4 ms·
What happened to the old idea that when you observe a quantum system, its wavefunction collapses? Is that not true anymore? It seems like these guys observed it
by Yardlink 12y ago
What happened to the old idea that when you observe a quantum system, its wavefunction collapses? Is that not true anymore? It seems like these guys observed it "gently" enough that it only sort of mostly collapsed with some bias?
- snarfy 12y agoIt did collapse, but not before their probe measured something. Then they repeated a million times and averaged the results.
- hliyan 12y agoAccording to the article, what they measured doesn't really sound like a 'real' quantum system: it's a superconducting circuit with two discrete states with an infinite number of previously immeasurable superposition states in between. They call this an 'artificial atom'. Unless I'm mistaken, it's an emulation of sorts. http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1923 http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1923
- gaze 12y agoIt is absolutely a real quantum system. It's an artificial atom. It has basically approximately the same Hamiltonian as a trapped atom but at 6 GHz, and we can control the coupling.
- gaze 12y agoIt was always a postulate. Now thanks to understanding things like the stochastic master equation better, we understand that wavefunction collapse is a continuous process, and not at all a random one.