What exactly happens during the time gap between the detectors being activated, and the eraser subsequently wiping out the information after the results screen has received the photons? For example, do we "observe" the interference pattern being absent and then (gradually or immediately)...
Does this mean that question as to whether space is ACTUALLY contracted, or only APPEARS to be contracted has no meaning, in that the distinction between actuality and what is measured breaks down (as it does, arguably, within quantum physics)?
Yes I assume that the star is stationary with respect to me the observer, and the spacecraft are both heading there.
However, if the distance between a moving object (A or B in the above example) and a stationary object (star) towards which it (A or B) is heading (moving and stationary with...
OK so here is a paradox that occurred to me.
Suppose we have a stationary observer measuring the distance between two spacecraft and a star.
Spacecraft A is moving at a constant velocity of 0.01c. Meanwhile Spacecraft B, moving at a constant velocity of 0.99c goes to overtake A, whilst...
hi
Just wondering if someone can clarify for me whether it is merely the length of a moving object that appears contracted to a stationary observer, or whether it is also the distance between the moving object and other objects in its direction of motion that appears contracted. Or is the...
Perhaps another way of formulating the issue is in terms of information and what a measuring device actually IS. A measuring device is not just a random collection of particles but an intelligent device designed to provide information. The particular and peculiar ways in which the interposition...
It's not true that NO-ONE thinks this. There are plenty of intense debates about this very issue. I am just wondering about this distinction between a measuring device on the one hand, and a conscious observer on the other hand, which seems to be where much of the debate lies. There is something...
Just wondering if anyone can explain to me why it is thought necessary to say that consciousness (an observer) is necessary to account for certain things in Quantum Physics (e.g. for the collapse of the wavefunction), rather than just say that a measuring device (with or without a conscious...
Sorry, the paper you cite is way beyond my knowledge - I am just a layperson trying to get my head round this stuff as far as I can!
Perhaps we don't need to maintain some kind of temporal superposition theory, but then neither do we need Many Worlds or Path Integral (Sum over Histories) or...
What I am challenging is the commonly held notion that we have to think of a single particle splitting into two and interfering with itself. If that were so, each single particle would yield an interference pattern. However each single particle arrives as a dot on the screen!
Simply because in order for the interference pattern to emerge over time, (in the experimental situation we are describing in which each photon is fired one at a time, and each individual hit is a dot not an interference pattern), it will not do to say that each individual photon is interfering...
In otherwords, there is a breakdown of the distinction between "one-at-a-time" and "simultaneous", and that THIS may be the way to understand what is going on. Whichever way one interprets the double slit experiment, one is going to end up with a breakdown of classical assumptions.
No, I am not saying that there is classical interference between successive particles, but that somehow there may be a non-classical (weird!) temporal superposition going on that might be necessary to account for the interference pattern occurring when particles are fired one-at-a-time.