the box we thought it would, but I'm convinced it's all attraction! I believe in Law Of Attraction like I believe in the Law Of Gravity, I'm convinced it's the real deal, it's the truth about our lives!

[Terpe]

nigel,
It's good that you seem to have found your way to maintain a positive outlook on life.
I too always try to balance positive with negative.