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Cyan comments on Rationality Quotes: March 2011 - Less Wrong
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John Stewart Bell, "Against Measurement" in Physics World, 1990.
That's pretty much the plot of Quarantine, isn't it?
Having trouble googling that. Could you provide a link? Or an explanation, I guess.
ETA: actually, I think I found it.
Google suggestions: "quarantine fiction", "quarantine wavefunction".
This comment led to my discovery that the Google settings on this computer were screwy. I think I found it now. Thank you!
Really? I'm kinda curious, how can Google settings be screwy in such a way that would stop you from finding the top hits?
I dunno, but I've had it happen (and it started working when I signed out of Google).
This is probably not the same issue as MugaSofer and arundelo report, but sometimes when I'm on my phone Google notices that I'm in Italy, switches the interface to Italian even though I repeatedly told it that I want it in English, and starts to privilege pages in Italian in the search results by a ginormous amount even when searching for a term in English. (Switching the interface back to English fixes this.)
A search-redirecting toolbar, perhaps.
Google will sometimes offer to return pages from the country you're in, which, while useful if you're looking for tourism or whatever, is less helpful if you live in Ireland and the thing you're looking for ... doesn't. I've never used it; this is what I get for using a shared computer.
There are many, many works of fiction titled "Quarantine". And your second suggestion throws up all sorts of unrelated stuff.
This quote does not argue against some major position of modern physicists, but is instead arguing (probably ineffectively) against self-help woo.
Bell made the comment in an article that examined major position of modern phycisists -- or at least, positions of some authors of physics textbooks. Woo was not his topic.
None of the physics textbooks I have ever read have required any special qualifications for a system to play the role of measurer, and in many cases use elementary particles as the measurers. There are only three places I recall hearing that claim: Werner Heisenberg, confused non-physicists, and advertising for quantum woo.
If you like, PM me an email address and I'll send the article there.
Too late, I went and found it online elsewhere :P
In context, the quote is not directed at anyone, and is just a rhetorical question leading straight to "no of course not." Out of context it quite naturally looks like it's directed at some group, changing the meaning a bit.
The quotes from Landau and Lifshitz definitely made me "what," but so did the solutions Bell proposed. 1990 is 20 years ago, I guess.
Fair point -- pulling the quote out of context does change the way it comes across. To me, the out-of-context quote seems to target pop sci accounts of QM that talk in a misleading way about observation causing collapse. (The woo account of QM takes this misapprehension and runs with it, so I can see how your original rejoinder came about.)
Just remember, 2011 will be 20 years ago in 2031! ;-)
It's as it is said: we learn new things all the time, so everything we know now is wrong.