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The QM language itself is ambiguous (it appears to me), and it carries an aura of mysticism. I admit that it is not easy to rule out the claims, the ambiguity makes it all the more difficult. We can only wait and see whether everything could be explained on the basis of QM.

Electron can cross solid barriers, because the atoms are nearly empty. Solid conductors and semiconductors allow certain pathways. In perfect insulators, when the thickness is very small, some electrons pass through.

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Quote:
Electron can cross solid barriers, because the atoms are nearly empty. Solid conductors and semiconductors allow certain pathways. In perfect insulators, when the thickness is very small, some electrons pass through.


Not quite sure where this fits in with the elusive Higgs.


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It's a QM effect called quantum tunnelling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling) the presence of absence of the Higgs would not change it.


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I was OK with the tunnelling bit, I just couldn't see where the Higgs fitted in; apparently with some justification.


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Originally Posted By: Orac
How does something that is a particle pass through a solid physical barrier????


Could it be beacuse the barrier is not really solid? The Earth appears solid to us, but neutrinos can pass through it unimpeded.


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Does this change anything?

"Fabiola Gianotti, an Italian physicist who heads the team running what's called the ATLAS experiment, said "the hottest region" is in lower energy ranges of the collider. She said there are indications of the Higgs' existence and that with enough data it could be unambiguously discovered or ruled out next year.

Although it would be an enormous scientific breakthrough for the physics world if the Higgs boson was found, officials at CERN have ruled out making any such announcement this year."

http://apnews.excite.com/article/20111213/D9RJLRHO0.html

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Re: Fabiola Gianotti. Yes, I read that too. Higgs may or may not be dead. Another witness is being called to the stand smile


"Time is what prevents everything from happening at once" - John Wheeler
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That dam Higgs just refuses to lie down and die :-)

Tommaso calls it firm evidence
http://www.science20.com/quantum_diaries_survivor/firm_evidence_higgs_boson_last-85478


Matt Strasler calls it Inconclusive as expected
http://profmattstrassler.com/2011/12/13/higgs-update-today/


The funniest part of the whole Higgs December discussion has to go to the one and only Sascha Vongehr.

A light Higgs at 125-126Gev has some rather profound implications I will leave Sacsha to take you thru it don't say you weren't warned.

http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/light_higgs_discovered_and_about_destroy_universe-85357


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I liked SV's contribution; could make a good basis for some conspiracy theories.


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<"I liked SV's contribution...">

So did I, thanks Orac.

While I was looking around that site I found a link to
something else I found interesting:

http://www.science20.com/hammock_physicist/einstein_got_it_wrong_can_you_do_better-85544

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That's a reference to very modern QM work that shows reality is well "not solid" you need observation to "solidify" things.

There was actually an arcicle just last week about putting 2 x 3mm diamonds into entanglement at room temperature
(http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-12-vibration-entangled-diamonds.html)

I have left a standing offer to any physicist to be the first volunteer for a human to be entangled if they can work out how to do it :-)
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Originally Posted By: O
I have left a standing offer to any physicist to be the first volunteer for a human to be entangled if they can work out how to do it


Does it have to be a physicist?


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Originally Posted By: Joannes Koelman
What can not be observed does not exist


Could this not also be expressed as "What can not be observed does not exist in the dimensions in which its observation is not possible"?

Although this might make no difference in the observable universe, it could still mean that QM might be a "window" onto something beyond.


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That would be an accpetable view to science but of coarse it would be non science it runs into the finiter problem :-)


I loved the comment God doesn't roll dice, God is sparse if it is not observed it is not needed ... Rev would like that one.


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Quote:
...but of coarse it would be non science it runs into the finiter problem :-)


Does this mean that the multiverse, for example, is non science?


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Quote:
if it is not observed it is not needed



Isn’t that a bit arrogant?


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Originally Posted By: Bill S.

Does this mean that the multiverse, for example, is non science?


It's a depends situation ... the basic question can I test anything in this multiverse theory from this universe?

Science requires the ability to be able to test for scientific methodology if we could test things about the multiverse then scientifically it would be fine.

If the multiverse theory says it exists but you could never test it from this universe then it's not science.

Science recognizes the existance of Philosophy, Physchology, Astrology for example but they are not science and in the above case "multiversology" would be accepted but not science.


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Originally Posted By: Bill S.

Isn’t that a bit arrogant?


Noone ever said science wasn't arrogant to some degree we set ourselves up in that way. Religions have said that about science many times I would suspect.


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Quote:
If the multiverse theory says it exists but you could never test it from this universe then it's not science.


That's how I see it, but the multiverse, in one or another form, seems increasingly to be proposed as though it were science. I suppose the same could be said for string theory.


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Ture but more like physcology ... science accepts there is a brain and it has thought but the study of those thoughts is not science. Certain parts of phsychology are science but alot is not because it can not be scientifically tested.

I know for example when science looks at multiple personality disorder it says it is a myth and does not exist and this has created a raging controversy in physcology.

(http://io9.com/5865263/whats-the-truth-behind-multiple-personality-disorder)
(http://edition.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/expert.q.a/02/23/dissociative.identity.disorder.raison/index.html)

I suspect much the same will happen if an untestable multiverse were true where delineation will get problematic.


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