| Graeme −> Stuff −> Universe, cosmology -> Quantum Multiverse |
I'm no better trained in quantum mechanics than the idiots you lampoon, but I do have the gift of (1) a logical brain, and (2) an appreciation for my own fallibility, neither of which seems to be present in those idiots... With that caveat, I think I can offer a view of the meaning of the collapsing of waves into particles. It's based on the "many worlds" view of quantum mechanics, but with a twist: instead of focusing on the universe in which the thing I'm looking at exists, I focus on the universe in which *I* exist. Until I have made an observation, then I exist in not just one but quite a few of the many worlds, because the many versions of me (one in each world) are not different. That is, *my* state hasn't changed because the observation has not yet had its effect on me. But then when I make an observation, it's not the waves "out there" that collapse, but rather ME! It is I who collapse into just one of the those few worlds because the observation has had an effect on me. In the one world in which I find myself, the observation came out in one particular way, and in all the other worlds, the observation came out in a different way. So, the identity that I call "me" has now taken a fork in the river of time, and those other "me's" in other universes now are separate and unreachable by me, since those "me's" inhabit other worlds, forever changed as a result of that observation.