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Wouldnt wave function collapse allow for instant information transfer?

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HuronKing:
Thanks for your reply! I think we are mostly on the same page but I have a few comments I'd like to make.


--- Quote from: RoGeorge on May 21, 2024, 05:03:27 am ---...In the real universe, however, everything seem to be bounded in a way or another.  Infinite is not real.
--- End quote ---

That's not what infinity means in integration mathematically - nor is that how it's applied to physical problems.

In fact, this statement is actually nonsensical and easily disproved with a counterexample.

Can I not, as the 3rd video above shows, put a particle onto a circular path? Can I not roll that particle around the circular path in either direction, forever? That is, the possible number of rotations of the particle ARE unbounded because it is free to travel around the path once, twice, thrice.... up to infinite number of times, in either direction (clockwise or counterclockwise around the loop).

Yea. you might say "well the ball can't roll in a circle forever because the universe might actually end...* but that doesn't accurately describe the system of the ball. A function whose domain is negative infinity to positive infinity describes *everything* the ball could ever do. It's not that mysterious or universe-breaking.


--- Quote ---That is why we always have to check if math results make sense, then have to validate them experimentally.
--- End quote ---

Absolutely - and that's what's wonderful about the mathematics of quantum mechanics is that it yields very testable predictions and in many cases led directly to the discovery of entirely new phenomena (the existence of positrons is something that just "fell out" out of Dirac's equations because solutions in the complex plane can have two solutions).


--- Quote ---The puzzling property to me is not entanglement, but quantization.  Why something that is very small can only exist as a certain "chunk", called quanta?  This is a property that seems to be present in everything from the physical world, as long as it is very small.  I suspect it is related with the fact that infinity can not exist in the physical world.
--- End quote ---

You should watch the 3rd video I posted. It's actually *because* of infinity that matter must be quantized because the wave number has to be a whole positive integer to encompass every possible period of the function over the whole domain. The specific timestamp where this starts to be explained is here:
https://youtu.be/W8QZ-yxebFA?si=3giGjzlnnhNCs6A-&t=648



--- Quote ---[Feynman] was kind of a jerk in real life.  Smart, yes, but arrogant even for his times, and unpleasant to work with.  Not my opinion, only repeating what I've seen on camera, what were saying other physicists that worked directly with Feynman.  He was not exactly the nice and charismatic character, as pictured in the YT interviews with Feynman talking about the beauty of a flower.
--- End quote ---

Hah, yea, I'm not suggesting Feynman was a particularly pleasant person by remarking on him - nor am I giving him sole credit for his contributions as obviously he shared the Nobel Prize for Path Integral Formulation.

All I mean to say is that my insight to this came from listening to him get annoyed with a student and emphasize that we have a world of particles whose behavior is probabilistic because you can't know their states to arbitrary precision (because of Fourier).

I personally don't like the term "wave-particle duality." I think it does more to confuse students than help them understand what is going on. Maybe it helps other people and that's great! But in my experience helping engineering students with this - they spend so much time slogging through Fourier stuff for signal processing, that it's amazing how quickly they grasp the 'obviousness' of quantum mechanics at more than an academic level - you start to see why quantum mechanics is the more fundamental law of nature. I like this video which explains why F = ma is a consequence of quantum mechanics:



Is light a particle or a wave? It's a particle - whose position and momentum is not determinant but probabilistic.

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