Fundamental Fysiks Group: Difference between revisions
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The '''Fundamental Fysiks Group''' was founded in San Francisco in May 1975 by two physicists, [[Elizabeth Rauscher]] and George Weissmann, at the time both graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. The group held informal discussions on Friday afternoons to explore the philosophical implications of [[quantum theory]]. Leading members included [[Fritjof Capra]], [[John Clauser]], Philippe Eberhard, [[Nick Herbert (physicist)|Nick Herbert]], [[Jack Sarfatti]], Saul-Paul Sirag, [[Henry Stapp]], and [[Fred Alan Wolf]].<ref>Kaiser, David. ''How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival''. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2011, p. xi–xvii, xxiii, 43ff, 101.</ref> |
The '''Fundamental Fysiks Group''' was founded in San Francisco in May 1975 by two physicists, [[Elizabeth Rauscher]] and George Weissmann, at the time both graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. The group held informal discussions on Friday afternoons to explore the philosophical implications of [[quantum theory]]. Leading members included [[Fritjof Capra]], [[John Clauser]], Philippe Eberhard, [[Nick Herbert (physicist)|Nick Herbert]], [[Jack Sarfatti]], Saul-Paul Sirag, [[Henry Stapp]], and [[Fred Alan Wolf]].<ref>Kaiser, David. ''How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival''. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2011, p. xi–xvii, xxiii, 43ff, 101.</ref> |
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[[David Kaiser]] |
[[David Kaiser]] wrote a book titled ''[[How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival]]'' which had as a thesis that the group's meetings and papers helped to nurture and advance the ideas in quantum physics that came to form the basis of [[quantum information science]].<ref>Kaiser 2011, p. xi–xvii.</ref> |
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==Celebrity== |
==Celebrity== |
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Revision as of 01:40, 7 November 2011
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 The Fundamental Fysiks Group, City Magazine, 1975. Left to right: Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Nick Herbert, and Fred Alan Wolf (seated) |
The Fundamental Fysiks Group was founded in San Francisco in May 1975 by two physicists, Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann, at the time both graduate students at the University of California, Berkeley. The group held informal discussions on Friday afternoons to explore the philosophical implications of quantum theory. Leading members included Fritjof Capra, John Clauser, Philippe Eberhard, Nick Herbert, Jack Sarfatti, Saul-Paul Sirag, Henry Stapp, and Fred Alan Wolf.[1]
David Kaiser wrote a book titled How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival which had as a thesis that the group's meetings and papers helped to nurture and advance the ideas in quantum physics that came to form the basis of quantum information science.[2]
Celebrity
Kaiser writes that the group were "very smart and very playful," discussing quantum mysticism and becoming local celebrities in the Bay Area's counterculture. When Francis Ford Coppola bought City Magazine in 1975, one of its earliest features was on the Fundamental Fysiks Group, including a photo spread of Sirag, Wolf, Herbert, and Sarfatti.[3]
Research
Bell's theorem and no-cloning theorem
Hugh Gusterson writes that several challenging ideas lie at the heart of quantum physics: that electrons behave like waves and particles; that you can know a particle's location or momentum, but not both; that observing a particle changes its behavior; and that particles appear to communicate with each other across great distances, known as nonlocality and quantum entanglement. It is these concepts that led to the development of quantum information science and quantum encryption, which is used, for example, to transfer money and electronic votes.[4] Kaiser argues that the Fundamental Fysiks Group saved physics by exploring these ideas, in three ways:
They self-consciously opened up space again ... for the kind of spirited philosophical engagement with fundamental physics that the Cold War decades had dampened. More than most of their generation, they sought to recapture the big-picture search for meaning that had driven their heroes—Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg, and Schrödinger—and to smuggle that mode of doing physics back into their daily routine.
Second, members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group latched onto a topic, known as "Bell's theorem," and rescued it from a decade of unrelenting obscurity. The theorem ... stipulated that quantum objects that had once interacted would retain some strange link or connection, even after they had moved arbitrarily far apart from each other. ... Working in various genres and media, the Fundamental Fysiks Group grappled with Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement. ... In the process, they forced a few of their physicist peers to pay attention to the topic ... From these battles, quantum information science was born.
The hippie physicists' concerted push on Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement instigated major breakthroughs ... The most important became known as the "no-cloning theorem," a new insight into quantum theory that emerged from spirited efforts to wrestle with hypothetical machines dreamed up by members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group.[5]
Specifically, in 1981, Nick Herbert, a member of the group, proposed a scheme for sending signals faster than the speed of light using quantum entanglement.[6] Quantum computing pioneer Asher Peres writes that the refutation of Herbert's ideas led to the development of the no-cloning theorem by William Wootters, Wojciech Zurek, and Dennis Dieks.[7]
Remote viewing
Given quantum theory's implications for the study of parapsychology and telepathy, the group cultivated patrons such as the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, and human potential movement. The CIA and DIA set up a program called ESPionage, financing experiments into remote viewing at the Stanford Research Institute, where the Fundamental Physics Group became what Kaiser calls its house theorists.[8]
See also
Notes
- ^ Kaiser, David. How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. W W Norton & Co Inc, 2011, p. xi–xvii, xxiii, 43ff, 101.
- ^ Kaiser 2011, p. xi–xvii.
- ^ Kaiser lecture, 21:00 mins, 23:22 mins; Kaiser 2011, p. xviii.
- ^ Gusterson, Hugh. "Physics: Quantum outsiders", Nature, 476, 278–279, August 18, 2011.
- ^ Kaiser 2011, pp. xiii–xxxv.
- ^ Herbert, Nick. "FLASH—A superluminal communicator based upon a new kind of quantum measurement", Foundation of Physics, vol 12, issue 12, 1982, pp. 1171–117.
- ^ Peres, Asher. "How the No-Cloning Theorem Got its Name", Fortschritte der Physik, vol 51, issue 4–5, May 2003, pp. 458–461.
- ^ Kaiser, David. "Lecture: How the Hippies Saved Physics", WGBH PBS, April 28, 2010, around 28:00 mins.
Further reading
- "25th reunion of the Fundamental Physics Group", quantumtantra.com, accessed August 18, 2011.
- "Paranormal Science", The New York Times, November 6, 1974.
- "How the Hippies Saved Physics (Excerpt)", Scientific American, June 27, 2011.
- Johnson, George. "What Physics Owes the Counterculture", The New York Times, June 17, 2011.
- Wisnioski, Matthew. "Let's Be Fysiksists Again", Science, vol 332, issue 6037, 24 June, 2011, pp. 1504–1505.
- Books
- Fritjof Capra. The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Shambhala Publications, 1975.
- Amit Goswami. The Self-Aware Universe. Tarcher, 1995.
- Jack Sarfatti. Space-Time and Beyond, with Fred Alan Wolf and Bob Toben, E. P. Dutton, 1975.
- Evan Harris Walker. The Physics of Consciousness: The Quantum Mind and the Meaning of Life. Da Capo Press, 2000.
- Ken Wilber (ed). Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World's Great Physicists. Shambhala Publications, 2001 (first published 1984).
- Gary Zukav. The Dancing Wu Li Masters. HarperOne, 2001 (first published 1979).