Re: Ripple Posted by Robert C. Cohen on April 29, 1998 at 09:16:39:
In Reply to: Ripple posted by Andy on February 14, 1998 at 08:06:56:
Hi Andy,
You rock. You still rock. You always rock.
So anyway speaking of rocking the boat, your move
immediately reminded me of a new physics theory
I heard about.
Bear with me because this is going to be very
loose and I may not get the exact wordings right
but I'll get an approximation of the idea across.
The guy is John G. Cramer and his idea as I understand
it goes something like this:
There is a mathematical formula in quantum physics
and part of the formula implies information moving backwards through
time. This aspect of the formula has always been
considered just a fluke to be ignored but it must
be kept in because
this part of the formula is necessary to make the
formula balance out and work.
Cramer has suggested if you take the implication
seriously all the quantum weirdness (simultaneous
dead and alive cats, etc.) disappears.
I will link Cramer's web site below because you
shouldn't take my laymen's description to literally.
However, I think
it is valuable to know that continuously the world
of science is discovering that it is the same world
as the world of spirituality.
John G. Cramer is also a great science (and science
fiction writer) and he can make complicated ideas
understandable. See the link to his articles in
Analog magazine.
DEEPER: quotes from John's technical web page
(http://mist.npl.washington.edu:80/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_toc.html)
"The basic element of the transactional
interpretation (TI)is an emitter-absorber
transaction
through the exchange of advanced and retarded
waves,
as first described by Wheeler and Feynman
(1945, 1949) [see also (Feynman, 1967b)].
Advanced waves are solutions of the
electromagnetic
wave equation and other similar wave equations
which contain only the second time derivative.
Advanced waves have characteristic eigenvalues
of negative energy and frequency, and they
propagate in the negative time direction."
"We will find that the TI, which is objective
and explicitly nonlocal... provides a
description of the state vector as an
actual wave physically present in real
space."
Best Robert