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Quantum Mechanics

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Quantum Mechanics
Posted by BroadwayLion on Thursday, February 3, 2022 8:55 AM

 

Nowhere in the physical world is quantum mechanics better demonstrated than in the realm of model railroading, and in the train room.
You as a lay person, such as I presume you are as far as the realm of the higher sciences goes, can easily grasp almost all of what there is to be known about quantum mechanics. Visit the Royal Institute with thousands of scientific videos and see the basics of quantum mechanics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hVmeOCJjOU  and https://www.rigb.org/
But all of this can be observed and proven in your own train room. Just drop a small screw or spring on the floor and it simply slips through the folds reality, never to be seen again.
ROAR

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Posted by NorthBrit on Thursday, February 3, 2022 9:26 AM

BroadwayLion

 

 
But all of this can be observed and proven in your own train room. Just drop a small screw or spring on the floor and it simply slips through the folds reality, never to be seen again.
 
ROAR

 

 
 
Yesterday I found a tiny screw on the floor.  (True.)  I do not know where it goes!!!
 
 
David

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Thursday, February 3, 2022 9:35 AM

NorthBrit
 
Yesterday I found a tiny screw on the floor.  (True.)  I do not know where it goes!!!
 
 
David
 

That might be one I dropped about ten years ago working on my layout.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by dknelson on Thursday, February 3, 2022 9:55 AM

Parallel realities with every possible outcome -- there is a version of this existence where we find the screw every time.  And a version of this reality where the screw never gets dropped in the first place.  I have a bad case of quantum reality version envy.

It doesn't change the reality WE live in but given that I have reached the age where crawling on a hard floor looking for stuff has to be saved for VERY special purposes (like finding a lost gold coin), I did purchase from MicroMark a small mirror on the end of an extendable telescopic shaft, with LED lights mounted on it.  I can sit on my chair and range around the floor looking for that lost screw - either seeing it, or its shadow.  The sad part is how often I cry out in triumph to grasp the newly found screw, only to realize that what I now have between my fingers is a newly crushed dead bug.

Dave Nelson

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Posted by rrebell on Thursday, February 3, 2022 10:25 AM

I studied this stuff but could not remember it much more than a  week, even when I had it down pat. I have a bit of trouble remembering things I don't use in instant memory, oh sure I will remember things if I work hard enough, guess thats why I don't remember modern math, needed algabra about 4 times in my adult life and only once was it job related. 

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Posted by York1 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 10:41 AM

BroadwayLion
ROAR

 
 
In a different reality, I could have called you friend.
 
 

York1 John       

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Posted by maxman on Thursday, February 3, 2022 10:54 AM

So you're saying that screws lost and found are like enthalpy..they remain constant?

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Posted by Little Timmy on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:00 AM

This doesnt explain where my " lost youth" went .... or where it will reappear  ... 

Rust...... It's a good thing !

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Posted by NorthBrit on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:17 AM

York1

 

 
BroadwayLion
ROAR

 

 
 
In a different reality, I could have called you friend.
 
 

 
 
Dawn and I love pussycats.  Big and small.   Meeoww!!
 
 
David

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Posted by Track fiddler on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:23 AM

I have two magnetic sheets with a company name to put on either side of my truck.  I find them quite useful used as modeling mats when I'm working on something that involves tiny metal parts.

Quite obsolete for those tiny plastic parts.  Perhaps some High Tack contact paperHuh? Laugh

I have crawled around on my hands and knees with my visor on sifting through the carpet fibers many times.  I'm sure it appears to look like I model railroad in a psych ward.

 

 

TF

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Posted by NVSRR on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:26 AM

Could there be at play the physical reality of of two objects can not exist in the same space at the same time. there fore one screw that leaves this reality will occupy a space where another screw did.  somewhere else that screw has left that reality and re entered this reality at another location to be found.    In other words. You dropped the screw displacing the one I dropped forcing it to reappear for me to find at a later time. Only for me to drop a spring for one of you to find one you dropped at some previous point

 

shane

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Posted by gregc on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:29 AM

BroadwayLion
Just drop a small screw or spring on the floor and it simply slips through the folds reality, never to be seen again.

more a believe in sherlock Holmes

When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

lost a spring, searched everywhere and concluded it must have fallen in the garbage, which is where i eventually found it.

(helps to vacuum before losing something)

greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading

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Posted by BroadwayLion on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:44 AM

If you climb down on your hands and knees, you will find that screw with your knee.

(ouch)

The hard part is getting back up again.

All along the facia of my railroad ha have mounted handy boxes with duplex outlets every five feet. The conduits connecting them are securely attached to the fascia for use as a railing to help me lift myself up. Still difficult. I forgot why I bent over in the first place, and why is my knee bleeding.

 

ROAR

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Posted by Track fiddler on Thursday, February 3, 2022 11:52 AM

The exacto blade I couldn't seem to find turned up eventually.  Therefore found stuck in my rear paw.  Kind of a rude awakening as usually don't forget my Dogs put on in the morning.

 

 

TF

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Posted by dstarr on Thursday, February 3, 2022 12:07 PM

This isn't quantum mechanics, but I believe the fabric of our space time has myriad tiny holes,  each big enough to swallow anything the size of a 4-40 nut or less.  Those tiny parts you cannot find just fell thru one of the holes.  Where the holes go I have no idea. 

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Posted by MisterBeasley on Thursday, February 3, 2022 1:26 PM

dknelson

Parallel realities with every possible outcome -- there is a version of this existence where we find the screw every time.  And a version of this reality where the screw never gets dropped in the first place.  I have a bad case of quantum reality version envy.

Dave Nelson

I think you have stumbled upon the principle of the Infinite Improbability Drive from Hitchhiker's Guide.

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

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Posted by DigitalGriffin on Thursday, February 3, 2022 1:48 PM

I'm a big demonstrator of the chaos theory: 

Trains that run well one day decide to up and dierail/die the next.

Maybe you are demonstrating the Heisenberg's uncertainty principal.

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities[1] asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy with which the values for certain pairs of physical quantities of a particle, such as positionx, and momentump, can be predicted from initial conditions.

Quite simply the part is far across the room because trajectory is impossible to calculate.

But then maybe Pauli's exclusion principal applies and it's impossible for two model RR parts to occupy the same space.

But my favorite theory would be Schrödinger’s Cat.  And you have created a corillary theory.  Lion being a cat, opened said box, dooming said part as soon as he opened it.  (Schrodinger's cat in reverse)

Don - Specializing in layout DC->DCC conversions

Modeling C&O transition era and steel industries There's Nothing Like Big Steam!

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 2:36 PM

BroadwayLion
Just drop a small screw or spring on the floor and it simply slips through the folds reality, never to be seen again.

Laugh  Yes  Big Smile

My youngest daughter used to have a miraculous ability to find lost screws and springs. Since she moved out, I believe they have all been slipping through the folds of reality.

-Kevin

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Posted by ricktrains4824 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 2:57 PM

I know exactly where all those little holes in time and space lead...

Never-Never Land. 

Because you will Never-Never find those little screws, nuts, or springs again! Laugh

Ricky W.

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Posted by NVSRR on Thursday, February 3, 2022 3:43 PM

It will slip through a warm hole. They go back to the suplier you will go to in an effort to buy more. unbeknownst to you, you keep buying the same one repeatedly. 

 

SHane

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An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel

A realist sees a frieght train

An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space

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Posted by selector on Thursday, February 3, 2022 4:16 PM

MisterBeasley

 

 

 

That might be one I dropped about ten years ago working on my layout.

 

That would involve both superposition and entanglement.  Super-position being the quality demonstrated in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (Schrodinger's Cat), and entanglement being the faster-than-light (-and-should-be-impossible) exchange of information between two particles sent in opposite directions, but who remain 'connected' by a frame reference.  If you change the spin of an electron and its opposite, both flying off in opposite directions, the other will instantly change its spin.  How is this possible when the two are separated by, say, two or three light seconds?  So, the screw you found was the twin of the one he dropped.  Case solved.

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Posted by SeeYou190 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 4:19 PM

NVSRR
They go back to the suplier you will go to in an effort to buy more. unbeknownst to you, you keep buying the same one repeatedly.

Now that is a business model that will always work.

-Kevin

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Posted by dknelson on Thursday, February 3, 2022 4:20 PM

Thank you, Mr. Data.

-- Jean-Luc Picard

 

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Posted by Attuvian1 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 6:57 PM

My late brother was disturbed by the problem that the amount of lint produced in his laundry room surely must have exceeded the sum of that retrieved from the dryer's lint filter and what entered the family vacuum cleaner.  He therefore posited the existence of a body in space that he dubbed the "lintoid".  Regrettably, he passed away before publishing his theory and preliminary reasearch.

As his closest sibling, I now feel obliged through family principle to promote his views - with corollaries appropriate to my own concerns and interests.  Ergo, could there also exist a "parts-toid"?  Will it someday be discovered by intrepid stellar travellers who will muse over the mysteries of their function and materials?  Surely this must be supportable by any number of the notions expressed above.

We might name the new corollary "Brother Elias' Cat." Whistling

John

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Posted by NVSRR on Thursday, February 3, 2022 7:07 PM

well that kind of fits with my idea of two objects in the same space cannt be done.  if the part-tiod picks up a dropped screw from in this dimension, then it must drop one somewhere else back into this dimension to deal with those two screws not occupying the same space.

 

shane

A pessimist sees a dark tunnel

An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel

A realist sees a frieght train

An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space

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Posted by selector on Thursday, February 3, 2022 7:08 PM

While still in grad school, the late Edward Teller, the 'father' of the hydrogen bomb, was advised by Heisenberg, his advisor, to attend a lecture by Einstein.  Teller did, and left completely dejected and hopelessly confused.  The lecture was on quantum mechanics.  Teller's good friend, Schwinger, seeing his good friend so unhappy, asked him what the problem was.  Teller wailed, "I am hopelessly stupid."  He had seen others nodding and smiling as Einstein spoke, while Teller became more and more lost.  Schwinger put his arm around Teller and said, amicably, "My friend, we are all stupid."  Only later did Teller come to realize that even Einstein didn't understand quantum theory.  Nobody does.  Not yet.  We know how to use it, we know its qualities, but they are not yet explained. Not by Feynman, not by Fermi, not by von Neuman, or Szilard, Oppenheimer....nobody.

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Posted by NVSRR on Thursday, February 3, 2022 7:10 PM

maybe springs work different since the b rass changes color and mass as they develop the oxide so the physics would be different. as they slip through dimensions when dropper.  Taking a long nonlinear path before reappearing in this dimension.

or just simply spring theory.

 

SHane

A pessimist sees a dark tunnel

An optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel

A realist sees a frieght train

An engineer sees three idiots standing on the tracks stairing blankly in space

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Posted by selector on Thursday, February 3, 2022 7:11 PM

Yeah, that's it, spring theory.  Well done!

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Posted by Attuvian1 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 7:13 PM

selector

. . . Not by Feynman, not by Fermi, not by von Neuman, or Szilard, Oppenheimer....nobody.

 
Pehaps by Otte or someone in his circle?
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Posted by Southgate 2 on Thursday, February 3, 2022 8:03 PM

My experience has proven that with regard to all the theories, principles and laws discussed above, the size of the lost article is not part of the equasion. It's the importance of the lost part that dictates how hard it will be to find. 

Why, I can find a Kadee knuckle spring with the greatest ease, regardless of how far it flung, and 2 or 3 more while I'm at it, because I have more than a lifetime supply of spares.

But drop that one off part off a locomotive, a part that is important, and of which you only have ONE.

Regardless of it's size, there WILL be a corner, crack, crevice, cavern, chasm, -whatever size space is required to swallow it- ready and waiting to consume it and demand far more time and effort to release it than it would have taken to locate or produce a replacement regardless of how difficult that may be.  And that's only IF it is ever found, All too often, this does apply to tiny hardware, creating the illusion that size is the determining factor. 

Nope. Not size. Importance. 

Indisputably proven in my own workshop countless times. Even recently. 

 

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