“The idea that they [measurement outcomes] be not alternatives but *all* really happen simultaneously seems lunatic to him [to the quantum theorist], just *impossible*. He thinks that if the laws of nature took *this* form for, let me say, a quarter of an hour, we should find our surroundings rapidly turning into a quagmire, or sort of a featureless jelly or plasma, all contours becoming blurred, we ourselves probably becoming jelly fish. It is strange that he should believe this. For I understand he grants that unobserved nature does behave this way – namely according to the wave equation. The aforesaid *alternatives* come into play only when we make an observation - which need, of course, not be a scientific observation. Still it would seem that, according to the quantum theorist, nature is prevented from rapid jellification only by our perceiving or observing it. [........] The compulsion to replace the "simultaneous* happenings, as indicated directly by the theory, by *alternatives*, of which the theory is supposed to indicate the respective *probabilities*, arises from the conviction that what we really observe are particles - that actual events always concern particles, not waves." -Erwin Schroedinger, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Dublin Seminars (1949-1955) and Other Unpublished Essays (Ox Bow Press, Woodbridge, Connecticut, 1995), pages 19-20.
AG: As your original quotation indicates, this was written pre-Everett who published his thesis in 1957. Who first got the idea that every outcome that's possible, must occur. This is the person who led us astray. Unlikely that such a dumb idea would take hold. S: Schroedinger wrote that (see above) in 1952 (July), well before H. Everett III. But the question might be: Schroedinger did not believe in *particles*, only in waves. Frankly I do not think that Everett - at least in his original "relative state" interpretation - had problems with *particles*. He usually reasoned in terms of 'wavefunction of particle'. "However, it seems to us to be much easier to understand particle aspects from a wave picture (concentrated wave packets) than it is to understand wave aspects (diffraction, interference, etc.) from a particle picture." "Even though the apparatus does not indicate any definite system value (since there are no independent system or apparatus states), one can nevertheless look upon the total wave function as a superposition of pairs of subsystem states, each element of which has a definite q value and a correspondingly displaced apparatus state." -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
