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Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment

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On 4/26/16 2:37 PM, Mike Fontenot wrote:
>
> Schrodinger clearly believed that human consciousness was required
> to collapse the wave function into either the "live cat" state or "dead
> cat"
> state.  Penrose doesn't (see "Shadows of the Mind").  He suspects that
> as the "measuring device" is made more complicated than a "quantum-sized"
> object, at some degree of complexity, it would cause an actual physical
> collapse of the wave function of the combined "radioactive atom plus
> measuring device system".  I suspect Penrose, not Schrodinger, is correct.
>
> It seems to me that this issue COULD have been easily resolved by
> experiment in Schrodinger's time.  First, allow for the radioactive atom
> to be removed from the box after the one-hour time interval that should
> produce a 50/50 chance of a decay.  In addition, instead of putting a cat
> in the box (which might have sufficient consciousness to itself cause the
> collapse), just include a classical-sized "measurement device" that would,
> upon a decay, turn off refrigeration of a bottle of milk in the box.  After
> the one-hour interval, the experimenter removes and discards the
> radioactive atom from the box (without examining it to determine if it
> has decayed), and the leaves the box undisturbed for a week or so
> (without determining in any way whether the refrigeration had been
> turned off or not).  After a week or so, the experimenter opens the box.
> If the milk is observed to be spoiled, then clearly the collapse happened
> days ago, not just now by the conscious observation.
>
>   -- Mike Fontenot
>

   Wave function collapse
 > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave_function_collapse

 > In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse[1] or
 > reduction,[2][3][4][5] as a result of a measurement
 > intervention,[6][7] is said to occur when an instance of a quantum
 > system, with a particular initial wave function, is detected as
 > having a different final wave function. Measurement intervention is
 > one of the two accounts of change in quantum systems; the other is
 > continuous evolution via the Schrödinger equation.[6] The detected
 > wave function is a vector projection of the initial wave function.
 > Projection is a non-invertible operation. The initial wave function
 > is thus in a superposition of several eigenstates, only one of which
 > is actually finally detected. Measurement in quantum mechanics
 > connects the wave function with classical quantities such as position
 > and momentum.
 >
 > In 1927, Werner Heisenberg used the idea of wave function reduction
 > to explain quantum measurement.[2] A physical process of measurement
 > can be described in two distinct ways. In the first way it can be
 > described as occurring in an isolated system, described by a single
 > quantum state that remains coherent and obeys the Schrödinger
 > equation throughout the process. There is no reduction of the wave
 > function in this description. It does not exhibit a definite result,
 > because the Schrödinger equation describes only the unbroken and
 > reversible evolution of probabilities. In the second way the process
 > can be described as a transient interaction between a measured system
 > and a measuring system, macroscopically and quantally distinct, and
 > mutually incoherent. This description is the one that exhibits
 > reduction of the wave function. Each of the systems respectively has
 > two wave functions, one before, and one after, the interaction. The
 > actual course of the interaction is not described by wave functions
 > with a Schrödinger equation. This second way allows exhibition of a
 > definite observational outcome. But that outcome is not predictable,
 > being accounted for only by probabilities encoded in the wave
 > functions. The unpredictability is the price necessarily paid for the
 > definiteness. The definiteness of observational outcome is the
 > physical result of an apparently irreversible amplification in the
 > observing detector. The appearance of irreversibility in the second
 > description is due to incoherence between the several macroscopic
 > devices of the experiment, in contrast with the coherence of the
 > first description. In practice, the definiteness of an outcome is not
 > absolute, because quantum detectors in general have background noise
 > (for example, dark current) and less than perfect detection
 > efficiency.
 >
 > Modern calculations of quantum decoherence describe the process in
 > terms of the combined wave function of the observed and observing
 > systems that continues to obey the Schrödinger equation, accounting
 > precisely for the appearance of irreversibility.[8]

-- 

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Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-26 13:37 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "nuny@bid.nes" <Alien8752@gmail.com> - 2016-04-26 16:18 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-27 07:38 -0600
    Re: The milk was obviously spoiled (or not) for some time. Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-05-01 13:58 -0700
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-27 07:28 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Sam Wormley <swormley1@gmail.com> - 2016-04-27 11:48 -0500
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment benj <nobodyxx@gmail> - 2016-04-27 16:56 -0400
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Timo <timo@physics.uq.edu.au> - 2016-04-28 14:31 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-29 08:18 -0600
      Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Timo <timo@physics.uq.edu.au> - 2016-04-29 21:26 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Mike Fontenot <mlfasf@comcast.net> - 2016-04-30 08:00 -0600
  Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 12:56 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "hanson" <hanson@quick.net> - 2016-04-29 13:02 -0700
    Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-04-29 13:59 -0700
      Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "reber g=emc^2" <herbertglazier0@gmail.com> - 2016-04-29 14:27 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment "hanson" <hanson@quick.net> - 2016-04-29 18:30 -0700
        Re: Improved Schrodinger's Cat Experiment Double-A <double-a3@hush.com> - 2016-05-01 14:03 -0700

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