What? I’m looking for a specific experimental condition where collapse happens and where it doesn’t.
Wikipedia seems to indicate that the answer is that we don’t know when or if collapse happens. This is interesting, because when I was taught quantum mechanics, the notion seemed to be “of course it happens.… when we observe it… now back to Hilbert spaces” which rather soured me on the enterprise. I don’t mind Hilbert spaces by the way, I just want to know how they relate to experiment. So is wikipedia right?
“It doesn’t” is a decidedly possible interpretation of the data. It’s called the Many Worlds Interpretation, and is the interpretation advocated by the Less Wrong sequence on QM. Have you read that sequence?
Wikipedia seems to indicate that the answer is that we don’t know when or if collapse happens. This is interesting, because when I was taught quantum mechanics, the notion seemed to be “of course it happens.… when we observe it… now back to Hilbert spaces” which rather soured me on the enterprise. I don’t mind Hilbert spaces by the way, I just want to know how they relate to experiment. So is wikipedia right?
“It doesn’t” is a decidedly possible interpretation of the data. It’s called the Many Worlds Interpretation, and is the interpretation advocated by the Less Wrong sequence on QM. Have you read that sequence?
No. I’ve been thrown off by the terminology “many worlds” and nonsense I’ve heard elsewhere (see below). Hope to give the sequence a fair shot soon.