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From: torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Does the moon exist?
Message-ID: <559@umich.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Mar-86 23:25:53 EST
Article-I.D.: umich.559
Posted: Sun Mar 30 23:25:53 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Apr-86 08:18:53 EST
References: <12628@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <1483@mhuxt.UUCP> <12773@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: torek@umich.UUCP (Paul V. Torek )
Organization: University of Michigan, EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 24

In article <12773@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> David desJardins writes:
>In article <1483@mhuxt.UUCP> js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) writes:
>>     Could someone who thinks they understand this stuff translate for us
>>laymen?  In particular: this wave-function which collapses is merely a 
>>measure of our ignorance of the true state of the system, right? 
>>Schroedinger's cat will continue to live or continue to rot in the box, even
>>if we delay our observation for a day or two, right?
>
>   Well, quantum mechanics is *far* more than "quantified ignorance."
>That said, I believe (but am not sure) that it *is* possible (although not
>usual) to do QM from this point of view (and get the right answers).

But can't an uncollapsed wave function can interfere with itself in ways
that a measure of ignorance cannot (so I've heard, cf. the famous two-slit
type experiments)?

>   I understand EPR has been previously discussed on the net, so I am
>going to give only a brief summary.

EPR (or rather, a particularly dramatic version of it -- the Bell inequality)
is discussed at length in an article by Bernard d'Espagnat in _Scientific
American_ Nov 1979.

--Paul Torek							torek@umich