On Aug 26, 3:19 am, HardySpicer <gyansor...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Aug 26, 1:49 am, Rex <relativitexcali...@yahoo.com> wrote:

The greatest mystery of quantum mechanics now is understanding
why the Statue of Liberty doesn't shapeshift.

For the past decade, we learnt that the wave function never
collapses and everything is quantum and interacting with other
quantum stuff. This falls under the topic of decoherence
which most modern physicists subscribe except those not
updated with the latest or locked in compartmentalized
departments. One of the giant mysteries of decoherence is
the problem of preferred basis. Hilbert Space is vast, why the
classical? Since everything is interacting with everything quantumly.
If we say look at the Statue of Liberty, it should change its shape
everytime people look at it because its quantum nature is interacting
with us. Now the greatest mystery is that the Statue of Liberty
doesn't change shape. This drives modern physicists perflexed (note:
Old physicists like Uncle Al who is not exposed to latest
findings may not be aware there is problem in the first place as
he subscribes to copenhagen interpretation or "shut up and
calculate" attitude that hid everything under the mat).

Do you know the answer why the Statue of Liberty doesn't
shapeshift as different people look and interact with it?

Rex

It only shapeshifts when there are NO observers! That's hard with so
many NYs about.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

No. Even if all livings things, humans, birds, insects
were wiped out in NY by say a neutron bomb. The
Statue of Liberty would still stand classically because its
wave function is interacting with photons from the sun
and the thermal surrounding (hence causing decoherence).
This is the beauty of Decoherence which Bohr and
company has missed... now we know humans were not
needed as observers to collapse the wave function (because
it never collapses). But the greatest mystery is why the
classical states is picked out from the vastness of
the Hilbert Space. Zurek and company thought it had
something to do with Einselection or Environment
Superselection.

BTW.. when I searched in this newsgroup. There seems
to be few discussions about Zurek and Decoherence. It's
the hottest thing going on now.

Rex- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

In sci.physics, Sam Wormley
<sworml...@mchsi.com>
wrote
on Sat, 25 Aug 2007 14:04:08 GMT
<rFWzi.74638$Fc.21104@attbi_s21>:

Rex wrote:

The greatest mystery of quantum mechanics now is understanding
why the Statue of Liberty doesn't shapeshift.

Perhaps you should give it some time.

An interesting illustration of this rather oddball concept
is the old notion that the air molecules in a room will
suddenly all decide to occupy the other side of the room
and one then asphyxiates. There are several problems
with this notion, of course -- the main one being the
improbability. Let's see how improbable.

First, a 3m x 3m x 3m cube contains 27 m^3 of volume.
Pressure is 101325 Pascal. If one assumes room temperature,
that's about 293K. Ergo, since PV = nRT, n = PV/(RT)
= 101325 * 27 / (8.314472 * 293) = 1123 moles.

That's about 6.762 * 10^25 molecules. If one "shakes
the box" and models the concept as 6.762 * 10^25 coin
flips (heads I breathe, tails the air molecule is on the
other side of the room), the probability that they'll
all end up on the other side is about 2^(6.762 * 10^25),
a ridiculously huge number -- about 10^(2*10^25), give
or take.

I'll forbear a precise computation on how often the box is
shaken, though one can estimate the RMS of the molecules,
I suppose, and work it out from there. IIRC v_RMS is
on the order of 300-400 m/s for air molecules at room
temperature, which means the coins flip about once every
10 milliseconds or so.

I'm not about to wait up to either run out of oxygen,
or to experience a miraculous shapeshift. ;-)

[rest snipped]

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#191,