Bohr

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Akeida in Parallel Universes

Michael Frayn’s 1998 play, Copenhagen, concerns a meeting between two great physicists, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, in 1941 in Copenhagen. In this play, the spirits of Heisenberg, Bohr, and Bohr’s wife, Margrethe, come together in the afterlife to answer Margrethe’s question, “Why did Heisenberg come to Copenhagen?” Bohr and Heisenberg worked closely together in Copenhagen in the 1920s while developing atomic physics, resulting in the formulation of quantum mechanics. Bohr was already an accomplished scientist when the young German Heisenberg joined his group, and Bohr began mentoring him. Heisenberg became one of the leading figures in formulating the new quantum mechanics. Later, Heisenberg joined the group of German physicists developing nuclear weapons for Nazi Germany. Why did Heisenberg return to Copenhagen in 1941? Denmark was at that time already occupied by Germany. [...]

Wigner’s Friend Paradox

Amicus est Socrates, magister meus, sed magis est amica veritas. “Socrates is my friend but a greater friend is truth” – Plato c. 428-348 BCE. Amicus Plato, sed magis amica veritas. “Plato is my friend, but a greater friend is truth" – Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 350 BCE. Amicus Plato amicus Aristoteles magis amica veritas. “Plato is my friend, Aristotle is my friend, but a greater friend is truth.” – Isaac Newton, Cambridge Student Notebook, 1661 You are my friend, but what is truth? – Eugene Wigner, 1961 If Isaac Newton summed up the aphorisms of Plato and Aristotle in his student notebook, exactly 300 years later, Eugene Wigner put this notion on its head. Although taking a poetic license, I put Wigner's words above in quotation marks, I do not know if he [...]

By |2023-03-23T18:18:41-04:00March 17th, 2019|Uncategorized|4 Comments

First Fruits and the Wave-Particle Duality of Nature

…Thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which thou shalt bring in from thy land that the Lord thy G‑d giveth thee; and thou shalt put it in a basket and shalt go unto the place which the Lord thy G‑d shall choose to cause His name to dwell there. And thou shalt come unto the priest that shall be in those days, and say unto him: 'I profess this day unto the Lord thy G‑d, that I am come unto the land which the Lord swore unto our fathers to give us.' And the priest shall take the basket out of thy hand, and set it down before the altar of the Lord thy G‑d. Deuteronomy 26:2-4 The debate about the nature of matter goes back [...]

The Pilot Wave

And on the day that the tabernacle was reared up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, even the tent of the testimony; and at even there was upon the tabernacle as it were the appearance of fire, until morning. So it was always: the cloud covered it, and the appearance of fire by night. And whenever the cloud was taken up from over the Tent, then after that the children of Israel journeyed; and in the place where the cloud abode, there the children of Israel encamped. At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they encamped: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they remained encamped. And when the cloud tarried upon the tabernacle many days, then the children of Israel [...]

Jacob’s Ladder

And he dreamed, and behold! a ladder set up on the ground and its top reached to heaven; and behold, angels of G‑d were ascending and descending upon it. Gen. 28:12   Last night I dreamed of an atom with a ladder wedged in the nucleus of the atom, with electrons jumping up and down the ladder. For those readers unencumbered by the knowledge of atomic theory, a brief historical introduction may be in order. When the planetary theory of the atom was fir Ernest Rutherford st proposed by Ernest Rutherford in 1909, it depicted an atom as a solar system wherein a nucleus was positioned at the center of the atom, with electrons orbiting around the nucleus as planets orbit the Sun. However, there was a problem. According to Maxwell’s [...]

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