Show that coherence is simple but inadequate, and decoherence is adequate but not simple
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Shrodingers cat. Cat is in a superposition of alive and dead. Scientist opens box. Scientist is in superposition of feeding live cat and burying dead cat.
The two problems with this account are 1) “alive” and “dead” are classical states—a classical basis is assumed. and 2) the two states of the observer are assumed to be non-interacting and unaware of each other. But quantum mechanics itself gives no reason to suppose that will be the case. In both cases, it needs to be shown, and not just assumed that normality—perceptions “as if” of a single classical world by all observers—is restored.
So it’s undetectable unless you can rearrange a whole cat to atomic precision.
So you can’t have coherent superpositions of macroscopic objects. So you need decoherence. And you need it to be simple, so that it is still a “slam dunk”.
Basically, blobs of amplitude need to run into each other to interact.
How narrow a quantum state is depends, like everything, on the choice of basis. What is sharply peaked in position space is spread out in frequency/momentum space.
Interaction with the environment is a straightforward application of schrodingers equation.
No it isn’t. That’s why people are still publishing papers on it.
Show that coherence is simple but inadequate, and decoherence is adequate but not simple .
The two problems with this account are 1) “alive” and “dead” are classical states—a classical basis is assumed. and 2) the two states of the observer are assumed to be non-interacting and unaware of each other. But quantum mechanics itself gives no reason to suppose that will be the case. In both cases, it needs to be shown, and not just assumed that normality—perceptions “as if” of a single classical world by all observers—is restored.
So you can’t have coherent superpositions of macroscopic objects. So you need decoherence. And you need it to be simple, so that it is still a “slam dunk”.
How narrow a quantum state is depends, like everything, on the choice of basis. What is sharply peaked in position space is spread out in frequency/momentum space.
No it isn’t. That’s why people are still publishing papers on it.