This is an account of acronyms -- on their action, as well as their activation. (You should take notes. This will be on the exam.)
WYSIWYG Computer buffs use WYSIWIG as an acronym for "What you see is what you get!", borrowing from Flip Wilson's friend, Geraldine. It describes the solution of an early problem in computing. For example, you prepared a Table on the computer screen, then printed it. But the printout did not sufficiently resemble WHAT YOU SAW ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN, that is, not WYSIWIG. After a lot of work, WYSIWIG was achieved. The TABLE you saw on the screen was what you got on the printout. To explain the motivation for the whole problem, another acronym must poke out its profile.
SPURT WITH PERT! The story of WYSIWYG began in the 60's with a famous mathematical application, P.E.R.T.: Program Analysis and Review Technique. It was "big" with The Military, and spread to Corporations. I'll briefly explain by a homely analogy.
Suppose you're designated to schedule a great GATHERING OF THE CLAN, on a given date.
You write out the basic stages of issuing invitations, ordering food, checking on transportation, etc. PROBLEM: Whereas some of these stages precede others, other stages must simultaneously develop. (This is an example of a mathematical problem that appears, herein, in a PRESCHOOL MATHTIVITY, "Pecking Order". In a SIMPLE ORDERING, OF TWO DISTINCT MEMBERS, ONE MUST PRECEDE THE OTHER IN THE ORDERING. In a PARTIAL ORDERING, TWO DISTINCT MEMBERS CAN "BE SIDE BY SIDE" IN THE ORDERING. Unfortunately, this theory of POSETS and LATTICES is not taught, precollege, and rarely in college math. Another reason why MAINSTREAM MATH leaves you almost "drowning" in DAILY PROBLEMS!) Your CLAN GATHERING PROBLEM is solved by P.E.R.T.
An estimate is made concerning the time to fulfill a given stage in order that the NEXT stage "of this line" can be taken up. This is necessary in many "lines".
Technically, you can use what statisticians call "The Beta Probability Distribution" to estimate the probability that a given stage will be reached and completed. PERT especially emphsizes what is called "the critical path", or the several "critical paths".
A critical path is one containing the lowest probability of attainment ON TIME: WHERE THE WHOLE PROGRAM COULD BREAK DOWN OR GET CRITICALLY OUT OF WHACK.
CPA, or critical path analysis was studied and applied as a separate application, apart from PERT. Charlotte?
The most famous use of PERT was in monitoring the "Polaris Project" in the 60's -- producing the first nuclear submarine fleet for the Navy. Admiral Radford, boss of this program, papered his office with PERT charts (which will connect back to our inital subject). And the project CAME IN AHEAD OF TIME! -- one of few cases, if not the only case, in which a defense project was this successful! This recommended PERT to the business and the academic world.
The second famous use of PERT was that made by the founders of XEROX, in planning to produce the first photocopier. PERT made it possible for Xerox to beat out all competitors, resulting in a historic rise on the Stock Market. Among other events, PERT (Program Analysis and Review Technique) and CPA (critical path analysis) warned Xerox supervisors about the critical activity of preparing copies of their PERT charts and the associated diagrams to fulfill a given critical path. Executives who had risen from mechanical drawing were pressed into service to develop diagrams; mail room clerks studying this subject in night school were drafted; secretaries or typists who had learned mechanical drawing from their fathers were drafted; etc; and the needed diagrams were prepared on time.
In 1962 I had developed a novel PROGRAM for encouraging college math students to proceed at their own learning rate. While teaching a PERT course. I heard about the development at a hospital in Houston, TX, of MEDIPERT, monitoring the prognosis of patients. Using this as a model, I developed STUDYPERT, which allowed capable students to monitor their own completion of my mathematical study programs. This alerted me to future news on PERT and to the beginnings of WYSIWIG.
PERT MEETS GRAPHICS, AND WYSIWIG DOES ITS STUFF! The 60's demand for PERT charts was greater than the supply of the current supply of drafters around the country. So Hughes Tool & Die in California (founded by the legendary Howard Hughes (x-y)) initiated the computerized production of PERT charts. THIS WAS THE BEGINNING OF COMPUTER GRAPHICS!
If you've seen "Revenge of the Nerds" (from the first crude PC to the beginnings of NCs) on PBS, you saw the next critical step in WYSIWYG. XEROX computer scientists developed the GUI (Graphics User Interface), snapped up by Stephen Jobs for APPLE. But dot matrix printers didn't print out what you saw on the screen. (In language used elsewhere, "the gnomons of the graphic did not match the gnomons of the printer".) ADOBE solved this problem for the laser printer. AND THAT'S HOW WYSIWIG WAS BORN! (Ain't no way like The Birth of The Blues! accordin to Johnny Mercer.)
THE ACRONYM "WYGIWYM"" In 1935 Albert Einstein instigated what became known as "The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradox", which aimed to show "the incompleteness of quantum theory". EPR led to a Theorem by J. S. Bell to test quantum theory, which was verified through a celebrated physics experiment, in 1982, by French physicist, Alain Aspect.
EPR was provoked by Einstein's reaction to a thesis which David Lindley (in Where Does the Weirdnesss Go? (1996)) encapsulates as "what you get is what you measure". Reading this, I noticed resemblance of Lindley's phrase to the well-known jargon, WYSIWIG. So I formulated the acronym WYGIWYM.
Earlier, in 1926, Erwin Schrödinger (x-y), introduced his famous "Schrödinger's equation", which does for quantum theory what Newton's law, F = ma (force equals mass times acceleration), does for classical mechanics -- provides "an equation of motion" which predicts a dynamical result which is measurable in an experiment. Schrödinger's equation takes two inputs: (1) a "wave function" to represent the measurable whose value is predicted by the equation; (2) a "potential function" to represent the "environment" of this measurable.
Newton's equation led to the principle, perhaps first articulated by Pierre Laplace (x-y), that the future of a particle can be predicted if one knows its position and momentum at a given moment. But "The Uncertainty Principle" (1925) of Werner Heisenberg (x-y) stipulated that position and momentum of a quanton are complementarily incompatible -- to the extent that precise measurement renders uncertain the measurement of the other. So the wave functions of position and momentum became of immediate concern.
The product of position and momentum is dimensionally equivalent to Planck's quantum constant. So, any other pair of measurables whose product is equivalent to Planck's constant constitute another complementarily incompatible pair -- such as energy, time, etc. The wave functions of these are also inputs for Schrödinger's equation, in "the environment" of various "potentials".
It can be shown that, unlike Newton's F = ma, a wave function carries no energy and finds manifestation only through statistical results on a large sample of particle events. (Einstein called it a Gespensterfeld or ghost field.) To deal with this, in 1927, Max Born declared that the product of a wavefunction and its complement should be interpreted as the probability of detecting this attribute (position or momentum or energy or ...) of a quonton. This has satisfied most physicists, and even Einstein said he thought the idea brilliant. But Einstein didn't like a basic consequence of this, namely, WYGYWYM: what you get is what you measure.
You see, the linearity of the wave-function provides that the attributes of the wave-function shall -- PRIOR TO MEASUREMENT! -- exist in a condition of SUPERPOSITION COMPREHENDING ALL POSSIBILITIES.
Thus, since the "spin" property ("intrinsic angular momentum") of an electron exists in two EXCLUSIVE states, "up" and "down", then -- PRIOR TO ITS MEASUREMENT -- THE SPIN OF AN ELECTRON EXISTS IN A SUPERPOSITION OF BOTH EXCLUSIVE STATES! ONLY AFTER MEASUREMENT IS THE SPIN "UP-AND-NOT-DOWN" OR "DOWN-AND-NOT-UP".
The transformation from SUPERPOSITION TO DEFINITE MEASUREMENT STATE is melodramatically known as "the collapse or reduction of the wave-function". And, in turn, the strangeness of this "collapse" is known as THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM OF QUANTUM THEORY.
What is SUPERPOSITION? And how does this transformation occur?
- SUPERPOSITION allows ONE WAVE TO PASS THROUGH ANOTHER WAVE WITHOUT BEING CHANGED. You may have seen this on a pond or at the seaside. Two colliding particles would DEFLECT each other. But not WAVES!
- SUPERPOSITION in QUANTUM THEORY means that, PRIOR, to MEASUREMENT, TWO EXCLUSIVE STATES ("YES", "NO") can COEXIST, and that MEASUREMENT SELECTS ONE CASE. But Schrödinger sketched a case that would REQUIRE A CAT TO COEXIST IN BOTH AN ALIVE AND DEAD STATE! (This began the "weirdness" labeling.)
Lindley's title, "Where Does the Weirdness [of the 2nd kind] Go?" really means "Where does the SUPERPOSITION go?" Not only in the ACT OF MEASUREMENT, but also on our level.
Lindley's subtitle is Why Quantum Mechanics Is Strange, But Not As Strange [in the 1st kind] As You Think. For, Lindley notes that, daily, we witness PHENOMENA OF SUPERPOSITION, less dramatic than waves "colliding".
As Nick Herbert explains in Quantum Reality (1986), you see SUPERPOSITION (of the first type) AT WORK whenever you look through a pane of glass in a house or building or a car windshield or through spectacles.
The fact that some one on the other side of a window pane can see you as well as you see that person means that LIGHT WAVES ARE PASSING THROUGH EACH OTHER -- FROM YOU TO THAT PERSON, FROM THAT PERSON TO YOU -- WITHOUT BEING TRANSFORMED. Clearly, SUPERPOSITION OF THE FIRST KIND.
But SUPERPOSITION of the 2nd Kind also exists in light-pane encounters.
The light from the sun will either pass through the pane or be reflected back into "the outside" and not reach you "inside". The classical, prequantum-theory) physics of this phenomenon requires that, prior to striking the glass, the light must exist in a SUPERPOSITION OF BOTH STATES. The striking of the glass is LIKE A MEASUREMENT OPERATION WHICH EITHER RESULTS IN PASSAGE-THROUGH OR REFLECTION. (Hold onto that thought! It's a clue to Lindley's answer to the question in his title.)
As Lindley notes, we depend upon SUPERPOSITION to provide us with sunlight and information about "the outside world"!
Another familiar example involves "Brewster's angle" -- a phenomenon you've see if you've swum around at the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunlit day. If you look up at one angle, you may see the reflection of the bottom of the pool. At another angle, you see the "world above the pool". The critical angle state separates these two states is known as "Brewster's angle". It is also involved in images-in-plastic which appear at one angle, but disappear at another.)
But the quantal condition (2nd kind) on SUPERPOSITION requires that THE EXCLUSIVE STATES in the phenomena cited above MUST COEXIST PRIOR TO SOMETHING SELECTING ONE POSSIBILITY. And this can lead to "paradoxes" even WEIRDER than that involving Schrödinger's cat!
What bothered Einstein was the inference that a quantal attribute (such as momentum) does not exist until it is measured. It provoked Einstein to ask, on one moonlit night, of the American Nobel physicist, Abraham Pais, "Does the moon not exist when I'm not looking at it?"
The great achievement of Lindley is to explain, in the last decade, how physicists such as Asher Peres and Roland Omnés can explain how this existence problem resides on the quantum level, but disappears on ours, so the moon is there whether we're looking at it or not.
WYDIWYT My teacher, Charlotte (The Spider), taught me to "look for the connection", in nearly every case. WYSIWIG and WYGYWYM connected me with a great comment about "discovery".
Its formulator was Albert Szent-Georgi (x-y), discoverer of vitamin C (first of the vitamins), also discoverer of ATP, which "fuels"our muscles.
Szent-Georgi said, "Discovery is seeing what every one else has seen, but thinking what no one else has thought." Dig?
The example I've used in teaching this to students is the discovery of the first antibiotic, penicillin, by Alexander Fleming -- in bread mold! People have seen bread mold, and similar molds for millenia. But Fleming thought it might have some useful application.
So, "in the company of WYSIWIG and WYGYWYM", I created the acronym: WYDIWIT -- "WHAT YOU DISCOVER IS WHAT YOU THINK".
WYHIWYX A small boy heard that his scientist father had invented the great scientist, Albert Szent-Georgi, to visit them.
The little boy immediately asked, "Will he bring his dragon?"
The child was hearing the name as "St. George", and he'd heard the story of the Battle Between St. George and The Dragon.
WYHIWYX: "WHAT YOU HEAR IS WHAT YOU XPECT".
WYGIAWYF Albert Szent-Georgi spent the remaining years of his life trying to DISCOVER THE ELECTROCHMICAL BASIS OF CANCER.
I suggest that you read up on this work. But, here, I merely wish to mention a problem he encountered -- not with phenomena, but with PEOPLE.
He applied for Government grants for his research. But he was told that he must SPECIFY EXACTLY HIS PLAN OF RESEARCH AND SUBMIT THIS PLAN TO THE GOVERNMENT, to receive a grant.
Hearing this, Szent-Georgi exploded, saying that, often, he encountered surprises in the laboratory and had to follow them up. Since he lacked the paranormal powers of PRECOGNITION, he could not comply with the Goverment conditions!
Fortunately, Szent-Georgi obtained private funds and carried on his valuable work.
The "I" in all the previous acronyms have represented "IS". In the present case, it represents "ISN'T".
WYGIAWYF: WHAT YOU'RE GRANTED ISN'T ALWAYS WHAT YOU FIND.