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Funnily enough, a central piece of the Copenhagen Interpretation is the collapse of the wave function. But there is no mathematics to describe the actual proces

by sampo 10y ago

Funnily enough, a central piece of the Copenhagen Interpretation is the collapse of the wave function. But there is no mathematics to describe the actual process of the collapse, only the outcome. It even happens instantaneously and discontinuously, which natural processes usually don't. I mean, it does it's job, it gives correct observable results. And everyone knows when and where to apply the "and then it just collapses" rule to get the results. But the rule is defined in English, not mathematically.

krastanov 10y ago
I do not think this is a fair description of the Copenhagen Interpretation in practice. I would consider working with density matrices, Lindblad equations, and more general Master equations to still be covered under the Copenhagen interpretation, and in this case there is not much "collapse of the wave function". Maybe I am just misunderstanding what people mean when they say "Copenhagen Interpretation", but it seem unproductive to argue about it if we do not first include system-environment interactions (e.g. with a Master equation).
- sampo 10y ago
  When you bring in Linblad and master equations, aren't we then already talking about quantum decoherence? At least Wikipedia puts decoherence as an alternative to, not as a refined form of, Copenhagen Interpretation. Alternatives to the Copenhagen Interpretation include the many-worlds interpretation, the De Broglie-Bohm (pilot-wave) interpretation, and quantum decoherence theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
- effie 10y ago
  > I would consider working with density matrices, Lindblad equations, and more general Master equations to still be covered under the Copenhagen interpretation Yes, but neither of those solved the problem of how to describe macroscopic measurements that result in definite outcome (eigenvalue of some operator). The collapse is still needed to continue the description after the measurement, only instead of psi function that should collapse, it is the density matrix that should collapse.

by sampo 10y ago

krastanov 10y ago

I do not think this is a fair description of the Copenhagen Interpretation in practice. I would consider working with density matrices, Lindblad equations, and more general Master equations to still be covered under the Copenhagen interpretation, and in this case there is not much "collapse of the wave function". Maybe I am just misunderstanding what people mean when they say "Copenhagen Interpretation", but it seem unproductive to argue about it if we do not first include system-environment interactions (e.g. with a Master equation).

sampo 10y ago
When you bring in Linblad and master equations, aren't we then already talking about quantum decoherence? At least Wikipedia puts decoherence as an alternative to, not as a refined form of, Copenhagen Interpretation. Alternatives to the Copenhagen Interpretation include the many-worlds interpretation, the De Broglie-Bohm (pilot-wave) interpretation, and quantum decoherence theories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation
effie 10y ago
> I would consider working with density matrices, Lindblad equations, and more general Master equations to still be covered under the Copenhagen interpretation Yes, but neither of those solved the problem of how to describe macroscopic measurements that result in definite outcome (eigenvalue of some operator). The collapse is still needed to continue the description after the measurement, only instead of psi function that should collapse, it is the density matrix that should collapse.