On Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 9:57:41 PM UTC, Bruce wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 5, 2018 at 2:36 AM <[email protected] <javascript:>> wrote: > >> >> *Thanks, but I'm looking for a solution within the context of >> interference and coherence, without introducing your theory of >> consciousness. Mainstream thinking today is that decoherence does occur, >> but this seems to imply preexisting coherence, and therefore interference >> among the component states of a superposition. If the superposition is >> expressed using eigenfunctions, which are mutually orthogonal -- implying >> no mutual interference -- how is decoherence possible, insofar as >> coherence, IIUC, doesn't exist using this basis? AG* >> > > I think you misunderstand the meaning of "coherence" when it is used off > an expansion in terms of a set of mutually orthogonal eigenvectors. The > expansion in some eigenvector basis is written as > > |psi> = Sum_i (a_i |v_i>) > > where |v_i> are the eigenvectors, and i ranges over the dimension of the > Hilbert space. The expansion coefficients are the complex numbers a_i. > Since these are complex coefficients, they contain inherent phases. It is > the preservation of these phases of the expansion coefficients that is > meant by "maintaining coherence". So it is the coherence of the particular > expansion that is implied, and this has noting to do with the mutual > orthogonality or otherwise of the basis vectors themselves. In decoherence, > the phase relationships between the terms in the original expansion are > lost. > > Bruce >
I appreciate your reply. I was sure you could ascertain my error -- confusing orthogonality with interference and coherence. Let me have your indulgence on a related issue. -- 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.
