APEX1
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there are some smart people in this thread.. >) I always learn something new each time I come to LPF...
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ArcticMyst Security by Avery
How Is This Possible? Scientists Observe ONE Particle Exist In MULTIPLE States
- Thread starter Alaskan
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Gadget
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I say it doesn't make a "sound", it only makes a pressure wave, unless and until it reaches some receiver that interprets it as a "sound".
Just rambling...sorry to butt in.
-G
"ANSI/ASA S1.1-2013 as "(a) Oscillation in pressure, stress, particle displacement, particle velocity, etc., propagated in a medium with internal forces (e.g., elastic or viscous), or the superposition of such propagated oscillation. (b) Auditory sensation evoked by the oscillation described in (a)."
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We should be clear - consciousness does not affect reality in any meaningful way. What affects reality is observation, which in this case, means interaction with the environment. What we consider observation (with our eyes) is the ambient photons bouncing off of whatever we are looking at which then further interact with the cells in our eyes. There is nothing special about intelligence, or us observing anything.
As for another point - Schrodinger's cat is not even a paradox. Even if you were to perform the experiment, the cat would not be alive and dead simultaneously. Most people with a surface level understanding of quantum theory might think so, but you have to go significantly deeper: the concept is called quantum decoherence. Because the cat exists in a macroscopic system, it's interaction with the environment is entirely guaranteed (think air molecules hitting the cat, for example). So while the entire state of the system (the radioactive material, the cat, and the environment) are quantumly entangled, if you project this entangled state onto just the state of the cat and the radioisotope, it is no longer entangled - rather, it is a mixed state, which means that it is definitively "dead" or "alive," we just don't know which one it is. it is only the entirely of the whole system which is entangled, and thus in a superposition state.
In fact, it is this way that observation takes place (which is why it's not mysterious). By interacting with the environment and then projecting the entangled state onto just the states we are trying to "observe," the state collapses into a definitive state instead of a superposition of states.
But if we're not there to hear the sound it could be different because no one is there to observe it or hear it.
The idea of Schrödinger’s cat also bothers me. What if a human were sealed in a box alive? Could they be both dead and alive as long as the box was sealed until or if someone opened it to observe them?!:scared::wtf:
Alan
As for another point - Schrodinger's cat is not even a paradox. Even if you were to perform the experiment, the cat would not be alive and dead simultaneously. Most people with a surface level understanding of quantum theory might think so, but you have to go significantly deeper: the concept is called quantum decoherence. Because the cat exists in a macroscopic system, it's interaction with the environment is entirely guaranteed (think air molecules hitting the cat, for example). So while the entire state of the system (the radioactive material, the cat, and the environment) are quantumly entangled, if you project this entangled state onto just the state of the cat and the radioisotope, it is no longer entangled - rather, it is a mixed state, which means that it is definitively "dead" or "alive," we just don't know which one it is. it is only the entirely of the whole system which is entangled, and thus in a superposition state.
In fact, it is this way that observation takes place (which is why it's not mysterious). By interacting with the environment and then projecting the entangled state onto just the states we are trying to "observe," the state collapses into a definitive state instead of a superposition of states.
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