It used to be called "wavefunction reduction", and simply meant that, before measurement, we don't know if the system is in state A, B, C, etc. (or some mixture), but after measurement we know it's A so we "reduce" the description to that. — Kenosha Kid
Bohr said it is meaningless to say where a particle is outside detection. Maybe he means it is nowhere. Nowhere in 4D spacetime that is. — EnPassant
In the double-slit experiment, the electron is interacting with the Higgs the whole time. — Kenosha Kid
I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that, say, photons don't exist in space-time between their creation and destruction. Makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not sure how it would work for massive particles... — Kenosha Kid
I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that, say, photons don't exist in space-time between their creation and destruction. — Kenosha Kid
Werner Heisenberg, the quantum pioneer famous for his uncertainty principle, considered his quantum math to describe potential outcomes of measurements of which one would become the actual result. The quantum concept of a “probability wave,” describing the likelihood of different possible outcomes of a measurement, was a quantitative version of Aristotle’s potential, Heisenberg wrote in his well-known 1958 book Physics and Philosophy. “It introduced something standing in the middle between the idea of an event and the actual event, a strange kind of physical reality just in the middle between possibility and reality.”
I thought the speed of light was a measure of the impedance due to space-time. If it's not going through space then it shouldn't be limited to the rate of motion a thing can travel through space. No? — Cheshire
There's no physical reference frame in which the photon is at rest, but if you take the limit of the distance and time between events as velocity tends toward the speed of light for a frame parallel to the photon's trajectory, that distance and time period vanish. It ends up simply being a transfer of electromagnetic energy from one system to another. Nothing empirical can be said about a photon's transit. — Kenosha Kid
from the photon's point of view, — Kenosha Kid
But taking a derivative is a mathematical change, the "vanishing" isn't a measure of reality anymore than rounding. It's just a product of calculus when there is a large number(speed) and relatively small numbers. Correct? It isn't known to literally vanish. — Cheshire
“real” should not be restricted to “actual” objects or events in spacetime. Reality ought also be assigned to certain possibilities, or “potential” realities, that have not yet become “actual.” These potential realities do not exist in spacetime, but nevertheless are “ontological” — that is, real components of existence.
I'm not sure how it would work for massive particles... End result being that everything is in this other realm, and our space-time starts looking rather empty (except for observations). — Kenosha Kid
That's what you think. It could be just as well that the wavefunction is made out of non-local stuff and as such, space itself could be that stuff. What is more non-local than space? Nothing. — Cartuna
Are we understanding each other? — Cheshire
As in has it been measured to do so? No, like I said, you can't transfer between frames of reference by the speed of light. But you can keep going faster and faster and watch the distance between events shrink. "Vanish" here is as it's used in mathematics and physics, e.g. "the wavefunction if the atom must vanish infinitely far from the nucleus." — Kenosha Kid
Then there's the inevitable question of what counts as 'observation'. — Kenosha Kid
In all of those cases you're surmising what might happen in the absence of there being an observer. — Wayfarer
But at back of that, 'the observer' provides the framework within which any observation is made or conclusion is drawn. — Wayfarer
Realism wants to say that what is being observed would exist regardless whether observed or not - and in one sense that is true. But it's not true in any ultimate sense. — Wayfarer
I'm quite sympathetic to the idea that, say, photons don't exist in space-time between their creation and destruction. Makes a lot of sense to me. I'm not sure how it would work for massive particles... — Kenosha Kid
We don't observe particles, we observe trace effects. — EnPassant
When a 'particle' collides with a physical object it leaves a trace effect in physical spacetime (eg a spot on a photographic plate). — EnPassant
If we consider the electron 'not in space-time', then the Higgs field would also have to be 'not in space-time'. And if there are other electrons in the beam that it can repel, those other electrons would have to be 'not in space-time', along with the virtual photons they're exchanging to repel one another. End result being that everything is in this other realm, and our space-time starts looking rather empty (except for observations). — Kenosha Kid
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