Spooky alignment of quasars across billions of light-years

New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have revealed alignments of the largest structures ever discovered in the universe. A European research team has found that the rotation axes of the central supermassive black holes in a sample of quasars are parallel to each other over distances of billions of light-years. The team also has found that the rotation axes of these quasars tend to be aligned with the vast structures in the cosmic web in which they reside.

This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the entire
universe. The alignments have similarities to quantum entanglement at
the microscopic level, except this is at the cosmological level.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/1...of-light-years

Yousuf Khan

Yousuf Khan wrote:

New observations with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large
Telescope (VLT) in Chile have revealed alignments of the largest
structures ever discovered in the universe. A European research team has
found that the rotation axes of the central supermassive black holes in a
sample of quasars are parallel to each other over distances of billions
of light-years. The team also has found that the rotation axes of these
quasars tend to be aligned with the vast structures in the cosmic web in
which they reside.

This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the entire
universe. The alignments have similarities to quantum entanglement at
the microscopic level, except this is at the cosmological level.

Doubt it - the flow of matter along filaments will have influenced
where the quasar formed and what directions it can point at in general
because the flow would influence the spin direction and thus the
direction the quasar can point its jet.


http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/1...of-light-years

Yousuf Khan

On 21/11/2014 7:07 PM, 7 wrote:
Yousuf Khan wrote:
This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the entire
universe. The alignments have similarities to quantum entanglement at
the microscopic level, except this is at the cosmological level.

Doubt it - the flow of matter along filaments will have influenced
where the quasar formed and what directions it can point at in general
because the flow would influence the spin direction and thus the
direction the quasar can point its jet.

Maybe, but why would they be parallel to each other? I can understand
them being parallel to the flow direction of the filament at that
particular location of the filament, but the filament meanders in many
different directions all over the place.

Yousuf Khan

In article ,
Yousuf Khan writes:
A European research team has found that the rotation axes of the
central supermassive black holes in a sample of quasars are
parallel to each other over distances of billions of light-years.

The actual article is at
http://dx.doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201424631

It claims to be free access, but in case not, there's a preprint at
http://arxiv.org/abs/1409.6098

The authors claim statistical significance at the 99% level, which is
not all that high. I wouldn't be surprised if the effect goes away
when more data are collected.

This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the
entire universe.

This seems wild speculation. Something to do with angular momentum
or even magnetic fields strike me as far more likely explanations if
the effect is real.

--
Help keep our newsgroup healthy; please don't feed the trolls.
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

On 24/11/2014 5:12 PM, Steve Willner wrote:
The authors claim statistical significance at the 99% level, which is
not all that high. I wouldn't be surprised if the effect goes away
when more data are collected.

Yes, that's just what 2-sigma accuracy (1-sigma being 95%)? But there's
been a lot of interesting little connections between quasars being made
over multiple billion light-year distances. Some of these structures are
the biggest structures in the universe, if they are indeed structures.

This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the
entire universe.

This seems wild speculation. Something to do with angular momentum
or even magnetic fields strike me as far more likely explanations if
the effect is real.

Well, sure, in the end it will all come down to that, but then they'd
have to explain how the angular momenta and magnetic fields got into
this alignment over such vast distances.

Yousuf Khan

On 11/26/2014 08:32 AM, Yousuf Khan wrote:

On 24/11/2014 5:12 PM, Steve Willner wrote:

The authors claim statistical significance at the 99% level, which is
not all that high. I wouldn't be surprised if the effect goes away
when more data are collected.

At usual lab measurements, 95% and 99% confidence intervals are the most
usual values.

Yes, that's just what 2-sigma accuracy (1-sigma being 95%)?

It follows Normal distribution.
1 sigma is about 68%
2 sigma is about 95% ( 95% is AFAIK 1.96 sigma )
3 sigma is about 99.7% - IIRC.

--
Poutnik

A wise man guards words he says,
as they may say about him more, than he says about the subject.

On Friday, November 21, 2014 3:11:15 AM UTC+2, Yousuf Khan wrote:
New observations with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile have revealed alignments of the largest structures ever discovered in the universe. A European research team has found that the rotation axes of the central supermassive black holes in a sample of quasars are parallel to each other over distances of billions of light-years. The team also has found that the rotation axes of these quasars tend to be aligned with the vast structures in the cosmic web in which they reside.

This might be the largest quantum mechanical effect in the entire
universe. The alignments have similarities to quantum entanglement at
the microscopic level, except this is at the cosmological level.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2014/1...of-light-years

Yousuf Khan

I remember that in one old H-M's drawing was "Road of Worlds". This was marked
on the drawing which was color drawing about time-space structure of galaxy..

I don't know if this "Road of Worlds" could have anything to do with these galaxy filaments which was mentioned in above article (original arXiv version)to be in large-scale structure of the Universe?

Hannu

[Newsgroups snipped.]

In article ,
"Robert Clark" writes:
Einstein referred to the quantum physics explanation of instantaneous
realization of physical states of correlated particles no matter the
distance between them as "spooky action at a distance."

A web search on "Einstein Podolsky Rosen paradox" should turn up
plenty of information.

However, mathematically it is possible that these states did exist
beforehand, and not just when they are observed.

This seems to be a version of "hidden variables." While those are
indeed mathematically possible, experiment appears to rule them out
in the real world.

--
Help keep our newsgroup healthy; please don't feed the trolls.
Steve Willner Phone 617-495-7123
Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

Steve·Willner, replying to Robert·Clark and Yousuf·Khan, wrote:
However, mathematically it is possible that these states did exist
beforehand, and not just when they are observed.

This seems to be a version of "hidden variables."
While those are indeed mathematically possible,
experiment appears to rule them out in the real world.

Steve uses the word "appears" because the facts aren't known.
If ·all· facts were known, "The Principle of Locality"[*] would apply, surely.
[ *: Wikipedia.ORG/wiki/Local_realism ]

"Bell's Test"[*] experiments show what we do NOT know; that's all.
[ *: Wikipedia.ORG/wiki/Bell_test_experiments ]

To date, no test has ·simultaneously· closed all loopholes
to the idea that entangled particles violate Local Realism.

Einstein knew that randomness is ignorance, nothing more, nothing less;
and he was right, I'm sure.

1940, New York, at "The Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion"[*]
Eintein said: ＜＜

When the number of factors coming into play in
a phenomenological complex is too large,
scientific method, in most cases, fails us.

One need only think of the weather, in which case,
prediction even for a few days ahead is impossible.

Nevertheless no one doubts that we are confronted with
a causal connection whose causal components are, in the main,
known to us.

Occurrences in this domain are beyond the reach of exact prediction
because of the variety of factors in operation,
not because of any lack of order in nature. ＞＞ ＜＜

science not only purifies the religious impulse of
the dross of its anthropomorphism but also contributes to
a religious spiritualization of our understanding of life. ＞＞

*: OnBeing.ORG/program/einstein039s-god-einstein039s-ethics/extra/einstein-science-and-religion-1940/1986

[I'm not sure what this has to do with the subject; I'm just responding to this
statement.]

On 1/7/15 1/7/15 10:01 AM, Robert Clark wrote:
Rather that being ruled out, "hidden variables" haven't been observed.

Hmmm. This depends on what you mean.

The correlations generated by quantum entanglement are incompatible with any
hidden-variables theory that is LOCAL. This is a famous result proved by J. S.
Bell in 1964.

Experimental tests of such correlations show quantum mechanics is correct within
experimental errors. So in that sense, LOCAL hidden variables are indeed "ruled
out".

There is a HUGE literature on this....


Tom Roberts