| Pete Dashwood 2005-08-12, 3:59 am |
|
"Oliver Wong" <owong@castortech.com> wrote in message
news:CZJKe.216325$on1.123069@clgrps13...
>
> "Pete Dashwood" <dashwood@enternet.co.nz> wrote in message
> news:3m0v5kF14ua6bU1@individual.net...
>
> It doesn't *always* collapse into the most likely possibility; that's
> just what happens most of the time (by definition of "most likely
> possibility").
OK, I agree the above should be amended to:
"When the box is opened the probability wave USUALLY "collapses" into the
most likely possibility, and the cat
is found to be alive or dead."
A small but important point.
> It's conceivable (though highly improbable) that all of the mass (or
> matter) in the cat had spontaneously converted into energy. The law of
> "conservation of mass" was eventually replaced with the law of
> "conservation of energy and mass", which was later shortened to the law of
> "conservation of energy" when the equivalence of mass and energy (e=mc^2)
> was shown.
>
> But it turns out that the conservation of energy isn't nescessarily
> true for extremely short time scales (10^-43 seconds).
>
Certainly particles can 'borrow' energy from virtuality while the 'universe
isn't looking', but these borrowings must be repaid, and usually within the
very short time scales you mentioned. (I suspect you have been studying
electron tunnelling, right :-)?)Some people believe this is why there is
such frenetic activity ('quantum foam') on the Planck length horizon as
particles and energy pop in and out of reality.
I'm not writing a treatise here on Quantum Theory, Oliver. Just providing
enough information for people to assimilate easily and think about, so that
these ideas can be included in a primarily 'philosophical' discussion.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_law
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy
> http://www.physlink.com/Education/AskExperts/ae281.cfm
>
I thought your links were excellent and I read them all. Thanks.
Pete.
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