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Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by kgwgk on Saturday March 10, 2018 @05:44AM (#16557993)
And what does it mean for a few-particles isolated system to start doing multiverse? Cannot you just describe it with a wave function without any branching out? The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics doesn't have any issues with the evolution of an isolated system, it doesn't require continous wave function collapse.
Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by whatshisface on Saturday March 10, 2018 @04:49PM (#16560355)
The isoated particles will, according to accepted physics, do everything that MV says we are doing. The discrete branches are a textbook illustration; it's really more of a continuous thing. There's still only one wavefunction, it just behaves in a way that can be compared to branching.

In a nutshell the idea of multiverse is that the entire universe evolves as an isolated system, without any wavefunction collapse.

Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by kgwgk on Saturday March 10, 2018 @05:17PM (#16560453)
I know, but you need to reconcile that with the universe we observe where looking at the system will find it in a definite state and not in a superposition. What is the multiverse response precisely? How is "branching magic" an improvement over "collapsing magic"?
Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by whatshisface on Saturday March 10, 2018 @06:57PM (#16560793)
"Collapsing magic" consists of a projection that somehow happens during the time-evolution of the wavefunction, changing it from a superposition of eigenfunctions into one eigenfunction.

"Branching," to the extent that branching is a good word for what happens, already is known to be a behavior of wavefunctions: as a Gaussian pulse moves, it spreads out (due to dispersion inherent to the Schrodinger equation), and we as humans can arbitrarily call that branching. (But, like I said, it's continuous instead of discrete like the word branching would imply.)

So, what remains is to explain why we find the universe in a definite state, if it time-evolves into something other than specific eigenvalues. But, first, I'll ask you: what happens if you put a manned capsule inside of the isolated particle box, so that the person inside the capsule starts dispersing too?

Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by kgwgk on Sunday March 11, 2018 @05:44PM (#16564933)
In summary, the situation seems to be:

0) quantum mechanics is great, but it can lead to quantum systems described as a superposition of states and then we need to explain why we find the universe in a definite state.

1a) one option is to say that the wave function collapses to a definite state.

1b) another option is to say that there is a multiverse... and what remains is to explain why we find the universe in a definite state.

Solution (a) may be ugly, but “solution” (b) sets you back to the starting point!

Re:The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution (2017) by kgwgk on Sunday March 11, 2018 @03:23PM (#16564350)
I fail to see the relation between "branching" (or however do you want to call the feature that separates the standard universe from the multiverse, I let you pick the name for it) and the unitary evolution of the wave function.

As for your question: I don't know. Let's say the Schroedinger equation is actually not perfectly linear and there is spontaneous collapse which happens quite rapidly for a system with N~10^30 particles. Now what?