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Old 23-April-2008, 11:50 PM
eric_marsh eric_marsh is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Theodorakis View Post
Eric, is this different than the Copenhagen Interpretation, and how so?

Nick
The Copenhagen Interpretation asserts the existence of a particle after the waveform collapse. I'm questioning if there really is a particle. Yes, we see the waveform collapse at a specific location but did the waveform collapse to a particle or did it simply transfer the energy contained in the waveform to an existing particle?

I don't know the answer to this which is why I posted the question. If we can't observe a waveform collapsing without the collapse being caused by an interaction with a particle how do we know that the photon is a particle and not just a packet of energy carried as a waveform?

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation

Quote:
The Copenhagen interpretation is an interpretation of quantum mechanics, usually understood to state that every particle is described by its wavefunction, which dictates the probability for it to be found in any location following a measurement. Each measurement causes a change in the state of the particle, known as wavefunction collapse.
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