The Universe Is Not Locally Real

[Jehanne]

As far as graduate school goes, crappy grades are not necessarily a showstopper; you can always take the GRE, both general and subject tests in physics and mathematics, and prove yourself there.  If an admissions committee would inquire further, you can make-up whatever excuse suits the moment to explain away your undergraduate record.  Really good graduate schools will also test their potential candidates with written and oral exams, yet another opportunity to prove one's self.

Yah, the professor was in his eighties and hard of hearing. I think I could have done better with an instructor who answered the questions I asked instead of the ones he heard. Maybe I'll re-take Calculus and see if I can do better...hopefully my 60-year old brain is still capable.

No need. If you get a good score on your Mathematics GRE, then, you clearly know enough to begin your graduate studies. As I said, you will probably be tested in a 2 to 3 hour long exam anyways before being admitted. Some individuals in their 60s have gone to medical school, and, so, why not physics?

[LinuxGal]

Fantastic article!  Without derailing this thread, it is interesting that one could get a PhD in physics, "have fun for five  years, and then...be jobless."  That outcome, of course, would feel very real, not to mention, painful.

There’s a story (almost certainly apocryphal, since it’s also told about other people) that Ernest Rutherford was told by his academic advisors to take his degree in mathematics, because everything had already been discovered in physics.

<Hossenfelder-accent>

Ironic before 1973, perhaps.  Not so much now.  This years' Nobel prize was awarded for experiments conceived in 1964.  The 2013 prize was for the Higgs particle, also conceived in '64.  The 2004 prize was for asymptotic freedom proposed in 1973, which closed the Standard Model.  Ever since then, the pack has been running headlong down the dead-end blind alley of superstring theory and nobody's gonna pony up for a circumlunar superconducting supercollider to keep the academic paper mills running. All the low-hanging fruit has been grabbed.

</Hossenfelder-accent>

[LinuxGal]

I don't understand why particles being affected by other particles at a distance makes anything less real, but IANAP.

[Jehanne]

[LinuxGal]

::rimshot::

[LinuxGal]

I just realized I don’t understand anything about quantum mechanics because I think quantum mechanics is something i can understand.

[LinuxGal]

and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It
Scientific American

One of the more unsettling discoveries in the past half century is that the universe is not locally real. “Real,” meaning that objects have definite properties independent of observation—an apple can be red even when no one is looking; “local” means objects can only be influenced by their surroundings, and that any influence cannot travel faster than light. Investigations at the frontiers of quantum physics have found that these things cannot both be true. Instead, the evidence shows objects are not influenced solely by their surroundings and they may also lack definite properties prior to measurement. As Albert Einstein famously bemoaned to a friend, “Do you really believe the moon is not there when you are not looking at it?”

[polymath257]

A classic paper by N David Mermin (who also wrote a very good book on Solid State Theory):

http://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/EPR/R...n_moon.pdf

[LinuxGal]

A classic paper by N David Mermin (who also wrote a very good book on Solid State Theory):

http://www.physics.smu.edu/scalise/EPR/R...n_moon.pdf

Mermin also cleaned up the GHZ experiment  to eliminate probability from Bell's argument.  If you know the difference between odd and even you can follow it.  Result:  QM is non-local.

[LinuxGal]

I don't understand why particles being affected by other particles at a distance makes anything less real, but IANAP.