2 ms·
> You can derive if from the MWI. Not as an actual physical process, no. "Collapse" in the MWI just means that, once the "worlds" have decohered, within each "
by pdonis 4y ago
> You can derive if from the MWI.
Not as an actual physical process, no. "Collapse" in the MWI just means that, once the "worlds" have decohered, within each "world" the wave function can be collapsed to the one that describes the measurement result observed in that "world", for purposes of predicting future results. But in the MWI this is just a mathematical convenience and doesn't correspond to anything physically happening.
In the theories being tested by the experiments described in this article, though, collapse is an actual physical process: there is only one "world". This contradicts the MWI.
> They've detected the other branches, albeit in a very indirect way.
What experiments are you referring to here?
- whimsicalism 4y ago> doesn't correspond to anything physically happening It corresponds to the inner product of the two branches of the wavefunction going to 0 due to physical phenomenon.
- pdonis 4y agoThat is decoherence, not collapse. Collapse, as a physical process, would be all of the branches but one ceasing to exist.
- whimsicalism 4y agoOh I misread your comment - I thought you were referring to decoherence as the mathematical convenience. Now that I see that it was collapse, definitely agree.