Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 34

October 9, 2022

Otangelo Grasso on the difficulties of reasoning with atheists

Conversation in Clubhouse ( a conversation app ) with an atheist:

Please answer with yes or no.

Are computers always designed?

Yes

Is hardware, and software, always designed?

Yes

Are machines always designed?

Yes

Are factories always designed?

Yes

Are transistors always designed?

Yes

Are energy turbines always designed?

Yes

Are codes always designed?

Yes

Good. All this, we see analogously, but also literally in the cell.

Neurons are literally computers

DNA is the hardware, and the sequence of DNA nucleotides is the software

Proteins are molecular machines

Cells are chemical factories

Neurons are transistors

ATP synthase is an energy turbine.

The genetic code is a real code

Is it logical to infer that therefore, these things were also designed?

Atheist answer: No. The first mentioned things, we know humans design them. The secondly mentioned things in nature, we don’t know how they came to be.

It’s sometimes so frustrating to have a conversation with atheists…. Others deny and claim the things mentioned in nature are not analogous to human made artifacts.

Once you back up the claim:

The Cell is a super computer
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2712-the-cell-is-a-super-computer

1. A transistor can be considered an artificial Neuron. Every living cell within us is a hybrid analog–digital supercomputer. The brain is like 100 billion computers working together.
2. Biological cells are programmed to be experts at taking inputs, running them through a complicated series of logic gates through circuit-like operations and producing the desired programmed output.
3. The origin of programs, logic gates, and complex circuits to obtain a purposeful specific outcome is always tracked back to intelligent implementation.  

The hardware and software of the cell, evidence of design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2221-the-hardware-and-software-of-the-cell-evidence-of-design

Paul Davies: the Fifth Miracle page 62: Due to the organizational structure of systems capable of processing algorithmic (instructional) information, it is not at all clear that a monomolecular system – where a single polymer plays the role of catalyst and informational carrier – is even logically consistent with the organization of information flow in living systems, because there is no possibility of separating information storage from information processing (that being such a distinctive feature of modern life). As such, digital–first systems (as currently posed) represent a rather trivial form of information processing that fails to capture the logical structure of life as we know it.

Molecular machines in biology
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1289-molecular-machines-in-biology

1. Machines are always designed.
2. Proteins are machines.
3. Therefore, proteins were designed.

The factory maker argument
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2245-abiogenesis-the-factory-maker-argument

1. Blueprints, instructional information and master plans, and the making of complex machines and factories upon these are both always tracked back to an intelligent source which made them for purposeful, specific goals.  
2. Biological cells are a factory park of unparalleled gigantic complexity and purposeful adaptive design of interlinked high-tech fabrics, fully automated and self-replicating, directed by genes and epigenetic languages and signalling networks.
3. The Blueprint and instructional information stored in DNA and epigenetics, which directs the making of biological cells and organisms – the origin of both is, therefore, best explained by an intelligent designer which created life for his own purposes.

Inside the neuron
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2292-neurons-remarkable-evidence-of-design#7201

HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT 9 The Physics Of Consciousness Andrew Thomas:
The similarity between transistors and neurons is elucidated when we consider how most transistors are used nowadays. The vast majority of transistors are micro-miniaturised onto a semiconductor substrate to form an integrated circuit (“silicon chip”). The latest fabrication techniques allow extraordinary densities of up to 25 million transistors on a square millimetre of silicon. This actually results in an individual transistor size which is rather smaller than a neuron, but it is clear that the principle of packing microscopic transistors onto an integrated circuit resembles the packing of microscopic neurons in a brain.

The irreducibly complex ATP Synthase nanomachine, amazing evidence of design
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1439-the-irreducibly-complex-atp-synthase-nanomachine-amazing-evidence-of-design

1. ATP synthase is a molecular energy-generating nano-turbine ( It produces energy in the form of Adenine triphosphate ATP. Once charged, ATP can be “plugged into” a wide variety of molecular machines to perform a wide variety of functions). It consists of two very different subunits that have to be externally and stably tethered together, just the right distance apart. The two major subunits (F0 & F1) are connected together by an external tether, and just the right distance apart. This tether doesn’t have anything to do with the functionality of either subunit but without it ATP synthase would not be able to perform its function. One of the subunits has to be embedded in the cell membrane so that an energy gradient can be formed ( The proton energy gradient is like the water in a dam, feeding a water turbine to generate energy). The second subunit has to be stably tethered to the membrane the proper distance away.
2. This is an irreducibly complex system, where a minimal number of at least five functional parts of ATP synthase must work together in an interlocked way, in a joint venture to bear function. The challenge is particularly onerous because these components are highly complex in all of life and are interdependent to provide energy for life. Individually, the subunits have no function whatsoever ( Not even in different setups). Besides ATP synthase, the membrane is essential to pump protons across the membrane. This setup cannot be the product of evolution, because it had to be fully operational and functional to start life ( The origin of life has nothing to do with evolution). No life form without ATP synthase is known.
3. We know by experience that complex machines made of various interlocked subparts with specific functions are always created by intelligent minds.  Therefore, ATP synthase is definitely evidence of a powerful intelligent creator, who knew how to create power-generating turbines.

The genetic code, insurmountable problem for non-intelligent origin
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2363-the-genetic-code-insurmountable-problem-for-non-intelligent-origin

1. Creating a translation dictionary, for example of English to Chinese, requires always a translator, that understands both languages. 
2. The meaning of words of one language that are assigned to words of another language that mean the same requires the agreement of meaning in order to establish translation.
3. That is analogous to what we see in biology, where the ribosome translates the words of the genetic language composed of 64 codon words to the language of proteins, composed of 20 amino acids. 
4. The origin of such complex communication systems is best explained by an intelligent designer.

John Frederick William Herschel: A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, page 149, 1830
If the analogy of two phenomena be very close and striking, while, at the same time, the cause of one is very obvious, it becomes scarcely possible to refuse to admit the action of an analogous cause in the other, though not so obvious in itself.Flagellum, Behe’s prime example of irreducible complexity
https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1528-the-flagellum-behe-s-prime-example-of-irreducible-complexity

The irreducible complexity of the flagellum
1. The flagellum has 36 different proteins essential for the function of the flagellum. Every protein is a complex structure of average 300 amino acids
2. All proteins are required and one has no function without another just like a piston of a car engine has no use without the other engine parts. 
3. Evolutionary biologists are unable to give any explanation on how all these proteins could have evolved in a gradual fashion to form the flagellum 
4. Therefore, the only option is set up by an intelligent designer. 

They will still deny it…..

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Published on October 09, 2022 08:39

October 8, 2022

At Mind Matters News: A recent Big Bang debate: Sheer politeness underscores shakeup

“Everyone would be keen to abandon the theory if there’s a better alternative, nobody’s married to the Big Bang theory” – Pro-Big Bang astrophysicist Claudia Marason


Everyone? Just like that? Steve Meyer, author of The Return of the God Hypothesis, points out that a philosophical issue, as much as anything, may underlie the readiness to discredit the Big Bang on the basis of problematic Webb findings about galaxy formation:


“Many scientists, including Albert Einstein, have understandably found the Big Bang theory philosophically unpalatable. If the physical universe of matter, energy, space and time had a beginning – as observational astronomy and theoretical physics suggest – it’s hard to envision a physical cause for such an event. After all, it was matter and energy that first came into existence at the Big Bang. Before that, no matter or energy — no physics — would have yet existed that could have caused the universe to begin.” – Stephen Meyer, “Here’s Why James Webb Telescope Discoveries Are Causing Scientists to Rethink Galaxy Formation (But Not the Big Bang)” at DailyWire (September 22, 2022)”


As Meyer points out, the Big Bang has caused a number of scientists to conclude that there must be a Creator beyond the universe. But then, any beginning of the universe at all — or even of a succession of universes — raises the same question.


Takehome point: Such sudden, widespread cosmological doubt is bound to have a major cultural impact.

You may also wish to read: Re the Webb findings uproar: Who owns the Big Bang anyhow? Researcher and science writer Eric Lerner would never have attracted the attention he has in recent weeks if the Webb findings were not disturbing to many cosmologists. To avoid absurd “infinity” math, we just assume our universe has a beginning. But then the Webb shook up many details, creating distress and anger.

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Published on October 08, 2022 19:10

At Mind Matters News: The remarkable deceitfulness of birds — but is it really deceit?

When Clinton Francis, a specialist in bird behavior, challenged student Wren Thompson to find out how many types of birds use deceit in their defences against predators of their nests, he hardly expected to find that the number she was able to discover was 285 …

Deceit strategies are found in a number of different bird groups. Here’s one example:

The birds themselves are not agents making a moral choice to deceive; they are carrying out a behavior pattern they have inherited.

But how did it get started? It’s hardly clear how, in the absence of abstract thought, birds develop a behavior pattern of deception and then pass it on to their offspring.

You may also wish to read: The intelligence birds and bees naturally have — and we don’t. An exploration of the stunning findings in Eric Cassell’s new book, “Animal Algorithms.” Cassell observes that it would take deep thought and sophisticated design techniques to build a robot to accomplish what the bees, ants and termites can do.

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Published on October 08, 2022 19:00

At Rice U: “Dr. Tour EXPOSES the False Science Behind Origin of Life Research”

We like everything except the target on the guy’s back.

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Published on October 08, 2022 18:49

At Retraction Watch: … a massive list of retractions due to peer review rings

Here: “Exclusive: Hindawi and Wiley to retract over 500 papers linked to peer review rings”

Hindawi’s research integrity team found several signs of manipulated peer reviews for the affected papers, including reviews that contained duplicated text, a few individuals who did a lot of reviews, reviewers who turned in their reviews extremely quickly, and misuse of databases that publishers use to vet potential reviewers.

Ironically, it’s easier to trust science when we see something being done about fraud. Elite demands for blind trust don’t have anywhere near the same effect.

You may also wish to read: The hyper-specialization of university researchers. Jeffrey Funk and Gary Smith: So many papers are published today in increasingly narrow specialties that, if there is still a big picture, hardly anyone can see it. Researchers who do not know what is happening outside their own specialty can end up using discredited methods that they don’t even know are discredited.

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Published on October 08, 2022 18:44

At Mind Matters News: Did the court really say bees are fish?

Richard W. Stevens: California law allows the interpretation:


State regulations and directives that treat vital honey bees as enemies of bumble bees, and thus limit or reduce the number of already declining honey bee hives.


Just when you thought the “bees are fish” ruling was trivial silliness, you find that human food supplies and honey bee populations can both be reduced by the ruling – and the court sought to conceal that downside of its decision.


Takehome: Science, in any literal or meaningful sense, must now give way to environment fads.

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Published on October 08, 2022 18:30

At Mind Matters News: How can the two-headed tortoise have different personalities?

Many would be surprised to learn that either head had any personality, and yet…


Janus — despite the single name given — seems to be a set of conjoined tortoise twins. (Here’s a human example.) The handlers acknowledge that survival in the wild would be unlikely. For one thing, both heads can’t retract into the shell.


So it’s not surprising that the two heads would have different personalities — except insofar as a tortoise or turtle has any personality at all. And it turns out that they are smarter than we used to think.


For example, researchers have shown that some can learn.


Takehome: Researchers have found that tortoises are really slow but smarter than we thought. However, their neuroscience differs from ours. There is no tree of intelligence.

You may also wish to read: Do ants think? Yes, they do — but they think like computers. Computer programmers have adapted some ant problem-solving methods to software programs (but without the need for complex chemical scents). Navigation expert Eric Cassell points out that algorithms have made the ant one of the most successful insects ever, both in numbers and complexity.

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Published on October 08, 2022 18:25

At Mind Matters News: The human brain rewires itself in middle age

After we hit forty, our brains integrate more and compartmentalize less
In other news, some seniors with good memories have larger memory neurons but physical exercise seems to help keep human memories alive.

In a systematic review recently published in the journal Psychophysiology, researchers from Monash University in Australia swept through the scientific literature, seeking to summarize how the connectivity of the human brain changes over our lifetimes. The gathered evidence suggests that in the fifth decade of life (that is, after a person turns 40), the brain starts to undergo a radical “rewiring” that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition. – Ross Pomeroy, “The Brain Undergoes a Great “Rewiring” after Age 40” at Big Think (September 24, 2022)

Takehome: The human brain seems designed for longevity.

You may also wish to read: Ever wish you had total recall? Ask people who do… Recall of every detail of one’s past works out better for some people than for others. Just why some people can recall almost everything that happened to them is a mystery in neuroscience, in part because they are few in number.

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Published on October 08, 2022 18:17

L&FP, 61: Learning about Agit Prop from the H G Wells, War of the Worlds broadcast (and from the modified JoHari Window)

Notoriously, on the evening of October 30, 1938, many people missed the opening remarks for Orson Welles’ radio dramatisation of H G Wells’ War of the Worlds. As History dot com recounts:

Millions of Americans, as they were every night, huddled around their radios, but relatively few of them were listening to CBS when it was announced that Welles and his fellow cast members were presenting an original dramatization of the 1898 H.G. Wells science-fiction novel “The War of the Worlds.” Instead, most of the country was tuned in to NBC’s popular “Chase and Sanborn Hour,” which featured ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and his dummy, Charlie McCarthy . . . . disoriented listeners who stumbled onto the “Mercury Theatre on the Air” without having heard the disclaimer at the top of the radio play were [therefore] thrust into the middle of an hour-long drama that left some believing that the country was under attack . . . .

Although the program included a reminder at intermission that it was a dramatization, thousands of anxious and confused listeners believed it to be real. They besieged police departments, newspapers and CBS with phone calls. In New Jersey, ground zero for the fictitious invasion, national guardsmen wanted to know where they should report for duty, and the Trenton police department fielded 2,000 calls in under two hours. In Providence, Rhode Island, hysterical callers begged the electric company to cut power to the city to keep it safe from the extraterrestrial invaders.

A panic ensued.

Now, Peggy Ryan gives a key insight:


Why would people believe that aliens had invaded?  They believed because it was news.  Orson Welles’s adaptation of the War of the Worlds novel used familiar, trusted devices to report the fictional attack — news bulletins, updates from live reporters on the ground.  He used actual government positions like New Jersey governor and secretary of interior and physical locations like Trenton, Mercer, and Princeton.  These positions and locations were all too familiar to those listening to the “news” updates — confirmation that the reports were real. 


Still, does hearing it on the news make it any less impossible?  Apparently, because thousands were convinced right up until they switched channels or heard the retraction.


She then observed:

But what would have happened if War of the Worlds had been on every channel, reported by all news outlets?  What if there’d never been a retraction?  Wouldn’t millions have believed the impossible? These lessons were not lost on power brokers around the world.

This brings us face to face with the challenges of a dominant worldview and institutionalised narrative, thus how it can set a ruinous business as usual agenda:

[image error]

No wonder the myth of marching Lemmings has become proverbial:

Of Lemmings, marches of folly and cliffs of self-falsifying absurdity . . .

At the crux of such a fiasco lie false polarising dilemmas, with marginalisation of the despised other:

The ever sliding Overton Window knocks at the door, as we must ponder whether the dominant narrative and agenda are taking us over the cliff of lawless ideological oligarchy (often, parading under colour and ceremony of law), thence severe loss of liberty with good community order:

All of this brings us back to the JoHari Window, in modified form, as we ponder the difference between dominant narratives and sound knowledge . . . including what we believe we know, ourselves:

Of course, this feeds into the Fake News, censorship, marginalisation of the despised other debate that is unfortunately increasingly central to too many current issues. It is, of course, directly relevant to Richard Lewontin’s notorious cat out of the bag moment. Which, yes, we still need to remember:


[Lewontin:] . . . to put a correct [–> Just who here presume to cornering the market on truth and so demand authority to impose?] view of the universe into people’s heads


[==> as in, “we” the radically secularist elites have cornered the market on truth, warrant and knowledge, making “our” “consensus” the yardstick of truth . . . where of course “view” is patently short for WORLDVIEW . . . and linked cultural agenda . . . ]


we must first get an incorrect view out [–> as in, if you disagree with “us” of the secularist elite you are wrong, irrational and so dangerous you must be stopped, even at the price of manipulative indoctrination of hoi polloi] . . . the problem is to get them [= hoi polloi] to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world [–> “explanations of the world” is yet another synonym for WORLDVIEWS; the despised “demon[ic]” “supernatural” being of course an index of animus towards ethical theism and particularly the Judaeo-Christian faith tradition], the demons that exist only in their imaginations,


[ –> as in, to think in terms of ethical theism is to be delusional, justifying “our” elitist and establishment-controlling interventions of power to “fix” the widespread mental disease]


and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth


[–> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]


. . . . To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists [–> “we” are the dominant elites], it is self-evident


[–> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . . and in fact it is evolutionary materialism that is readily shown to be self-refuting]


that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [–> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [–> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us [= the evo-mat establishment] to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [–> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [–> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door . . . [–> irreconcilable hostility to ethical theism, already caricatured as believing delusionally in imaginary demons]. [Lewontin, Billions and billions of Demons, NYRB Jan 1997,cf. here. And, if you imagine this is “quote-mined” I invite you to read the fuller annotated citation here.]


Of course, Lewontin spoke as a member of the evolutionary materialistic scientism and fellow traveller elite, not as some crazy on a soapbox in Hyde Park. As, can be documented in far more details. But, it would be more profitable to focus the late Philip Johnson’s reply later in the same year:


For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [Emphasis original — the context is Lewontin in NYRB] We might more accurately term them “materialists employing science.” And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence.


[–> notice, the power of an undisclosed, question-begging, controlling assumption . . . often put up as if it were a mere reasonable methodological constraint; emphasis added. Let us note how Rational Wiki, so-called, presents it: “Methodological naturalism is the label for the required assumption of philosophical naturalism when working with the scientific method. Methodological naturalists limit their scientific research to the study of natural causes, because any attempts to define causal relationships with the supernatural are never fruitful, and result in the creation of scientific “dead ends” and God of the gaps-type hypotheses.” [NB: I am aware that Rational Wiki has backed away, un-announced, from the cat-out-of-the-bag direct phrasing that was in place a few years ago. That historic phrasing is still valid as a summary of what is going on.] Of course, this ideological imposition on science that subverts it from freely seeking the empirically, observationally anchored truth about our world pivots on the deception of side-stepping the obvious fact since Plato in The Laws Bk X, that there is a second, readily empirically testable and observable alternative to “natural vs [the suspect] supernatural.” Namely, blind chance and/or mechanical necessity [= the natural] vs the ART-ificial, the latter acting by evident intelligently directed configuration. [Cf Plantinga’s reply here and here.] chance and/or mechanical necessity can account for such.] That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) “give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” . . . .


The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [Emphasis added.] [The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]


Yes, those of us who advocate ID have long felt the lash of ideological imposition under colours and ceremonies of science, education, public discussion and policy. That gives us a canaries- in- the- mine base of experience to see similar patterns spreading across key institutions, communities and our civilisation at large. For example, what of the racing narratives on climate, pandemic, election irregularities, “equity” and “equality,” wars and rumours of war [try, Ukraine and the Baltic (Nord Stream), Taiwan, Iran and onward issues in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan etc.].

We could go on and on, but that would most likely bog us down in toxic, polarised, fruitless debate. Especially when we confront dominant narratives and hostile, accusatory attitudes.

Instead, we need to focus the issues that cloud the JoHari Window. For, that is how we will be able to make sound progress:

Warrant tempered by due humility on our ignorance and error proneness is the key to a sound body of knowledgeAgenda-driven domineering ideological narratives and resulting errors of warrant tend to show through attitudes that are selectively hyperskeptical and sometimes hostile to the despised otherAccordingly, as we look at points of disagreement between us and the other, we need to sort out inconsistencies in demanded degree of warrant or confidence.The problem with demanding “extraordinary” evidence for claims we think are “extraordinary,” is that it is easy to slip into denying adequate, feasible warrant for what we do not wish to acknowledge, while letting gaps in warrant slide for things that fit our preferences.This can slip into closed minded ideological question begging, as Lewontin inadvertently showed.How many times, should we be drawing, instead, the negative knowledge conclusion? That is, what we really know on a topic, is what we don’t know. (As in, whodunit, Nord Stream vs it is fairly obvious that the Ukrainians successfully targetted the bridge into Crimea, a legitimate logistical target.)At the same time, we must guard against denying what we should acknowledge, because it is ever so inconvenient. (For instance, what is the only known source of complex text, code, language, editing, algorithms? So, how should we view what we find in DNA and mRNA?)Then, there are the gaps in what we “all” think we know in common: unknown — or even unacknowledged — unknowns, lurking like torpedo-laden submarines under the seemingly smooth and safe surface of what we think is established knowledge.What, then, is the true value of sound analysis and research?Do we really want to hear this today, or are we more inclined to shoot at the messenger? And ever so much more.

So, how, then, should we proceed in a deeply polarised age? END

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Published on October 08, 2022 05:51

October 7, 2022

At Phys.org: Optical foundations illuminated by quantum light


Optics, the study of light, is one of the oldest fields in physics and has never ceased to surprise researchers. Although the classical description of light as a wave phenomenon is rarely questioned, the physical origins of some optical effects are. A team of researchers at Tampere University have brought the discussion on one fundamental wave effect, the debate around the anomalous behavior of focused light waves, to the quantum domain.


The researchers have been able to show that quantum waves behave significantly differently from their classical counterparts and can be used to increase the precision of distance measurements. Their findings also add to the discussion on physical origin of the anomalous focusing behavior. The results are now published in Nature Photonics.


“Interestingly, we started with an idea based on our earlier results and set out to structure quantum light for enhanced measurement precision. However, we then realized that the underlying physics of this application also contributes to the long debate about the origins of the Gouy phase anomaly of focused light fields,” explains Robert Fickler, group leader of the Experimental Quantum Optics group at Tampere University.


Quantum waves behave differently but point to the same origin


Over the last decades, methods for structuring light fields down on the single photon level have vastly matured and led to a myriad of novel findings. In addition, a better of optics’ foundations has been achieved. However, the physical origin of why light behaves in such an unexpected way when going through a focus, the so-called Gouy phase anomaly, is still often debated. This is despite its widespread use and importance in optical systems. The novelty of the current study is now to put the effect into the quantum domain.


“When developing the theory to describe our experimental results, we realized (after a long debate) that the Gouy phase for quantum light is not only different than the standard one, but its origin can be linked to another quantum effect. This is just like what was speculated in an earlier work,” adds Doctoral researcher Markus Hiekkamäki, leading author of the study.


In the quantum domain, the anomalous behavior is sped up when compared to classical light. As the Gouy phase behavior can be used to determine the distance a beam of light has propagated, the speed up of the quantum Gouy phase could allow for an improvement in the precision of measuring distances.



With this new understanding at hand, the researchers are planning to develop novel techniques to enhance their measurement abilities such that it will be possible to measure more complex beams of structured photons. The team expects that this will help them push forward the application of the observed effect, and potentially bring to light more differences between quantum and classical light fields.


Phys.org

The wave-particle duality of light demonstrates that paradoxes exist in physical nature–not everything can be broken down in a reductionistic manner to an unambiguous single classification.

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Published on October 07, 2022 19:24

Michael J. Behe's Blog

Michael J. Behe
Michael J. Behe isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but they do have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from their feed.
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