On Thu, Nov 28, 2019 at 9:37 PM John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 5:51 PM Bruce Kellett <bhkellet...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> >>> Our branch of the multiverse is electrically neutral and it seems >>> likely all of them are, so preserving conservation of charge doesn't seem >>> like much of a problem. >>> >> >> >> *> Consider firing an electron at a screen. There are a very large number >> of sub-branches created -- one for every position that the electron can >> land. There was only one negative charge originally -- now there are a very >> large number. Where did the extra charges come from?* >> > > What extra charges? That electron existed in a electrically neutral > universe, if you multiply that by "a very large number" you've got a very > large number of electrically neutral universes and charge conservation is > preserved in each branch and of course in the entire multiverse. > That seems to be nearly an explanation. When you single the electron out and consider its wave function as representing a large number of possible positions on the screen, the rest of the universe must have a net positive charge, since it starts off electrically neutral. So as the rest of the universe is split, the electron always arrives in a universe that is lacking one negative charge, so that the result is always a universe that is electrically neutral on every branch. The trouble seems to be that this account is different from the account given in the energy case, where we were supposed to weight the sub-branches by their corresponding Born weights. With the result that the original energy was split among the branches according to the Born weights, and the total energy of the global wave function was not increased. In the charge case, the original charge is not split according to any weight at all -- that would not make sense. So a corresponding number of positively charged universes have to be created so that each branch can end up electrically neutral. In the global wave function, therefore, the total number of electrons (and cancelling positive charges) must have increased by the number of possible positions that the original electron could have landed. This all seems a bit ad hoc and odd. Why should the Born weights play a role for energy, but not for charge? Or is it the case that the Born weights play no role at all, and in the energy case, the rest of the universe in which the particle lands is always one lacking the energy of just that particle. Energy being then conserved in every branch separately, but not in the global wave function? Odd, to say the least. Bruce -- 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 view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAFxXSLSLvQ8TcXepP6dQVoPJ08ka_a%2BJOcTNZg7k55Pxwu19QQ%40mail.gmail.com.
