Collapse Definition and 466 Threads

https://theconversation.com/what-is-model-collapse-an-expert-explains-the-rumours-about-an-impending-ai-doom-236415

Does the time to the collapse of a particle system depend mainly on its mass/momentum, or complexity? For example macroscopic object. If system is quite isolated, is no spontaneous collapse even massive or complex systems?

Imagine an empty void of intergalactic space. In this space there is a cloud of diffuse gas, mostly hydrogen and helium. The gas is non-rotating and very cold just above absolute zero. There is nothing else around this cloud, and so it has a clear center of gravity, and no other objects...

And then, if the wavefunction does collapse as the electron binds to the proton, is that collapse temporary, or will the wavefunction remain collapsed until the electron escapes and is free again? Or, will the wavefunction of a freshly bound electron eventually return to a max superposition...

In a thought experiment one could arrange synchronized clocks in an inertial frame of reference such that they show the same time when the collapse happens. Does that mean that according to the relativity of simultaneity from the perspective of an observer in relative motion to that frame the...

I asked Bard that question and it responded (among other things) that a) globular clusters are spherical and b) that they are spinning rapidly. Aren't those two things contradictory, as in they should be flattened by centrifugal forces?

I was reading an article 'What Einstein Really Thought about Quantum Mechanics' in Scientific American. There they mentioned something I didn't know - Bohr did not believe in Wave Function Collapse as an issue (I don't either - but that's just my opinion, so means nothing). I found this...

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I see this written or talked about so often. Pop-sci for sure. But, whatever the wave function is, and whatever might collapse it, can we agree consciousness is not required to collapse it? I.E., the moon was there before "conscious" beings, on this planet or elsewhere, viewed it? Is at...

I would love to read about the different experiments that deal with the collapse of the wave functions and related items. Maybe summaries, I definitely don't want to get into math or anything. Just what causes it to collapse, what doesn't, can it partially collapse, can it collapse in these...

Why on Earth does anyone, let along Roger Penrose, think gravity might be what causes the wave function to collapse? The most basic experiment in quantum physics, the double slit experiment, shows that collapse is most closely analogous to whether or not the item at issue (for example, an...

The titular paper can be found here, https://doi.org/10.1088/1751-8121/ac6f2f, and on arXiv as https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.10931 (which is paginated differently, but the text and equation and section numbers are the same). Please see the abstract, but in part this 24 page paper argues that we...

I just started my master's degree and I'm currently taking a course in astrophysics. However, it seems like I have misunderstood what prevents stars from collapsing (I will elaborate below). Why is it, that as soon as a massive star has finished the fusion processes, the collapse will happen in...

What does and observer inside of a collapsing shell observe? Lets say we have a shell of matter collapsing to a black hole. What would observers near the center see? How would the rest of the universe appear when, The shell is approaching the Schwarzschild radius? After the shell passes the...

https://www.quantamagazine.org/physics-experiments-spell-doom-for-quantum-collapse-theory-20221020/ Experiments Spell Doom for Decades-Old Explanation of Quantum Weirdness Physical-collapse theories have long offered a natural solution to the central mystery of the quantum world. But a series of...

So what am I doing wrong here? I can clearly observe it, I'm nearly sure I can tell which particles are going throw each slit if I used another laser too. My suspicion is that the electrical current of the photon detector that uses germanium or silicon to detect the particles are influencing the...

For the free particle in QM, the energy and momentum eigenstates are not physically realizable since they are not square integrable. So in that sense a particle cannot have a definite energy or momentum. What happens during measurement of say momentum or energy ? So we measure some...

Has there been so far any prediction validated in experimental outcomes that these theories make as a result of the modification of the Schrodinger equation?

Black holes form. An undeniable fact. Let's imagine a massive shell collapsing under its own weight (the exact composition of the mass is not important, so just imagine to be a continuous mass with zero thickness). What happens if the process of collapse evolves? The time on the inside will run...

Do wavefunctions collapse when looked at? Or does observe mean something else? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-05892-6 This article is where my information is from, physicists talking about how our mind causes the collapse.

Let's say we have a big object like chair. According to Objective-collapse theory, is the wave of the chair collapsing and spreading out so fast we see it in one definite position or, does the chair collapse and it remains in this collapsed state longer than microscopic objects like atoms?

Is it still true that under the Copenhagen Interpretation the standard theory of QM tells us that a measurement apparatus gets into superposition of possible measurement outcomes and does not tell us how and when we get a single decisive outcome? (The so-called "Measurement problem")

I was looking at US Earthquake Activity during the past 30 days, and noticed M 3.1 Mine Collapse - 4 km SSW of Crab Orchard, Tennessee o_O https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/se60353147/executive 2021-08-13 11:57:17 (UTC) 35.877°N 84.898°W 0.0 km depth One often sees quarry...

Hi Pf, I take the case of Alice and Bob in the EPR experiment. Here Bob does not measure spin projections but make a Young's double slit experiment. What Alice does on her side will not be known by Bob. She can decide to let her particles go freely to the left (in the environment of Bob). Bob...

Hello! Let's say we have a wave function. Maybe it's in a potential well, maybe not, I think it's arbitrary here. This wave function is one-dimensional for now to keep things simple. Then, we use a device, maybe a photon emitter and detector system where the photon crosses paths with the wave...

Hello . The goal is to look for what force F I need to apply in order to return the arms to the closed position. Attached is a schema in the hope that my purpose will be understood I want to know what forces are acting on the system of the arms as well as the springs Many thanks in advance

Suppose a blind man builds a machine that paints three apples with three colors, either red, blue or green. Once the machine has done this, are the three apples in the following superposition: or is the wavefunction just one of It feels like because the man is blind, the apples should be in...

If galaxies are now expanding away faster than light, then how would we know if this has now started to slow, stop and or reverse ? Is there a chance we may never know and the universe collapse won't be seen coming ?

My wife was listening to a program on Youtube that was discussing the collapse during the late Bronze Age. I caught part of it when the narrator was discussing a series of large earthquakes in the region (Aegean Sea and Eastern Mediterranean). The narrator also mentioned an 'earthquake...

In my limited understanding of the quantum measurement problem, I am imagining the whole thing as corresponding to a kind of "weighting down" by a cascade of entaglement. Here is my very simple understanding of the quantum measurement problem: A waveform (Schrödinger equation) describes the...

What happens to the material not involved in the core collapse of a supernova? This would be the outer portion of a star or any cloud that surrounds the star. All material to infinity or does some material remain close -- gravitationally close that might collapse if it could. thanks

Hi, I am not a Physical Student/Physical Scientist. Can an Antarctic ice sheet collapse cause a worldwide tsunami? A big one or bigger like this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/26/iceberg-size-of-greater-london-breaks-off-antarctica Can you please explain why this can cause a...

What I've done is using the TOV equations and I what I found at the end is: ##e^{[\frac{-8}{3}\pi G\rho]r^2+[\frac{16}{9}(G\pi\rho)^{2}]r^4}-\rho=P(r)## so I am sure that this is not right, if someone can help me knowing it I really apricate it :)

Basic descriptions of spin such as the beginning of Lindley's "Where does the weirdness go" state that an electron's spin doesn't exist or is "indeterminant" until measured (e.g. passed through a Stern-Gerlach field). However, isn't the magnetic field nonzero essentially everywhere (albeit...

Hey there! I have two questions regarding the Double Slit Experiment and the Wave Function Collapse. How effective does a measuring device have to be to cause a collapse? As in, say that every second the device has a 50% chance to turn off or on for one second, does the collapse still occur...

Very early in the development of thermodynamics, it was realized that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is not a law fundamental to the fabric of our cosmos, but only becomes true in the limit of the number of particles. It was none other than Boltzmann himself who realized and articulated this...

I understand that gravity causes a neutron star larger than about 10 solar masses to collapse into a black hole. I also understand that gravity is the weakest of the four forces. So I find this counterintuitive and I'm puzzled that why is it gravity that causes the collapse and NOT the strong...

[Moderator's note: Spun off from a thread in the QM forum to separate out the interpretation discussion.] Yes, but I was hoping that you could give a precise specification of the difference. (In my opinion, @vanhees71 never specified the difference precisely.)

Hey guys! I read this fascinating paper about the discovery of a white dwarf merger remnant: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1216-1 To quote the abstract: "For white dwarfs, the mass of the merger product may exceed the Chandrasekhar limit, leading either to a thermonuclear explosion...

Does unitarity of the evolution of wavefunction get rid of the need for a "conscious observer", and does collapse in contrast demand a "conscious observer"? For with unitarity there are is no requirement for such an observer, and collapse can't be explained without such an observer. The...

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/what-are-the-best-parameters-for-lcdm.831858/ Hello. In the above linked thread from 2015 Science Advisor Chalnoth replies to Earnest Guest. First, the cosmological constant has been a component of General Relativity pretty much from the start. The way...

This is dumb question, so please bear with me. In the double-slit experiment where they fire a single electron at time, as you can see the electron gun fires a single electron. Now the electron travels as a wave. Now my question is, why doesn't the wave collapse when the wave encounters...

I read about the non-communication theorem and I understand why when changing one practical will not change the other . But suppose that there is two observers that doing the double slit experiment, but using it with two entanglement practicals. observer one should send signal of yes or...

As I understand it, from the instrumentalist perspective the wavefunction is not more than a mathematical tool which predicts probabilities. So he could say a mathematical tool can't collapse because it is not a real physical thing. So to talk about a collapse of the wavefunction is meaningless...

If you want to detect a particle in the 2 slit experiment on a detector. And we state that the electron is traveling as a wave so there is a wave front...that must mean that the wave front hits the detector at the same time in more than one place where there is constructive interference. But...

https://phys.org/news/2020-09-function-collapse-gravity.html An interesting article I saw yesterday. However, both Nature articles (the summary [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-1026-2] and the actual technical paper [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-020-1008-4]) are behind a...

I’m new in QM. I have a simple question: when one says that the wavefunction collapses, is it the same as saying that the variance of an observable is 0? Thanks.

I never took any physics courses nor don't have a background in mathematics never the less I became very interested in quantum physics after reading Sean Carroll's book Something deeply hidden. One of the difficult things for me to wrap my head around was the concept of superposition and...