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Autism and Quantum Mechanics (sopuli.xyz)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/autism@lemmy.world
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I can't be the only one who absolutely hates the idea of a particle having two states at once, right? Is it just a personal thing or is it tied somehow to the fact that autistic people generally have more binary thinking?

Forgive me if it's a stupid question. I'm still trying to figure out how this all works and whether I'm autistic or not.

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[–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I always thought it was just not possible to measure the state without changing it, so we have no way of even guessing. Schrödinger's Cat is actually a terrible analogy imho, I always liked to think of it like christmas presents - you don't know what the inside looks like until you open it. It could be anything!

But then again, once we open it we know it has always been that. Maybe a chameleon in a box and we can't know what color it had at a given time, even if we open it later? :::

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Schrödinger's cat is indeed a terrible analogy, but so is the Christmas presents one. A cat is always either alive or dead, and the contents of a Christmas present are determined before opening it. But the state of a quantum particle is fundamentally ambiguous before measurement. This is demonstrated by experiments breaking the Bell inequality if you want to know more!

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    … the state of a quantum particle is fundamentally ambiguous before measurement. This is demonstrated by experiments breaking the Bell inequality …

    No, the state is not what's ambiguous, but rather a single, definitive value of the variable is what does not exist unless it's already in an eigenstate of said variable.

    Yes, I am aware of what you meant, but your wording may be misleading.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago

    I always thought it was just not possible to measure… without changing [the system being measured]

    This is the observer effect, which is certainly not unique to quantum mechanics.

    I always liked to think of it like christmas presents - you don’t know what the inside looks like until you open it. It could be anything!

    That analogy is suggestive of hidden variables. Hidden variables theories are severely constrained by observed violations of Bell's inequality. Without loopholes like non-locality, there cannot be a "hidden" definite value underlying a superposition state.

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