3 ms·
I have a question: What does being in a superposition mean exactly here? I only know the term from classical mechanics, e.g. that an acceleration vector in R^3
by 3rd3 12y ago
I have a question: What does being in a superposition mean exactly here? I only know the term from classical mechanics, e.g. that an acceleration vector in R^3 can be seen as a superposition of three accelerations along the base vectors (a linear combination).
- sheerun 12y agoSuperposition in sense of linear combination of quantum states. For example 2-state superposition is qubit. If you think about systems can be in superposition only relative to one another. For example in double slit experiment light is in superposition relative to us, but not relative to photon from other slit. Or maybe photon in one slit does not exist in timeline of photon from other slit? I don't know :)
- nzp 12y agoIt's kind of like that. The state of a particle in classical mechanics is a linear combination of some basis vectors which are not it's states as such. But the superposition in QM is the superpositions of states. The phase space in classical mechanics is not a vector space, but in QM it is. This is a fundamental difference because in QM you can take any number of states, make a linear combination a it will result in another perfectly valid state. Not so in classical mechanics. For example, consider a particle orbiting a point. If you take some position vectors as it moves and make a linear combination, the resulting vector will not be a possible position of a particle in this system. In QM, it would necessary be another possible state. This is a slightly sloppy example, but I hope you get the gist.