How the fuck can an osberver change the outcome of an experiment? I still can't wrap my mind about this.
Also does the wave function of a quantum particle represent something phyisical or is it just the mathematical model used to describe the "superposition" the quantum is in until it is measured?
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>How the fuck can an osberver change the outcome of an experiment? I still can't wrap my mind about this.
He can't.
>Also does the wave function of a quantum particle represent something phyisical or is it just the mathematical model used to describe the "superposition" the quantum is in until it is measured?
It's a mathematical model
>he can't
so why does the wave function collapse when the particles are observed?
The concept of the electron being a particle is the product of a photon or other particle interacting with the superposition (represented by a wave function). Therefore, to an observer, the electron will always appear to be a particle. This is the observer effect. You see, the observer does not alter the system in any way, but it is the process of taking a measurement that makes the electron appear as a particle. The mathematical term for this is "wave function collapse".
You're right, the wave function is just our best mathematical model of the superposition, and you were right to put it in quotation marks because we have almost no idea what a superposition really is.
Honestly, quantum mechanics is just the science of human ignorance. It is a formalism made to describe that which cannot be observed.
Something being observed means two or more things interacted.
How would an interaction not cause a different outcome from no interaction?
Are you talking about the Hawthorne effect? In which human behavior is being subjected to experimentation?
Why does the probability collapse when the coin is landed or poker-hand is revealed?
I think the reason there is so much confusion is because of how the experiment is presented. I think it is explained badly on purpose to avoid having to explain very complicated and ambiguous results.
Someone posted a great video recently. I can't find it though...
You might want to look up some videos on "quantum eraser and observer".
>How the fuck can an osberver change the outcome of an experiment?
Because to observe something is to interact with it, and interaction always affects both sides.
>Also does the wave function of a quantum particle represent something phyisical
Yes, it does.
>a fucking complex fuction
No. It doesn't represent anything physical.
Ah, I found the video OP. An user posted this, and I thought it was one of the better explanations:
Thanks user
It's not the observer that collapses it, it's the act of observing, i.e. measuring that does.
Measurement is a physical action.
Then why do the complex phases affect the outcomes?
because they affect the Amplitude
Which affects the outcome
>complex numbers aren't "real"
He's the observer. He's observing. He wouldn't be the observer if he wasn't ... observing.
full_retard the post.
Uncertainty principle is just wave train product, spread in x times spread in wave number along x is greater than or equal to unity.
Now use debroglie lambda is h over p. plug in.
Wave function collapse is a trope for the ignorant, since it is still waves just an infinite number of them, integral form of Dirac delta function
true, complex numbers aren't real numbers
Can't think by yourself?
>muh quantum mechanics should be a mystery
Truth is that it is not
Observing implies entanglement that "leaks" the quantum information which causes what we percieve as wave function collapse
The worrying thing is that this news is probably over 30 years old by now
This is cool for position wavefunctions but you can't really use this explanation for spin superpositions collapsing e.g. Stern Gerlach
>How the fuck can an osberver change the outcome of an experiment? I still can't wrap my mind about this.
Because really nobody knows. We don't know where the quantum system starts to reduce. But traditional (Copenhagen) interpretation is to simply don't give a fuck about it.
Eventually we will find the answer in the Fibonacci number
nice bait
No really, I had seen somewhere that Jacob Barnett has connected quantum entanglement with the collapse of the wavefunction and the connecting link was phi. Something like that, but I can't find the video right now.