baron von lotsov
26-11-2007, 06:57 PM
If you ever come across someone who is pissed in a pub and talks a load of stuff that you can't make head or tail of then chances are they are referring to the Copenhagen Interpretation of the subject under debate.
So to find out more we need to find out what the Copenhagen Interpretation is. This is where matters get complicated.
Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Early twentieth century studies of the physics of very small-scale phenomena led the Copenhagen interpretation. The new experiments led to the discovery of phenomena that could not be predicted on the basis of classical physics, and to new empirical generalizations (theories) that described and predicted very accurately those micro-scale phenomena so recently discovered. These generalizations, these models of the real world being observed at this micro scale, could not easily be squared with the way objects are observed to behave on the macro scale of everyday life. The predictions they offered often appeared counter-intuitive to observers. Indeed, they touched off much consternation -- even in the minds of their discoverers. "What can we make of these uncanny experimental results?" The Copenhagen interpretation consists of attempts to explain the experiments and their mathematical formulations in ways that do not go beyond the evidence to suggest more (or less) than is actually there.
Right I got that but what is it?
The work of relating the remarkable experiments and the abstract mathematical and theoretical formulations that constitute quantum physics to the experience that all of us share in the world of everyday life fell first to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.
Now as you might know Heisenberg invented the uncertainty principle that stated you could not observe two parameters like say position and momentum to any degree of accuracy. There will always be a fundimental uncertainty. The more you pin down its position the less certain you are about its momentum.
So back to this interpretation that is to help you interpret this strangeness.
There is no definitive statement of the Copenhagen Interpretation
There are some who say that there are objective variants of the Copenhagen Interpretation that allow for a "real" wave function, but it is questionable whether that view is really consistent with positivism and/or with some of Bohr's statements
An example of the agnostic view is given by von Weiszacker, who, while participating in a colloquium at Cambridge, denied that the Copenhagen interpretation asserted: "What cannot be observed does not exist". He suggested instead that the Copenhagen interpretation follows the principle: "What is observed certainly exists; about what is not observed we are still free to make suitable assumptions. We use that freedom to avoid paradoxes."[5]
And on and on it goes. Indeed the explanation of this confusion and uncertainty is just as uncertain as what it tries to explain. This shit keeps physists in jobs!
So to find out more we need to find out what the Copenhagen Interpretation is. This is where matters get complicated.
Copenhagen interpretation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Early twentieth century studies of the physics of very small-scale phenomena led the Copenhagen interpretation. The new experiments led to the discovery of phenomena that could not be predicted on the basis of classical physics, and to new empirical generalizations (theories) that described and predicted very accurately those micro-scale phenomena so recently discovered. These generalizations, these models of the real world being observed at this micro scale, could not easily be squared with the way objects are observed to behave on the macro scale of everyday life. The predictions they offered often appeared counter-intuitive to observers. Indeed, they touched off much consternation -- even in the minds of their discoverers. "What can we make of these uncanny experimental results?" The Copenhagen interpretation consists of attempts to explain the experiments and their mathematical formulations in ways that do not go beyond the evidence to suggest more (or less) than is actually there.
Right I got that but what is it?
The work of relating the remarkable experiments and the abstract mathematical and theoretical formulations that constitute quantum physics to the experience that all of us share in the world of everyday life fell first to Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.
Now as you might know Heisenberg invented the uncertainty principle that stated you could not observe two parameters like say position and momentum to any degree of accuracy. There will always be a fundimental uncertainty. The more you pin down its position the less certain you are about its momentum.
So back to this interpretation that is to help you interpret this strangeness.
There is no definitive statement of the Copenhagen Interpretation
There are some who say that there are objective variants of the Copenhagen Interpretation that allow for a "real" wave function, but it is questionable whether that view is really consistent with positivism and/or with some of Bohr's statements
An example of the agnostic view is given by von Weiszacker, who, while participating in a colloquium at Cambridge, denied that the Copenhagen interpretation asserted: "What cannot be observed does not exist". He suggested instead that the Copenhagen interpretation follows the principle: "What is observed certainly exists; about what is not observed we are still free to make suitable assumptions. We use that freedom to avoid paradoxes."[5]
And on and on it goes. Indeed the explanation of this confusion and uncertainty is just as uncertain as what it tries to explain. This shit keeps physists in jobs!