Schrödinger's Cat

[daz]

D'OH! unlucky mate :/

I should have paid more attention to the other areas, namely the quantum harmonic oscillator.

 

[Amleto]

The SoL comment doesn't offer any answer or explaination for the issue though... You offered the SoL thing as a reason why it happens, but it's not....

But yeah, did I ever mention I hate all this stuff.... *grumbles about quantum chemistry*

deeply hidden in my comment was meant to be found:

things can go faster than SoL, but not information
analgous to
you can observe particles and not affect them, as long as you don't do anything (net) with the information

very bad wording on my part although I did only say 'it is inline in with...' ie it's consistent with - not an explanation

 

[MrMatteh]

An electon is an elementary particle, if it can indeed be called a particle? too put it into perspective, we still dont actually know what charge is either!

An Electron, whatever that is....

 

[Kol]

too put it into perspective, we still dont actually know what charge is either!

I thought by the very definition, an electron [size=-1]is a negatively charged elementary particle[/size]. However, you're right in that it's indivisble. That's as much as I can add. I only know about it in terms of what I learnt in chemistry, not physics, so I may be clearly wrong.

There is a lot more to this than I imagined. I read wikipedia then OCdt post... I prefer to think of it in terms of his post, much simpler for me to understand that way, rather than get into the nitty gritty

 

[aardvark]

its the fact that observing the system causes the electron to behave in a different way and that the wavefunction collapses when observed - i don't really understand that part of quantum mechanics and how that is explainable

nevermind, i remembered why this happens

i've forgotten so much about quantum mechanics it was so long ago.

 

[Errol]

Quantum mechanics.

 

[Amleto]

Quantum mechanics.

ahhh, you must have read the whole thread!

edit: was that just so you could hit 1k posts?!

 

[penski]

Now, the uncertainty principle states that if we measure an electons position, we destroy the motion, and if we know its momentum at any time, we have no idea where it is. So if we observe the electron, completely change its state.

Cheers, dude - This thread exploded after my first post; that was the point of it.

*n

 

[Runbalk]

So... anyone think it would be possible to observe things at the quantum level without affecting what we would be seeing?

Because I was thinking earlier: It's sort of like trying to observe the past without affecting it. For example if we tried to go back in time (assume we can) and observe things, it would be pointless as we would then be a part of what we were seeing. But what about when we look at footage of the past? Doesn't that count as observing the past without affecting it?

In a similar way would it not be possible to do something that could allow us the observe the quantum world without affecting it?

 

[malfunkshun]

I always thought Schroedingers cat was an attempt to illustrate that quantumn mechanics can never be accurate until we can accept that the cat be dead and alive at the same time. Isnt the main point in this excersise to show that prior to being dead or alive, the cat was neither, or both, and as such we impose a state upon it by our observation.

 

[daz]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heisenberg_Uncertainty_Principle

Should be enough to keep most people going ^

 

[hendrix]

I learned the particle in a 3D box scenario inside out, but it didn't come up on my quantum mechanics exam.

I hate that about exams. I spent weeks revising the "more common" topics for the Electromagnetism, Waves + oscillations, Thermodynamics exam I had in May. Thinking that they wouldn't give us the really complicated questions because the module was so big. Of course they did though, didn't they.

Next year that module has been split into two seperate ones