Interesting. That has a nice symmetry, that to intercept light you need to move a charge in your eye that counters the original wave.
What I was referring to particularly was the quantum mechanical aspect: the wave propagates from the source in three dimensions—an expanding sphere of information. Yet as soon as your eye detects the light, the entire wave collapses into a particle. And this is instantaneous, with no delay.
Yet as soon as your eye detects the light, the entire wave collapses into a particle. And this is instantaneous, with no delay.
Well, that is one of the many reasons that points to Many Worlds being superior to Collapse theories.
But if we are talking about light you see with your eye, that actually registers in your brain, there is way more than one photon emitted, and classical electromagnetic theory is a good enough approximation. Photons are roughly a discrete unit of amplitude of the light wave. For a high enough amplitude wave, you can ignore that it is discrete.
Many Worlds made sense to me as a solution when I considered the case of an apparently random choice. Instead of the world collapsing on an arbitrary choice, each world gets one choice. In the case of interaction with a propagating wave of light, though, I don’t see how it would work. Perhaps something is incorrect with my fledgling model of light.
Let’s consider a single photon. That would still propagate as a spherical wave from the source. The wave expands uniformly from the source and I suppose that according to a classical theory (?), that wave could be perceived simultaneously by different people in different places around the source. Even if I interact with the wave by moving an electron that approximately cancels that wave, then my cancellation would propagate only at the speed of light, not instantaneously.
I suppose that according to a classical theory (?), that wave could be perceived simultaneously by different people in different places around the source.
That is indeed what the classical theory says. It is wrong. This is where the assumption that domain of the amplitude is continuous is a bad approximation.
So how would Many Worlds work in this case?
Quantum amplitude flows into separate configurations. For each detector, there is a configuration such that that detector was the only one to detect the photons. There are also configurations where no detector detected it. So, if in some configuration, a detector detects the photon, and goes to check on another detector, it will find that the other detector has not detected the photon, not because some instantaneous space spanning signal collapsed the wave function, but because in that configuration the photon did not go that way.
I see, so the photon left the source as a particle and the wave picture represents the idea that the particle could have been anywhere, until you know which world you’re in.
But the mechanical-model-that-made-me-so-happy was that the photon was actually just the electromagnetic field trying to update. The electromagnetic field would have to update isotropically … it couldn’t just update along the route to a given detector.
Well, there is a similar mechanical model to the evolution of the Schrodinger wave function, which is to particles (including photons) as the electric and magnetic fields are to light in the classical model. This wave function is fundamental, the particles, and the configurations, or “worlds” are derived consequences.
What I was referring to particularly was the quantum mechanical aspect: the wave propagates from the source in three dimensions—an expanding sphere of information. Yet as soon as your eye detects the light, the entire wave collapses into a particle. And this is instantaneous, with no delay.
Well, it you believe in a collapse postulate. Which I don’t think many people around here do.
You know, I didn’t even know that was the same thing as the collapse postulate. So when people talk about the ‘collapse of the wave function’, they’re talking about—for example—the perception of light. OK, sure, that makes sense.
Interesting. That has a nice symmetry, that to intercept light you need to move a charge in your eye that counters the original wave.
What I was referring to particularly was the quantum mechanical aspect: the wave propagates from the source in three dimensions—an expanding sphere of information. Yet as soon as your eye detects the light, the entire wave collapses into a particle. And this is instantaneous, with no delay.
But that’s QM, outside my pay grade.
Well, that is one of the many reasons that points to Many Worlds being superior to Collapse theories.
But if we are talking about light you see with your eye, that actually registers in your brain, there is way more than one photon emitted, and classical electromagnetic theory is a good enough approximation. Photons are roughly a discrete unit of amplitude of the light wave. For a high enough amplitude wave, you can ignore that it is discrete.
Many Worlds made sense to me as a solution when I considered the case of an apparently random choice. Instead of the world collapsing on an arbitrary choice, each world gets one choice. In the case of interaction with a propagating wave of light, though, I don’t see how it would work. Perhaps something is incorrect with my fledgling model of light.
Let’s consider a single photon. That would still propagate as a spherical wave from the source. The wave expands uniformly from the source and I suppose that according to a classical theory (?), that wave could be perceived simultaneously by different people in different places around the source. Even if I interact with the wave by moving an electron that approximately cancels that wave, then my cancellation would propagate only at the speed of light, not instantaneously.
So how would Many Worlds work in this case?
That is indeed what the classical theory says. It is wrong. This is where the assumption that domain of the amplitude is continuous is a bad approximation.
Quantum amplitude flows into separate configurations. For each detector, there is a configuration such that that detector was the only one to detect the photons. There are also configurations where no detector detected it. So, if in some configuration, a detector detects the photon, and goes to check on another detector, it will find that the other detector has not detected the photon, not because some instantaneous space spanning signal collapsed the wave function, but because in that configuration the photon did not go that way.
I see, so the photon left the source as a particle and the wave picture represents the idea that the particle could have been anywhere, until you know which world you’re in.
But the mechanical-model-that-made-me-so-happy was that the photon was actually just the electromagnetic field trying to update. The electromagnetic field would have to update isotropically … it couldn’t just update along the route to a given detector.
Well, there is a similar mechanical model to the evolution of the Schrodinger wave function, which is to particles (including photons) as the electric and magnetic fields are to light in the classical model. This wave function is fundamental, the particles, and the configurations, or “worlds” are derived consequences.
Well, it you believe in a collapse postulate. Which I don’t think many people around here do.
You know, I didn’t even know that was the same thing as the collapse postulate. So when people talk about the ‘collapse of the wave function’, they’re talking about—for example—the perception of light. OK, sure, that makes sense.
So our solution to that was Many Worlds…