[A THREAD] For the new year, I have been clearing out old files on my laptop and came across this series of tweets (prepared in a Word doc) that I sent out in Dec 22 explaining the so-called ‘measurement problem’ in quantum physics... Rather than delete it I thought I would repost it for those who might be interested and didn’t read it last time. Oh, and Happy New Year:

Musings on quantum mechanics (a thread with a few technical terms):

It's interesting how the big questions in science are always there, but they jostle for position as to which is fashionable at any given time and for any generation of scientists and philosophers. 1/17 If you ask philosophers of physics or physicists working on what are called 'foundational problems' what is the big issue they are grappling with today many will likely tell you it's either the origin of the arrow of time or the nature of quantum reality. 2/17

Someone on Twitter asked me the other day if I could compose a tweet thread explaining the famous quantum measurement problem. Since I am off work for a few days I thought I’d take up the challenge. So, here goes: quantum measurement in 22 tweets… 1/22 Firstly, this is difficult stuff. If it weren’t, then cleverer people than me would have figured it out years ago. Also, this is Twitter and it’ll take more than a few tweets to explain properly. If you want to understand more, you’ll have to put in the work yourselves. 2/22

1/3 This report from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) is useful
(cas.mhra.gov.uk/ViewandAcknowl…). In summary... 2/3 Published efficacy between doses of Pfizer vaccine was 52.4% (95% CI 29.5-68.4%). This means that roughly speaking efficacy is anywhere between 30% and 70% before serving jab. But most the vaccine failures occurred shortly after 1st dose, the period before...

1/6 We need clear, transparent information on issue of delaying the 2nd Pfizer jab from 3 weeks to 12 weeks. Pfizer don't know if this is a good idea because there's no data on efficacy of 1st vaccine beyond the study interval of 21 days after which the 2nd was administered. 2/6 When UK government health advisors say that a "great majority" of initial protection comes from the first jab, what does that mean? So, we go back to source. Here is the paper in the NEJM
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

Some stats on the importance of accuracy of antibody tests for Coronavirus:

1/7 Let us say that a test of whether you have had the Coronavirus, and have built up immunity, or have not had it, and have no immunity, is 90% accurate. 2/7 By which I mean there is a 10% chance it says you’ve had it when you haven’t (a false positive) and a 10% chance that it says you haven’t had it when in fact you have and are immune (a false negative).

1/6 A quick look at Twitter this morning and I see the conspiracy theorists are getting shoutier. So I wanted to share a few thoughts. I know it's pointless to argue against a conspiracy theorist, but consider this: 2/6 Conspiracy theorists argue they are being 'scientific'. After all, they will say, they too are sceptics and rationalists who question everything, don't accept dogma and value the importance of evidence. But the truth is a conspiracy theorist is the opposite of a scientist:

The Life Scientific is back on @BBCRadio4 next Tuesday when my guest is the fascinating and highly amusing @RichardWiseman – recorded in August at the Edinburgh Festival. Next week's episode will be the 195th since I began, exactly 8 years ago, when my very first guest was the Nobel Prize winner, Sir Paul Nurse.

I am a technophile. I love what AI is likely to be able to do in the future for the benefit of humanity. BUT......
Here are some, um, personal concerns, about this new @AmazonUK-@NHSuk partnership:

https://twitter.com/MattHancock/status/1148833541138059264

Firstly, many people are not ready for this yet. They still want the opportunity for conversations with fellow humans about their health issues (their GP, pharmacist or health care professional)