Awakening 3
Pang Li checked the various physiological data monitored in the thermal chamber as usual. After recording the abnormal data, he looked up and looked around at his colleagues who were still conducting other observations. The program running on the display screen continued to fit the wave function.
The experiment organized by Wu Chuannan set up controls in different directions from the beginning, but now - they only have data from the experimental groups in two directions to continue recording.
She lifted the paper report book in her hand, and when she caught a glimpse of the familiar face, she felt as if all these years had been a dream. She still remembered her first real introductory class in her life—a heated debate, a class that didn't deny that science came from illusions, and a class that had sustained her to this point, even though it was doing record-keeping work that was far from her chosen research direction.
That introductory class had only one introductory question, written in English on the blackboard by a young scholar: "What is quantum entanglement?"
Some people open the introduction to the textbook and read it verbatim: "This theory requires the premise that observations in one place can instantly affect what happens far away without the action of any physical force. Einstein ridiculed this non-existent property as ghost action. [1]"
"That's a very objective citation, it can add one point to your class performance." The young scholar spoke while sitting on the podium, and the noise from the audience grew louder when he heard the extra points.
"Everyone might be more familiar with another famous quote from Einstein: God does not play dice. So quantum entanglement was a hypothesis that he always wanted to explain and even disprove."
"Quantum entanglement is the breeding ground for the twin paradox, and with it the parable of the visit to Nagenpark. There, the visitor deliberately asked two questions repeatedly: Are a young man and woman in the left/right room? Is one of them in the left/right room?" The person who stood up seemed a little nervous, but quickly added.
"Every time he got an answer that answered his question, which was that they were either in a room together or in separate rooms. I think that was the most intuitive explanation."
"But this is a paradox. The twin paradox breaks away from the inertial reference frame. The place in the quantum fable certainly cannot exist on Earth." The boy behind him interrupted him and began to proudly give another example.
"Quantum entanglement immediately reminded me of superposition and poor Schrödinger's cat—of course, that's just a hypothesis, and we can now prove that this view is completely wrong. A cat—why can't it be a macroscopic observer like a human, and thus influence its own destiny, that is, the outcome of the experiment?"
Speaking of Schrödinger's cat, even more people agree. "Quantum entanglement was initially described as a photon being both deflected and undeflected by atoms. Subsequent experiments have proven that observation not only interferes with the object being measured, but also creates it."
The scholar at the podium wrote a summary on the blackboard. "In other words, we create our own reality." He paused and looked at the students in the rows near the door. "Quantum physics has created a crisis in physics. So who still remembers the Copenhagen interpretation proposed by the Bohr Institute?"
The girl in front of Pang Li stood up and summarized the Copenhagen interpretation in a clear voice. "The first point that constitutes this interpretation is that they broadened the concept of 'observation produces the observed'. The second point is complementarity. A popular example is the existence of complementary physical quantities, such as energy and observation time." She continued, "The third point, completed by Heisenberg, is the prototype of the famous uncertainty principle. The more accurately the position of a particle is observed, the less accurate the measured velocity becomes."
She was about to sit down when she quickly added, as if remembering something, "This explanation separates the macroscopic and microscopic worlds, but it doesn't overturn the classical physics derived from Newton's system of motion."
"Speaking of Bohr and Einstein, I think everyone remembers the two EPR papers, which shared the same name but held opposing viewpoints. In EPR, Einstein and his colleagues described a special case—twin photons—that confirmed the possibility of simultaneous observation. However, Bohr legitimately questioned the experimental conditions proposed in the paper, which claimed they were unaffected by any observations. So, in this case, Bohr emerged victorious."
The student who came later added another point, but of course this topic was somewhat far from the original introduction.
Pang Li was thinking this and was about to speak when someone else spoke first, "So quantum entanglement has another name - EPR-Bell effect." The man hurriedly answered this question and looked at the scholar on the podium expectantly. After vaguely seeing him nod, he was willing to explain further.
"I previously participated in an experiment to verify a counterexample to Bell's inequality, and the results were perfect. This demonstrates the correctness of Bell's theorem, which states that reality and divisibility cannot coexist in a macroscopic world. Specifically, if our world has real physical properties that are not generated by observation, and if objects can be separated from each other, then it is impossible for what happens to one object not to affect other objects at the same time."
"Because, in principle, any two objects that have ever interacted are forever entangled, the behavior of one of them will instantly affect the behavior of the other and all objects with which it is entangled."
The person next to him quickly continued, "Bell's theorem is too convoluted. Subsequent research, like the hidden inference, suffers from the deceptive turkey effect. We're like the child trying to reach the henhouse, lured further and further away by the seemingly playful turkeys. And the approximate equations proposed by Schrödinger and others show another aspect: the correlation barrier. Damn it! They're always making approximations, but the experimental results we produce can't be approximated. It can only be called a failure."
At the end he even held his head and started complaining, "I have failed so many times that I began to doubt whether I have hands and brains." This unexpectedly eased the tense atmosphere and caused everyone to laugh.
"This student can work harder in the future." The young scholar also made up for him and continued to invite the students who raised their hands to stand up and talk about their own views and the various nouns or hypothetical theories they cited.
Pang Li didn't have time to write down these terms, and he was sleepy because of the poor air circulation in the classroom. He only saw the third sentence that appeared on the blackboard: Can consciousness collapse the wave function?
She was the first to conceive of a quantum theory of consciousness. One, derived from the Penrose-Hameroff approach, used objective reduction to describe the observer effect: "A macroscopic superposition of states rapidly collapses to its present state at extremely small scales due to observation," which is related to the formation of consciousness. Another, from Stapp, proposed the quantum Zeno effect: observing a kettle never causes it to boil, thus weakening the impact of observation.
Of course, by the time she was called upon to answer, both parts had already been covered by others, so she could only recite the Casimir conjecture, "The quantum mechanical vacuum energy of space may cause the attraction between two macroscopic objects."
The bell rang just in time, and the scholar walked out of the classroom faster than they did, so she didn't even have the chance to hear his specific explanation of the conjecture or his recommendation of relevant reference books.
"Xiao Pang!" The voice of the researcher next to her interrupted her distraction. Pang Li then turned her attention to the incubator and looked at the volunteer inside. According to the current stable trend of the data, he would wake up in one to two days.
Li Rong began to feel a sense of familiarity, but the residual pain still troubled him, and more so the recollection of the memories in his mind - this was the third experiment, and he seemed to be able to figure it out - he was a eunuch this time.
The nutrient solution slowly receded. After Li Rong completed the relevant inspections with the help of the robotic arm, he let the researcher help him stand up and walk around. He also looked at the instruments that seemed familiar to him.
After a while, he allowed others to push him into the closed room. He watched the medicine being injected into his blood vessels and breathed a sigh of relief. He was ready to welcome the familiar feeling and also ready to forget the emotions that made him feel scared and confused. This emotion seemed to be his, but also seemed not to be his.
He couldn't quite wrap his head around it, but he simply followed instructions and completed the aftermath of the third experiment. Li Rong picked up the creased paper and read the contents. According to the time written on it, his sister should be waking up soon.
But he still had to wait until the next morning. When he was wheeled into the ward in a wheelchair, he hesitated for a moment. Lying in the ward was his sister, with whom he depended on for everything, but he couldn't remember anything about their past.
Fortunately, the experiment had stricter regulations, so at least he had to watch the researcher and Li Qingyue talking through the barrier. The girl, still with an IV in her hand, lay on the bed, her lips moving as she answered the other person's questions.
Her face was still slightly swollen from the effects of the medication. Li Rong's first glimpse of those familiar eyes gave him a strange sense of melancholy, as if this was something he had long awaited, yet for some reason he wasn't overly excited. He chalked it all up to a memory lapse, convincing himself that perhaps he could just finish the experiment.
However, he still listened carefully to the report on the results of the drug trial while sitting in a wheelchair. He did not react much when he learned that he still needed to undergo rehabilitation for a period of time. Li Rong did not know how many more experiments he would have to conduct. It would be best if he could regain his memory before Li Qingyue fully recovered.
The rest of the time was all in the hands of the researchers. Li Rong cooperated with their increasingly tedious examination process, while at the same time undergoing physical rehabilitation - trying his best to keep all physiological data within the normal range, even if it was just the minimum value.
On the third day, he lay back in the incubator, his hands folded on his abdomen. Li Rong's memory was still a little fuzzy, and the machine thoughtfully prompted the next steps. "Anchor connection complete—" The nutrient solution gradually filled his body, giving him a sense of peace and dependence. "Please repeat the guidelines."
Li Rong confirmed the content of the rules word by word, "The only rule for observers - respect time and escape paradox." He fell into darkness again, not knowing where he was going, nor what the point of these procedures that required him to strictly follow was. He just obeyed and closed his eyes obediently.
[1] References:
"A Brief History of Time," "The Quantum Mystery," "The Strings of the Universe," "Different Universes," and "The Arrow of Time" are all included here. The above understandings are mostly my own, and I will not be responsible for any of the above views.
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