Doc wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22, 2024 5:28 am
I have come to the conclusion that there is not so much to explain as is generally presumed in the double slit experiment. That the wave function does not collapse at all upon measurement Just the coherence between the dual waves goes away. When coherence goes away on measurement, the pattern on the screen is not a point. It is overlapping smears of photons hitting the screen. When there are coherent waves, IE no measurement, there are smeared bands of strikes on the screen representing in phase and out of phase wave interference.
Coherence, decoherence, entanglement, collapse of the wave function, measurement etc.
For me there is a language barrier. My thinking on this issue always decoheres, probably because I tend to think primarily in visuals and the tactile world of touch. For a trained mathematician it's easier to think in mathematical terms only, as these concepts all translate into equations almost immediately. In my next life I hope to catch up on math and physics, so for now I'll stumble along and just deconstruct english sentences that don't make sense to me.
When a physicist explains the double slit expirement saying that "a single photon goes through both slits" I already stop taking him/her seriously. Not only because it sounds like nonsense but also because it probably is. I immediately suspect these people try to impress with supposed magic and mystery, the depth of which only they have been able to probe...
A more fair use of language would be to add the precursor
as-if to statements:
Very large number of single photons sent through both slits equally but randomly and undetected before passing through, results in bands of spots exactly like the interference pattern produced by beams of light passing through both slits like wave fronts. It is
as-if these single photons traveled through both slits, like wave fronts do. Now this is considered the complete and total magic of QM. I don't buy it.
Of course, if one holds on to the image of a photon as a bullet particle, the double slit experiment is pure magic. Going through both slits at the same time... impossible! As any magician knows.. the desired effect of mental shock-and-awe arises when the audience is distracted and kept in the dark on the essentials that are actually going on. Magic is always about creating as-if effects as convincingly as possible. Distraction and suggestion govern the field.
Before concluding that that the quantum world is fundamentally different from the classical world as we know it and "full of quantum magic"... one has to be serious about the possibility and power of the as-if effect. Is nature is pulling magic tricks on us? Rabbits out of a magic hats?
In the effort to resolve the double slit experiment, light was given two properties i.e. particle-like and wave-like, depending on the experimental setup. It is also possible however, that both "particle" and "wave" are as-if effects. Sometimes pulling a wave-like rabbit, on other occasions a particle-like dog out of the same magic hat. The magician wants you to believe the hat is magic, which is the only thing that matters. Rabbit and dog are a distraction.
Given that the wave function is a mathematical description of future events, i.e. a probability distribution it always remains to be seen what the wave function can say about the events that actually do occur from moment to moment. Which is why QM was considered
incomplete also by Einstein. The infamous "God doesn't play dice". Again the problem might merely be language and our anthropomorphic sense of time. If you remove time from the equations, certain problems disappear.
I like my own poetic version: "the past pushes, the future pulls". Remove time, what remains is push-pull mechanics. The "probability distribution" represented by the wave function is then a real causal force like any other. Force fields represent push-forces, potentials represent pull-forces. Oh wait, things aint that simple of course.
Multi-directional force vectors in multi-dimensional spaces. Maybe 11 dimensions as in M-theory? All ripping through each other violently, with ripples and shivers traveling through the fabric of reality. The universe is a bomb that went off and is still expanding, that much seems certain.
Our anthropomorphic brain knows of 3 dimensions only, with time as a virtual 4th derivative. Perhaps most of what actually happens
has to appear like rabbits and dogs out of magic hats to us. Just fathom Father God, Mother Nature or both...to only know how the tricks really work.
A Father God who wants to be worshipped preferably adds enough magic to his creations to seriously impress those trying to understand them. Mother Nature probably just wants to protect us from too much useless knowledge. Love is all you need, the rest a distraction.
In lightning strikes the path of the lightning is path of least resistance. Streamers come up from the ground and the best path wins then Kaboom.
Indeed...
Perhaps the photon wave function actually collapses to the point of highest potential.
Sounds correct to me. At every moment "the most likely" exhibits the strongest pull.
Or the point on the screen that allows it to be exactly the quantum packet it is.