I am guessing that the reason physics is stable or the mechanism for this is 
the quantum weirdness observations of old as taught by Schrodinger, Heisenberg, 
Wigner, Wheeler, and Bell, all typified by repeated Stern - Gerlach 
experiments. 
https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/07/09/ask-ethan-is-there-a-hidden-quantum-reality-underlying-what-we-observe/?sh=43131f4fef72Somehow
 reality is crystalized by some "observer" and things may be programmed to 
generate a result. This doesn't answer the next question but it is a summary 
how the cosmos behaves. Why it is programmed in such a manner or how it is open 
to conjecture. This question needs a big project budget.


-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Resch <[email protected]>
To: Everything List <[email protected]>
Sent: Sat, Jul 10, 2021 7:01 am
Subject: Re: Why are laws of physics stable?



On Sat, Jul 10, 2021, 1:58 AM Bruce Kellett <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sat, Jul 10, 2021 at 10:21 AM smitra <[email protected]> wrote:

On 08-07-2021 01:51, Bruce Kellett wrote:
> 
> Do you dispute that that is what the paper by Hornberger et al. says?
> 
> Bruce

I don't dispute these results. The buckyballs are coming from a thermal 
reservoir at some finite temperature. We can avoid working with mixed 
states by simply considering the interference pattern for each pure 
state separately and then summing over the probability distribution over 
the pure states. But for this discussion we want to focus on what the 
interference pattern will be if all the buckyballs are in the same 
exited state. If we put the entire system ina finite volume then we have 
a countable set of allowed k-values for the photon momenta. We then have 
a set of allowed states for the photons defined by the allowed momenta 
and a polarization. We can then label these photon states using a number 
and then specify an arbitrary state for the photons by specifying how 
many photons we have in each state, and these numbers can then be equal 
to zero. If they are all zero then no photons are present.

If only the right slit is open, the state of the buckyball and the 
photons just before the screen is hit can be denoted as:

|Right> = sum over n1, n2,n3,...|R(n1,n2,n3,...)>|n1,n2,n3,......>

where |R(n1,n2,...)> denotes the quantum state of the buckyball if it 
emits n1 photons in state 1, n2 photons in state 2 etc. The state of the 
photons is then denoted as |n1,n2,n3,......>


If only the left slit is open, the state of the buckyball and the 
photons just before the screen is hit can be denoted as:

|Left> = sum over n1, n2,n3,...|L(n1,n2,n3,...)>|n1,n2,n3,......>

where |R(n1,n2,...)> denotes the quantum state of the buckyball. Here we 
note that the state of the photons will pick up a phase factor relative 
to the case of only the right slit being open, but we can then absorb 
this phase factor in |L(n1,n2,n3,...)>.

With both slits open, we'll then have a state of the form:

|psi> = 1/sqrt(2) [|Right> + |Left>]

The inner product of |psi> with some position eigenstate |x>, <x|psi> is 
then a state vector for the photon states, the squared norm of that 
state vector is the probability of finding the buckyball at position x, 
because this is the sum over the probabilities for photons over all 
possible photon states. So, the probability is then:

P(x) = ||<x|psi>||^2 = 1/2 [||<x|Right>||^2 + ||<x|Left>||^2] + 
Re[<Left|x><x|Right>]


We can then evaluate the interference term as follows:

Re[<Left|x><x|Right>] = Re sum over n1, n2,n3,...m1,m2,m3 
<x|L(m1,m2,m3,...)>*<x|R(n1,n2,n3,...)><m1,m2,m3,...|n1,n2,n3,......>

Using that <m1,m2,m3,...|n1,n2,n3,......> = 0 unless m_j = n_j for all 
j, in which case this inner product equals 1, we then have:

Re[<Left|x><x|Right>] = Re sum over n1, n2,n3 
<x|L(n1,n2,n3,...)>*<x|R(n1,n2,n3,...)> =


Re[<x|L(0,0,0...)>*<x|R(0,0,0,...>] + 
Re[<x|L(1,0,0...)>*<x|R(1,0,0,...>] + .....  (1)

As explained above when there are photons present then we've absorbed 
the phase factor due to translation of the photon states in the states 
|L(n1,n2,n3...)>. For each wave vector k there is a factor for each 
photon with that wavevector of exp(i k dot r) where r is the position of 
the left slit w.r.t. the right slit. So, the total phase factor will be:

Product over j of exp(i kj nj dot r)

In the experiment there is then an additional summation over the pure 
states of the buckyballs. If the temperature is low then the summation 
will consist of states for which |R(0,0,0,..> and |L(0,0,0,..> are the 
dominant terms, as most of the time no photons will be emitted. At 
higher temperatures the typical states there will be contributions from 
different numbers pf photons, so the interference pattern will be a sum 
of many different terms in (1) with comparable norms, they come with 
different phase factors due to the different numbers of photons with 
different momenta. So, the interference pattern will be washed out.



This analysis contradicts what you said in your first analysis. In the first 
analysis, you claimed that no interference would be seen if the IR photons were 
not detected. You seem to have dropped this notion in the above. You now say 
that there is interference when no photons are present, but this is washed out 
when there are different numbers of photons.
I think you are making the same basic mistake that you made when we previously 
discussed  two-slit interference: You are analysing the two slit case as a sum 
over single slit patterns, and assuming the emission of independent photons 
from the ball through each slit. The trouble is that there are not two balls, 
one for each slit. The same ball goes through both slits and there is only one 
ball emitting (or not emitting) photons.
Neither of your analyses actually explain the observed behaviour.

This conversation brought to mind Feynman's question: what happens in the limit 
of going from 2 slits to infinite slits, such that the wall disappears?
Jason-- 
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