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atyy
Science Advisor
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1977ub said:Ok here is what I had deleted:
Two observers are watching the experimental apparatus. The electrons are emitted, and there is a circle indicated at the close region and another at the far region.
The wall is coated entirely with a substance which will register visibly when an electron arrives. We don't have "detectors" so much as regions of the wall which are painted with circles simply to define these regions.
Each time a single slow electron is emitted, it can land in one of the 2 circles or it can land elsewhere, but it cannot land in both circles.
Observer A performs a single calculation based only on the initial set up, presuming that there is only one "collapse". He asks "what % of electrons will end up within the far circle?" He ends up with a single prediction of % hits in that circle, finally computing the outcome % based on *all* electrons released.
Observer B is watching closely enough to decide when each electron should have hit within the closer circle and in those cases where it seems not to have done so, recalculates the probability of hitting the far circle based upon that initial null measurement. No results are ever "thrown out". Any time the close circle is hit, , this will be treated as a "miss" of the far circle, but these will be averaged in at the end.
At the end of a sufficiently high number of electrons released to determine a %, will both end observers end up with the same prediction for the far circle?
If not, which one will match the % from the runs of the experiment?
If Observer A includes the disturbance caused by Observer B's inner circle measurement apparatus in his calculations, he will get the same result.
Observer A can do his calculation in 2 ways, both getting the same answer:
(1) Calculate exactly the same as Observer B, collapse the wave function, and throw away the intermediate result, then get the final count at the outer circle.
(2) Calculate with Observer B observing, but with no collapse of the wave function, and just calculate the final result at the outer circle.
The averaging process you talk about is the same as throwing away the intermediate results.
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