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To: dr_lew
With the cat hidden in the box, QM only predicts the probability of what we will find when we open it.

This is certainly a different interpretation than was adopted at Copenhagen. What the Germans said was that the cat is neither alive nor dead until we make an observation of it. Schroedinger's equation allows us to calculate the probability of what we'll find when we make the observation.

80 posted on 09/15/2006 9:17:59 PM PDT by <1/1,000,000th%
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To: <1/1,000,000th%

I'm giving special heed to Bohr's remarks. Wikipedia notes that one can speak of the "collpase", or simply say that the theory makes predictions without granting any kind of physical reality to wavefunctions ( or propagators. )

"Niels Bohr emphasized that it is only the results of the experiments that should be predicted, and therefore the additional questions are not scientific but rather philosophical."

Taking this lead, I've always seen the CI as the "bare bones" interpretation, which contents itself with the predictions made using the theory. Bohr emphasized that we are constrained to speak and understand in everyday terms, and the theory itself is part of our everyday experience of pencils and paper and apparatus.

Even allowing that the condition of the cat is "undefined", we can take this to mean it is undefined by the theory, which is plain to see since its predictions are probabilistic. To put any more into it is mere mystification, as I see it, and I believe I'm following Bohr in this.


... and yet! ... and yet! One can never be very happy with this view, can one? The mystery of QM is ineluctable.


84 posted on 09/15/2006 9:59:47 PM PDT by dr_lew
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