On Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 12:46:28 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote: > > > > On Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 7:09:43 AM UTC-5, [email protected] wrote: >> >> >> >> On Saturday, June 23, 2018 at 11:57:09 AM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote: >>> >>> On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 5:13:22 PM UTC-5, [email protected] wrote: >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> On Friday, June 22, 2018 at 10:13:37 AM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote: >>>>> >>>>> On Thursday, June 21, 2018 at 6:48:53 PM UTC-5, [email protected] >>>>> wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> On Thursday, June 21, 2018 at 11:18:25 PM UTC, Lawrence Crowell wrote: >>>>>>> >>>>>>> The emergent nuclear interaction occurs on a time scale of >>>>>>> 10^{-22}seconds. The superposition of a decayed and nondecayed nucleus >>>>>>> occurs in that time before decoherence. >>>>>>> >>>>>> >>>>>> Is that calculated / postulated if the radioactive source interacts >>>>>> with its environment? Can't it be isolated for a longer duration? If so, >>>>>> what does that imply about being in the pure states mentioned above? AG >>>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Quantum physics experiments on nonlocality are done usually with >>>>> optical and IR energy photons. The reason is that techniques exist for >>>>> making these sort of measurements and materials are such that one can >>>>> pass >>>>> photons through beam splitters or hold photons in entanglements in >>>>> mirrored >>>>> cavities and the rest. At higher energy up into the X-ray domain such >>>>> physics becomes very difficult. At intermediate energy where you have >>>>> nuclear physics of nucleons and mesons and further at higher energy of >>>>> elementary particles things become impossible. This is why in QFT there >>>>> are >>>>> procedures for constructing operators that have nontrivial commutations >>>>> on >>>>> and in the light cone so nonlocal physics does not intrude into >>>>> phenomenology. Such physics is relevant on a tiny scale compared to the >>>>> geometry of your detectors. >>>>> >>>>> LC >>>>> >>>> >>>> *I've been struggling lately with how to interpret a superposition of >>>> states when it is ostensibly unintelligible, e.g., a cat alive and dead >>>> simultaneously, or a radioactive source decayed and undecayed >>>> simultaneously. If we go back to the vector space consisting of those >>>> "little pointing things", it follows that any vector which is a sum of >>>> other vectors, simultaneously shares the properties of the components in >>>> its sum. This is simple and obvious. I therefore surmise that since a >>>> Hilbert space is a linear vector space, this interpretation took hold as a >>>> natural interpretation of superpositions in quantum mechanics, and led to >>>> Schroedinger's cat paradox. I don't accept the explanation of decoherence >>>> theory, that we never see these unintelligible superpositions because of >>>> virtually instantaneous entanglements with the environment. Decoherence >>>> doesn't explain why certain bases are stable; others not, even though, >>>> apriori, all bases in a linear vector space are equivalent. These >>>> considerations lead me to the conclusion that a quantum superposition of >>>> states is just a calculational tool, and when the superposition consists >>>> of >>>> orthogonal component states, it allows us to calculate the probabilities >>>> of >>>> the measured system transitioning to the state of any component. In this >>>> interpretation, essentially the CI, there remains the unsolved problem of >>>> providing a mechanism for the transition from the SWE, to the collapse to >>>> one of the eigenfunctions when the the measurement occurs. I prefer to >>>> leave that as an unsolved problem, than accept the extravagance of the >>>> MWI, >>>> or decoherence theory, which IMO doesn't explain the paradoxes referred to >>>> above, but rather executes what amounts to a punt, claiming the paradoxes >>>> exist for short times so can be viewed as nonexistent, or solved. AG. * >>>> >>> >>> You seem to have backed yourself into an intellectual corner. What you >>> say is a bit like creationists who say they "just can't imagine ... ." >>> >>> LC >>> >> >> *My pov has no relation to, or anything in common with creationism. I >> don't believe Joe the Plumber can do a simple quantum experiment and create >> Many Worlds, each with a copy of himself, some with uncountable copies. Do >> you? I don't believe there are preferred bases in linear Hilbert vector >> spaces. Do you? But that's the claim of decoherence theory. My questions >> aren't rhetorical. I look forward to your answers. AG* >> > > There is no preferred basis in QM, and decoherence makes no reference to > that. Einselection says there is some basis that is stable on a large scale > for the emergence of classicality. This is not a well understood process. > This is in some sense beyond QM or where QM is in some ways incomplete in > its postulates or physical axioms. > > LC >
*It comes to the same thing; a preferred basis. What about Joe the Plumber? Do you believe in his power? AG* -- 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.
