What is Digg?98 Comments
- RedStateRetard, on 10/12/2007, -9/+87Bah, you can never find the exact position of the bees . The observer is affecting their position.
P.S. Bee mites are affecting (weakening) the bees. - jayhawk88, on 10/12/2007, -3/+55Well that's your problem, you're trying to observe the story.
- wheresjim, on 10/12/2007, -5/+42Looks like the quantum field got to the server hosting this story as well!
- matthewmok, on 10/12/2007, -5/+40I have bees and the problem is not mites. Mites can be easily taken care of by breeding the bees to be more hygenic and/or by using sugar mixes with essential oils like peppermint or lemon grass.
Quantum Fields -- moronic!
This is what the problem is:
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=07-P13-00009&segmentID=3 - Tacobake, on 10/12/2007, -3/+31how can anyone ever understand this stuff?
I bet the bees just ***** off and they're playing half-life somewhere - vizerei, on 10/12/2007, -3/+27Wow, I have a pretty good understanding of quantum physics and mechanics from what I studied in electron devices and modern physics in college. But the stuff they're talking about is on the teetering edge of quantum research. However, this article cleared up a few things for me.
One, since we're 4-d creatures(3 spacial and 1 time dimension), we have a hard time observing and predicting the "spin" on quantum particles. That is because quantum level interaction is in more than 4 dimensions, and may be as many as 11 dimensions. So in essence, if there is a 9th dimension phenomenon, we're only able to see a cross section of a cross section of a cross section(this goes on from 5-9, so 4 times) of a cross section. I can't begin to explain how to extrapolate that cross section to the real (9th dimension) manifestation of itself, but I can say this: we can only mathematically extrapolate the effects, as the so-called 9th dimensional I'm using as an illustration may have many different manifestations in the physical world that we do not understand.
In essence, this is a theory for people who are slightly crazy. Not in a bad sense, but if you study quantum mechanics you're bound to hear the statement or some variation on it: To fully understand quantum mechanics you must not be of the same mind as the rest of humanity, that is to say, you must be insane. - otheruser, on 10/12/2007, -4/+25I might be way off, but I think this is the joke:
Basically, it's known as the observer effect, a principle in which the observer changes the "thing" being measured (whether by instruments or actual presence) by simply observing/measuring it.
Wiki puts it more eloquently: "In science, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observing will make on the phenomenon being observed. For example, for us to "see" an electron, a photon must first interact with it, and this interaction will change the path of that electron." - Arbus, on 10/12/2007, -11/+32Maybe they're inBEEsible.
I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I enjoyed writing it. - rune420, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22Until I clicked the link the server was in a superposition of both being up and down at the same time.
- dorion, on 10/12/2007, -5/+22So umm some one that has a better understanding of Quantum Physics than my College Chemistry Class want to tell me if this is a joke?
- SkippyDoorknob, on 10/12/2007, -7/+24It's all a marketing campaign for the upcoming Nintendo Bii
- SultanTravi, on 10/12/2007, -8/+24[insert Schrödinger's cat reference here]
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+17Worst rated thread ever?
- chicken101, on 10/12/2007, -10/+21No, it's inversely related to the number of pirates.
- AcidPhysx, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14Yes, the new qubit servers are up and running. They serve the page before you click the link, but unfortunately you must click it anyway, or else it wasn't supposed to be served in the first place.
- Digi2112, on 10/12/2007, -7/+17Hard to read about something when the link to the story does NOT work.
- lithuin, on 10/12/2007, -11/+20You've misunderstood the article.
Judging by the title, which is all I've read, quantum fields are creating some sort of invisible bee. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10http://science.box.sk/newsread.php?newsid=6321
Has some very detailed information on this. - redwoodtree, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@matthewmok : thanks for the insightful comment and the link to living on earth, that's very useful.
Hope the bees are saved. This is really sad. - Caiman, on 10/12/2007, -7/+14well done jackass, check before you post.
- compaqdrew, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Bob: Is the server down?
Frank: Indeterminate!
http://loadingreadyrun.com/videos/view/102 - bitswapper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7FTA:
nmr is considered a quantum mechanical effect because it takes place only if each atom absorbs a particular size packet, or quantum, of electromagnetic energy
Not really. You line up molecules in a very strong local magnetic field, and then if you want to get echos from water molecules, you burst the area in the magnetic field with rf energy at water's gyromagnetic frequency. The rf burst pulls only the affected molecules out of alingment with the magnetic field, and when the rf energy is turned off, the molecules line back up, like a top spinning down in reverse. As they re-align, they give off echo pulses, which, when analyzed, reveals properties of the molecules affected. It just doesn't seem to be a quantum mechanic kind of phenomenon. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -8/+14Wordpress can detect quantum fields, too. ;)
- bobcorrigan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9And so a new experiment is born: Schrödinger's Bees.
- DrBudro, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Albert Einstein quote: “If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
Bees die off in 2008, human life ends 2012...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012#Apocalyptic_predictions - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4So long and thanks for all the pollen?
- Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4 Who ya going to get to pollinate all the food crops with a Q tip?
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Ah, so the main article believed quantum fields linked to sunspot activity on a six-dimensional sun caused bees to lose their sense of navigation and your article believes a pesticide does. Occam's Razor...
A caveat though: Was this pesticide used 50 years ago and only then and now? And, what about the bees' dance. Can that be mathematically proven to be a six dimensional "shape" reduced to two dimensions? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -6/+9So there's a pesticide that makes its way into the flowers, effectively turning bees into Towelie. They get high and forget how to get home.
- sumgi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Well I would just move to some tropical island where the fruit bats do all the pollinating. :)
- jondaman21, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This article is absolutely ridiculous. For one, there's no such thing as a "quantum field". There's "quantum field theory" which defines the structure of fields on the quantum size scale. But once you're looking at a field beyond that quantum size scale (i.e. where the sizes in question are orders of magnitude above above the Planck constant), the Correspondence Principle says that the field behaves as a classical field.
The so-called mysterious (imaginary) numbers to describe sunspots don't have any reality attached to them. Imaginary numbers are used all the time for *convenience* in math and physics. Electrical engineers use imaginary numbers, for instance. They're extremely useful for keeping track of phase, etc. And multi-dimensional spaces: you can view the position of 12 real objects (say, sugar cubes) as a 36-dimensional phase space system. However, ultimately the only "real" and measurable quantities are voltage, amperage, position, speed, so the extra dimensions are bunk (btw, I don't claim that extra dimensions don't exist, just that the way they are used in the article is nonsense).
A key observation is the lack of math involved. Quantum mechanics can only be understood with math, not with silly verbal hand-waving arguments. Even the most brilliant physicists (e.g. Feynman, Bohr, etc.) couldn't "understand" quantum physics, they could only do it. - sorrowharvester, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The fact that the article is interspersed with music lyrics makes it that much more credible.
- okaroleo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4That makes no sense. To promote the Bii we would need to see more Biis and in heavily populated areas!
- crysys, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I think it's obvious what happened to the bees. Bungie has traveled across the world with a shop vac sucking all the bees up as part of their viral marketing plan for Halo 3. Doesn't anyone remember ilovebees? This time it's ihatebees!!!111one
Damn you Bungie, this is worse than the mooninites! Give us back our bees and surrender your marketing directors at once! - jerbaker, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The authors knows a lot of words related to physics, quantum mechanics, and electro-magnetic theory but the article is a rambling piece of nonsense with many leaps of logic and incorrect assumptions. This belongs on Coast to Coast with Art Bell, not Digg.
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This article is written by someone who has no idea what quantum field theories are all about, but likes the words and uses them for their perceived gravitas. A more accurate headline might have read "Bees Affected By Solar Cycles".
- rationalist, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Pseudo science and deliberate charlatanism of the worst sort. Take a real phenomenon, create a bogus explanation out of whole cloth, and mention - ooh, "quantum physics". Cue raja music and all chant "Ommmm", science proves the ineffable.
Sadly, a population poorly educated in basic critical thinking, let alone basic science, falls for this kind of crap all the time. It's on the Intarnets, it's got big words, citations (never mind no one will bother to click on the first on, linking to "The Global Oneness Commitment - Co-Creating a Happy World"). Better living through chemistry, more likely.
"Unobserved quantum fields of zero-point energy" my ass. - Obliviate, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The article says all food will die out but that's bollocks. Lots of plants are pollinated by the wind or birds for example. Take coconuts. We'll all be living on coconuts. Even without that humanity will just have to manually pollinate the farms. This is not a doomsday scenario as they make it out to be.
- textureglitch, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Buried! What a bunch of unscientific drivel!
This article belongs in the woo-woo crystal ball section, not in the science section!
Quantum physics deals with nature on a level that is impercivable and unconnected to anything on a macro level. Bees would not be affected by ANYTHING that you use quantum physics to measure. I haven't seen anything this ridiculous since those ads for machines that infuse your water with 'positive energies'.
Don't schools teach critical thinking anymore? - fluxion, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i dont think it's completely unlikely, being attuned to dimensions beyond 3 and whatnot. i could, for instance, envision an organism who's brain had micro-components that yield signals affected by quantum mechanical processes, decoherance be damned. it's even been stipulated the human mind might have some useful functionality tied to the quantum level.
but some of the stuff is definetely a stretch. seems to me the jist of it is something along the lines of:
- bees sense 6 (or more) dimensions, so when they do their dance they're doing a "projection" of 6 dimensional data into 3D space so that the other bees can see it. however, and i may be wrong, but while you can project higher dimensional constructs into a smaller number of directions, i dont think you can do it the other way around. information is lost. how could one know, for instance, that a square was the projection of a rectangular prism, as opposed to a cube? so either this elaborate dance is augmented with some direct manipulation of these fields the other bees are sensing, or it doesnt make much sense in and of itself.
- the sensors these bees use to perceive these higher dimensions are attuned to the "out of phase" imaginary solutions to models of wave phenomena, and thus we might see the manifestation of the real component of the solution as measurable solar activity, while the "out of phase" imaginary component goes undetected, whilst driving the bees MAD I TELL YOU. so in periods of solar activity minima, the bees would be experiencing chaos, so an imaginary component is generally 180 degrees out of phase. the period of these oscillations being 11 years or so?
i dont know, im just thinking out loud. i dont know enough to really analyze this, but i will say that the article seems to take chunks of relatively unrelated, but believable, information, and tries, seemingly unsuccessfully, to string everything together.
but at the very least, it's an interesting exercise in thinking outside the box. - JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Interesting theory regarding pesticides but there is quite a bit of evidence which tends to contradict it.
My brother is a beekeeper in a rural foothills area. The terrain in this area is not very conducive to large scale organized crop farming. The main industry in the area is dairy and beef cattle. Therefore, there is no significant use of pesticides within range of his hives. He's also taken all the proper precautions against known pests such as mites. No pesticides, no mites and yet his colonies are affected.
Also, if it's the new systemic pesticides, how do you explain the fact that European colonies are being affected where these new pesticides are banned? Something else is at work here.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1err... i can't get it how can bees sense that and why can't we!
- justo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"When you draw a circle, you are in effect making a two-dimensional outline of a three-dimensional sphere. As it turns out, if you make a two-dimensional outline of the six-dimensional flag manifold, you wind up with a hexagon."
OMG, Saturn's polar hexagon is killing the bees! - matthewsr2000, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1i don't think that you have to be crazy to understand the quantum world, just a little ahead of society's curve. it took society as a whole a few years to come to grips with Einstein and relativity, I'll bet that in a little time quantum theory will get there too.
now, if you really want to think that you're out there, start reading up on string theory! - iDragonFly, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Without bees, we're all in deep doo-doo.
- PaulLev, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1The bees are timetravelling - they may show up in the next few days, who knows where.... http://www.paullevinson.net/archives/entries/books_by_paul.phtml#socreading
- tech42er, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2@ok, Well the Wii is popular even though there are very few. So maybe the Bii will be, too. (Some have suggested that the Wii's desirability is linked to their relative rarity and difficulty to obtain. I suspect this is what the "Bii" joke was meant to evoke.)
- lolo2007, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0I think it's obvious what happened to the bees. Bungie has traveled across the world with a shop vac sucking all the bees up as part of their viral marketing plan for Halo 3. Doesn't anyone remember ilovebees? This time it's ihatebees!!!111one Damn you Bungie, this is worse than the mooninites! Give us back our bees and surrender your marketing directors at once! http://www.gwafi.com/news.html http://www.gwafi.com/story.html
- xedd, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4Humans should mind their own beeswax.
- josefgraf, on 06/08/2008, -0/+0Hi,
A note to let you know about this article, a current issue being addressed by the Earth Vision project -
"Why the Bees Are Dying"
Using spiritual ecology to bring environmentalism to the next level, the EV project has several current newsworthy items.
To access them, visit:
Current Environmental Issues (on the Earth Vision site)
Thanks for your attention,
Josef Graf
Earth Vision + Insight21
answers for the 21st Century
www.evsite.net + www.insight21.net -
Show 51 - 95 of 95 discussions
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