Recent content by Albert V

@vanhees71 Is the minimal statistical interpretation compatible witht this work? http://arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328 "Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on what a quantum state truly...

Thanks Vanhees, Since you hold this view it would be interesting to have your comments on the following: I had an impression that it was a fundamental problem with the idea of "unitary evolution only", and at the same time that this theory is universally valid. I thought that the projection...

In quantum mechanics we have the projection postulate saying that during a measurement the wave function of an observable collapse into a definite state. However, a friend of mine is convinced that there is no collapse, only linearity. After a measurement the wave function of an observable is...

Thanks for your answer, but when you say a "totally unpolarized beam of photons" does that imply a statistical mixture of states? Under the discussion: "What is the difference between entangled and "normal" photons?" another Sci Advisor said that: "When you discard information about the other...

Hi, I have a question about how to interpret the state of an entangled photon H = horisontal, V = vertical polarization The global state is |Phi> = (|H>|V> + |V>|H>)/sqrt2. By density operator formalism: rho = |Phi><Phi| = (1/2) ( |H>|V><H|<V| + |H>|V><V|<H| + |V>|H><H|<V|...

This is a discussion of the Cornwall paper on superluminal communication from http://arxiv.org/abs/1106.2257 quantum theory says that whatever you do on one side does not change what you observe on the other: Total state |Phi> = (|H>|V> + |V>|H>)/sqrt2. Not using the polarizing filter (no...

PBS will split unpolarized light into beams of differing polarization, but what will it do to linearly polarized light?

Can circularly polarized light interfere with linearly polarized light?

I've read some papers that were aiming to use linearly and circularly polarized light as a protocol for communication - however, it seems difficult/impossible to distinguish these two when you have to rely on incident photons (eg. Physics Letters A Volume 251, Issue 5, 1 February 1999, Pages...

I have some questions: Was it von Neuman that first brought up the idea that self-reference could be the reason behind the measurment problem? The idea seems to be that since a measurment device can't measure all possible interactions between a particle an itself the system (device and...

I think the success of quantum mechanics is remarkable. The fact that calculations often precedes observations suggests that the mathematical model is closer to reality than our mental concepts of a particle.

I would argue for "shut up and calculate!" Two recent papers show the relationship between mathematical undecidable propositions and randomness.

A question just for fun: It seems that it is the beamsplitter in the quantum eraser that ruins our FTL communication and Nobel. What if we throw out the beamsplitter and insert a black box containing a device that inserts a mirror by random. We still have no which path information and no...

I agree - it is actually easier to understand when you look at the math. It is the beamsplitter that actually filter out half of the photons by rotating them 90 degrees. http://www.flownet.com/ron/QM.pdf

Well this is actually not my suggestion. I say we keep the eraser and introduce our polarizer in front of each detector again. The message is still sent by introducing and removing the polarizers. We just had to introduce the eraser to get rid of the which path information in order to get our...