On 9/25/2012 12:05 AM, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/24/2012 8:57 PM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/24/2012 11:17 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 9/24/2012 8:02 PM, smi...@zonnet.nl wrote:
Citeren meekerdb <meeke...@verizon.net>:
On 9/24/2012 9:28 AM, Stephen P. King wrote:
On 9/24/2012 12:02 PM, John Clark wrote:
Thus the moon does not exist when you are not looking at it.
Hi John,
I expected better from you! This quip is based on the premise
that "you" are the only observer involved. Such nonsense!
Considering that there are a HUGE number of observers of the
moon, the effects of the observations of any one is negligible.
If none of them measure the presence of the moon or its effects,
then the existence of the moon becomes pure the object of
speculation. Note that being affected by the moon in terms of
tidal effects is a measurement!
So who or what counts as an observer. Young's slit experiments on
fullerenes seem to indicate that a few IR photons or gas molecules
qualify.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0903.1614v1.pdf
Brent
If I don't observe it, then it doesn't matter who/what else
observes something, the rest of the universe is still a
superposition. It doesn't matter whether or not an interference
pattern can be detected.
?? I could matter. Suppose I bet you $100 there's no interference
pattern when the buckyballs are hot? Then it would matter. But
apparently it wouldn't matter whether anyone observed the IR photons
or not.
Brent
Hi Brent,
If we are consistent with the rules of QM, the mere possibility
of detection of position basis information is sufficient to prevent
the interference pattern. Thus my prediction is that the temperature
of the buckyballs is irrelevant for the two slit experiment, so long
as a position basis measurement is not possible. Very hard to do...
No, the temperature is crucial and proves your point. When the
buckyballs are cold they form an interference pattern. When they are
hot, they don't - because they are hot enough to emit enough IR
photons on their way through the apparatus to localize themselves,
even though nobody and no instruments are recording the IR photons.
It might be interesting to do this experiment out in space where there
are no walls or anything else to absorb the IR photons, but I think
the outcome would be the same. Just the photons and their eventual
interactions with the vacuum would be enough to produce decoherence.
Brent
--
Yep, the mere possibility of an interaction matters! This implies
that our considerations of the concept of an observer has to account for
this "mere possibility" aspect. ;-)
--
Onward!
Stephen
http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html
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