[MD] BBC IOT: THE MEASUREMENT PROBLEM IN PHYSICS

[MarshaV]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_20090305.shtml


The most famous fruit in physics is an apple, but 
the most famous animal in physics is a cat. It 
belongs to Edwin Schrödinger, a theoretical 
physicist who in the early 20th century helped to 
develop the radical theories of Quantum 
Mechanics. Schrödinger’s cat does not actually 
exist – it is the subject of a thought experiment 
– in which the rules of quantum mechanics make it 
appear both dead and alive at the same time.

The problem of a cat that is both dead and alive 
illustrates the challenges of quantum physics and 
at the heart of this apparent absurdity is a 
thing called the measurement problem.

The measurement problem arises because we don’t 
really understand how the atoms that constitute 
our world behave. They are fundamentally 
mysterious to us, even shocking, and they defy 
our attempts to measure and make sense of them. 
Possible solutions range from the existence of 
multiple realities to the rather more mundane 
possibility of an error in our mathematics - but 
a solution, if found, could transform our understanding of reality.










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Shoot for the moon.  Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.........
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