Timeline for Are superpositions contagious?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 3, 2022 at 14:21 | comment | added | FlatterMann | The universally accepted answer of the experimentalist to the measurement problem is... "What measurement problem????? We are making measurements all the time.". The quantum mystics simply can't take yes for an answer: "Yes, nature does provide us with irreversibility.". The physical vacuum does it for free because it is relativistic and whatever ends up on the local observer's forward light cone is irreversibly gone. | |
| Jul 17, 2019 at 7:05 | comment | added | Andrei | cont: Are you sure that by solving Schrodinger's equation for the instrument (in principle possible, if not so in practice) you will get those pointer states as solutions with the right probabilities? | |
| Jul 17, 2019 at 7:02 | comment | added | Andrei | You might be right, but I fail to connect this assumption with my experience of QM. I am a chemist, so QM was used to calculate things like molecular orbitals, atomic spectra and so on. In order to do that you start with the Hamiltonian of the atom or molecule, solve Schrodinger's equation and determine the eigenstates. This is the procedure I understand. Sure, an instrument is a quantum system, but why should I accept that some more or less arbitrary classical states (pointer positions) should be treated as quantum states? to cont- | |
| Jul 17, 2019 at 6:30 | comment | added | ACuriousMind♦ | @Andrei It's not an assumption. If you treat the apparatus as a quantum system, then decoherence theory shows how this entangled state comes to be. | |
| Jul 17, 2019 at 6:24 | comment | added | Andrei | Thank you for your answer! As your point is very similar to what oleg said, please see my questions to him! My very first problem is not what happens with the entangled state between the particle and the instrument (where decoherence is involved) but with the assumption that such an entanglement is in fact implied by QM. | |
| Jul 16, 2019 at 17:21 | history | answered | ACuriousMind♦ | CC BY-SA 4.0 |