Quantum Mechanics for Cats

Daniel Shanahan

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations

Abstract

cat states are explained in a manner consistent with local realism. It is assumed that the particle is some physically real state at all times, albeit that this state may change as the particle adopts one or other channel of an apparatus. Each further quantum state associated with the particle will then be, not a state of the particle itself, but a state of the apparatus - a wave-like reaction in the apparatus of equal but opposite eect to the change in the particle and mimicking the eects of a particle as it propagates through the experiment. In view of the success of standard quantum mechanics (SQM), and the compelling example of self interference, it can hardly be doubted that, at least in some formal sense, the alternative Schrodinger cat states supposed by SQM must exist. However, we argue that these states need not be considered intrinsically probabilistic or otherwise inconsistent with the local realism of classical physics. Assuming that the particle itself is in some physically real state at all times, any further quantum state associated with that particle could simply be an excitation of the apparatus - an oscillatory disturbance that is of equal but opposite eect to the change in the particle and creates the illusion of a further particle state. From Newton's third law, or equivalently conservation, any change in a particle must be accompanied by a change of equal but opposite eect in the agency inducing that change. It is also known that every particle, whether massive or massless, has wave characteristics consistent with its dynamic properties, namely from the Planck-Einstein relation, E = ~!; a frequency !, and from the de Broglie relation, p = ~�; a wave vector �, whereE and p are respectively the energy and momentum of the particle, and ~ is the reduced Planck's constant. Thus what is imparted by particle to scattering agency is never simply some undierentiated amount of four-momentum, but a wave-like disturbance of equal but opposite eect to the change in the particle. All that need be explained then is why the reaction that occurs in the apparatus as a particle is measured should so emulate the eects of a particle as to create the illusion that the particle has somehow divided between available paths. And yet, the simulation

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