Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> It doesn't matter if it hits a measuring device. It only matters if you look 
> at the measurement.

  And how does the particle know that the measurement was looked at?

> >    Or is it the *interaction* between the traveling object and the particles
> > that hit it (or which it emits), particles that *could* be used to measure
> > which slit the object went through, that makes the difference?

> No, because you can take the measurement as to which way it went, *then* 
> erase that measurement after the particle has already hit the sensor, and 
> you will or won't get interference depending on whether you don't or do 
> erase the measurement after the fact.

  But that has nothing to do with whether someone "looked" at the measurement
or not. It has to do with whether the two possible paths of the emitted
particle were kept separate or whether they were merged before the particle
hit the measurement device. If I understand correctly, the interference
pattern would disappear if the emitted particles are kept separate even if
nobody "looks" at the result. It has nothing to do with an observer, only
with how the original particles and the emitted particles interact.

  While at macroscopic levels it's hard to understand how particles affect
each other from a significant distance (and even time) this way, it kind of
makes sense, if you imagine that the particles are somehow "bound" together
even though they are in their own separate paths: This way what happens to
one particle affects what happens to the other. If the path of the
"measurement" particle is merged, it affects the original particle (even
through time, via some quantum oddity), and if it's not merged, it also
likewise affects it.

  However, what does not make sense even in this context is that the particle
somehow "knows" whether someone "looked" or not.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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