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Odd QM scenario appears not to conserve energy + Chien-Shiung Wu (physics community)

#1
C C Offline
Puzzling quantum scenario appears not to conserve energy
https://www.quantamagazine.org/puzzling-...-20220516/

INTRO: The quantum physicists Sandu Popescu, Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich have been troubled by the same scenario for three decades.

It started when they wrote about a surprising wave phenomenon called superoscillation in 1990. “We were never able to really tell what exactly was bothering us,” said Popescu, a professor at the University of Bristol. “Since then, every year we come back and we see it from a different angle.”

Finally, in December 2020, the trio published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explaining what the problem is: In quantum systems, superoscillation appears to violate the law of conservation of energy. This law, which states that the energy of an isolated system never changes, is more than a bedrock physical principle. It’s now understood to be an expression of the fundamental symmetries of the universe — a “very important part of the edifice of physics,” said Chiara Marletto, a physicist at the University of Oxford.

Physicists are divided as to whether the new paradox exposes a genuine violation of the conservation of energy. Their attitudes toward the problem depend in part on whether individual experimental outcomes in quantum mechanics should be considered seriously, no matter how improbable they may be. The hope is that by putting in the effort to resolve the puzzle, researchers will be able to clarify some of the most subtle and strange aspects of quantum theory... (MORE - details)


Chien-Shiung Wu’s work defied the laws of physics
https://www.popsci.com/science/chien-shiung-wu-profile/

INTRO: In quantum physics, there’s a law known as the conservation of parity, which is based on the notion that nature adheres to the ideal of symmetry. In a mirror-image of our world, it posits, the laws of physics would function the same way—despite everything being flipped. Since the early 1900s, experimental evidence suggested that this was true: To the pull of gravity or the draw of the electromagnetic force, the difference between left and right hardly mattered. So, physicists quite reasonably assumed that parity was a fundamental principle in the universe.

But in the 1950s, an experimental physicist at Columbia University named Chien-Shiung Wu devised an experiment that challenged—and defied—that law. Physics, she proved, to the astonishment of the field, did not always adhere to parity. Throughout her life, in fact, this woman demonstrated that parity was not the default; she flouted gender and racial barriers and eventually came to be known as the “first lady of physics.” (MORE - details)
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#2
Kornee Offline
(May 17, 2022 04:07 PM)C C Wrote: Puzzling quantum scenario appears not to conserve energy
https://www.quantamagazine.org/puzzling-...-20220516/

INTRO: The quantum physicists Sandu Popescu, Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich have been troubled by the same scenario for three decades.

It started when they wrote about a surprising wave phenomenon called superoscillation in 1990. “We were never able to really tell what exactly was bothering us,” said Popescu, a professor at the University of Bristol. “Since then, every year we come back and we see it from a different angle.”

Finally, in December 2020, the trio published a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences explaining what the problem is: In quantum systems, superoscillation appears to violate the law of conservation of energy. This law, which states that the energy of an isolated system never changes, is more than a bedrock physical principle. It’s now understood to be an expression of the fundamental symmetries of the universe — a “very important part of the edifice of physics,” said Chiara Marletto, a physicist at the University of Oxford.

Physicists are divided as to whether the new paradox exposes a genuine violation of the conservation of energy. Their attitudes toward the problem depend in part on whether individual experimental outcomes in quantum mechanics should be considered seriously, no matter how improbable they may be. The hope is that by putting in the effort to resolve the puzzle, researchers will be able to clarify some of the most subtle and strange aspects of quantum theory... (MORE - details)

My betting is they or someone else will poke a hole in their finding. Ironically, it's very easy to show violation of conservation of energy-momentum in, among other situations, the simple case of magnetized matter undergoing a straightforward cyclic process. No dense, subtle math required. And the on-demand violation is neither statistical fluke or ultra-tiny in nature, though it is small. I've presented the outline years ago several places elsewhere, but trenchant mindsets meant no useful reactions.
Still, the arena of 'superoscillations' is fascinating, and has actual, real-world practical applications:
https://www.bizneworleans.com/grant-coul...hnologies/
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