clipka wrote:
> The thing that presently intrigues me most about the quantom world is 
> the question: Do probability waveforms really always /collapse/ when 
> particles interact - in the sense that the resulting effect is 
> /definite/ - or do they just "narrow down"?

First, you have Plank's uncertainty. Second, you have a lack of invariance 
over scale, meaning your exposure of a particular "spot" on the film isn't 
going to be smaller than an atom anyway.

> That is, if for instance you do the double-slit experiment with single 
> particles, firing them at a photographic plate - will this really result 
> in a pattern of exposed spots on an otherwise non-exposed plate, or will 
> it rather result in a pattern of spots that are 99.99999% likely to be 
> exposd, on a plate otherwise 99.99999% likely to be non-exposed?

That doesn't make sense. Either the spots are exposed, or they aren't. (Of 
course, even exposed spots can spontaneously move around in the same way 
that all the air in your room may spontaneously shoot up into one corner.)

> Or, to put it in other words: Is /fact/ something that actually 
> manifests whenever independent particles interact, or is it just an 
> illusion all throughout, and "independent" particles are merely just 
> "weakly entangled"?

I'm pretty sure that particles which have never interacted cannot be even 
weakly entangled. But it takes more than a small number of particles 
interacting to make something "fact" at the macroscopic level.


-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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