Darren New wrote:
>>> I thought the whole point of that experiment was that according to QM 
>>> the cat was both alive and dead until you actually tried to look?  
>>> Maybe something changed since I read about it?
>>
>>
>> To be clear, strictly speaking this is not "according to QM" but 
>> rather according to the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM (which is 
>> currently the most popular interpretation of the mathematics).
> 
> I thought it was "according to the Schrödinger's wave equations"?


I should have checked to see that Warp had already written the same 
thing I had, oh well.

At any rate, the relevant part of the wave equations here is really the 
fact that they describe the probabilities of the outcomes of 
measurements.  In terms of "what's actually going on" any explanation 
which can reproduce these probabilities is on equal footing WRT the 
equations, and stating that the cat in superposition before measurement 
and "collapses" when we open the box is only one such possible explanation.

Granted, it's worth noting (as you're aware) that the nature of QM puts 
some pretty severe restrictions on what sorts of explanations can match 
the observed measurements, but it's not as if the Copenhagen 
Interpretation is the only possibility: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics

Post a reply to this message