AMR wrote:

Oldskeptic: Where do you get his stuff? Certainly not from reading anything that is actually based on valid science that you actually understand.

I'm not making this stuff up, really . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth#The_giant_impact_hypothesis
(New evidence suggests the Moon formed even later, 4.48±0.02 Ga, or 70–110 Ma after the start of the Solar System) The Moon has a bulk composition closely resembling the Earth's mantle and crust together, without the Earth's core. This has led to the giant impact hypothesis, the idea that the Moon was formed during a giant impact of the proto-Earth with another protoplanet by accretion of the material blown off the mantles of the proto-Earth and impactor.
The impactor, sometimes named Theia, is thought to have been a little smaller than the current planet Mars.

I really hope you continue this, it's really quite amusing to chronicle this ongoing defense of a simple mistake. So now we've gone from one giant impact that led to the formation of our one big moon to a bombardment. And the 'entirely molten' part has been shot down repeatedly now by the evidence of liquid water, oceans of it.

AMR wrote:
Recall the Earth was entirely molten and bombarded by Mars size planetoids for the first ~billion years of its existence.

As one smaller-than-Mars impact is transmuted into a bombardment.

AMR wrote:As I understand classical QM

Then you understand bugger all, because QM is, by definition, non-classical. Originally, the term 'classical' applied only to the theories of Newton and Maxwell. Latterly, though, classical physics refers to any non-quantum physics.

the uncertainty principal requires observers;

Again, you understand bugger all. Collapse of the wavefunction requires observation, but the uncertainty principle does not.

what observers were there in the beginning of the universe (I also understand that interpretation is controversial, but then again so is your explanation above ["beyond any serious questioning"?])?

Well, this boils down to what constitutes an 'observer'. In reality, a particle can be an observer. Photons, for example, are observers (and in most cases of observation in QM experiments, it's actually a photon that is doing the observing).

But why should such a thing as Heisenberg uncertainty exist in the first place?

Invalid question: There's no good reason to suppose that there even is a 'why'.

What is more likely a roiling probabilistic mass/energy relationship that gives birth to a finely-tuned organic existence or just simply nothing?

What 'finely-tuned organic existence'? Oh, and please, don't cite the guff previously cited. When physicists talk about fine-tuning, they're not talking about the universe being fine-tuned, they're talking about the fact that certain parameters have to fall within very a very specific band of values if the hypothesised models are correct.

As for the question, it isn't about what is more likely, but about what has been demonstrated to be the case. In this instance, the simple fact that 'nothing' is a completely falsified concept in physical theories demonstrates that that isn't even an option.

and why should it generate a thing as improbable as our universe?

Improbable? Now you demonstrate your ignorance of probability as well. The probability of our local cosmic expansion's existence is exactly 1, which is the highest probability possible. It happened. Addressing the thrust of your question, though, 'why' is still an invalid question until such time as it can be demonstrated that 'why' is even a viable concept. Science doesn't do 'why', it only does 'how'.

Oldskeptic:
Where do you get his stuff? Certainly not from reading anything that is actually based on valid science that you actually understand.

AMR wrote:
I'm not making this stuff up, really . . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... hypothesis
(New evidence suggests the Moon formed even later, 4.48±0.02 Ga, or 70–110 Ma after the start of the Solar System) The Moon has a bulk composition closely resembling the Earth's mantle and crust together, without the Earth's core. This has led to the giant impact hypothesis, the idea that the Moon was formed during a giant impact of the proto-Earth with another protoplanet by accretion of the material blown off the mantles of the proto-Earth and impactor.
The impactor, sometimes named Theia, is thought to have been a little smaller than the current planet Mars.

Really? Well this collision is a hypothesis with some support but also some problems, but that really has nothing to do with you making it up as you go along. This is what you said:

AMR wrote:
Recall the Earth was entirely molten and bombarded by Mars size planetoids for the first ~billion years of its existence.

You use the word “recall” as if what you are about to say is accept and that everyone knows it. But the earth was not molten for a billion years and one hypothesis about an oblique collision between Earth and a Mars size planetoid does not equal Earth being bombarded by Mars size planetoids for a billion years.

Hackenslash wrote:
Errr, no. That nothing is unstable (actually, it's worse than that, it's impossible) is a proven fact, and stems from one of our most successful and accurate scientific principles. The uncertainty principle isnt a though experiment, it's a categorical feature of the universe, and beyond any serious questioning.

AMR wrote:
As I understand classical QM the uncertainty principal requires observers;

Then you don’t understand the principle, and may be confusing this with Schrödinger’s thought experiment concerning a cat and collapsing wave functions. The uncertainty principle says that knowing the exact position and velocity (changes in speed and direction) of a particle or field is impossible even in theory.

AMR wrote:
what observers were there in the beginning of the universe (I also understand that interpretation is controversial, but then again so is your explanation above…

No need for observers, and Hackenslash’s explanation is not controversial at all. It is actually very simple: Nothingness is unstable because “nothing” as defined by physics is a state where energy levels of the fields comprising this nothingness are as low as they can get, but the uncertainty principle says that it cannot be exactly zero because if it was then we would know not only position but also velocity. So there is slight, constant variations in energy levels from + to - that provide an average of zero. There is a symmetry in this that is severely unstable in that any single point that hangs at an energy level for any length of time at all causes spontaneous symmetry breaking, and this quasi-nothing becomes something in the instantaneous process that follows.

AMR wrote:
But why should such a thing as Heisenberg uncertainty exist in the first place?

The uncertainty principle exists as an explanation not as a thing.

AMR wrote:
What is more likely a roiling probabilistic mass/energy relationship that gives birth to a finely-tuned organic existence or just simply nothing? and why should it generate a thing as improbable as our universe?

Word salad. But it doesn’t matter what you put at beginning of your question, anything is more probable than nothing if you are talking about a state of nothingness where no energy exists at all.

This is why the question, “Why does something exist rather than nothing?” is vacuous philosophical wondering. Something exists because it is impossible for nothing to exist. Combine the uncertainty principle with the 1st law of thermodynamics and you have your answer.

tytalus: I really hope you continue this, it's really quite amusing to chronicle this ongoing defense of a simple mistake. So now we've gone from one giant impact that led to the formation of our one big moon to a bombardment. And the 'entirely molten' part has been shot down repeatedly now by the evidence of liquid water, oceans of it.

Earth today is mostly molten beneath a relatively thin crust. Oceans can exist over a molten surface via superheating of a pressurized body of water as is the case above deep sea volcanism. And certainly the impact of a near-Mars size object would reduce most if not all of the proto-Earth's surface to a molten or semi-molten state. A surfeit of water from the oceans and the atmosphere were probably ejected into space allowing land to emerge from the depths.

Sources via Wikipedia:
Halliday, A.N.; 2006: The Origin of the Earth; What's New?, Elements 2(4), p. 205-210. Halliday 2006
Ida, S.; Canup, R.M. & Stewart, G.M.; 1997: Lunar accretion from an impact-generated disk, Nature 389, p. 353-357. Ida et al. 1997; Canup & Asphaug 2001
Liu, L.-G.; 1992: Chemical composition of the Earth after the giant impact, Earth, Moon, and Planets 57(2), p. 85-97.; Liu, Melosh et al. 1993

As one smaller-than-Mars impact is transmuted into a bombardment.

tytalus check out the graphic End of the Late Heavy Bombardment ca. 4 billion years ago (and note Circa "from Latin, meaning 'around'; often abbreviated c., ca., ca or cca. and sometimes italicized, means 'approximately';from the free Merriam-Webster dictionary" via wikipedia). All these dates are assumed to be understood as not spot-on precise which is how I use them myself, and your line of argumentation is tedious concerning an issue (stellar-lifetimes) which was itself a rather tangential argument by Stenger.

hackenslash: Again, you understand bugger all. Collapse of the wavefunction requires observation, but the uncertainty principle does not.[WTF???]

As you say "bugger all" look who's talking:
The observer becomes part of the observed system. It's called wave-particle duality. Look into it; educate yourself. You'll learn "Heisenberg interprets the electron as a particle with quantum behaviour. It is based on sophisticated matrix computations, which introduce discontinuities and quantum jumps. In contrast, wave mechanics developed by Erwin Schrödinger interprets the electron [or any subatomic particle] as an energy wave."

Since the momentum of a particle is the product of its mass and velocity, the principle is sometimes stated differently, however, its meaning remains the same: The act of measuring one magnitude of a particle, be it its mass, its velocity, or its position, causes the other magnitudes to blur. This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature. . . . The notion of the observer becoming a part of the observed system is fundamentally new in physics. In quantum physics, the observer is no longer external and neutral, but through the act of measurement he becomes himself a part of observed reality. This marks the end of the neutrality of the experimenter. It also has huge implications on the epistemology of science: certain facts are no longer objectifiable in quantum theory. If in an exact science, such as physics, the outcome of an experiment depends on the view of the observer, then what does this imply for other fields of human knowledge?

Oldskeptic But the earth was not molten for a billion years and one hypothesis about an oblique collision between Earth and a Mars size planetoid does not equal Earth being bombarded by Mars size planetoids for a billion years.

See above.

It is actually very simple: Nothingness is unstable because “nothing” as defined by physics is a state where energy levels of the fields comprising this nothingness are as low as they can get . . . .

Here you confuse "virtual particles" which emerge from vacuum within the space of the universe. In the beginning the entire universe itself was a singularity unobserved and unobservable, there is no reason to thing "virtual particles" and anti-particles were emerging spontaneously from the pre-universe void, whatever that may have been. Also where is the anti-universe of particles that would have emerged spontaneously at the same time?

Combine the uncertainty principle with the 1st law of thermodynamics and you have your answer.

The cosmological constant throws the 1st law of thermodynamics out the window. As space-time expands it accelerates, implying more and more energy is being added to our universe, which is traditionally understood as a classic "closed system."

AMR wrote:

tytalus: I really hope you continue this, it's really quite amusing to chronicle this ongoing defense of a simple mistake. So now we've gone from one giant impact that led to the formation of our one big moon to a bombardment. And the 'entirely molten' part has been shot down repeatedly now by the evidence of liquid water, oceans of it.

Earth today is mostly molten beneath a relatively thin crust.

Oh, we've gone from entirely to mostly! Is this like the difference between mostly dead and all dead? You are Miracle Max, aren't you? That's great, I missed having a relationship with a fictional character... See, if you're going to characterize the earth's surface as 'entirely molten' and then equate this with 'mostly' and then equate that with the state of the earth now, then you've equated our current environment with...liquid hot magma.

Man, that explains some things about creationist drek let me tell you!

Oceans can exist over a molten surface via superheating of a pressurized body of water as is the case above deep sea volcanism. And certainly the impact of a near-Mars size object would reduce most if not all of the proto-Earth's surface to a molten or semi-molten state. A surfeit of water from the oceans and the atmosphere were probably ejected into space allowing land to emerge from the depths.

Perhaps, but for a billion years? No, seriously, don't stop. This is great.

As one smaller-than-Mars impact is transmuted into a bombardment.

tytalus check out the graphic End of the Late Heavy Bombardment ca. 4 billion years ago (and note Circa "from Latin, meaning 'around'; often abbreviated c., ca., ca or cca. and sometimes italicized, means 'approximately';from the free Merriam-Webster dictionary" via wikipedia). All these dates are assumed to be understood as not spot-on precise which is how I use them myself, and your line of argumentation is tedious concerning an issue (stellar-lifetimes) which was itself a rather tangential argument by Stenger.

Bombardment! I see more than one!

AMR wrote:
Earth today is mostly molten beneath a relatively thin crust.

Wrong again, the crust is the thin layer that we live on but everything below that is not molten, only the outer core. The thickness of the crust and mantel combined is almost 1800 miles thick. The outer core is around 1400 miles thick. It might on the surface appear that they are somewhat close to the same in cubic miles, but that does not take into account that the circumference at the outer edge of the top layers is much larger than that of the outer layer of the outer core. Taking this into account and subtracting the inner core which is very hot but not molten the non-molten parts of Earth are about four times greater than the molten part.

AMR wrote:
Oceans can exist over a molten surface via superheating of a pressurized body of water as is the case above deep sea volcanism. And certainly the impact of a near-Mars size object would reduce most if not all of the proto-Earth's surface to a molten or semi-molten state.

But the impact theory that you cited before concerns a glancing blow at low velocity by a Mars size object coming from behind that spread rocky material into Earth’s orbit that coalesced into the moon. And you are defending a statement that included Earth already being in a molten state when this happened, not the impact causing the molten sate. Here it is again incase you have forgotten what you said:

AMR wrote:
Recall the Earth was entirely molten and bombarded by Mars size planetoids for the first ~billion years of its existence.

AMR wrote:
tytalus check out the graphic End of the Late Heavy Bombardment ca. 4 billion years ago (and note Circa "from Latin, meaning 'around'; often abbreviated c., ca., ca or cca. and sometimes italicized, means 'approximately';from the free Merriam-Webster dictionary" via wikipedia). All these dates are assumed to be understood as not spot-on precise which is how I use them myself, and your line of argumentation is tedious concerning an issue (stellar-lifetimes) which was itself a rather tangential argument by Stenger.

I find it interesting that your graphic puts the formation of the moon a half a billion years before late heavy bombardment started. You may be under the impression that the hypothesis of late heavy bombardment supports you because it is also sometimes referred to as Lunar cataclysm, but this term does not refer to a cataclysm that created the moon to refers to cataclysms that happen to the moon. The moon, from rocks gathered from moon landings, does seem to have been heavily bombarded by asteroids and comets around 4 billion years ago, but without physical evidence of that having happen to Earth because of erosion what the hypothesis does is hypothesize that if the moon was being bombarded then so was earth.

Your problem is that if the evidence for late heavy bombardment comes from craters on the moon caused by this late heavy bombardment then the moon cannot have been created during late heavy bombardment.

Oldskeptic wrote:
Combine the uncertainty principle with the 1st law of thermodynamics and you have your answer.

AMR wrote:
The cosmological constant throws the 1st law of thermodynamics out the window. As space-time expands it accelerates, implying more and more energy is being added to our universe, which is traditionally understood as a classic "closed system."

Where do you get this stuff from? Nothing throws the 1st law out the window, absolutely nothing. Nothing about expansion implies any energy is added with expansion. Quite the contrary because as the universe expanded it cooled because energy was being spread thinner, and it cooled in the way that the 1st law predicted, and the second. And the prediction has been verified by measurements of cosmic background radiation.

Unfortunately for you and your argument the universe is not a closed system, it is an isolated system where not only can matter not be exchanged with its environment, neither can energy.

Oldskeptic wrote: The outer core is around 1400 miles thick. It might on the surface appear that they are somewhat close to the same in cubic miles, but that does not take into account that the circumference at the outer edge of the top layers is much larger than that of the outer layer of the outer core. Taking this into account and subtracting the inner core which is very hot but not molten the non-molten parts of Earth are about four times greater than the molten part.

According to the USGS website:

Between 100 and 200 kilometers below the Earth's surface, the temperature of the rock is near the melting point; molten rock erupted by some volcanoes originates in this region of the mantle.

So a great deal of molten material exists below approx 60 miles beneath our feet (100km~60mi). And the only reason that much of the remaining mantle material is not molten (usually described as "plastic") is due to the immense pressures that allow superheating of solids as with liquids:

The melting point and viscosity of a substance depends on the pressure it is under. As there is intense and increasing pressure as one travels deeper into the mantle, the lower part of the mantle flows less easily than does the upper mantle (chemical changes within the mantle may also be important).

And this is definitely the case with the massive inner core, if a sample of the material were brought to the surface of the earth it would flow as a molten substance:

The temperature of the inner core can be estimated using experimental and theoretical constraints on the melting temperature of impure iron at the pressure (about 330 GPa) of the inner core boundary, yielding estimates of 5,700 K (5,430 °C; 9,800 °F).The range of pressure in Earth's inner core is about 330 to 360 gigapascals (3,300,000 to 3,600,000 atm), and iron can only be solid at such high temperatures because its melting temperature increases dramatically at these high pressures.

Oldskeptic wrote: Where do you get this stuff from? Nothing throws the 1st law out the window, absolutely nothing. Nothing about expansion implies any energy is added with expansion. Quite the contrary because as the universe expanded it cooled because energy was being spread thinner, and it cooled in the way that the 1st law predicted, and the second. And the prediction has been verified by measurements of cosmic background radiation.

Unfortunately for you and your argument the universe is not a closed system, it is an isolated system where not only can matter not be exchanged with its environment, neither can energy.

The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created or destroyed; but clearly as the universe expands the vacuum energy increases, and what's more the more more it expands with time the faster it will expand. The expansion rate is accelerating with time, this clearly indicates more energy is being added to our universe system. There are only two possibilities here as I see things 1. energy is being created out of the growing vacuum of space or 2. energy is being added to the universe from outside; and I mean outside the universe as a whole itself, not just outside the observable part of our universe (which given the recent discovery of "Dark Flow" must be far greater than the total mass/energy of what is visible out to a ~13 billion light-year radius).

Explain the difference between "closed" and "isolated" universes with respect to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

AMR wrote:
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created or destroyed; but clearly as the universe expands the vacuum energy increases,

Just curious, how do you determine the vacuum energy of the universe at a given time ?

AMR wrote:As you say "bugger all" look who's talking:
The observer becomes part of the observed system. It's called wave-particle duality. Look into it; educate yourself. You'll learn "Heisenberg interprets the electron as a particle with quantum behaviour. It is based on sophisticated matrix computations, which introduce discontinuities and quantum jumps. In contrast, wave mechanics developed by Erwin Schrödinger interprets the electron [or any subatomic particle] as an energy wave."

So, genius, tell us how 'the observer becomes part of the observed system' (which is not remotely what wave-particle duality is, BTW) equates to 'HUP requires observation'. You completely misinterpret the implications. That an observer becomes part of the experiment does not remotely suggest that uncertainty principle relies on observation. The uncertainty principle is in play whether the observation is taking place or not. Quantum uncertainty doesn't require observation, it simply is.

You might want to put that 'smug' smiley away until you dispel your ignorance of QM to the degree that you actually have something to be smug about.

@ AMR:
It seems that you have gone from the earth being entirely molten for a billion years, which it was not, to almost entirely molten, which it is not, to some of it is molten and a lot more almost is, which may be the case depending on how you look at it. Congratulations! You’ve finally said something about this that might be true.

There is one thing that is obvious in this part of the discussion, and that is how far you will go to defend something you’ve said after you have been show the error/s.

AMR wrote:
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created or destroyed; but clearly as the universe expands the vacuum energy increases, and what's more the more more it expands with time the faster it will expand.

So you think that universe’s accelerating expansion is like someone constantly pushing the gas peddle of a car further down thereby adding more energy from the gas tank. It doesn’t work like that. In the earlier post you said that accelerating expansion implied the addition of energy to the universe, but it does nothing of the sort.

AMR wrote:
The expansion rate is accelerating with time, this clearly indicates more energy is being added to our universe system.

Other than the 1st law saying that addition of energy to the universe cannot happen, evidence for energy not being added is that as the universe expands it cools. If “added energy” was responsible for the expansion then there would not be cooling. The energy stays the same while the area it occupies increases. This is why the predictions for the ultimate state of the universe (in both expansion theory and Turok’s brane model) is a vast area at absolute zero where maximum entropy is achieved because no energy can be exchanged from anything to another thing.

AMR wrote:
There are only two possibilities here as I see things 1. energy is being created out of the growing vacuum of space or 2. energy is being added to the universe from outside; and I mean outside the universe as a whole itself, not just outside the observable part of our universe (which given the recent discovery of "Dark Flow" must be far greater than the total mass/energy of what is visible out to a ~13 billion light-year radius).

You really need to do some reading of the actual material, or just pay more and closer attention to Wiki. I know that it seems intuitive and only makes common sense that if the universe is 13.7 billion years old that the farthest observation to be made would be 13.7 billion light years away, but surprise! That is not the case, the edge of the observable universe is more like 40 billon light years away. Go figure. That was the last, but largest, glaring mistake in the above paragraph that I noticed. So lets go back to the beginning.

It really doesn’t matter what the possibilities are as you see them. You’ve already demonstrated that you rely more on intuition than actually finding out what is factual. Energy is not being created out of a growing vacuum, nor is it being added from outside of the universe. And Dark Flow is not a recent discovery, it is one hypothesis of why it appears that one part of space seems to be expanding at an accelerated rate a tiny bit more than the rest.

AMR wrote:
Explain the difference between "closed" and "isolated" universes with respect to the 1st Law of Thermodynamics.

First of all there are no closed universes they are all isolated systems or they wouldn’t be universes, but let's not clutter up the discussion with other universes when what we are talking about is the only one that we know exists.

But for clarification a closed system is one where matter is conserved but energy is not: An example would be a any sealed container that can gain from or lose heat to a surrounding environment. An Isolated system is one where matter and energy are conserved because besides matter not being able to be exchanged with a surrounding environment neither can heat be gained from one or lost to it.

As for how this relates to the 1st law, it doesn’t. The first law says nothing about exchanging matter or energy, it only rules out creating it or destroying it, and allowing it to be transformed one into the other.

It is the 2nd law that deals with open, closed, and isolated systems. Earth is an example of an open system in one sense, photosynthesis creates matter from energy coming from the sun in the form of sunlight. Sunlight heats Earth where it reaches and Earth looses heat to the surrounding environment; space.

A closed system cannot gain nor lose matter because it is sealed, no matter is ever exchanged and the addition or subtraction of energy in the form of heat neither transforms energy into matter or matter to energy.

An isolated system is one that has no environment to exchange matter or energy with. This is part of the description of the universe.

AMR wrote:
The cosmological constant throws the 1st law of thermodynamics out the window. As space-time expands it accelerates, implying more and more energy is being added to our universe, which is traditionally understood as a classic "closed system."

A closed system will gain more energy if energy is added. But even if you could show that energy was being added to the universe it would not throw the 1st law out the window. It would just show that this energy was coming from somewhere else. Something that you will probably have a hard time trying to show any evidence for.

twistor59 wrote:

AMR wrote:
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created or destroyed; but clearly as the universe expands the vacuum energy increases,

Just curious, how do you determine the vacuum energy of the universe at a given time ?

According to wikipedia

The energy of a cubic centimeter of empty space has been calculated to be one trillionth of an erg, based on the upper limit of the cosmological constant. However, in both Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED), consistency with the requirement of Lorentz invariance and with the magnitude of the Planck Constant leads to the much larger figure of 10107 Joules per cubic cm or 10113 Joules per cubic meter.

This is the so-called cosmological constant problem, the conflict between theory and observation. Also

Quantum field theory considers the vacuum ground state not to be completely empty, but to consist of a seething mass of virtual particles and fields. These fields are quantified as probabilities—that is, the likelihood of manifestation based on conditions. Since these fields do not have a permanent existence, they are called vacuum fluctuations. In the Casimir effect, two metal plates can cause a change in the vacuum energy density between them which generates a measurable force.

The Casimir effect was measured more accurately in 1997 by Steve K. Lamoreaux of Los Alamos National Laboratory,and by Umar Mohideen and Anushree Roy of the University of California at Riverside. In practice, rather than using two parallel plates, which would require phenomenally accurate alignment to ensure they were parallel, the experiments use one plate that is flat and another plate that is a part of a sphere with a large radius. In 2001, a group at the University of Padua finally succeeded in measuring the Casimir force between parallel plates using microresonators.
G. Bressi, G. Carugno, R. Onofrio, G. Ruoso, "Measurement of the Casimir force between Parallel Metallic Surfaces", Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 041804 (2002)

hackenslash: tell us how 'the observer becomes part of the observed system' (which is not remotely what wave-particle duality is, BTW) equates to 'HUP requires observation'. You completely misinterpret the implications. That an observer becomes part of the experiment does not remotely suggest that uncertainty principle relies on observation. The uncertainty principle is in play whether the observation is taking place or not. Quantum uncertainty doesn't require observation, it simply is.

Opinions vary, you're entitled to yours. . . .

The results of quantum theory, and particularly of Heisenberg's work, left scientists puzzled. Many felt that quantum theory had somehow "missed the point". At least Albert Einstein did so. He was an outspoken critic of quantum mechanics and is often quoted on his comment regarding the Uncertainty Principle: "The Old One (God) doesn't play dice." He also said: "I like to believe that the moon is still there even if we don't look at it." In particular, Einstein was convinced that electrons do have definite orbits, even if we cannot observe them.

Oldskeptic: So you think that universe’s accelerating expansion is like someone constantly pushing the gas peddle of a car further down thereby adding more energy from the gas tank. It doesn’t work like that. In the earlier post you said that accelerating expansion implied the addition of energy to the universe, but it does nothing of the sort.

AMR wrote:
The expansion rate is accelerating with time, this clearly indicates more energy is being added to our universe system.

Other than the 1st law saying that addition of energy to the universe cannot happen, evidence for energy not being added is that as the universe expands it cools. If “added energy” was responsible for the expansion then there would not be cooling. The energy stays the same while the area it occupies increases. This is why the predictions for the ultimate state of the universe (in both expansion theory and Turok’s brane model) is a vast area at absolute zero where maximum entropy is achieved because no energy can be exchanged from anything to another thing.

You conflate conventional ideal gas laws (gas pressure-volumes and temperatures) with the vacuum energy that is believed to be the source of the "Dark Energy" driving the accelerating expansion of our universe. The consensus is that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy thus the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy. Let me ask you if a force which drives apart 100 billion galaxies does not constitute "energy" what is it?

You really need to do some reading of the actual material, or just pay more and closer attention to Wiki. I know that it seems intuitive and only makes common sense that if the universe is 13.7 billion years old that the farthest observation to be made would be 13.7 billion light years away, but surprise! That is not the case, the edge of the observable universe is more like 40 billon light years away.

Here you confuse the distance of objects at the time the light was emitted (my preferred measure), with the so-called cosmological or particle horizon (about 14 billion parsecs [46.5 billion light-years]). A distant quasar we see now that emitted its light 13.1 billion light years ago has likely resolved into some mass that is "now" some 40 billion light-years distant, but of course whatever it is it's no longer a quasar and we can't "see it now".

AMR wrote:Opinions vary, you're entitled to yours. . . .

Not a matter of opinion. Now how about you address the fucking post, instead of evading it.

Edit: Oh, and good work in utterly failing to read the article you linked to, which does not support your assertion in any way. You overlooked this bit:

This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

And you still haven't explained how the observer being part of a system being observed conflates to the uncertainty principle requiring an observer.

Your ignorance is there for all to see.

hackenslash wrote:

Edit: Oh, and good work in utterly failing to read the article you linked to, which does not support your assertion in any way. You overlooked this bit:

This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

And you still haven't explained how the observer being part of a system being observed conflates to the uncertainty principle requiring an observer.

Your ignorance is there for all to see.

Read the post I linked it quotes specifically ". . . the wave function of the unobserved object is a mixture of both, the wave and particle pictures, until the experimenter chooses what to observe in a given experiment". and that "[t]he more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa".--Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927


For someone who was apparently totally unaware of the fundamental relationship of wave-particle duality, you shouldn't be too quick on this forum to go spouting off on who's ignorant of what.

Schrödinger published a proof in 1926, which showed that the results of matrix and wave mechanics are equivalent; they were in fact the same theory. According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the wave and particle pictures of the atom, or the visual and causal representations, are "complementary" to each other. That is, they are mutually exclusive, yet jointly essential for a complete description of quantum events.Uncertainty Principle, which says that the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.

AMR wrote:Read the post I linked it quotes specifically ". . . the wave function of the unobserved object is a mixture of both, the wave and particle pictures, until the experimenter chooses what to observe in a given experiment". and that "[t]he more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa".--Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927

For someone who was apparently totally unaware of the fundamental relationship of wave-particle duality, you shouldn't be too quick on this forum to go spouting off on who's ignorant of what.

Utter ignorant guff. What you are describing there is not the uncertainty principle but the collapse of the wavefunction which, as I stated in my initial response to your illiterate wibblings, does require observation. The collapse of the wavefunction is NOT the uncertainty principle. Try learning some real science, instead of your vacuous misunderstanding of what the source actually says. I am fully aware of wave-particle duality, and its implications. This does not support your position that the uncertainty principle requires observation.

Schrödinger published a proof in 1926, which showed that the results of matrix and wave mechanics are equivalent; they were in fact the same theory. According to the Copenhagen Interpretation, the wave and particle pictures of the atom, or the visual and causal representations, are "complementary" to each other. That is, they are mutually exclusive, yet jointly essential for a complete description of quantum events.Uncertainty Principle, which says that the more precisely the position of a particle is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.

Still not support for your assertion that the collapse of the wavefunction is the uncertainty principle. As it happens, I understand QM reasonably well (or as well as anyone can claim to), which you could have discovered for yourself had you bothered to peruse my posting history, which contains, among other things, an exposition of an experiment demonstrating quantum random walks, how they operate, and their implications for the future of technology.

You also forgot to address this, which shoots your ignorant fucking assertion in the foot, and is taken from your own fucking source:

This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

Tell me, in what sense can a fundamental property of nature require observation? Do you suggest that the uncertainty principle didn't exist before there were entities capable of observing? Do you even understand what actually constitutes an observer?

Please, carry on. We could do with a good laugh.

hackenslash wrote:
Utter ignorant guff. What you are describing there is not the uncertainty principle but the collapse of the wavefunction which, as I stated in my initial response to your illiterate wibblings, does require observation. The collapse of the wavefunction is NOT the uncertainty principle. Try learning some real science . . . . I am fully aware of wave-particle duality, and its implications. This does not support your position that the uncertainty principle requires observation.

Well some guy called Heisenberg disagrees with you, a observer effect is also described by Schroedinger, most popularly in his (in)famous cat thought experiment.

Heisenberg discovered a problem in the way one could measure basic physical variables appearing in the equations. His analysis showed that uncertainties, or imprecisions, always turned up if one tried to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. (Similar uncertainties occurred when measuring the energy and the time variables of the particle simultaneously.)

hackenslash: You also forgot to address this, which shoots your ignorant fucking assertion in the foot, and is taken from your own fucking source:

This is not due to imprecise measurements. Technology is advanced enough to hypothetically yield correct measurements. The blurring of these magnitudes is a fundamental property of nature.

The observer cannot determine both position and momentum. The fundamental property of Heisenberg's uncertainly principal. Tell me, in what sense can a fundamental property of nature require observation? Do you suggest that the uncertainty principle didn't exist before there were entities capable of observing? Do you even understand what actually constitutes an observer?

The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. --Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927

But YOU are clearly begging the question with your whole line of argument concerning the uncertainty principle and the instability of nothing, as far as the uncertainty principal is associated with "our" universe there is no reason for it to have pre-dated its origin.

AMR wrote:
You conflate conventional ideal gas laws (gas pressure-volumes and temperatures) with the vacuum energy that is believed to be the source of the "Dark Energy" driving the accelerating expansion of our universe. The consensus is that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy thus the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy. Let me ask you if a force which drives apart 100 billion galaxies does not constitute "energy" what is it?

I see the problem now. You think that something is moving galaxies and super clusters apart from one another, as if they were being moved around in space; pushed or dragged from one position to others faster and faster. This would indeed take an awful lot of energy in ever increasing amounts, and might even indicate or imply that some sort of energy is being added from an outside source.

But this is not what is happening. Even without expansion every cosmic body is moving in relation to other cosmic bodies, this is explained by kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy. Dark energy has nothing to do with moving cosmic bodies around. It acts only on empty space, and the effect, at least for the present, is that it increases it so that bodies that are not gravitationally linked get further apart. And since each cubic centimeter of empty space has to have the same infinitesimal potential energy level as every other, the overall energy of empty space increases.

So, where does this increase of potential energy come from if it is not being added from outside the isolated system that is our universe? Heat loss. Which brings us back to the 2nd law of thermodynamics and increasing entropy due to heat loss.

Let me ask you something, why did you write this?

AMR wrote:
The consensus is that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy thus the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.

I know which wiki page you plucked it from, but you changed it a bit didn’t you:

wiki:
However, consensus amongst physicists is that this is incorrect and that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy.[2] In particular, the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.

You changed “In particular, the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.” to “thus the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.” You changed a reason why vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to a conclusion that the 2nd law does not apply to vacuum energy, but even in this you went wrong. It doesn’t say that the vacuum energy is unaffected by the 2nd law. It says that the 2nd law is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy. What you mined but failed to portray accurately actually supports the 2nd law in this case.

Oldskeptic wrote:
You really need to do some reading of the actual material, or just pay more and closer attention to Wiki. I know that it seems intuitive and only makes common sense that if the universe is 13.7 billion years old that the farthest observation to be made would be 13.7 billion light years away, but surprise! That is not the case, the edge of the observable universe is more like 40 billon light years away.

AMR wrote:
Here you confuse the distance of objects at the time the light was emitted (my preferred measure), with the so-called cosmological or particle horizon (about 14 billion parsecs [46.5 billion light-years]). A distant quasar we see now that emitted its light 13.1 billion light years ago has likely resolved into some mass that is "now" some 40 billion light-years distant, but of course whatever it is it's no longer a quasar and we can't "see it now".

And here you evade the point again. You invoked dark flow:

AMR wrote:
There are only two possibilities here as I see things 1. energy is being created out of the growing vacuum of space or 2. energy is being added to the universe from outside; and I mean outside the universe as a whole itself, not just outside the observable part of our universe (which given the recent discovery of "Dark Flow" must be far greater than the total mass/energy of what is visible out to a ~13 billion light-year radius).

Here is my full un-cherry-picked response:

Oldskeptic wrote:
You really need to do some reading of the actual material, or just pay more and closer attention to Wiki. I know that it seems intuitive and only makes common sense that if the universe is 13.7 billion years old that the farthest observation to be made would be 13.7 billion light years away, but surprise! That is not the case, the edge of the observable universe is more like 40 billon light years away. Go figure. That was the last, but largest, glaring mistake in the above paragraph that I noticed. So lets go back to the beginning.

It really doesn’t matter what the possibilities are as you see them. You’ve already demonstrated that you rely more on intuition than actually finding out what is factual. Energy is not being created out of a growing vacuum, nor is it being added from outside of the universe. And Dark Flow is not a recent discovery, it is one hypothesis of why it appears that one part of space seems to be expanding at an accelerated rate a tiny bit more than the rest.

We could quibble forever over what you meant by the visible universe, but not about your portrayal of “Dark flow” as a recent discovery that has somehow been verified and accepted. Why did you not respond to the salient part of the post?

Your misunderstanding of and/or intentional misuse of science in general and cosmological physics in particular combined with cherry picking Wikipedia articles is getting tedious and a bit aggravating.

The difference between you, I, and people like Hackenslash is that we at least try to understand what we are talking about, and speaking for myself make an effort to verify that what I assert is backed up by real science.

AMR wrote:

hackenslash wrote:
Utter ignorant guff. What you are describing there is not the uncertainty principle but the collapse of the wavefunction which, as I stated in my initial response to your illiterate wibblings, does require observation. The collapse of the wavefunction is NOT the uncertainty principle. Try learning some real science . . . . I am fully aware of wave-particle duality, and its implications. This does not support your position that the uncertainty principle requires observation.

Well some guy called Heisenberg disagrees with you, a observer effect is also described by Schroedinger, most popularly in his (in)famous cat thought experiment.

Heisenberg discovered a problem in the way one could measure basic physical variables appearing in the equations. His analysis showed that uncertainties, or imprecisions, always turned up if one tried to measure the position and the momentum of a particle at the same time. (Similar uncertainties occurred when measuring the energy and the time variables of the particle simultaneously.)

You're still not getting it. The observer effect describes the effect of an observer on the wavefunction, namely that observation collapses it. The collapse of the wavefunction is NOT the uncertainty principle, but a feature of it. Quantum uncertainty exists whether it is being observed or not. Heisenberg doesn't disagree with me, because you're equating one feature of the uncertainty principle with the whole of it. This is the fallacy of composition.

Incidentally, when Schrödinger formulated that thought experiment, he was actually railing against the idea of quantum superposition, an idea that he later accepted. The cat-in-a-box thought experiment was devised to show how absurd it was. He was right, too, because on macroscopic scales it is absurd, but it also happens to be true, although in reality simultaneous suerposition of such a large conglomeration of particles is so improbable that it would take a good deal longer than the life of the universe to actually occur.

The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa. --Heisenberg, uncertainty paper, 1927

But YOU are clearly begging the question with your whole line of argument concerning the uncertainty principle and the instability of nothing, as far as the uncertainty principal is associated with "our" universe there is no reason for it to have pre-dated its origin.

What the holy fuck are you talking about? Firstly, circular reasoning is a deductive logical fallacy, and we're talking about something inductive, so the accusation doesn't apply. Secondly, this is a complete non-sequitur and, moreover, an evasion. You haven't addressed the objections put to you. Your line of argumentation has been that the observer effect (or the collapse of the wavefunction) is the uncertainty principle, rather than a feature of it. Your failure to have even a basic grasp of the uncertainty principle and its implications is all over your posts. Now, please explain to us, as requested in every response to you since the first, how the collapse of the wavefunction constitutes the uncertainty principle, or that quantum uncertainty requires an observer (you still haven't answered the questions from my last response, BTW).

AMR wrote:

twistor59 wrote:

AMR wrote:
The 1st Law of Thermodynamics states that energy can neither be created or destroyed; but clearly as the universe expands the vacuum energy increases,

Just curious, how do you determine the vacuum energy of the universe at a given time ?

According to wikipedia

The energy of a cubic centimeter of empty space has been calculated to be one trillionth of an erg, based on the upper limit of the cosmological constant. However, in both Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) and Stochastic Electrodynamics (SED), consistency with the requirement of Lorentz invariance and with the magnitude of the Planck Constant leads to the much larger figure of 10107 Joules per cubic cm or 10113 Joules per cubic meter.

This is the so-called cosmological constant problem, the conflict between theory and observation. Also

Quantum field theory considers the vacuum ground state not to be completely empty, but to consist of a seething mass of virtual particles and fields. These fields are quantified as probabilities—that is, the likelihood of manifestation based on conditions. Since these fields do not have a permanent existence, they are called vacuum fluctuations. In the Casimir effect, two metal plates can cause a change in the vacuum energy density between them which generates a measurable force.

The Casimir effect was measured more accurately in 1997 by Steve K. Lamoreaux of Los Alamos National Laboratory,and by Umar Mohideen and Anushree Roy of the University of California at Riverside. In practice, rather than using two parallel plates, which would require phenomenally accurate alignment to ensure they were parallel, the experiments use one plate that is flat and another plate that is a part of a sphere with a large radius. In 2001, a group at the University of Padua finally succeeded in measuring the Casimir force between parallel plates using microresonators.
G. Bressi, G. Carugno, R. Onofrio, G. Ruoso, "Measurement of the Casimir force between Parallel Metallic Surfaces", Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 041804 (2002)

What I was getting at is that we currently have no way of deriving the vacuum energy from fundamental particle physics. The answer comes out as infinity, or you can impose an arbitrary cutoff and get whatever value you like. The value you quote of 10107 Joules per cubic cm is one of those aribtrary figures, obtained with a "reasonable" cutoff value derived from the Planck dimensions.

The Casimir effect tells us nothing about the absolute value of vacuum energy density. It only points to differences in vacuum energy density with and without the plates.

The only way to estimate VED is currently phenomenological - measure the cosmic expansion and compute the VED responsible for it.

Oldskeptic: You think that something is moving galaxies and super clusters apart from one another, as if they were being moved around in space; pushed or dragged from one position to others faster and faster. Rather space, vacuum, is being created between the galaxies driving them apart. Vacuum posses energy, hence energy is being added to the universe; which implies a violation of the 1st Law of Thermodynamics. Even without expansion every cosmic body is moving in relation to other cosmic bodies, this is explained by kinetic energy and gravitational potential energy. Dark energy has nothing to do with moving cosmic bodies around. It acts only on empty space, and the effect, at least for the present, is that it increases it so that bodies that are not gravitationally linked get further apart. And since each cubic centimeter of empty space has to have the same infinitesimal potential energy level as every other, the overall energy of empty space increases.

Sure there would be kinetic energy associated with a "big bang". Prior to the findings on 1A supernovae debate centered over whether or not this kinetic energy was sufficient for a "flat" universe, where the rate of expansion would be slowed inexorably by gravity or if the gravitational mass of the matter of the universe would re-collapse a "closed" universe. The range of gravity is, so far as I know, infinite, so everything is gravitationally "linked", every particle in the universe should play a role in slowing the universe's expansion; you mean objects not gravitationally "bound" are driven apart by Dark Energy. Also if Dark Energy is the virtual particle generating vacuum energy then empty space posseses kinetic energy which is driving the acceleration of the universes expansion.

Oldskeptic: So, where does this increase of potential energy come from if it is not being added from outside the isolated system that is our universe? Heat loss.

Ok, so far as I know this is a totally new theory proposed by you. One obvious objection would be that the heat loss of matter would be totally insufficient to account for Dark Energy (recall ~70% of the mass-energy of the universe and growing). So how can the slow cooling of the universe's 2.725 +/- 0.002 degrees Kelvin background temperature from he remaining Dark Matter (~25%), and ordinary matter (~5%, galaxies are 0.0001 K warmer than cosmic background) drive AN ACCELERATING RATE OF EXPANSION? This would seem to imply, at the least, an accelerating rate of universe cooling. Show that and you have a Nobel Prize.

Oldskeptic: Let me ask you something, why did you write this?

"The consensus is that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy thus the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy."

The fact that the 1st Law is being questioned doesn't affect the 2nd Law, which is in fact more fundamental than the 1st Law.

Oldskeptic: You changed a reason why vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to a *conclusion that the 2nd law does not apply to vacuum energy*, but even in this you went wrong. *It doesn’t say that the vacuum energy is unaffected by the 2nd law*. It says that the 2nd law is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.

No, the reverse of what you are imputing to me, the quote in question is "the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy". This is because "Heat generally cannot flow spontaneously from a material at lower temperature to a material at higher temperature." vacuum energy already exists at the lowest possible energy-state possible so it can't be concentrated (efficiently) for work. The reason this is important is that if "free-energy" could be harnessed from increasing Dark Energy, even theoretically, we'd have an infinite source of energy wouldn't we? we could build perpetual-motion machines, heck we could build other universes; the "Heat Death of the Universe" could be overcome and reversed forever. I included that important caveat to forstal these kinds of objections, instead I get other lame objections.

I never questioned the 2nd Law, but now that you raise the subject of entropy I'd like to raise another objection to Dawkins' reasoning that began this long thread. Entropy is a measure of randomness. Dawkins reasons that a less random or more complex state is rarer than a less complex or more random state. However, if entropy of a system can only increase with time, can never be decreased -- a point I believe you have already acknowledged on this thread -- whatever force which gave rise to the universe must have had an even lower state of entropy -- meaning even more rare or improbable. In other words Dawkins logic goes nowhere towards resolving the cosmic origin question; presumably both theist and atheist must acknowledge a higher order or even less probable state of affairs. And I must add the genious of this objection to Dawkins is that it even renders a speculated multi-verse irrelevant. However big the meta-verse is, it is a physical system which according to the 2nd Law could only have arisen from an even higher state of order.

Oldskeptic: The difference between you, I, and people like Hackenslash is that we at least try to understand what we are talking about, and speaking for myself make an effort to verify that what I assert is backed up by real science.

Whoa, get off your high horse. For someone yet to provide some -- any --kind of reference for your evolving pub-crawling microbe why don't you practice what you preach viz. "make an effort to verify that what [you] assert is backed up by real science."

hackenslash: You haven't addressed the objections put to you. Your line of argumentation has been that the observer effect (or the collapse of the wavefunction) is the uncertainty principle, rather than a feature of it. Your failure to have even a basic grasp of the uncertainty principle and its implications is all over your posts. Now, please explain to us, as requested in every response to you since the first, how the collapse of the wavefunction constitutes the uncertainty principle, or that quantum uncertainty requires an observer (you still haven't answered the questions from my last response, BTW).

You are imputing numerous assertions to me I never made "observer effect (or the collapse of the wavefunction) IS the uncertainty principle"; so I'm vary well not going to "explain" some straw man argument you are trying to set-up. I simply restate what Heisenberg himself believed about the role of the observer of reality:

From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/#Int
Whether or not we grant them physical reality is, as he puts it, a matter of personal taste. Heisenberg's own taste is, of course, to deny their physical reality. For example, he writes, "I believe that one can formulate the emergence of the classical ‘path’ of a particle pregnantly as follows: the ‘path’ comes into being only because we observe it" (Heisenberg, 1927, p. 185). Apparently, in his view, a measurement does not only serve to give meaning to a quantity, it creates a particular value for this quantity. This may be called the ‘measurement=creation’ principle. It is an ontological principle, for it states what is physically real.
Heisenberg, W. (1927) ‘Ueber die Grundprincipien der "Quantenmechanik" ‘ Forschungen und Fortschritte 3 83

BTW, these are not my views or views that merely for sake of argument I'm trying to defend, as I said from the start they are controversial, as are your opinions. What I would like to know from you specifically: is it your belief that the uncertainty principal pre-dates the physical universe? Is quantum uncertainly true at an ontological level or is it merely the physical interaction of an experimental situation? Does all of quantum mechanics predate the universe or just the uncertainty principal?

twistor59 wrote: What I was getting at is that we currently have no way of deriving the vacuum energy from fundamental particle physics. . . . The Casimir effect tells us nothing about the absolute value of vacuum energy density. It only points to differences in vacuum energy density with and without the plates.The only way to estimate VED is currently phenomenological - measure the cosmic expansion and compute the VED responsible for it.

OK, then the answer to your original question, as you must know, would obviously be the subject of much debate. The inflation era lambda driving expansion implies a much greater force than we see today, so is the cosmological constant mutable and why would it adjust to save our universe from re-collapse, inhomogeneity, or cold dispersal?

AMR wrote:You are imputing numerous assertions to me I never made "observer effect (or the collapse of the wavefunction) IS the uncertainty principle"; so I'm vary well not going to "explain" some straw man argument you are trying to set-up.

Strawman, eh? Are you sure? Let's take a look at what you actually said.

AMR wrote:As I understand classical QM the uncertainty principal [sic] requires observers;

This was what I objected to in the first place. This is, in effect, saying that the collapse of the wavefunction is the uncertainty principle, because the collapse of the wavefunction is the only aspect of the uncertainty principle that the observer can effect.

I simply restate what Heisenberg himself believed about the role of the observer of reality:

From http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/#Int
Whether or not we grant them physical reality is, as he puts it, a matter of personal taste. Heisenberg's own taste is, of course, to deny their physical reality. For example, he writes, "I believe that one can formulate the emergence of the classical ‘path’ of a particle pregnantly as follows: the ‘path’ comes into being only because we observe it" (Heisenberg, 1927, p. 185). Apparently, in his view, a measurement does not only serve to give meaning to a quantity, it creates a particular value for this quantity. This may be called the ‘measurement=creation’ principle. It is an ontological principle, for it states what is physically real.
Heisenberg, W. (1927) ‘Ueber die Grundprincipien der "Quantenmechanik" ‘ Forschungen und Fortschritte 3 83

And what Heisenberg is talking about there, which you'd actually understand if you had a clue of what you're talking about, is that both values are uncertain until one of them is observed. In other words, whichever value is being measured only has a definite value when it's measured (observed). This is known as the collapse of the wavefunction, because both values exist only as a distribution of probability until one or the other is measured. There is nothing in that quote from Heisenberg that tells us that the uncertainty principle requires an observer, only that observation collapses the wavefunction and creates the value for that part of the wavefunction being measured. In other words, the uncertainty principle doesn't require an observer, the collapse of the wavefunction does.

BTW, these are not my views or views that merely for sake of argument I'm trying to defend,

No, they're your complete misunderstanding both of what's being said and what it implies.

as I said from the start they are controversial,

No they're not. In fact, they're so uncontraversial that your fucking computer could not operate without them, as these principles underlie the architecture of the microchips running it.

as are your opinions.

No they're not, because my opinions reflect what is known about the uncertainty principle and what it implies.

What I would like to know from you specifically: is it your belief that the uncertainty principal [sic] pre-dates the physical universe? Is quantum uncertainly true at an ontological level or is it merely the physical interaction of an experimental situation? Does all of quantum mechanics predate the universe or just the uncertainty principal [sic] ?

Here you are going to run into more trouble. Define 'physical universe'.

Edit: Oh, and before you put any new questions to me, how about addressing the questions and issues I already put to you. A little reciprocation never hurt anybody.