Recent content by markb287

That's an interesting idea. Physically, we wouldn't have any way of testing whether or not there was a superposition of states. I think Schrodinger's idea was simply to tell us how bizarre the implications of the probability interpretation of the wave equation are (e.g. the idea that a cat, or...

According to this article, scientists were able to bypass the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, creating relative certainty in measurement of both position and momentum. Any thoughts, objections, comments?

This brings up a really good question. I wonder if it is possible to produce the effects of the Uncertainty Principle onto large scale objects by imposing conditions of uncertainty (i.e. complete isolation). Does the Uncertainty Principle only work for the very small, or could it also be...

Yeah, I'm not sure how much I believe this guy's credibility. It was Max Born, not Schrodinger, who came up with the probability interpretation of Schrodinger's wave function.

It's not the exact same unknown. The unknown from the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is qualitatively different (i.e. it is a fundamental characteristic of nature) from the unknown of a coin toss. The unknown of a coin toss is simply ignorance, where it could be known if you have the right...

I understand your frustration in this matter and respect your decision to leave this discussion. But my question still stands, and has been left unanswered. I'll restate it for anyone generous enough to reply. If the value of an electron's position is essentially produced by either the...

My fault here, my friend. The word I meant to say was "testable," not "proven." The topic of what a theory "should" do is obviously one that has been argued over and over, especially in the case of quantum mechanics. You seem to be arguing the case for instrumentalism, while I am arguing...

I think we have two different "interpretations" for the term "interpretation." An interpretation is simply a statement that expresses some kind of understanding regarding some aspect of something (in this case, nature). It's something you express in order to produce an understanding of some...

I doubt that. If that were the case, the Born interpretation would have satisfied quantum physicists all on its own. And yet it is a continual problem for physicists and was ever since it was proposed, although the mathematics is all there. This was the case when Heisenberg had developed...

Mathematics, on its own, cannot avoid ambiguity; it is only the context of the communication that can do that. If we don't have the same context for understanding the communication (e.g. that electrons are neither particles nor waves; that electrons do not "arrive" at the screen, and therefore...

That's because no physical law has "formulas." The formulas are "just a language thing" also. The issue is not whether the models describe the same experimental results. I could provide many different models that describe the results of any experiment. The issue is whether or not the...

You are right -- it is not "particle OR wave." However, it is producing particle-behavior OR producing wave-behavior. You cannot produce both particle results AND wave results at the same time. This is inherent in both the Principle of Complementarity and the Principle of Uncertainty...

You are right. Position is not the same as particle-behavior, nor is momentum wave-like behavior. However, the act of measuring the position of a quantum object produces particle-behavior in that object, just as the act of measuring the momentum of a quantum object produces wave-behavior...

I see. So let me modify my statement: Electrons (or any quantum object) exhibit particle behavior when they are in a situation where their position is relatively certain, but their momentum is not; and they exhibit wave behavior when their momentum is relatively certain, but their position...

Thank you, DrChinese, for your response and welcome! Going further, could we not also say that electrons (or protons, neutrons, photons, etc.) are neither particles nor waves, but are simply, for lack of better words, "quantum stuff" or "subatomic stuff" that, when placed in situations of...