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From: thomasmc@netcom.com (Tom McFarlane)
Subject: Re: Collapse of wave function occurs once only
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Date: Fri, 30 Dec 1994 02:05:15 GMT
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christopher weare (weare@galaxy.ucr.edu) wrote:
: Just a reminder.  The collapse of a wave function is not caused by
: observation, but by the POTENTIAL for observation.  i.e. an interaction
: with said system and  some perturbation.  There is nothing mystical.

: So it is no suprise that the QM nature gets washed out in our
: macroscopicworld.  SOOOOOOOO, enough with the stupid cat and colapsing
: wave functions : already! :-)

Ah...if only it were so simple.  The collapse of the wave function is 
still a mystery.  That is why physicists are still working on a 
resolution to the quantum measurement problem.  The fact is, no 
experiment has shown exactly how or when or where collapse takes place.  
Hence all the different interpretations of quantum mechanics.  Remember, 
some of the best physicists are of the view that the collapse doesn't 
happen at all!  Indeed, in our macroscopic world the quantum 
correllations get "washed out", but not completely.  The bottom line is 
that collapse is a non-unitary transformation, and the schrodinger 
equation only allows unitary transformations, so there is no lawful 
explanation for collapse.

Tom McFarlane
