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To: betty boop
That zucchini business got my attention.

Never in the annals of science has a vegetable been used to such effect with such economy.

Actually, I'm not sure what you mean by saying it got your attention. All that I meant by it was that the "thing that collapses the wave function" has to have A name, for the sake of convenience. I really doesn't matter what we call it, as long as we all agree on the same name; even "zucchini" would work....

But I admit, "observer" is much more conventional...

3,567 posted on 01/07/2003 5:01:39 PM PST by longshadow
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To: longshadow; betty boop
But I admit, "observer" is much more conventional...

But when a dust mote absorbs a photon, did the mote "see" the photon or did the photon "see" the dust mote? In optics, you can find either usage. The difference depends on whether the speaker is imagining he is the dust mote trying to intercept a photon or a photon looking for a dust mote.

3,569 posted on 01/07/2003 5:13:25 PM PST by VadeRetro (Faster than a speeding building; able to leap tall bullets in a single bound)
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