Re: QM Measurement Problem

Hello Martin:

You are not at liberty to ignore the issue of complementarity as it is
central to understanding the uncertainty princple.

The physics of the uncertainty principle applies to physical systems.
A vanishingly small number of these observations are observed by
physicists. Whether we look at the position and momentum or not is
not relevant - the uncertainty principle governs the relationship
between all conjugate variables.

The uncertainty principle arises from the properties of complex
numbers, which unlike the real numbers, is not a totally ordered set.
I was lucky enough to attend a quantum mechanics class where the
professor showed that the equation of the uncertainty principle can be
derived from properties of complex numbers. The lecture made quite an
impression on me. I recreated his talk, but applied it to quaternions
which are 3 complex numbers that share the same real, here:

http://www.theworld.com/~sweetser/quaternions/quantum/uncertainty/uncertainty.html

The notes should make clear: the product of the variation of the
measurements of two conjugate variables being greater than their
commutator has nothing to do with amplifying a small uncertainty into
a large one. I do encourage people to take guesses at new
interpretations, and hope they accept that the odds those ideas are
correct are vanishingly small.


How can we quantify the uncertainty?
To what system does it apply?

Look up the equation and apply to all conjugate variables.

As an aside, I avoid all discussions of the cat and work with the
details of the equations. The web page referenced above has an
impolite number of equations, but that is the way real physics is
versus pop physics. The equations are concise, but the word stories
are muddled.

Doug

.

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