How long can a Wavefunction exist for?

*Olias*

And can a collapsed wavefunction be retreived?

selfAdjoint

Once the wave function has collapsed, it is gone, and the hisotry of the particle begins anew from whatever physical state the previous wave collapsed to.

There is no natural lifetime for a wave function. They are conceived as going along until something causes a collapse. This is all assuming the wave function is something physical, which is a doubtful assumption.

jcsd

You might as well ask how long is a piece of string?

Actually saying that in GRW there is a finite proabilty of a wavefunction collapsing into a localized stae at any time, but GRW theory's hardly popular, mainly due to the fact that experimental evidence seems to disagree with it.

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Olias	How long can a Wavefunction exist for? Tweet And can a collapsed wavefunction be retreived?

selfAdjoint Recognitions: Gold Member Staff Emeritus	Once the wave function has collapsed, it is gone, and the hisotry of the particle begins anew from whatever physical state the previous wave collapsed to. There is no natural lifetime for a wave function. They are conceived as going along until something causes a collapse. This is all assuming the wave function is something physical, which is a doubtful assumption.

jcsd Recognitions: Gold Member Science Advisor	You might as well ask how long is a piece of string? Actually saying that in GRW there is a finite proabilty of a wavefunction collapsing into a localized stae at any time, but GRW theory's hardly popular, mainly due to the fact that experimental evidence seems to disagree with it.