PROJECT REPORT ON

STUDY ON DIFFERENT PARADOXES IN PHYSICS

SUBMITTED TO

RAGHUNATHJEW (DEGREE) COLLEGE

DEULISAHI, CUTTACK-08

FOR THE PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF DEGREE IN

. BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN

PHYSICS

SUBMITTED BY

JANMEJAYA MISHRA

ROLL NO- 1702010720490016

UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF

Mr. BIBHUTI BHUSAN SAHOO

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

RAGHUNATHJEW (DEGREE) COLLEGE

DEULISAHI, CUTTACK-08

(AFFILIATED TO UTKAL UNIVERSITY)

MARCH, 2020
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor

Mr. Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo for his continuous support throughout my project and for giving
me, his most valuable time, patience, motivation and immense knowledge. His guidance helped
me in the time of writing this thesis which is based on “Study on different paradoxes in
physics”.

I am really lucky because I have got the marvelous lecturers in my B.Sc degree. I am
very thankful to all my lecturers for their sincerity, encouragement, care, love and guidance.

Signature of Student
 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that the dissertation entitled, “Study on different paradoxes in physics”, which
is being submitted by Janmejaya Mishra for the degree of Bachelor of science in physics is
absolutely based upon his own review work carried out him at the Department of Physics,
Raghunathjew Degree College, Deulisahi, Cuttack-08 during last semester under my guidance.

Signature of Supervisor

Mr. Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo

 DECLARATION

I, Janmejaya Mishra, Roll No-1702010720490016 do hereby declare by this project

report entitled “Study on different paradoxes in physics” submited to Department of Physics,
Raghunathjew (Degree) College (Affilated to Utkal University) for the award of degree of B.Sc
in Physics in an original review work done by me has not been submitted for award of any
degree in any degree in any other institutions. Any help or sources of information which has to
be availed in this connection is duly acknowledged.

Name: Janmejaya Mishra

Roll No-1702010720490016

B.Sc in Physics
 DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS
RAGHUNATHJEW DEGREE COLLEGE

DEULISAHI, CUTTACK-08

CERTIFICATE
This is to certify that Janmejaya Mishra of B. Sc physics, Roll no 1702010720490016 has
completed his project during the academic year 2019-20 as partial fulfillment of B. Sc (Physics)
course under the guidance of Mr. Bibhuti Bhusan Sahoo.

Head of the Department

Examined by: 1) 2)

Date:
 CONTENTS

1. Introduction. 1
2. Historical background 2
3. Classifications 2
4. Description 3
4.1 Paradoxes relating to false assumptions 3
4.2 Paradoxes relating to unphysical mathematical idealizations 4
4.3 Quantum mechanical paradoxes 5
4.4 Causality and Observational paradoxes 6
5. Some important paradoxes and their resolution 7
5.1 The Zeno’s Paradox 7
5.2 The twin paradox 8
5.3 D' Alembert’s paradox 11
5.4 The double slit experiment 14
5.5 Schrödinger’s cat 17
5.6 The EPR paradox 20
5.7 The Grandfather paradox 24
5.8 Heat death paradox 25
6. Conclusion 25
7. Reference 27
 SUMMARY OF THE REPORT

This project report on “DIFFERENT PARADOXES IN PHYSICS” contains six

parts. First part contains Introduction to the topic and after a brief introduction there is second
part where the history of the topic is discussed. In the third part various paradoxes are classified
into specific groups according to their nature and origin. Fourth part contains the elaborate
description of different groups and various paradoxes included in specific class and descriptions
are given for what reason they are in those specific classes. This description part is also divided
as per the four groups and after the elaboration, there is fifth part of the report where some of the
most influential and crucial paradoxes are fluently discussed with prpper arguments. Sixth part
contains conclusion, where the main ideas for the future compatibility of paradoxes with new
research has been discussed.
 1

1. Introduction :-

A paradox, also known as an antinomy, is a logically self-contradictory statement

or a statement that runs contrary to one's expectation. It is a statement that, despite apparently
valid reasoning from true premises, leads to a seemingly self-contradictory or a logically
unacceptable conclusion. A paradox usually involves contradictory-yet-interrelated elements
that exist simultaneously and persist over time.

In logic, many paradoxes exist which are known to be invalid arguments, but
which are nevertheless valuable in promoting critical thinking, while other paradoxes have
revealed errors in definitions which were assumed to be rigorous, and have caused axioms of
mathematics and logic to be re-examined. One example is Russell's paradox, which questions
whether a "list of all lists that do not contain themselves" would include itself, and showed
that attempts to found set theory on the identification of set with properties or predicates were
flawed. Others, such as Curry's paradox, cannot be easily resolved by making foundational
changes in a logical system.
Examples outside logic include the ship of Theseus from philosophy, a paradox
which questions whether a ship repaired over time by replacing each and all of its wooden
parts, one at a time, would remain the same ship. Paradoxes can also take the form of images
or other media. For example, M.C. Escher featured perspective-based paradoxes in many of
his drawings, with walls that are regarded as floors from other points of view, and staircases
that appear to climb endlessly.

In common usage, the word "paradox" often refers to statements that are ironic
or unexpected, such as "the paradox that standing is more tiring than walking".

A physical paradox is an apparent contradiction in physical description of the

universe. While many physical paradoxes have accepted resolutions, others defy resolution
and may indicate flaws in theory. In physics as in all of science, contradictions and paradoxes
are generally assumed to be artifacts of error and incompleteness because reality is assumed
to be completely consistent, although this is itself a philosophical assumption. When, as in
fields such as quantum physics and relativity theory, existing assumptions about reality have
been shown to break down, this has usually been dealt with by changing our understanding of
reality to a new one which remains self-consistent in the presence of the new evidence.
Now we shall discuss the main assumption and many sided conclusions
arising from the paradoxes that particularly concerns the physical science and the theories of
our universe. These paradoxes, some resolved and some still contradictory and some are very
much troubling for future scientists to work upon any particularly new and groundbreaking
theory. The discussion may lead to some better solutions or some suggestions to resolve the
given paradoxes which are some of the most tormenting in the contemporary physics. We
shall dwell upon some paradoxes and try to get some new insights rather than giving our
main attention to the solutions.
 2

2. Historical background :-

While we are talking of paradox being a philosophical word, has a long history of
origination. The word 'para' and 'doxa' both originate from the Greek word and transmute into
Latin word origin around 16th century and becoming the complete word 'Paradox'. Since it is
a very simple word which has a usage while two law or any two statements get contradicted
logically, it could be used in any literal form. Throwing light upon the History we can say in
a philosophical context, it had ancient applicability and many of the evidences also show the
history of the presence of Paradoxes in world of that time. As long as we can state in
example, Epimedes, a 6th century Cretan (near the same time as Pythagorus and about 200
years before Aristotle formalized logic), is attributed with the discovery of the liar's paradox.
Historically, this is the first paradox. He claimed "All Cretans are liars." But because he is
also Cretan, he is a liar. Then dwelling upon since Epimedas is a liar, so how could we
conclude, what he is saying is true?
This is what a paradox is all about. We can’t know whether the actual statement is right
or wrong which arises a contradiction till we make some resolution by experimenting or
observing, and then we can solve the paradox with some better argument with some facts and
giving it’s various facets.
Since we are talking about the particular paradoxes which deal with the Physical
sciences, we’ll discuss only those paradoxes which we shall see in 'Physics'. In the history of
Physical paradox it is believed that Zeno a Greek philosopher (Living around c. 495 – 430
BC was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher of Magna Graecia and a member of the Eleatic
School founded by Parmenides. Aristotle called him the inventor of the dialectic) was the
first person to give a contradiction in mathematics, concerning motion and time concept. He
is best known for his paradoxes, which Bertrand Russell described as "immeasurably subtle
and profound".

3. Classification :-

As we are talking about some of the physical paradoxes, so it will be easier to

discuss them each by a convenient classification. We are here more concerned, segregating
different paradoxes according to their reason of origination and the particular theory frame
covering the arguments. According to this view we can separate these paradoxes into 4
groups as follows :
1. Paradoxes relating to false assumptions
2. Paradoxes relating to unphysical mathematical idealizations
3. Quantum mechanical Paradoxes
4. Observational and causality Paradoxes
 3

Now to narrate these groups, we have to go into profound discussions and

elaborate descriptions of the topic.

4. Description :-
To elaborate different kinds of paradoxes and the theories for which they arise
we can now talk about the given topics of classifications.

4.1. Paradoxes relating to false assumption :-

So here as we can contemplate, those paradoxes are included in this group which
arose due to some kind of false assumption and false description of the given theory. Certain
physical paradoxes defy common sense predictions about physical situations. In some cases,
this is the result of modern physics correctly describing the natural world in circumstances
which are far outside of everyday experience. For example, special relativity has traditionally
yielded two common paradoxes: the twin paradox and the ladder paradox. Both of these
paradoxes involve thought experiments which defy traditional common sense assumptions
about time and space. In particular, the effects of time dilation and length contraction are
used in both of these paradoxes to create situations which seemingly contradict each other. It
turns out that the fundamental postulate of special relativity that the speed of light is invariant
in all frames of reference requires that concepts such as simultaneity and absolute time are
not applicable when comparing radically different frames of reference.
Another paradox associated with relativity is Supplee's paradox which seems to
describe two reference frames that are irreconcilable. In this case, the problem is assumed to
be well-posed in special relativity, but because the effect is dependent on objects and fluids
with mass, the effects of general relativity need to be taken into account. Taking the correct
assumptions, the resolution is actually a way of restating the equivalence principle.
Babinet's paradox is that contrary to naïve expectations, the amount of radiation
removed from a beam in the diffraction limit is equal to twice the cross-sectional area. This is
because there are two separate processes which remove radiation from the beam in equal
amounts: absorption and diffraction.
Similarly, there exists a set of physical paradoxes that directly rely on one or more
assumptions that are incorrect. The Gibbs paradox of statistical mechanics yields an apparent
contradiction when calculating the entropy of mixing. If the assumption that the particles in
an ideal gas are indistinguishable is not appropriately taken into account, the calculated
entropy is not an extensive variable as it should be.
Olbers' paradox shows that an infinite universe with a uniform distribution of stars
necessarily leads to a sky that is as bright as a star. The observed dark night sky can be
alternatively resolvable by stating that one of the two assumptions is incorrect. This paradox
was sometimes used to argue that a homogeneous and isotropic universe as required by the
 4

cosmological principle was necessarily finite in extent, but it turns out that there are ways to
relax the assumptions in other ways that admit alternative resolutions.
Mpemba paradox is that under certain conditions, hot water will freeze faster than
cold water even though it must pass through the same temperature as the cold water during the
freezing process. This is a seeming violation of Newton's law of cooling but in reality it is due
to non-linear effects that influence the freezing process. The assumption that only the
temperature of the water will affect freezing is not correct.

4.2. Paradoxes relating to unphysical mathematical idealizations

A common paradox occurs with mathematical idealizations such as point sources

which describe physical phenomena well at distant or global scales but break down at the
point itself. These paradoxes are sometimes seen as relating to Zeno's paradoxes which all
deal with the physical manifestations of mathematical properties of continuity, infinitesimals,
and infinities often associated with space and time. For example, the electric field associated
with a point charge is infinite at the location of the point charge. A consequence of this
apparent paradox is that the electric field of a point-charge can only be described in a limiting
sense by a carefully constructed Dirac delta function. This mathematically inelegant but
physically useful concept allows for the efficient calculation of the associated physical
conditions while conveniently sidestepping the philosophical issue of what actually occurs at
the infinitesimallydefined point: a question that physics is as yet unable to answer.
Fortunately, a consistent theory of quantum electrodynamics removes the need for
infinitesimal point charges altogether.

A similar situation occurs in general relativity with the gravitational

singularity associated with the Schwarzschild solution that describes the geometry of a black
hole. The curvature of spacetime at the singularity is infinite which is another way of stating
that the theory does not describe the physical conditions at this point. It is hoped that the
solution to this paradox will be found with a consistent theory of quantum gravity, something
which has thus far remained elusive. A consequence of this paradox is that the associated
singularity that occurred at the supposed starting point of the universe (see Big Bang) is not
adequately described by physics. Before a theoretical extrapolation of a singularity can occur,
quantum mechanical effects become important in an era known as the Planck time. Without a
consistent theory, there can be no meaningful statement about the physical conditions
associated with the universe before this point.

Another paradox due to mathematical idealization is D'Alembert's paradox

of fluid mechanics. When the forces associated with two- dimensional, incompressible,
irrotational, inviscid steady flow across a body are calculated, there is no drag. This is in
contradiction with observations of such flows, but as it turns out a fluid that rigorously
satisfies all the conditions is a physical impossibility. The mathematical model breaks down
at the surface of the body, and new solutions involving boundary layers have to be considered
to correctly model the drag effects.
 5

4.3. Quantum mechanical Paradoxes :-

A significant set of physical paradoxes are associated with the privileged position
of the observer in quantum mechanics. Three of the most famous of these are :

1. The double-slit experiment ;

2. The EPR paradox and
3. The Schrodinger’s cat paradox,

All of them proposes as thought experiments relevant to the discussions of the

correct interpretation of quantum mechanics.

These thought experiments try to use principles derived from the Copenhagen
interpretation of quantum mechanics to derive conclusions that are seemingly contradictory.
In the case of Schrödinger's cat this takes the form of a seeming absurdity.

A cat is placed in a box sealed off from observation with a quantum

mechanical switch designed to kill the cat when appropriately deployed. While in the box, the
cat is described as being in a quantum superposition of "dead" and "alive" states, though
opening the box effectively collapses the cat's wave function to one of the two conditions. In
the case of the EPR paradox, quantum entanglement appears to allow for the physical
impossibility of information transmitted faster than the speed of light, violating special
relativity. Related to the EPR paradox is the phenomenon of quantum pseudo-telepathy in
which parties who are prevented from communicating do manage to accomplish tasks that
seem to require direct contact.

The "resolutions" to these paradoxes are considered by many to be

philosophically unsatisfying because they hinge on what is specifically meant by the
measurement of an observation or what serves as an observer in the thought experiments. In a
real physical sense, no matter what way either of those terms are defined, the results are the
same. Any given observation of a cat will yield either one that is dead or alive; the
superposition is a necessary condition for calculating what is to be expected, but will never
itself be observed. Likewise, the EPR paradox yields no way of transmitting information
faster than the speed of light; though there is a seemingly instantaneous conservation of the
quantumentangled observable being measured, it turns out that it is physically impossible to
use this effect to transmit information. Why there is an instantaneous conservation is the
subject of which is the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Speculative theories of quantum gravity that combine general

relativity with quantum mechanics have their own associated paradoxes that are generally
accepted to be artifacts of the lack of a consistent physical model that unites the two
formulations. One such paradox is the black hole information paradox which points out that
information associated with a particle that falls into a black hole is not conserved when the
theoretical Hawking radiation causes the black hole to evaporate. In 2004, Stephen Hawking
claimed to have a working resolution to this problem, but the details have yet to be published
 6

and the speculative nature of Hawking radiation means that it isn't clear whether this paradox is
relevant to physical reality.

4.4. Causality and observational paradoxes :-

A set of similar paradoxes occurs within the area of physics involving
arrow of time and causality. One of these, the grandfather paradox, deals with the peculiar
nature of causality in closed time-like loops. In its most crude conception, the paradox
involves a person traveling back in time and murdering an ancestor who hadn't yet had a
chance to procreate. The speculative nature of time travel to the past means that there is no
agreed upon resolution to the paradox, nor is it even clear that there are physically possible
solutions to the Einstein equations that would allow for the conditions required for the
paradox to be met. Nevertheless, there are two common explanations for possible resolutions
for this paradox that take on similar flavor for the explanations of quantum mechanical
paradoxes. In the socalled self-consistent solution, reality is constructed in such a way as to
deterministically prevent such paradoxes from occurring. This idea makes many free will
advocates uncomfortable, though it is very satisfying to many philosophical naturalists.
Alternatively, the many worlds idealization or the concept of parallel universes is sometimes
conjectured to allow for a continual fracturing of possible worldlines into many different
alternative realities. This would mean that any person who traveled back in time would
necessarily enter a different parallel universe that would have a different history from the
point of the time travel forward.

Another paradox associated with the causality and the one-way nature of
time is Loschmidt's paradox which poses the question how can microprocesses that are
timereversible produce a time-irreversible increase in entropy. A partial resolution to this
paradox is rigorously provided for by the fluctuation theorem which relies on carefully keeping
track of time averaged quantities to show that from a statistical mechanics point of view,
entropy is far more likely to increase than to decrease. However, if no assumptions about initial
boundary conditions are made, the fluctuation theorem should apply equally well in reverse,
predicting that a system currently in a low-entropy state is more likely to have been at a higher-
entropy state in the past, in contradiction with what would usually be seen in a reversed film of
a nonequilibrium state going to equilibrium. Thus, the overall
asymmetry in thermodynamics which is at the heart of Loschmidt's paradox is still not
resolved by the fluctuation theorem. Most physicists believe that the thermodynamic arrow of
time can only be explained by appealing to low entropy conditions shortly after the Big Bang,
although the explanation for the low entropy of the Big Bang itself is still debated.

A further set of physical paradoxes are based on sets of observations that

fail to be adequately explained by current physical models. These may simply be indications
of the incompleteness of current theories. It is recognized that unification has not been
accomplished yet which may hint at fundamental problems with the current scientific
paradigms. Whether this is the harbinger of a scientific revolution yet to come or whether
these observations will yields to future refinements or be found to be erroneous is yet to be
determined. A brief list of these yet inadequately explained observations includes
observations implying the existence of dark matter, observations implying the existence of
 7

dark energy, the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry, the GZK paradox, the heat death
paradox, and the Fermi paradox.

5. Some important paradoxes and their resolutions :-

5.1. The Zeno's paradox :-

Suppose Atlanta wishes to walk to the end of a path. Before she can get there, she
must get halfway there. Before she can get halfway there, she must get a quarter of the way
there. Before traveling a quarter, she must travel one-eighth; before an eighth, one-sixteenth;
and so on.

The resulting sequence can be represented as :

This description requires one to complete an infinite number of tasks, which

Zeno maintains is an impossibility.

This sequence also presents a second problem in that it contains no first distance
to run, for any possible (finite) first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be
first after all. Hence, the trip cannot even begin. The paradoxical conclusion then would be
that travel over any finite distance can neither be completed nor begun, and so all motion
must be an illusion. This paradox also known as Race course paradox.

For the second argument lets discuss the Arrow paradox. Which divides
time into points.
 8

In the arrow paradox, Zeno states that for motion to occur, an object must change the
position which it occupies. He gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any
one (duration-less) instant of time, the arrow is neither moving to where it is, nor to where it
is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because no time elapses for it to move there; it
cannot move to where it is, because it is already there. In other words, at every instant of time
there is no motion occurring. If everything is motionless at every instant, and time is entirely
composed of instants, then motion is impossible.

Both paradoxes have resolutions as given by various mathematicians and

philosophers starting from 370 BC to even now. Some of the resolutions to discuss from some
of the prolific polymath, we’ll discuss.

Aristotle (384 BC−322 BC) remarked that as the distance decreases, the time needed
to cover those distances also decreases, so that the time needed also becomes increasingly
small. Aristotle also distinguished "things infinite in respect of divisibility" (such as a unit of
space that can be mentally divided into ever smaller units while remaining spatially the same)
from things (or distances) that are infinite in extension ("with respect to their extremities").
Aristotle's objection to the arrow paradox was that "Time is not composed of indivisible
nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles."

Bertrand Russell offered what is known as the "at-at theory of motion". It agrees that
there can be no motion "during" a durationless instant, and contends that all that is required
for motion is that the arrow be at one point at one time, at another point another time, and at
appropriate points between those two points for intervening times. In this view motion is just
change in position over time.

Nick Huggett argues that Zeno is assuming the conclusion when he says that objects
that occupy the same space as they do at rest must be at rest.

5.2. The Twin Paradox :-

If we placed a living organism in a box. one could arrange that the organism, after
any arbitrary lengthy flight, could be returned to its original spot in a scarcely altered
condition, while corresponding organisms which had remained in their original positions had
already long since given way to new generations. For the moving organism, the lengthy time
of the journey was a mere instant, provided the motion took place with approximately the
speed of light.
 9

If the stationary organism is a man and the traveling one is his twin, then the traveler
returns home to find his twin brother much aged compared to himself. The paradox centers
on the contention that, in relativity, either twin could regard the other as the traveler, in which
case each should find the other younger—a logical contradiction.

For example, Consider a space ship traveling from Earth to the nearest star system: a distance
d = 4 light years away, at a speed v = 0.8c ( i. e 80 percent of the speed of light )

To make the numbers easy, the ship is assumed to attain full speed in a negligible
time upon departure (even though it would actually take close to a year accelerating at 1 g to
get up to speed). Similarly, at the end of the outgoing trip, the change in direction needed to
start the return trip is assumed to occur in a negligible time.

The Earth-based mission control reasons about the journey this way: the round trip
will take t = 2d/v = 10 years in Earth time (i.e. everybody on Earth will be 10 years older
when the ship returns). The amount of time as measured on the ship's clocks and the aging of
the travelers during their trip will be reduced by the factor, the reciprocal of Lorentz factor(
time

dilation). With the proper time formula,

In this case ε= 0.6 and the travelers will have aged only 0.6 × 10 = 6 years when they return.

The ship's crew members also calculate the particulars of their trip from their
perspective. They know that the distant star system and the Earth are moving relative to the
ship at speed v during the trip. In their rest frame the distance between the Earth and the star
system is, εd = 0.6 ×4 = 2.4 light years ( lenght contraction), for both the outward and return
journeys. Each half of the journey takes εd/v = 2.4/0.8 = 3 years, and the round trip takes
twice as long (6 years). Their calculations show that they will arrive home having aged 6
years. The travelers' final calculation about their aging is in complete agreement with the
calculations of those on Earth, though they experience the trip quite differently from those
who stay at home.
 10

No matter what method they use to predict the clock readings, everybody will agree
about them. If twins are born on the day the ship leaves, and one goes on the journey while
the other stays on Earth, they will meet again when the traveler is 6 years old and the stay-at-
home twin is 10 years old.

All processes—chemical, biological, measuring apparatus functioning, human

perception involving the eye and brain, the communication of force—are constrained by the
speed of light. There is clock functioning at every level, dependent on light speed and the
inherent delay at even the atomic level. Biological aging, therefore, is in no way different
from clock timekeeping. This means that biological aging would be slowed in the same
manner as a clock following the proper time formula.

The resolution can be discussed taking into account of the emergence of non- inertial
frames. During the turnaround, the traveling twin is in an accelerated reference frame.
According to the equivalence principle, the traveling twin may analyze the turnaround phase
as if the stay-at-home twin were freely falling in a gravitational field and as if the traveling
twin were stationary. A 1918 paper by Einstein presents a conceptual sketch of the idea.
From the viewpoint of the traveler, a calculation for each separate leg, ignoring the
turnaround, leads to a result in which the Earth clocks age less than the traveler. For example,
if the Earth clocks age 1 day less on each leg, the amount that the Earth clocks will lag
behind amounts to 2 days. The physical description of what happens at turnaround has to
produce a contrary effect of double that amount: 4 days' advancing of the Earth clocks. Then
the traveler's clock will end up with a net 2-day delay on the Earth clocks, in agreement with
calculations done in the frame of the stay-at-home twin.

The mechanism for the advancing of the stay-at-home twin's clock is gravitational
time dilation. When an observer finds that inertialy moving objects are being accelerated with
respect to themselves, those objects are in a gravitational field insofar as relativity is
concerned. For the traveling twin at turnaround, this gravitational field fills the universe. In a
weak field approximation, clocks tick at a rate of t' = t (1 + φ / c 2), where φ is the difference
in gravitational potential. In this case, φ = gh where g is the acceleration of the traveling
observer during turnaround and h is the distance to the stay-at-home twin. The rocket is firing
towards the stay-at-home twin, thereby placing that twin at a higher gravitational potential.
Due to the large distance between the twins, the stay-at-home twin's clocks will appear to be
sped up enough to account for the difference in proper times experienced by the twins. It is
no accident that this speed-up is enough to account for the simultaneity shift described above.
The general relativity solution for a static homogeneous gravitational field and the special
relativity solution for finite acceleration produce identical results.
 11

5.3. D' Alembert's Paradox :-

In fluid dynamics, d'Alembert's paradox (or the hydrodynamic paradox) is a

contradiction reached in 1752 by French mathematician Jean le Rond d'Alembert.
D'Alembert proved that – for incompressible and inviscid potential flow – the drag force is
zero on a body moving with constant velocity relative to the fluid. Zero drag is in direct
contradiction to the observation of substantial drag on bodies moving relative to fluids, such
as air and water; especially at high velocities corresponding with high Reynolds numbers. It
is a particular example of the reversibility paradox.

D’Alembert, working on a 1749 Prize Problem of the Berlin Academy on flow drag,
concluded: "It seems to me that the theory (potential flow), developed in all possible rigor,
gives, at least in several cases, a strictly vanishing resistance, a singular paradox which I
leave to future Geometers [i.e. mathematicians - the two terms were used interchangeably at
that time] to elucidate". A physical paradox indicates flaws in the theory.

According to scientific consensus, the occurrence of the paradox is due to the

neglected effects of viscosity. In conjunction with scientific experiments, there were huge
advances in the theory of viscous fluid friction during the 19th century. With respect to the
paradox, this culminated in the discovery and description of thin boundary layers by Ludwig
Prandtl in 1904. Even at very high Reynolds numbers, the thin boundary layers remain as a
result of viscous forces. These viscous forces cause friction drag on streamlined objects, and
for bluff bodies the additional result is flow separation and a low-pressure wake behind the
object, leading to form drag.
The general view in the fluid mechanics community is that, from a practical point of view,
the paradox is solved along the lines suggested by Prandtl. A formal mathematical proof is
lacking,

and difficult to provide, as in so many other fluid-flow problems involving the Navier–Stokes
equations (which are used to describe viscous flow).
 12

The three main assumptions in the derivation of d'Alembert's paradox is that the
steady flow is incompressible, inviscid and irrotational. An inviscid fluid is described by the
Euler equations, which together with the other two conditions read

Here u denotes the flow velocity of the fluid, p the pressure and ρ the density.
We have the second term in the Euler equation as:

where the first equality is a vector calculus identity and the second equality uses that the flow
is irrotational. Furthermore, for every irrotational flow, there exists a velocity potential φ
such that u = grad φ. Substituting this all in the equation for momentum conservation yields

Thus, the quantity between brackets must be constant (any t-dependence can be eliminated by
redefining φ ). Assuming that the fluid is at rest at infinity and that the pressure is defined to

be zero there, this constant is zero, and thus

This is the Bernoulli equation for unsteady potential flow.
Concept of Zero drag arises from a simple physical approximation. Suppose that a body
moves with constant velocity v through the fluid, which is at rest infinitely far away. Then the
velocity field of the fluid has to follow the body, so it is of the form u ( x, t) = u ( x – vt, 0),
where x is the spatial coordinate vector, and thus:

Since u = gradφ, this can be integrated with respect to x :

The force F that the fluid exerts on the body is given by the surface integral
 13

Where A denotes the body surface and n the normal vector on the body surface. But it
follows from (2) that

Thus

with the contribution of R(t) to the integral being equal to zero.

At this point, it becomes more convenient to work in the vector components. The kth
component of this equation reads

Let V be the volume occupied by the fluid. The divergence theorem says that

The right-hand side is an integral over an infinite volume, so this needs some
justification, which can be provided by appealing to potential theory to show that the velocity
u must fall off as r -3 corresponding to a dipole potential field in case of a threedimensional
body of finite extent – where r is the distance to the centre of the body. The integrand in the
volume integral can be rewritten as follows:

Where first equality (1) and then the incompressibility of the flow are used. Substituting this
back into the volume integral and another application of the divergence theorem again. This
yields

Substituting this in (3), we find that

 14

The fluid cannot penetrate the body and thus n · u = n · v on the body surface. So

And

Finally, the drag is the force in the direction in which the body moves, so

Hence the drag vanishes. This is D' Alembert’s paradox.

5.4. The Double slit experiment :-

In modern physics, the double-slit experiment is a demonstration that
light and matter can display characteristics of both classically defined waves and particles;
moreover, it displays the fundamentally probabilistic nature of quantum mechanical
phenomena. This type of experiment was first performed, using light, by Thomas Young in
1801, as a demonstration of the wave behavior of light. At that time it was thought that light
consisted of either waves or particles. With the beginning of modern physics, about a hundred
years later, it was realized that light could in fact show behavior characteristic of waves and
particles. In 1927, Davisson and Germer demonstrated that electrons show the same behavior,
which was later extended to atoms and molecules. Thomas Young's experiment with light was
part of classical physics well before quantum mechanics, and the concept of waveparticle
duality. He believed it demonstrated that the wave theory of light was correct, and his
experiment is sometimes referred to as Young's experiment or Young's slits.
The experiment belongs to a general class of "double path" experiments, in which
a wave is split into two separate waves that later combine into a single wave. Changes in the
path lengths of both waves result in a phase shift, creating an interference pattern. Another
version is the Mach–Zehnder interferometer, which splits the beam with a mirror.
In the basic version of this experiment, a coherent light source, such as a laser
beam, illuminates a plate pierced by two parallel slits, and the light passing through the slits
is observed on a screen behind the plate. The wave nature of light causes the light waves
passing through the two slits to interfere, producing bright and dark bands on the screen – a
result that would not be expected if light consisted of classical particles. However, the light is
 15

always found to be absorbed at the screen at discrete points, as individual particles (not
waves); the interference pattern appears via the varying density of these particle hits on the
screen. Furthermore, versions of the experiment that include detectors at the slits find that
each detected photon passes through one slit (as would a classical particle), and not through
both slits (as would a wave). However, such experiments demonstrate that particles do not
form the interference pattern if one detects which slit they pass through. These results
demonstrate the principle of wave–particle duality.
Other atomic-scale entities, such as electrons, are found to exhibit the same
behavior when fired towards a double slit. Additionally, the detection of individual discrete
impacts is observed to be inherently probabilistic, which is inexplicable using classical
mechanics. The experiment can be done with entities much larger than electrons and
photons, although it becomes more difficult as size increases. The largest entities for which
the doubleslit experiment has been performed were molecules that each comprised 810 atoms
(whose total mass was over 10,000 atomic mass units).

The double-slit experiment (and its variations) has become a classic thought
experiment, for its clarity in expressing the central puzzles of quantum mechanics. Because it
demonstrates the fundamental limitation of the ability of the observer to predict experimental
results, Richard Feynman called it "a phenomenon which is impossible […] to explain in any
classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality, it contains the
only mystery [of quantum mechanics]."

A well-known thought experiment predicts that if particle detectors are positioned

at the slits, showing through which slit a photon goes, the interference pattern will disappear.
This which-way experiment illustrates the complementarity principle that photons can behave
as either particles or waves, but cannot be observed as both at the same time. Despite the
importance of this thought experiment in the history of quantum mechanics (for example, see
the discussion on Einstein's version of this experiment), technically feasible realizations of
this experiment were not proposed until the 1970s. Currently, multiple experiments have
been performed illustrating various aspects of complementarity.
An experiment performed in 1987 produced results that demonstrated that information
could be obtained regarding which path a particle had taken without destroying the
interference altogether. This showed the effect of measurements that disturbed the particles in
 16

transit to a lesser degree and thereby influenced the interference pattern only to a comparable
extent. In other words, if one does not insist that the method used to determine which slit
each photon passes through be completely reliable, one can still detect a (degraded)
interference pattern.

In the double-slit experiment, the two slits are illuminated by a single laser beam. If
the width of the slits is small enough (less than the wavelength of the laser light), the slits
diffract the light into cylindrical waves. These two cylindrical wavefronts are superimposed,
and the amplitude, and therefore the intensity, at any point in the combined wavefronts
depends on both the magnitude and the phase of the two wavefronts. The difference in phase
between the two waves is determined by the difference in the distance travelled by the two
waves.

If the viewing distance is large compared with the separation of the slits (the far field),
the phase difference can be found using the geometry shown in the figure below right. The
path difference between two waves travelling at an angle θ is given by:

Where d is the distance between the two slits. When the two waves are in phase, i.e. the
path difference is equal to an integral number of wavelengths, the summed amplitude, and
therefore the summed intensity is maximum, and when they are in anti-phase, i.e. the path
difference is equal to half a wavelength, one and a half wavelengths, etc., then the two waves
cancel and the summed intensity is zero. This effect is known as interference. The
interference

fringe maxima occur at angles

Where λ is the wavelength of the light. The angular spacing of the fringes θ f , is given
by

The spacing of the fringes at a distance z from the slits is given by

 17

For example, if two slits are separated by 0.5 mm (d), and are illuminated with a
0.6μm wavelength laser (λ) then at a distance of 1m (z), the spacing of the fringes will be 1.2
mm.
If the width of the slits b is greater than the wavelength, the Fraunhofer diffraction
equation gives the intensity of the diffracted light as:

Where the sinc function is defined as sinc(x) = sin(x)/x for x ≠ 0, and sinc(0) = 1.
This is illustrated in the figure above, where the first pattern is the diffraction
pattern of a single slit, given by the sinc function in this equation, and the second figure
shows the combined intensity of the light diffracted from the two slits, where the cos function
represent the fine structure, and the coarser structure represents diffraction by the individual
slits as described by the sinc function.
Similar calculations for the near field can be done using the Fresnel diffraction
equation. As the plane of observation gets closer to the plane in which the slits are located,
the diffraction patterns associated with each slit decrease in size, so that the area in which
interference occurs is reduced, and may vanish altogether when there is no overlap in the two
diffracted patterns.
The resolution is till not apparently discovered but it has some of the important
explanation which deals with the Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation as it shows the total path
integral formula by which we unwind the classical mechanics from the wave- particle duality.
Physicist David Deutsch argues that the double-slit experiment is evidence for the
manyworlds interpretation. However, since every interpretation of quantum mechanics is
empirically indistinguishable, some scientists are skeptical of this claim. An alternative to the
standard understanding of quantum mechanics, De Broglie–Bohm theory states that particles
have precise locations at all times, and that their velocities are influenced by the wave-
function. So while a single particle will travel through one particular slit in the double-slit
experiment, the so-called "pilot wave" that influences it will travel through both. The two slit
de Broglie-Bohm trajectories were first calculated by Chris Dewdney whilst working with
Chris Philippidis and Basil Hiley at Birkbeck College (London). The de Broglie-Bohm
theory produces the same statistical results as standard quantum mechanics, but dispenses
with many of its conceptual difficulties.

5.5. Schrodinger’s Cat :-

The striking paradox arising due to the controversy created by the Copenhagen
interpretation being incomplete according to the views of Einstein. Schrödinger's cat is a
thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin
Schrödinger in 1935, though the idea originated from Albert Einstein. In Schrödinger's own
words, the experiment is elaborated as,
“A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must
be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of
radioactive substance, so small, that perhaps in the course of the hour one of the atoms
 18

decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube
discharges and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic
acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still
lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. The
psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat
(pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.
It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic
domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by
direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a "blurred model" for
representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is
a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog
banks.‖

Schrödinger's famous thought experiment poses the question, "when does a

quantum system stop existing as a superposition of states and become one or the other?" If
the cat survives, it remembers only being alive and vice versa. no observer can be in a
mixture of states—yet the cat, it seems from the thought experiment, can be such a mixture.
Is the cat required to be an observer, or does its existence in a single well-defined classical
state require another external observer?

To talk about the apparent resolutions commonly held interpretation of quantum

mechanics is the Copenhagen interpretation. In the Copenhagen interpretation, a system stops
being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes
place. This thought experiment makes apparent the fact that the nature of measurement, or
observation, is not well-defined in this interpretation. The experiment can be interpreted to
mean that while the box is closed, the system simultaneously exists in a superposition of the
states "decayed nucleus/dead cat" and "undecayed nucleus/living cat", and that only when the
box is opened and an observation performed does the wave function collapse into one of the
two states.

However, one of the main scientists associated with the Copenhagen interpretation,
Niels Bohr, never had in mind the observer-induced collapse of the wave function, as he did
not regard the wave function as physically real, but a statistical tool; thus, Schrödinger's cat
did not pose any riddle to him. The cat would be either dead or alive long before the box is
opened by a conscious observer. Analysis of an actual experiment found that measurement
alone (for example by a Geiger counter) is sufficient to collapse a quantum wave function
before there is any conscious observation of the measurement, although the validity of their
 19

design is disputed. (The view that the "observation" is taken when a particle from the nucleus
hits the detector can be developed into objective collapse theories. The thought experiment
requires an "unconscious observation" by the detector in order for waveform collapse to
occur. In contrast, the many worlds approach denies that collapse ever occurs.)
In 1957, Hugh Everett formulated the many-worlds interpretation of quantum
mechanics, which does not single out observation as a special process. In the many-worlds
interpretation, both alive and dead states of the cat persist after the box is opened, but are
decoherent from each other. In other words, when the box is opened, the observer and the
possibly-dead cat split into an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, and an observer
looking at a box with a live cat. But since the dead and alive states are decoherent, there is no
effective communication or interaction between them.
When opening the box, the observer becomes entangled with the cat, so "observer
states" corresponding to the cat's being alive and dead are formed; each observer state is
entangled or linked with the cat so that the "observation of the cat's state" and the "cat's state"
correspond with each other. Quantum decoherence ensures that the different outcomes have
no interaction with each other. The same mechanism of quantum decoherence is also
important for the interpretation in terms of consistent histories. Only the "dead cat" or the
"alive cat" can be a part of a consistent history in this interpretation. Decoherence is generally
considered to prevent simultaneous observation of multiple states.
The relational interpretation makes no fundamental distinction between the human
experimenter, the cat, or the apparatus, or between animate and inanimate systems; all are
quantum systems governed by the same rules of wavefunction evolution, and all may be
considered "observers". But the relational interpretation allows that different observers can
give different accounts of the same series of events, depending on the information they have
about the system. The cat can be considered an observer of the apparatus; meanwhile, the
experimenter can be considered another observer of the system in the box (the cat plus the
apparatus). Before the box is opened, the cat, by nature of its being alive or dead, has
information about the state of the apparatus (the atom has either decayed or not decayed); but
the experimenter does not have information about the state of the box contents. In this way,
the two observers simultaneously have different accounts of the situation: To the cat, the
wavefunction of the apparatus has appeared to "collapse"; to the experimenter, the contents
of the box appear to be in superposition. Not until the box is opened, and both observers have
the same information about what happened, do both system states appear to "collapse" into
the same definite result, a cat that is either alive or dead.
The experiment as described is a purely theoretical one, and the machine proposed
is not known to have been constructed. However, successful experiments involving similar
principles, e.g. superpositions of relatively large (by the standards of quantum physics)
objects have been performed. These experiments do not show that a cat-sized object can be
superposed, but the known upper limit on "cat states" has been pushed upwards by them. In
many cases the state is short-lived, even when cooled to near absolute zero.

 A "cat state" has been achieved with photons.

 A beryllium ion has been trapped in a superposed state.
 An experiment involving a superconducting quantum interference device ("SQUID") has been linked
to the theme of the thought experiment: "The superposition state does not correspond to a billion
electrons flowing one way and a billion others flowing the other way. Superconducting electrons
move en masse. All the superconducting electrons in the SQUID flow both ways around the loop at
once when they are in the Schrödinger's cat state."
 20

 A piezoelectric "tuning fork" has been constructed, which can be placed into a superposition of
vibrating and non vibrating states. The resonator comprises about 10 trillion atoms.
 An experiment involving a flu virus has been proposed.
 An experiment involving a bacterium and an electromechanical oscillator has been proposed.

In quantum computing the phrase "cat state" sometimes refers to the GHZ state, wherein
several qubits are in an equal superposition of all being 0 and all being 1; e.g.,

According to at least one proposal, it may be possible to determine the state of the cat
before observing it.

5.6. Einstein- Podolsky – Rosen (EPR) Paradox :-

The thought experiment involves a pair of particles prepared in an entangled state
(note that this terminology was invented only later). Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen pointed
out that, in this state, if the position of the first particle were measured, the result of
measuring the position of the second particle could be predicted. If, instead, the momentum
of the first particle were measured, then the result of measuring the momentum of the second
particle could be predicted. They argued that no action taken on the first particle could
instantaneously affect the other, since this would involve information being transmitted faster
than light, which is forbidden by the theory of relativity. They invoked a principle, later
known as the "EPR criterion of reality", positing that, "If, without in any way disturbing a
system, we can predict with certainty (i.e., with probability equal to unity) the value of a
physical quantity, then there exists an element of reality corresponding to that quantity."
From this, they inferred that the second particle must have a definite value of position and of
momentum prior to either being measured. This contradicted the view associated with Niels
Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, according to which a quantum particle does not have a definite
value of a property like momentum until the measurement takes place.

The 1935 EPR paper condensed the philosophical discussion into a physical
argument. The authors claim that given a specific experiment, in which the outcome of a
measurement is known before the measurement takes place, there must exist something in the
real world, an "element of reality", that determines the measurement outcome. They postulate
that these elements of reality are, in modern terminology, local, in the sense that each belongs
to a certain point in spacetime. Each element may, again in modern terminology, only be
influenced by events which are located in the backward light cone of its point in spacetime
(i.e., the past). These claims are founded on assumptions about nature that constitute what is
now known as local realism.

In 1951, David Bohm proposed a variant of the EPR thought experiment in which
the measurements have discrete ranges of possible outcomes, unlike the position and
momentum measurements considered by EPR. The EPR–Bohm thought experiment can be
explained using electron–positron pairs. Suppose we have a source that emits electron–
positron pairs, with the electron sent to destination A, where there is an observer named
Alice, and the positron sent to destination B, where there is an observer named Bob.
According to quantum mechanics, we can arrange our source so that each emitted pair
 21

occupies a quantum state called a spin singlet. The particles are thus said to be entangled.
This can be viewed as a quantum superposition of two states, which we call state I and state
II. In state I, the electron has spin pointing upward along the z-axis (+z) and the positron has
spin pointing downward along the z-axis (−z). In state II, the electron has spin −z and the
positron has spin +z. Because it is in a superposition of states it is impossible without
measuring to know the definite state of spin of either particle in the spin singlet.

Alice now measures the spin along the z-axis. She can obtain one of two possible
outcomes: +z or −z. Suppose she gets +z. Informally speaking, the quantum state of the
system collapses into state I. The quantum state determines the probable outcomes of any
measurement performed on the system. In this case, if Bob subsequently measures spin along
the z-axis, there is 100% probability that he will obtain −z. Similarly, if Alice gets −z, Bob
will get +z.
There is, of course, nothing special about choosing the z-axis: according to quantum
mechanics the spin singlet state may equally well be expressed as a superposition of spin
states pointing in the x direction.:318 Suppose that Alice and Bob had decided to measure
spin along the x-axis. We'll call these states Ia and IIa. In state Ia, Alice's electron has spin +x
and Bob's positron has spin −x. In state IIa, Alice's electron has spin −x and Bob's positron
has spin +x.
Therefore, if Alice measures +x, the system 'collapses' into state Ia, and Bob will get −x. If
Alice measures −x, the system collapses into state IIa, and Bob will get +x.
Whatever axis their spins are measured along, they are always found to be opposite. In
quantum mechanics, the x-spin and z-spin are "incompatible observables", meaning the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle applies to alternating measurements of them: a quantum
state cannot possess a definite value for both of these variables. Suppose Alice measures the
z-spin and obtains +z, so that the quantum state collapses into state I. Now, instead of
measuring the zspin as well, Bob measures the x-spin. According to quantum mechanics,
when the system is in state I, Bob's x-spin measurement will have a 50% probability of
producing +x and a 50% probability of -x. It is impossible to predict which outcome will
appear until Bob actually performs the measurement.
Therefore Bob's positron will have a definite spin when measured along the same axis
as Alice's electron, but when measured in the perpendicular axis its spin will be uniformly
random. It seems as if information has propagated (faster than light) from Alice's apparatus to
make Bob's positron assume a definite spin in the appropriate axis.
 22

EPR describe the principle of locality as asserting that physical processes occurring at
one place should have no immediate effect on the elements of reality at another location. At
first sight, this appears to be a reasonable assumption to make, as it seems to be a
consequence of special relativity, which states that energy can never be transmitted faster
than the speed of light without violating causality.
However, it turns out that the usual rules for combining quantum mechanical and
classical descriptions violate EPR's principle of locality without violating special relativity or
causality.Causality is preserved because there is no way for Alice to transmit messages (i.e.,
information) to Bob by manipulating her measurement axis. Whichever axis she uses, she has
a 50% probability of obtaining "+" and 50% probability of obtaining "−", completely at
random; according to quantum mechanics, it is fundamentally impossible for her to influence
what result she gets. Furthermore, Bob is only able to perform his measurement once: there is
a fundamental property of quantum mechanics, the no cloning theorem, which makes it
impossible for him to make an arbitrary number of copies of the electron he receives, perform
a spin measurement on each, and look at the statistical distribution of the results. Therefore,
in the one measurement he is allowed to make, there is a 50% probability of getting "+" and
50% of getting "−", regardless of whether or not his axis is aligned with Alice's.
In summary, the results of the EPR thought experiment do not contradict the
predictions of special relativity. Neither the EPR paradox nor any quantum experiment
demonstrates that superluminal signaling is possible.
However, the principle of locality appeals powerfully to physical intuition, and
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen were unwilling to abandon it. Einstein derided the quantum
mechanical predictions as "spooky action at a distance". The conclusion they drew was that
quantum mechanics is not a complete theory.
The resolution of the debate went on till the final theory came into the light. In 1964,
John Bell published a paper investigating the puzzling situation at that time: on one hand, the
EPR paradox purportedly showed that quantum mechanics was nonlocal, and suggested that
a hidden-variable theory could heal this nonlocality. On the other hand, David Bohm had
recently developed the first successful hidden-variable theory, but it had a grossly nonlocal
character. Bell set out to investigate whether it was indeed possible to solve the nonlocality
problem with hidden variables, and found out that first, the correlations shown in both EPR's
and Bohm's versions of the paradox could indeed be explained in a local way with hidden
variables, and second, that the correlations shown in his own variant of the paradox couldn't
be explained by any local hidden-variable theory. This second result became known as the
Bell theorem.
To understand the first result, consider the following toy hidden-variable theory
introduced later by J.J. Sakurai::239–240 in it, quantum spin-singlet states emitted by the
source are actually approximate descriptions for "true" physical states possessing definite
values for the z-spin and x-spin. In these "true" states, the positron going to Bob always has
spin values opposite to the electron going to Alice, but the values are otherwise completely
random. For example, the first pair emitted by the source might be "(+z, −x) to Alice and (−z,
+x) to Bob", the next pair "(−z, −x) to Alice and (+z, +x) to Bob", and so forth. Therefore, if
Bob's measurement axis is aligned with Alice's, he will necessarily get the opposite of
whatever
Alice gets; otherwise, he will get "+" and "−" with equal probability.
Bell showed, however, that such models can only reproduce the singlet correlations
when Alice and Bob make measurements on the same axis or on perpendicular axes. As soon
as other angles between their axes are allowed, local hidden-variable theories become unable
 23

of reproducing the quantum mechanical correlations. This difference, expressed using

inequalities known as "Bell inequalities", is in principle experimentally testable. After the
publication of Bell's paper, a variety of experiments to test Bell's inequalities were devised.
All experiments conducted to date have found behavior in line with the predictions of
quantum mechanics. The present view of the situation is that quantum mechanics flatly
contradicts Einstein's philosophical postulate that any acceptable physical theory must fulfill
"local realism". The fact that quantum mechanics violates Bell inequalities indicates that any
hidden-variable theory underlying quantum mechanics must be non-local; whether this
should be taken to imply that quantum mechanics itself is non-local is a matter of debate.
Bohm's variant of the EPR paradox can be expressed mathematically using the
quantum mechanical formulation of spin. The spin degree of freedom for an electron is
associated with a two-dimensional complex vector space V, with each quantum state
corresponding to a vector in that space. The operators corresponding to the spin along the x,
y, and z direction, denoted Sx, Sy, and Sz respectively, can be represented using the Pauli
matrices:

and,

The eigenstates of Sz are represented as

and the eigenstates of Sx are represented as

The spin singlet state is

where the two terms on the right hand side are what we have referred to as state I and state
II above.

From the above equations, it can be shown that the spin singlet can also be written as
 24

where the terms on the right hand side are what we have referred to as state Ia and state IIa.

To illustrate the paradox, we need to show that after Alice's measurement of S z (or
Sx), Bob's value of Sz (or Sx) is uniquely determined and Bob's value of Sx (or Sz) is
uniformly random. This follows from the principles of measurement in quantum mechanics.
When Sz is measured, the system state collapses into an eigenvector of Sz. If the measurement
result is +z, this means that immediately after measurement the system state collapses to

Similarly, if Alice's measurement result is −z, the state collapses to

The left hand side of both equations show that the measurement of Sz on Bob's
positron is now determined, it will be −z in the first case or +z in the second case. The right
hand side of the equations show that the measurement of Sx on Bob's positron will return, in
both cases, +x or -x with probability 1/2 each.

5.7. The Grandfather paradox :-

The grandfather paradox is a paradox of time travel in which inconsistencies emerge
through changing the past. The name comes from the paradox's common description: a
person travels to the past and kills their own grandfather before the conception of their father
or mother, which prevents the time traveller's existence. Despite its title, the grandfather
paradox does not exclusively regard the contradiction of killing one's own grandfather to
prevent one's birth. Rather, the paradox regards any action that alters the past, since there is a
contradiction whenever the past becomes different from the way it was.
Consideration of the possibility of backwards time travel in a hypothetical universe
described by a Gödel metric led famed logician Kurt Gödel to assert that time might itself be
a sort of illusion. He suggests something along the lines of the block time view in which time
is just another dimension like space, with all events at all times being fixed within this
4dimensional "block".
The interacting multiple universes approach is a variation of Everett's many-worlds
interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics. It involves the time traveler arriving in a
different universe than the one they came from; it's been argued that since the traveler arrives
in a different universe's history and not their own history, this is not "genuine" time
travel.Stephen Hawking has argued that even if the MWI is correct, we should expect each
time traveler to experience a single self-consistent history, so that time travelers remain
 25

within their own world rather than traveling to a different one. Allen Everett argues that any
macroscopic object composed of multiple particles would be split apart when traveling back
in time, with different particles emerging in different worlds.

5.8. Heat death paradox :-

Formulated in 1862 by Lord Kelvin, Hermann von Helmholtz and William John
Macquorn Rankine, the heat death paradox, also known as Clausius's paradox and
thermodynamic paradox, is a reductio ad absurdum argument that uses thermodynamics to
show the impossibility of an infinitely old universe.
Assuming that the universe is eternal, a question arises: How is it that thermodynamic
equilibrium has not already been achieved.

This paradox is directed at the then-mainstream strand of belief in a classical view of a

sempiternal universe whereby its matter is postulated as everlasting and having always been
recognisably the universe. Clausius's paradox is one of paradigm. It was necessary to amend
the fundamental cosmic ideas meaning change of the paradigm. The paradox was solved
when the paradigm was changed.
The paradox was based upon the rigid mechanical point of view of the second law
of thermodynamics postulated by Rudolf Clausius according to which heat can only be
transferred from a warmer to a colder object, it notes: if the universe were eternal, as claimed
classically, it should already be cold and isotropic (its objects the same temperature).
Any hot object transfers heat to its cooler surroundings, until everything is at the
same temperature. For two objects at the same temperature as much heat flows from one
body as flows from the other, and the net effect is no change. If the universe were infinitely
old, there must have been enough time for the stars to cool and warm their surroundings.
Everywhere should therefore be at the same temperature and there should either be no stars,
or everything should be as hot as stars.
Since there are stars and colder objects the universe is not in thermal equilibrium so
it cannot be infinitely old.
The paradox does not arise in Big Bang nor modern steady state cosmology. In the
former the universe is too young to have reached equilibrium; in the latter including the more
nuanced quasi-steady state theory sufficient hydrogen is posited to have been replenished or
regenerated continuously to allow constant average density. Star population depletion and
reduction in temperature is slowed by the formation or coalescing of great stars which
between certain masses and certain temperatures form supernovae remnant nebulae - such
reincarnation postpones the heat death as does expansion of the universe.

6. Conclusion:-
Paradox handicaps the logical wheel of Physics. As in many cases we have seen,
paradox makes a demand to make a loop of two conclusions, drastic opposite of the same
nature of observation, which creates difficulty to move ahead overcoming the fallacy.
Solving the discussed fallacy and getting out of the loop becomes abstruse whenever we start
finding the proper solution. It may not be the paradox but the nature of the experiments and
theories for which at a given point of time two conclusions arise.
 26

―The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality
ought to be.‖
Following the words of Richard Feynman as we have discussed it must be some
sort of troubling logic which doesn’t follow the rules. From all discussed topics all these
physical paradoxes arise due to unobserved rules, limitation of empirical data and evidences,
lack of profound observations and unjustified argument to reach the proper solution. The
dilemma in some of these paradoxes only present for some limited time as we have already
seen in the case of Zeno's infinite series. Double slit experiment is still a hot topic in the
Quantum field theory, EPR still shows the contradictory result in some undefined, unfounded
conditions. Heat death has been solved due to rise of string theory and Twin paradox is still
an imaginary story or a fiction to write story upon. We are still in the search of Schrodinger’s
Cat.

―The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a

profound truth may well be another profound truth.‖ This statement of Niels Bohr shows
the light to go on to make argument. Paradoxes will be still troubling yet true. We may make
some assumption to unobserve them but they will be still there standing obdurate, unyielding,
uncompromising and iron-willed. However we have to move on, to the next challenge
making creative balance and creating new way to reach our destination. Paradoxes will be
still there, some are getting solved by passing flow of time, some will be unsolved,
untouched and also show a different aspect of nature, making new argument in a dimension
which human mind never took possession of.
 27

Reference

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10%3famp

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18. https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tipsheet/article/54427-
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