Aduke.2104 net.misc utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!npois!harpo!duke!cjp Thu Apr 29 02:33:56 1982 Re: utcsrgv.318: Re: psi vs relativity vs quantum mechanics From harpo!decvax!utzoo!utcsrgv!donald Thu Apr 29 00:33:42 1982 Date: Wed Apr 28 13:30:06 1982 To: utzoo!decvax!harpo!duke!cjp utzoo!utcsrgv!donald Subject: Re: utcsrgv.298: Re: instantaneous telepathy .... Regarding the Uncertainty Principle: according to the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (c. 1927) a particle does NOT have a definite location or velocity until it IS measured. In other words, there is no underlying reality "behind the scenes". The observer creates the reality (!) This is the great disparity between quantum theory and the classical physical theories. A particle DOESN'T know where it IS. Remember the problem of Schrodinger's Cat? See you in net.misc Don Chan (utcsrgv!donald) I'd hate to embarass myself in net.misc by telling lies about physics. It's really not my field. I am familiar with neither the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics ca. 1927 nor the problem Schroedinger had with his cat. The wave function of my cat is giving me enough problems in trying to keep it off my keyboard. I do think that things, even quantum things, have a location and velocity even without their being observed or even observable. The idea that "the observer creates the reality" sounds too much like Bishop Berkeley's philosophy of (I think it's called) Idealism for my liking. In case you are not familiar with it, the scheme is that "reality" is created by the perception of the observer. When something is not being observed, it just isn't there. Of course there has to be some scheme for making things consistent among different observers of the same thing at different times; this is where God comes in, to serve as the permanent perceiver of everything and thus to hold reality together. I nearly puked when I had to study this stuff as a humanities requirement. What garbage. So I surely don't want to believe that such a thing may actually be true of quantum sized objects. Now, if you change that to "the observer *affects* the reality", I'll buy that 100%. In the case of the coffee break electron, I'd say that the observation of an electron being at the coffee break here has made it impossible for the electron to be observed at the Alpha Centauri coffee break today. The description of the electron as a wave function merely means, that before you looked for it, you couldn't be sure whose coffee break it would be attending. Charles Poirier (duke!cjp) ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.