Collapse of the wavefunction

Thou Shall Not Be a Flipper

Reading the Haftorah this Shabbat brought to mind scenes from the 2004 Republican National Convention in Madison Square Garden in New York City where attendees where waving pictures of John Kerry chanting “Flip-flop, flip-flop…” referring to Kerry’s ever changing position on the war in Iraq (“First I voted for it, before I voted against it”) and other political issues. Former Governor of New York State, George Pataki, said there, “This year, we will win one for the Gipper, and they will lose one with the Flipper.” Kerry lost, as flippers usually do. This Haftorah (weekly portion of Prophets read publicly in Synagogues) starts with an astonishing statement of Elyahy Hanavi (Elijah the Prophet), “How long will you waver between two ideas? If the Lord is G‑d, follow Him, and if the Baal, follow him.” (Melachim-I [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2014-02-18T22:04:11-05:00February 18th, 2014|Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Exodus (Shemot), G‑d, Ki Tisa, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Shemot, Superposition, Tanakh, Uncategorized, Wavefunction, Wavefunction of G‑d|0 Comments

Manna – Superposition of All Tastes

While traveling in the Sinai desert, Israelites were fed by the heavenly bread – the manna. The Torah portions – parshat Beshalach – states that raw manna tasted like wafers that had been made with honey: וַיִּקְרְאוּ בֵית-יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶת-שְׁמוֹ, מָן; וְהוּא, כְּזֶרַע גַּד לָבָן, וְטַעְמוֹ, כְּצַפִּיחִת בִּדְבָשׁ. And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna; and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. (Ex. 16:31): However, in Numbers, it says that it tasted like cakes baked with oil: כְּטַעַם לְשַׁד הַשָּׁמֶן The taste of it was as the taste of a cake baked with oil. (Num. 11:8) The Talmud (Yoma 75b) reconciles this discrepancy by explaining that the tastes varied depending who ate the manna – to small children it tasted [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2017-02-10T17:47:09-05:00January 13th, 2014|Beshalach, Collapse of the wavefunction, Exodus (Shemot), Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Shemot, Superposition|0 Comments

Splitting of the Sea

Do you like riddles? Here is a riddle – what do these two figures represent in the context of Exodus? No Idea? How about a hint? Still no idea? Okay, here is the answer: Yes, the first figure represents two doorposts and the lintel marked with the blood of Passover sacrifice, as it says: וְלָקְחוּ, מִן-הַדָּם, וְנָתְנוּ עַל-שְׁתֵּי הַמְּזוּזֹת, וְעַל-הַמַּשְׁקוֹף--עַל, הַבָּתִּים, אֲשֶׁר-יֹאכְלוּ אֹתוֹ, בָּהֶם And they shall take of the blood, and put it on the two side-posts and on the lintel, upon the houses wherein they shall eat it. (Ex. 12:7) The second picture is of the splitting of the sea, as it says: וַיָּבֹאוּ בְנֵי-יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּתוֹךְ הַיָּם, בַּיַּבָּשָׁה; וְהַמַּיִם לָהֶם חוֹמָה, מִימִינָם וּמִשְּׂמֹאלָם And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry ground; and the [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-01-16T05:59:50-05:00January 12th, 2014|Beshalach, Collapse of the wavefunction, Dreams, Entanglement, Exodus (Shemot), Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Shemot, Superposition, Time, Uncategorized, Uncertainty Principle|0 Comments

Carpe Diem

Carpe Diem

As we have discussed in the post, It’s the time, stupid, Pharaoh never got the message that it’s all about mastery of time. To make sure Jews did get this message, G‑d gave them the very first commandment—the commandment of keeping time, of marking new months: This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you.(Ex. 12: 2) It is important to note that Jews were not only commanded to keep time, they were commanded to “make” time. Indeed, in Biblical times, the new month was not calculated according to a calendar, as it is done today, it was proclaimed by a Bet Din (an ecclesiastic court) based on the testimony of two live witnesses, who observed [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2018-01-19T06:54:12-05:00January 2nd, 2014|Bo, Collapse of the wavefunction, Exodus (Shemot), Holidays (Yomim Tovim), Omer, Parshah, Passover (Pesach), Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Rosh HaShanah, Shabbat, Shavuot, Shemot, Spirituality, Superposition, Time, Uncategorized, Wavefunction, Witnesses|0 Comments

Witnesses – See and be Seen

By the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall the one liable to death be put to death; he shall not be put to death by the mouth of one witness. (Devarim-Deuteronomy 17:6) I wrote about witnesses in my earlier post imaginatively called Witnesses. As Deuteronomy, restates many mitzvoth (commandments) introduced earlier, which is why it is also called Mishneh Torah – the repetition of Torah – the portion Shoftim-Judges restates the law of witnesses first introduced in in the book of Bamidbar-Numbers, portion Massei. So we shall revisit this fascinating subject. The Judgment of the Sanhedrin: "He is Guilty!" (1892 painting by Nikolai Ge) I. An accused criminal and a Schrödinger cat Most criminals are convicted in the US bases on circumstantial evidence. Rare is the case when a jury gets to hear [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2023-03-23T18:15:55-04:00August 11th, 2013|Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Massei, Quantum Theory, Shoftim, Superposition, Uncategorized, Uncertainty Principle, Wavefunction, Witnesses|1 Comment

Witnesses

Massei -- Bamidbar-Numbers 35 Whoever kills a person, based on the testimony of witnesses, he shall slay the murderer. A single witness may not testify against a person so that he should die. Bamidbar-Numbers 35:30 In this verse, the Torah states that a murderer can only be convicted based on testimony of live witnesses. Contrary to common law jurisprudence in the US and the UK, and civil law jurisprudence of most other western countries, circumstantial evidence cannot be used alone to convict according to the Torah law. (It may, however, be used to interrogate witnesses in order to ascertain their truthfulness or to acquit the accused.) The only basis for a Torah conviction is eye-witness testimony. This seems strange, though. Why, for example, may fingerprints or DNA evidence, which is, surely, incontrovertible, not be used to [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2013-08-11T13:55:16-04:00July 7th, 2013|Collapse of the wavefunction, Massei, Parshah, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction, Witnesses|2 Comments

Thou Shall Not Collapse G‑d’s Wavefunction

Acharei Mot 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of Aaron's two sons, when they drew near before the Lord, and they died. 2. And the Lord said to Moses: Speak to your brother Aaron, that he should not come at all times into the Holy within the dividing curtain, in front of the cover that is upon the ark, so that he should not die, for I appear over the ark cover in a cloud. (Leviticus 16:1-2) This parshah describes the service of the Kohen Gadol – the High Priest – performed on Yom Kippur. Why does it start by referencing the death of the two sons of Aaron (the first Kohen Gadol), Nadav and Avihu? What relevance does this have to the topic at hand? As we read earlier, [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2013-08-11T14:21:46-04:00April 22nd, 2013|Collapse of the wavefunction, Uncategorized, Uncertainty Principle, Wavefunction|1 Comment

Schrödinger Pots

Vaikra-Leviticus 14:35-36 (Metzora) 35. and the one to whom the house belongs comes and tells the kohen, saying, "Something like a plague has appeared to me in the house," 36. the kohen shall order that they clear out the house, before the kohen comes to look at the lesion, so that everything in the house should not become unclean. After this, the kohen shall come to look at the house. Let us analyze these two verses from the point of view of quantum mechanics. An owner of the house sees a suspicious lesion on the house that looks like tzara’as and calls a cohen (priest) to inspect the house. There are two possible states of the house: Pure (no tzara’as) or Impure (contaminated by tzara’as). At this moment, before the cohen inspects the [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2013-04-14T00:54:09-04:00April 14th, 2013|Collapse of the wavefunction, Entanglement, Uncategorized|0 Comments

Two Beginnings

B’reshit bara Elokim et hashamaim v’et haaretz… In the beginning, G‑d created heaven and earth… Alternative translation: With two beginnings G‑d created heaven and earth… Genesis 1:1 *This is an abridged and updated version of my paper “Towards Reconciliation of Biblical and Cosmological Ages of the Universe” Presented at the Third Miami International Conference on Torah & Science in Dec. of 1999 and published in B’Or HaTorah, 13 (2002) p. 19. Contemporary science places the age of the universe in the thirteen to fourteen billion years range, or 13.787 ± 0.02, [1] to be precise. This age is derived from both theoretical models as well as experimental data. (For an overview of theoretical and experimental approaches to dating the universe and our planet Earth see my original paper TOWARDS RECONCILIATION OF BIBLICAL AND [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2019-10-25T00:22:55-04:00October 12th, 2012|Age of the Universe, Bereishit, Bereshit, Collapse of the wavefunction, Cosmology, Creation, Entanglement, Genesis, G‑d, Kabbalah, Parshah, Pentateuch (Chumash), Quantum Theory, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|4 Comments

On the Age of the Universe in the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

On the Age of the Universe in the Many-Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics[*] Alexander Poltorak Abstract The present paper addresses the apparent discrepancy between the cosmological age of the universe, estimated at twelve to fourteen billion years, and the “biblical” age, believed in the Jewish tradition to be less than six thousand years. This paper is a sequel to my previous paper, "On the Age of the Universe," presented at the Third Miami International Conference on Torah and Science, which aimed to resolve this contradiction from the point of view of the collapse of the wave function in the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM). Continuing this discussion, I shall now approach the problem from the slightly different point of view of the many-worlds interpretation of QM. This paper [...]

By Alexander Poltorak|2018-09-21T11:05:55-04:00September 15th, 2012|Age of the Universe, Collapse of the wavefunction, Superposition, Uncategorized, Wavefunction|5 Comments

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