4 ms·
> If you measure the exact position of an electron, the wave function collapses to a point. Note, though, that in reality you can never measure the exact posi
by pdonis 5y ago
> If you measure the exact position of an electron, the wave function collapses
to a point.
Note, though, that in reality you can never measure the exact position of an electron (or anything else); the best you can do is to measure that the electron is inside some finite-sized (possibly very small) region. The "exact position" measurement is an idealization that can be useful for pedagogy but can't be realized in any actual experiment.
- 8note 5y agospin? things go one direction or the other in a magnetic field
- moonchild 5y agoI assume that by 'you can never measure the exact position of an electron (or anything else)', they meant 'you can never measure the exact position of an electron (or the exact position of anything other than an electron)', not 'you can never measure the exact position of an electron (or any other property of an electron)'.
- pdonis 5y agoAs moonchild posted, I was only saying that you can't measure the position of an electron exactly. I was not saying that you can't measure any properties of electrons at all. The more general statement is that you can't measure exact values for any observable with a continuous spectrum; you can only measure that a quantum system is within some finite range of values. Spin has a discrete spectrum, so you can measure exact values for spin.