Re:What’s Going on During Wave Function ‘Collapse’
by antonvs on Thursday July 04, 2019 @10:29PM
(#20359424)
How do you believe that supports the original claim that I quoted, "You can't tell the difference between a particle whose wave function has collapsed and one that hasn't"?
Even if we take that paper at face value, there's a clear distinction once a "particle" has interacted with something, like a detector screen: the particle's wave is no longer sustained, so you can indeed "tell the difference."
In any case, that paper's parallels with quantum systems are limited at best. Even in the paper itself, we find some of the caveats:
> "There is, however, a huge gap between our system and the quantum world where diffraction and interference of single particles is usually observed."
It goes on to list a number of differences which make it clear that all we're dealing with is a limited analogy, the relevance of which is dubious.
> A series of bouncing-droplet findings since 2015 has crushed this dream. The results indicate that Couder’s most striking demonstration of quantum-like phenomena, back in 2006 — “the experiment that got me hooked on this problem,” the fluid dynamicist Paul Milewski said — was in error. Repeat runs of the experiment, called the “double-slit experiment,” have contradicted Couder’s initial results and revealed the double-slit experiment to be the breaking point of both the bouncing-droplet analogy and de Broglie’s pilot-wave vision of quantum mechanics.
No matter how you look at it, this paper can't support the claim I was asking about.
Even if we take that paper at face value, there's a clear distinction once a "particle" has interacted with something, like a detector screen: the particle's wave is no longer sustained, so you can indeed "tell the difference."
In any case, that paper's parallels with quantum systems are limited at best. Even in the paper itself, we find some of the caveats:
> "There is, however, a huge gap between our system and the quantum world where diffraction and interference of single particles is usually observed."
It goes on to list a number of differences which make it clear that all we're dealing with is a limited analogy, the relevance of which is dubious.
Beyond that, the paper has been largely refuted in the last few years. See e.g.: https://www.quantamagazine.org/famous-experiment-dooms-pilot... :
> A series of bouncing-droplet findings since 2015 has crushed this dream. The results indicate that Couder’s most striking demonstration of quantum-like phenomena, back in 2006 — “the experiment that got me hooked on this problem,” the fluid dynamicist Paul Milewski said — was in error. Repeat runs of the experiment, called the “double-slit experiment,” have contradicted Couder’s initial results and revealed the double-slit experiment to be the breaking point of both the bouncing-droplet analogy and de Broglie’s pilot-wave vision of quantum mechanics.
No matter how you look at it, this paper can't support the claim I was asking about.