Max Tegmark - Why is the Quantum so Strange?

To know reality, one must confront the quantum. It is how our world works at the deepest level. What's the quantum? It is bizarre, defying all common sense. Particles in two positions at the same time. Spooky action at a distance. It would sound absurd if it weren't true.

[Vlazzyk]

You should totally make another interview with Max Tegmark now that a quantum computer has been supposedly created and tested.

[nateman]

Not only is Max extremely intelligent but he's also very cool.

[pgbtwoofive]

Can people at CTT make an announcement when DVD set is about to be released. Can't wait to have the whole series 'in one piece'

[skye]

I don't understand a lot of it, but it is fascinating.

[scottvska]

Max Tegmark should have been the new host of Cosmos.

[bobjazz]

Aren't then we not all already living in a quantum suicide experiment, individually finding ourselves in a path in which we never die?

[thesprawl]

I love the quantum machine-gun thought experiment. It's just crazy and outrageous, and kind of ridiculous, and there's no way I'd ever volunteer...but for the life of me I can't see any flaws in its reasoning.

[martinhockings]

My opinion... it seems so 'weird' because we just don't understand it!
We've made such HUGE strides in science but I can't help feeling that the humans of the future will look back and be amused at our current understanding in the same way we look back at those who thought the earth was flat etc.
It's not that they were stupid, it's just a question of contemporary understanding (or non-understanding!)

[patrickkelley]

My nephew when he was younger, said: ''It is simple, when I look at the moon, it is what I see, that is what I see. When I turn my back on it, I can not see it. when I turn around, I see the moon again, but it is not the same as the first time I saw it. Everything is the same, but it is not the first moon I saw. ''

[jmanj]

5:30 Lol...Max is doing an excellent job of physically demonstrating how truly "simple" is Everett's interpretation of QM

[pmcate]

Regarding the Quantum suicide analogy: what about what about a natural death? Is there a universe where the guns just keeps clicking and I live to be and its still clicking?

[sngscratcher]

The quantum world only seems weird to us because we insist on looking at it through the lens of our preconceived notions about what this reality is. Eventually, however, we will have no choice but to start believing what it is actually telling us about our reality.

[bizzee]

If a person were to record their quantum suicide experiment on video, then shouldn't there be at least one universe where they have the video proof of the many worlds hypothesis if it is true?

[colinsnuggs]

Max should be much more well known than he is. I think he has a wonderful enthusiasm as if he is still a kid in awe of the fact we see the Sun as it was 8 minutes ago. Well I guess a lot of us are still in awe of those kind of facts. He certainly has done much to push Everett's Interpretation onto the mainstream and as a theory is up there with Newton and Einstein's.

[naimulhaq]

The strangeness is not about a dead cat or live cat, it is just a way to express what is known as 'entanglement'.
However strange multiverse and quantum world are based on sound mathematics, that has no strangeness.
QM is the result of fine tuning by ID enabling creation to deliver life, consciousness, awareness, intelligence, intuition etc., with probability ONE.

[jray]

Quite imaginative— Some of these ideas are Way beyond what is possible outside of the imagination.

[imaginaryphiend]

The best sense I have been able to make of the classic quantum paradoxes is that there are no longer inconsistencies or unresolvable mysteries if we accept strong determinism in the form of time symmetry. The paradoxes of many worlds, quantum entanglement, super position, observer effects, apparent faster than light effects, the inconsistencies of tensed time, etc. are all resolved as no longer problematic. So, I'm looking to find some of these brilliant, knowledgeable minds discussing how notions of a block universe, tenseless time, etc, effect interpretations of quantum mechanics in relation to our relativistic understandings of time space as relative measurement rather than as something actually existent.

[somegamer]

There may be a problem with this theory. He's basically saying we always live in a universe where we are aware, and our awareness forces the reality we experience. But we all die sooner or later. So before we're 150 years old, we must experience a reality where we do die. Therefore our observation no longer forces 1 of 2 outcomes on earth. We branch off out of this reality when we die, or the universe ceases to exist entirely. So maybe we could experience the gun firing?

[inoxck]

Actually, surprisingly, the classical world confirms the quantum reality. We have light which has a wave behavior and waves have various energies classically. But we know matter behave similarly to light and shows wave properties like for example electrons used in electron scanning microscopes. But the energy quanta reveals in classical objects. A piece of steel although made of these particles with wave behavior, when we measure its weight or mass we always find it the same and that's particularly because of precise quanta of energy for the atoms in the lattice. So from the classical field physics we can get to rigid body classical physics because of the quantum nature.

[aphysique]

Please get Stuart Hameroff on the program! Ask him bout Consiousness & the correlation with Microtubules ?