The math works the same in all interpretations, but some experiments are difficult to understand intuitively without the MWI. I usually give people the example of the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester where the easy MWI explanation says “we know the bomb works because it exploded in another world”, but other interpretations must resort to clever intellectual gymnastics.
If all interpretations are equivalent with respect to testable outcomes, what makes the belief in any particular interpretation so important? Ease of intuitive understanding is a dangerous criterion to rely on, and a relative thing too. Some people are more ready to accept mental gymnastic than existence of another worlds.
Well, that depends. Have you actually tried to do the mental gymnastics and explain the linked experiment using the Copenhagen interpretation? I suspect that going through with that may influence your final opinion.
Have you actually tried to do the mental gymnastics and explain the linked experiment [the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester] using the Copenhagen interpretation?
Maybe I’m missing something, but how exactly does this experiment challenge the Copenhagen interpretation more than the standard double-slit stuff? Copenhagen treats “measurement” as a fundamental and irreducible process and measurement devices as special components in each experiment—and in this case it simply says that a dud bomb doesn’t represent a measurement device, whereas a functioning one does, so that they interact with the photon wavefunction differently. The former leaves it unchanged, while the latter collapses it to one arm of the interferometer—eiher its own, in which case it explodes, or the other one, in which case it reveals itself as a measurement device just by the act of collapsing.
As far as I understand, this would be similar to the standard variations on the double-slit experiment where one destroys the interference pattern by placing a particle detector at the exit from one of the holes. One could presumably do a similar experiment with a detector that might be faulty, and conclude that an interference-destroying detector works even if it doesn’t flash when several particles are let through (in cases where they all happen to go through the other hole). Unless I’m misunderstanding something, this would be a close equivalent of the bomb test.
The final conclusion in the bomb test is surely more spectacular, but I don’t see how it produces any extra confusion for Copenhageners compared to the most basic QM experiments.
Frankly, I don’t know what you consider an explanation here. I am quite comfortable with the prediction which the theory gives, and accept that as an explanation. So I never needed mental gymnastics here. The experiment is weird, but it doesn’t seem to me less weird by saying that the information about the bomb’s functionality came from its explosion in the other world.
The math works the same in all interpretations, but some experiments are difficult to understand intuitively without the MWI. I usually give people the example of the Elitzur-Vaidman bomb tester where the easy MWI explanation says “we know the bomb works because it exploded in another world”, but other interpretations must resort to clever intellectual gymnastics.
If all interpretations are equivalent with respect to testable outcomes, what makes the belief in any particular interpretation so important? Ease of intuitive understanding is a dangerous criterion to rely on, and a relative thing too. Some people are more ready to accept mental gymnastic than existence of another worlds.
Well, that depends. Have you actually tried to do the mental gymnastics and explain the linked experiment using the Copenhagen interpretation? I suspect that going through with that may influence your final opinion.
cousin_it:
Maybe I’m missing something, but how exactly does this experiment challenge the Copenhagen interpretation more than the standard double-slit stuff? Copenhagen treats “measurement” as a fundamental and irreducible process and measurement devices as special components in each experiment—and in this case it simply says that a dud bomb doesn’t represent a measurement device, whereas a functioning one does, so that they interact with the photon wavefunction differently. The former leaves it unchanged, while the latter collapses it to one arm of the interferometer—eiher its own, in which case it explodes, or the other one, in which case it reveals itself as a measurement device just by the act of collapsing.
As far as I understand, this would be similar to the standard variations on the double-slit experiment where one destroys the interference pattern by placing a particle detector at the exit from one of the holes. One could presumably do a similar experiment with a detector that might be faulty, and conclude that an interference-destroying detector works even if it doesn’t flash when several particles are let through (in cases where they all happen to go through the other hole). Unless I’m misunderstanding something, this would be a close equivalent of the bomb test.
The final conclusion in the bomb test is surely more spectacular, but I don’t see how it produces any extra confusion for Copenhageners compared to the most basic QM experiments.
Frankly, I don’t know what you consider an explanation here. I am quite comfortable with the prediction which the theory gives, and accept that as an explanation. So I never needed mental gymnastics here. The experiment is weird, but it doesn’t seem to me less weird by saying that the information about the bomb’s functionality came from its explosion in the other world.
Fair enough.