Copenhagen Interpretation

[Copenhagen]

Hi

I'm no scientist, just a natural philosopher who has had a nose around Wikipedia's entry on the Copenhage Interpretation and thinks he's come up with a solution to the quantum theory problem that wave functions collapse when observed.

What I'd like to propose is that wave functions do not collapse when observed, but that it is the event of their collapse (or change of state) (through interacting with a photon (or whatever)) makes the collapsed state observable.

After all this is what happens in the 'real' world. We don't really see things, we see things after they have been excited by photons and changed their state. We observe the release of energy. Turn off the light and things are not visible.

If someone has proposed this before, then that's fine, but I can't find any evidence of it. If they have then why is it not a realistic solution, or why is it not on Wikipedia?

As far as I can see this means that there is no need for the Copenhagen interpretation, plus it explains why we don't see dark matter. It doesn't change its state.

In fact I'd go further and propose this as Ansell's Law: Nothing can be observed unless there has been a change of state with a release of energy from another thing to create the thing that is observed.

Please celebrate my different thinking or shoot me down in flames.

 

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by Copenhagen
Detail

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Copenhagen said:

just a natural philosopher

What is one of these please?

 

You seem to be offering a circular word argument without any mathematics.

Do you not think the fault lies in inadequate (use of) mathematics?

Edited January 15, 2018 by studiot

[Copenhagen]

A natural philosopher is someone who thinks about physics with insufficient mathematical knowledge to know whether their theories are provable or not.

I didn't think I was offfering a circular word argument. I was changing the order of things. Change happening due to observation indicates the observation came first, observation being possible due to change implies the change occurs first. Of course I don't have the maths for this, I didn't realise it was necessary, but maybe you could help me out and explain if this is wrong.

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Copenhagen said:

A natural philosopher is someone who thinks about physics with insufficient mathematical knowledge to know whether their theories are provable or not.

I didn't think I was offfering a circular word argument. I was changing the order of things. Change happening due to observation indicates the observation came first, observation being possible due to change implies the change occurs first. Of course I don't have the maths for this, I didn't realise it was necessary, but maybe you could help me out and explain if this is wrong.

Thank you for your honest reply. I was not, in fact, suggesting the need for lots of mathematics in the discussion, though some could help.

 

I think hardly anyone, certainly not the authors themselves, would think of have thought the Copenhagen interpretation to be (wholly) satisfactory.

So a good place to start would be to say why it is not satisfactory, rather than to simply contradict it.

In particular it does not provide specific answers to certain specific questions about observed reality or experience.

(It is difficult to hold a discussion about this subject without using loaded words).

 

My comments on the mathematics refers to my thoughts that it is possible to write down some mathematics that bears no relation to Physics.

Physics is also somewhat cavalier in its use of Mathematics relying on results that are actually unfounded in the use of that Mathematics, becuase it ''works' (ie it gets the right or observed answer). This approach has been dubbed the 'shut up and calculate' approach and was prevalent for the last 3/4 of the twentieth century.

 

Edited January 15, 2018 by studiot

[DanMP]

On 15.01.2018 at 10:57 PM, Copenhagen said:

What I'd like to propose is that wave functions do not collapse when observed, but that it is the event of their collapse (or change of state) (through interacting with a photon (or whatever)) makes the collapsed state observable.

After all this is what happens in the 'real' world. We don't really see things, we see things after they have been excited by photons and changed their state. We observe the release of energy. Turn off the light and things are not visible.

I like your way of thinking   (although an object that emits light does not require an external excitation to be seen ...), but I'm not sure that your assertion is really different from the Copenhagen interpretation. The "photon (or whatever)" may originate from the equipment/setup we use in order to observe ...

[swansont]

On 1/15/2018 at 3:57 PM, Copenhagen said:

 Nothing can be observed unless there has been a change of state with a release of energy from another thing to create the thing that is observed.

Not all detections involve a wave function collapse, nor is the release of energy required. I can detect atoms by a reduction in light as they absorb photons, instead of detecting the photons that are released.