Have any of you guys REALLY done a deep dive into the double slit expirament, collapse of wave function, etc.?

SaltyNuts

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May 1, 2001
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Some years ago I began work developing the theory of everything, but work and life quickly intervened and I never had a chance to really get into it. But I got into it enough to know one this was WEIRD.

You might be thinking that I am talking about the collapse of the wave function, and what not. Well, that is weird, but everyone knows that. What is weirder is that there are SO many uncertainties on when/why the wave function actually collapses.

I picked the literature back up, and its still a little weird how there is not more data/knowledge on this. It hasn't progressed much if at all in the I dunno 10 or 15 years since I was last interested in this.

So, my question to any of you is: are you aware of expiraments/sudies that show what makes the wave function collapse and what does not? I remember Albert Einstein used to goad Neil Boar about the whole collapse of a wave function when it is observed thing, Einstein would ask him something like "will a sideways glance from a mouse cause it to collapse?". Well, WILL IT? Has that been tested? What do you know on this subject matter?
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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Some years ago I began work developing the theory of everything, but work and life quickly intervened and I never had a chance to really get into it. But I got into it enough to know one this was WEIRD.

You might be thinking that I am talking about the collapse of the wave function, and what not. Well, that is weird, but everyone knows that. What is weirder is that there are SO many uncertainties on when/why the wave function actually collapses.

I picked the literature back up, and its still a little weird how there is not more data/knowledge on this. It hasn't progressed much if at all in the I dunno 10 or 15 years since I was last interested in this.

So, my question to any of you is: are you aware of expiraments/sudies that show what makes the wave function collapse and what does not? I remember Albert Einstein used to goad Neil Boar about the whole collapse of a wave function when it is observed thing, Einstein would ask him something like "will a sideways glance from a mouse cause it to collapse?". Well, WILL IT? Has that been tested? What do you know on this subject matter?
Personally? No, but the experiment is one of those rare ones that come up that's so blunt in execution, so obvious in result as to be unassailable. The implications raise a mountain of questions to which we're still answering, but the experiment itself isn't one of them.

Regarding your final question, that's a pretty deep one, deeper than you likely realize. It depends on whether our reality is shared among all the possibly observers that exist in the universe, or whether there's only one observer in an infinite kaleidoscope of universes.
 
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Charmonium

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There are a variety of "interpretations" of quantum mechanics - the Bohr/Copenhagen view, Everett's multiverse theory, objective collapse, etc.

The point is that we're not really sure if QM is describing reality or if it's just particularly convenient framework and tells us nothing about reality.
 

Charmonium

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May 15, 2015
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Shameless hump, plump, bump . . . whatever. I refuse to be the last post in this this thread. And this is a pretty fun topic because you can make decent arguments either way. Is it real or is it butter (meaning some sort of computational device - keep scrolling, I have weird associations).

For myself, the phrase "or if it's just particularly convenient framework", was a hint. I think qm precisely describes reality. But if so, there are still a lot of floaters in this particular pool.

Like what. Well, all of the known ones could probably be described in a finite amount of time. Thing is . . . they still don't make buttloads of sense. So, you've got the improperly named 'q-teleportation.' For the record, modern physics does NOT admit that anything is traveling at superluminal speeds - information or otherwise. And yet - believe me or your lyin' eyes.

Then we've got tunnelling, the teleportation of particles, etc. Did you know that qm doesn't permit electron orbits to intersect. So a quantum leap is really that. Just as with tunnelling, something leaves reality here and reenters over there without traversing the space in between.

The point here is that the Bohr view may not answer the myriad questions it raises, but it's up front about that. QM is a black box. Pllug in the right values and it seems to jive with reality - as best as we can determine.
 

SaltyNuts

Platinum Member
May 1, 2001
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Personally? No, but the experiment is one of those rare ones that come up that's so blunt in execution, so obvious in result as to be unassailable. The implications raise a mountain of questions to which we're still answering, but the experiment itself isn't one of them.

Regarding your final question, that's a pretty deep one, deeper than you likely realize. It depends on whether our reality is shared among all the possibly observers that exist in the universe, or whether there's only one observer in an infinite kaleidoscope of universes.


I was just hoping you knew about what experimental data is out there re what makes the wave function collapse and what does not? I will consider your other contributions and respond in due course. Thank you Osiris.
 

SaltyNuts

Platinum Member
May 1, 2001
2,398
275
126
There are a variety of "interpretations" of quantum mechanics - the Bohr/Copenhagen view, Everett's multiverse theory, objective collapse, etc.

The point is that we're not really sure if QM is describing reality or if it's just particularly convenient framework and tells us nothing about reality.


I get all that. I am trying to hone in on what makes the wave function collapse and what does not, to start sorting through all these things and get to the theory of everything in our (simulated) universe. Thanks!
 

SaltyNuts

Platinum Member
May 1, 2001
2,398
275
126
Shameless hump, plump, bump . . . whatever. I refuse to be the last post in this this thread. And this is a pretty fun topic because you can make decent arguments either way. Is it real or is it butter (meaning some sort of computational device - keep scrolling, I have weird associations).

For myself, the phrase "or if it's just particularly convenient framework", was a hint. I think qm precisely describes reality. But if so, there are still a lot of floaters in this particular pool.

Like what. Well, all of the known ones could probably be described in a finite amount of time. Thing is . . . they still don't make buttloads of sense. So, you've got the improperly named 'q-teleportation.' For the record, modern physics does NOT admit that anything is traveling at superluminal speeds - information or otherwise. And yet - believe me or your lyin' eyes.

Then we've got tunnelling, the teleportation of particles, etc. Did you know that qm doesn't permit electron orbits to intersect. So a quantum leap is really that. Just as with tunnelling, something leaves reality here and reenters over there without traversing the space in between.

The point here is that the Bohr view may not answer the myriad questions it raises, but it's up front about that. QM is a black box. Pllug in the right values and it seems to jive with reality - as best as we can determine.



I tell you a pair of socks can either be red or black. That pair of socks is separated by hundreds of light years. No one knows red or black. I look at one and it is red. Suddenly, instantly really, the other sock a hundred light years away also shows itself is red. Before no one knew the color of either, and after the color of one is measured the color of the other instantly shows up hundreds of light years away. That is a gross exhaduration of the facts, but more/less what is going on and has been pretty much proven with measurements and what not. So I understand. That is definitely stuff traveling much, much faster than the speed of light. Instanteounsly actually. Matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light (or even hit the speed of light), but information can apparently be instantaneous. I'd love to hear what you've heard differently! Thanks!!!
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
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I was just hoping you knew about what experimental data is out there re what makes the wave function collapse and what does not? I will consider your other contributions and respond in due course. Thank you Osiris.
Any experiment where a feature of a quantum system is observed, the wave function collapses. If unobserved, it doesn't. Now there's a few tantalizing clues that may not be a hard and fast rule, but I'm not confident there's been a solid repeatable experiment that let's you observe a wave function without collapsing it. As for specific citations beond the double slit, not really, but there's thousands of them. There's an entire field of computing at this point that depends on quantum physics being reproducible.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
Dec 15, 2015
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I tell you a pair of socks can either be red or black. That pair of socks is separated by hundreds of light years. No one knows red or black. I look at one and it is red. Suddenly, instantly really, the other sock a hundred light years away also shows itself is red. Before no one knew the color of either, and after the color of one is measured the color of the other instantly shows up hundreds of light years away. That is a gross exhaduration of the facts, but more/less what is going on and has been pretty much proven with measurements and what not. So I understand. That is definitely stuff traveling much, much faster than the speed of light. Instanteounsly actually. Matter cannot travel faster than the speed of light (or even hit the speed of light), but information can apparently be instantaneous. I'd love to hear what you've heard differently! Thanks!!!
Close, more that you know you have one red sock and one black one, and importantly the socks can either be red or black (that part is experimentally proven), then upon observing your sock, the other collapses into black... But you can prove experimentally that it's possible that it was potentially red before as well.
 
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Why are we even talking about socks? I thought Quantum anything worked at the subatomic level, not the macroscopic level.
 

[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
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Why are we even talking about socks? I thought Quantum anything worked at the subatomic level, not the macroscopic level.
... it does, it's just a convenient comparison using normal objects instead of subatomic particles which would require further explanation. This is sort of normal within science.
 

dank69

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Oct 6, 2009
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Any experiment where a feature of a quantum system is observed, the wave function collapses. If unobserved, it doesn't. Now there's a few tantalizing clues that may not be a hard and fast rule, but I'm not confident there's been a solid repeatable experiment that let's you observe a wave function without collapsing it. As for specific citations beond the double slit, not really, but there's thousands of them. There's an entire field of computing at this point that depends on quantum physics being reproducible.
It seems obvious our entire universe lazy loads.
 
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[DHT]Osiris

Lifer
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It seems obvious our entire universe lazy loads.
Yes, I've been a proponent of the simulation theory for a while now. JIT asset loading, physics approximation, and a slew of other concepts used in modern computing seem prevalent through our universe.
 
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dank69

Lifer
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Yes, I've been a proponent of the simulation theory for a while now. JIT asset loading, physics approximation, and a slew of other concepts used in modern computing seem prevalent through our universe.
JggEHEJ.jpeg
 

brianmanahan

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Sep 2, 2006
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Yes, I've been a proponent of the simulation theory for a while now. JIT asset loading, physics approximation, and a slew of other concepts used in modern computing seem prevalent through our universe.

it wouldn't surprise me if the universe is written in javascript