On Monday, June 11, 2018 at 10:57:59 PM UTC, Brent wrote:
>
>
>
> On 6/11/2018 3:22 PM, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote:
>
>
>>> I am not sure this make sense (with the SWE). The cat is always
>>> isolated, in some sense.
>>>
>>
>>
>> * IMO totally wrong. In fact now you're contradicting what you wrote in a
>> recent post. The cat is NEVER ISOLATED, VIRTUALLY BY DEFINITION OF WHAT
>> MACRO MEANS. NEVER ISOLATED IMPLIES NEVER IN A SUPERPOSITION. AG *
>>
>
> * In the real world the cat is never isolated, nor can it be isolated
> insofar as it consists of a huge number of particles already entangled with
> its environment. This is the meaning of "macro" ! If you insist on
> imagining it as isolated for your thought experiment, you will generate a
> paradox, as Schroedinger did. AG*
>
>
> Schroedinger obviously chose a cat to emphasize the absurdity, but it also
> makes the analysis hard to think about. Not only is the cat macroscopic,
> the atomic decay is distributed over a continuum. I think it helps to think
> of a simpler experiment in which the atom is just in a box which is lined
> with photographic plates. So the atom is in a superposition of undecayed
> and decayed and interacted with a silver halide atom. It is clear that it
> is the interaction with the silver halide atom that gets amplified to a
> macroscopic dot of silver which decoheres the system in orthogonal "worlds"
> in which the spot is in different places and happens at different times.
>
> Brent
>
*I don't see how a single silver halide atom is amplified to a macroscopic
dot of silver. Going back to my analysis, I think I have shown the fallacy
of using a macro entities in a superposition (since they can never be
isolated). But this is the starting point of decoherence theory, as
exemplified by the wf Bruce recently presented for a spin 1/2 measurement
(where the apparatus, observer and remaining environment appear in the
superposition). AG*
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