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arXiv:0912.4114

A Classical and Quantum Mechanical Analog of Two Capacitors Paradox

Vladan Panković, D. Kapor

Published Dec 21, 2009• 0 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

As it is well-known one of the most fascinating examples in remarkable discussion between Einstein and Bohr on the conceptual foundation of the quantum mechanics (Heisenberg energy-time uncertainty relation especially) was an experimental device representing a box hanged on an elastic spring. The pair of similar devices is used in this work for formulation of a classical and (implicitly) quantum mechanical analog of the famous two capacitors paradox. It admits a simple solution of the paradox since energy difference or seeming paradoxical "loss" can be explained by work of the elastic force for moving of the boxes in the gravitational field. (Obviously, original two capacitors paradox can be explained in the analogous way.)

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.0912.4114

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As it is well-known one of the most fascinating examples in remarkable discussion between Einstein and Bohr on the conceptual foundation of the quantum mechanics (Heisenberg energy-time uncertainty relation especially) was an experimental device representing a box hanged on an elastic spring. The pair of similar devices is used in this work for formulation of a classical and (implicitly) quantum mechanical analog of the famous two capacitors paradox. It admits a simple solution of the paradox since energy difference or seeming paradoxical "loss" can be explained by work of the elastic force for moving of the boxes in the gravitational field. (Obviously, original two capacitors paradox can be explained in the analogous way.)
We suggest a somewhat non-standard view on a set of curious, paradoxical from the standpoint of simple classical physics and everyday experience phenomena. There are the quantisation (discrete set of values) of the observables (e.g., energy, momentum, angular momentum); forbidden simultaneous measurements of the observables in the most cases (e.g., of a coordinate and momentum, of angular momentum projections on difference axis); counter-intuitive relations on the simultaneously measurable quantities (e.g., the famous expression for the square momentum l(l+1)l(l+1)l(l+1) with the maximal projection lll). These and other paradoxes are traditionally related to "purely quantum" phenomenon, i.e., having no analogue in the "classical world" ones. However, there are deep analogies between classical and "quantum" worlds, as soon as the quantum technique is applied to the classical phenomenon. We follow these analogies with the examples of relatively simple and well known models of classical physics, such as a simplified model of light transition through the media, a system of electric charges close to each other and far from the observer; the specific of motion in the Coulomb/Newtonian field. This text can be considered as a mini-course addressed to higher school and undergraduate students who are interested in basics of quantum mechanics, but are not yet ready for systematic study of standard courses. The text may be also useful to those who supervise such students.
The classical three-box paradox of Kirkpatrick [J. Phys. A 36 4891 (2003)] is compared to the original quantum Three-Box paradox of Aharonov and Vaidman [J. Phys. A 24 2315 (1991)]. It is argued that the quantum Three-Box experiment is a "quantum paradox" in the sense that it is an example of a classical task which cannot be accomplished using classical means, but can be accomplished using quantum devices. It is shown that Kirkpatrick's card game is analogous to a different game with a particle in three boxes which does not contain paradoxical features.
Once upon a time the well-known paradoxes of quantum mechanics (one might even say the “traditional” paradoxes of quantum mechanics!—I refer here to paradoxes such as the Schrödinger cat and the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox) seemed especially difficult because of the rather bizarre behavior of the wave packet under the von Neumann theory of measurement, to which behavior these paradoxical situations seemed to draw especial attention. Quite recently quantum theoretical accounts of the measurement process have been appearing which sidestep direct reference to such things as “contraction” of the wave packet (see, for example, Krips and Jauch). With this development it has become increasingly popular to take a “cool” approach to these paradoxes, arguing that the new approach to measurement provides a consistent, nonbizarre account of the physical situations and that the paradoxicality was due largely to intuitive blunders—even plausible intuitive blunders—accentuated (but also disguised) by the unfortunate features of the von Neumann approach to measurement. Both Krips and Jauch, for example, adopt this approach.
As Quine wrote in 1961, what strikes us in a paradox is its initial air of absurdity, which develops into a sort of psychological discomfort when we compare the conclusions of the reasoning with the apparently irrefutable arguments on which it is based. However, as he went on to observe, ‘More than once in history the discovery of paradox has been the occasion for major reconstruction at the foundations of thought’. Catastrophe may therefore lurk even in the most innocent-seeming of paradoxes and force us to recognize the arbitrary nature ‘of a buried premise or of some preconception previously reckoned as central to physical theory, to mathematics or to the thinking process’. More recently, ideas of this kind have been used to assert in general that the role of paradox in the growth of knowledge is to generate category switches and to construct new universes of discourse. It could also be argued that paradoxes constitute elements of the logic of discovery capable of amplifying and thus making intelligible the still obscure phases accompanying paradigm shifts. Paradoxes would thus represent points of accumulation for the tension created between a given system of conceptual representation and a theory or empirical discovery that violates it. Historians of science have tried different interpretative approaches in their attempts to unravel the thought process that was to lead Einstein in 1905 to the formulation of special relativity and the simultaneous demolition of the classical conception of space and time.
Despite the spectacular success of quantum mechanics (QM) over the last 80 years in explaining phenomena observed at the atomic and subatomic level, the conceptual status of the theory is still a topic of lively controversy. Most of the discussion centers around two famous paradoxes (or, as some would have it, pseudoparadoxes) associated, respectively, with the names of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) and with Schrodinger's cat. In this Viewpoint, I will concentrate on the paradox of Schrodinger's cat or, as it is often known (to my mind somewhat misleadingly), the quantum measurement paradox.