The disappearance of the interference behind Slit B when a detector is introduced at Slit A struck me as a phenomenon that some seek to explain by positing an interaction between the electron's wave function and the detector. But that phenomenon of lost interference did not strike me as...
By physical interaction I am thinking of an interaction that can be observed, for example through an observable amplification of the phenomenon. So if this wave function is a physical thing and it is interacting physically with the detector then there should be some way of detecting that...
I was more wondering about the argument that the electron's wave function is a physical thing and so there is a physical interaction in the case of null measurement between the detector at Slit A and the electron's wave function.
So are you saying g=1 in the case where the electron arrives at the screen without triggering the detector (since an ensemble of similar cases will not produce an interference pattern)?
Say we set up a which-path experiment in which there is a detector at only one of the two slits ("Slit A"). In the case of a null measurement, where an electron arrives at the ultimate screen without triggering the detector at Slit A, is there any physical interaction between that electron and...
Maybe the realist would answer that the flip puts the coin into superposition, and then what causes the discontinuous change from superposition is either measurement, or some alternative such as spontaneous collapse of the wave function (GRW), the coin's interaction with the pilot wave (Bohm...
Is it safe to say that the one measurement (path plus arrival) generates more information than the other (arrival only)? I am guessing the answer is obviously yes, but in this area, it seems like it's best to proceed carefully...
I see, so you are saying that the two different measurements are which-path plus pattern or arrival or just pattern of arrival. (Since the pattern of arrival gets measured in all cases.) I need to think about that, thank you
Interesting, thanks. How would you characterize the measurement that is made when there is no detection of which path? (I am thinking of Schrodinger's criterion that there be a repeatable physical process that generates the same result under the same conditions.)
Can we distinguish two measurement problems —
1) Why measurement appears to cause a discontinuous change in the wave function for a single quantum entity/system?
As in Schrodinger, "The abrupt change by measurement … is the most interesting point of the entire theory…in the realism point of...