4 ms·
If I understand correctly, there's currently no explanation of how one electron gets picked out of all the gazillions of electrons available; am I correct? Woul
by hasenj 10y ago
If I understand correctly, there's currently no explanation of how one electron gets picked out of all the gazillions of electrons available; am I correct? Would that just be considered a fundamental randomness in nature?
- ars 10y agoI don't understand your question, can you rephrase? In the experiment here they fire one electron at a time, so you don't have to pick one electron. Rather the final location of that electron is what's random.
- srtjstjsj 10y agoThat's the question: how is the location picked? You roll a fair die, 1-6. It lands on 4 this time. Why 4, and not 5? How was the 4 chosen? In classical mechanics, it's a horrendously complicated but fundamentally simple computation. In QM, no one knows.
- dogma1138 10y agoPilot wave theory :)
- naasking 10y agoaka Bohmian mechanics, aka the de Broglie-Bohm interpretation of QM. It definitely doesn't get enough serious attention IMO.
- dogma1138 10y agoIt's been getting more and more attention especially since many recent QM simulation experiments kinda show that pilot waves are a real phenomena.
- hasenj 10y agoIsn't that theory rooted in the particles view of the universe? It's totally at odds with this paper, it seems to me. Is it not?
- atemerev 10y agoWhy the need for full determinism? Unlike Einstein, I have no problem with God playing dice; this allows for free will, among other things (randomness is in the [computational] eye of the beholder).
- kawa 10y agoWhy allows it for free will? Consider those two situations: A: You know everything and decide about something based on all the facts known to you B: You know everything and decide about something based on all the facts known to you plus the result of a random generator Why is B more "free will" than A? In B there is simply another fact which is beyond your control which modifies your decision. That doesn't makes your decision more free than A, you simply have an additional "input" to consider. One may argue that B is more free than A because in principle another person with the same knowledge as you would know what's your decision is in A but won't know it in B because of the influence of the random generator. But that doesn't makes B more "free", it only makes it a bit more unpredictable. But in reality it's impossible to always know all facts leading to the decision in A so both have similar unpredictability. In fact I would consider only A as real "free will" because even if your decision is only determined by (external) facts, it's still all your reasoning based on your beliefs, experiences etc while in B there is a determining factor outside your reasoning you depend on which makes your decision less free (because you may have to decide for a sub-optimal outcome because you're forced by the random generator to do so).
- DavidPlumpton 10y agoThe Many Worlds Interpretation plus Sleeping Beauty can directly explain this.
- hasenj 10y agoWhen you fire a photon on a wall and see a blip, the blip is the location of the atom that had the electron that absorbed the photons energy (The electron that interacted with the photon). Presumably there are gazillion photons. Presumably they all want that photons energy. Presumably the photon is stretched out in space so it sort of "touches" all of them. Yet, only that one electron got lucky.