On Wednesday, June 13, 2018 at 3:50:50 AM UTC, Brent wrote: > > > > On 6/12/2018 8:00 PM, [email protected] <javascript:> wrote: > > >> * When the experiment ends, that is when the box is opened, the cat might >> still be alive. AG* >> >> >> Which in the idealization means it didn't evolve. >> > > *You can easily imagine the idealized life/death scenarios (by going to > the limit as the duration for the transition goes to zero) in which the > experiment ends with the cat alive. So maybe the superposition, or its > interpretation, is invalid, implying something awry with QM. AG* > > > Which is the case for the radioactive atom. >
? > Which is why I suggested stop taking the idealization of the alive/dead > cat which is just confusing you because you keep slipping in and out of > the idealization and saying, "But the cat can't be both alive and dead. > Something wrong with QM." > *I don't think I'm doing that, namely slipping in and out of the idealization. If the wf of the cat is the sum of two states, assuming entanglement with the radioactive source, isn't the usual interpretation of the superposition that the cat is in both component states simultaneously (whether or not there is interference)? As Bruce wrote, we're just dealing with a linear vector space, and in the cat problem I am just writing the wf as Schroedinger did, and asserting that any vector, in this case a particular wf which is the sum of two components (that is, the total system, the composite of cat and radioactive source) can be interpreted as being in both states simultaneously (hence, in this case, alive and dead simultaneously). It's really the same situation as saying A = B + C, where A,B,C are vectors in a linear vector space, and therefore A manifests or expresses both B and C simultaneously. AG* > The cat's fate splits off when the atom decay is detected in the counter. > It's alive at that time. Later it dies. It's never alive+dead. > *See above comment. AG * > > Brent > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
