Jump to content

Musing about QM


geordief

Recommended Posts

Einstein  is famously  (not necessarily  correctly or usefully) said to have wondered what it would be like to put oneself in the frame of a beam of light.

 

Has anyone  tried to do this wrt a quantum particle btw interactions?

If we try to walk in the shoes of  this "particle"  is there anything  in between  the first interaction)its "birth"  and its second interaction  ,its "death"?

If the particle can be seen to have a "timeline" passing through  successive  interactions  can these be seen as metamorphosed in some way?

My (philosophical?) bias is to a form of panpsychism ,which may be why I entertain these wacky ideas in the first place (but I do understand that panpsychism  is ,while not necessarily  semi respectable in a scientific  context ,then perhaps not outside the pale entirely)

 

Another question that occurs to me is whether there might be any connection btw the curvature of spacetime  that is modeled for GR and the entanglement that is modeled for QM?

Do both these models use tensor cross products  to model their respective phenomena and does entanglement put one in mind of a kind of curvature(like the way that ivy grows into itself as it grows up a tree trunk)?

 

I have only just noticed that QM uses tensors and I am unfamiliar  with them but was  a bit surprised  as I  didn't realise they were used outside GR (I assume they must also be used in all sorts of other environments  that I would know nothing of)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Has anyone  tried to do this wrt a quantum particle btw interactions?

Photons are not valid frames of reference. You can watch photons do their thing from outside, but you cannot sit on a photon and watch the world from the photon. Einstein considered this just as a gedaken experiment.

This is because from the POV of a photon --to the extent that it makes any sense at all-- the world is frozen in one instant of time.

Photons are useful thingummyjigs in order to parametrise other things going on, but not useful to parametrise their own view. They have no view.

1 hour ago, geordief said:

Another question that occurs to me is whether there might be any connection btw the curvature of spacetime  that is modeled for GR and the entanglement that is modeled for QM?

 

You're getting into the quicksands of quantum gravity here. I'd rather not take that pill just yet.

Edited by joigus
minor correction
Link to comment
Share on other sites

In addition, whereas a classical particle 'sees' a well defined trajectory, governed by space-time curvature in GR, a quantum particle 'sees' an infinite number of probable trajectories, governed by 'probability amplitudes' derived from its wave function in QM.

One is 'externally' constrained, the other, 'internally' constrained by its probability distribution.

Very different models.

Edited by MigL
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.