On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 4:54 PM, Richard Ruquist <yann...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Along these lines of thought, the universe splitting or differentiation > in MWI is said to be irreversible > even though the equation of QM are time reversible. > The Many Worlds split is not necessarily irreversible, but like thermodynamics it usually is. When the electron approaches the 2 slits the universe splits, but when it hits the photographic plate (or just a brick wall) the split is reversed; of course that is not a typical situation, it was specifically set up by experimenters to be as simple as possible, in most situations they never recombine because so many things would have to conspire together it would be astronomically unlikely. > That might account for the arrow of time. > You don't need Many Worlds or even Quantum Mechanics to explain the arrow of time, all you need is for things to start out in a low entropy state and the fact that there are VASTLY more ways to be disorganized than organized. > Of course wave collapse is also irreversible and is similar to MWI to > that extent. > You keep talking as if the quantum wave function is a real physical thing rather than just a calculating device like the lines of longitude and latitude, but Quantum Mechanics can get along just fine without Schrodinger's Wave Equation. In fact about 9 months BEFORE Schrodinger came out with his wave equation Heisenberg had his own version of Quantum Mechanics that had nothing to do with waves. In fact Heisenberg despised the Schrodinger Wave Equation because he felt that "a good theory must be based on directly observable magnitudes". And nobody can observe a quantum wave function. If you measure what a particle is doing at point X Heisenberg could use matrix algebra to tell you what measurements you are likely to get at point Y, and he could do it all without using a unobservable wave, he only used measured quantities . Heisenberg's original formulation of Quantum Mechanics works just as well as Schrodinger and his Wave Equation, they are equivalent, and which one you use is strictly a matter of taste. The only advantage Schrodinger had is that it allowed human beings to form a mental picture of what is going on, but Heisenberg felt that the mental picture was wrong and the quantum world was so strange that none was any better, so it would be best to just forget about visualization and only worry about what you can measure. Everett disagreed and thought that mental pictures were important but agreed that Schrodinger's was wrong, however he believed that he had found a better one and so do I. John K Clark -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
