I am an accountant, not a physicist, but I find physics pretty interesting. One thing that I see reported on many a TV program about quantum physics is the idea of superposition and that it doesn't apply to the macro world in which we daily dwell.
I don't see why it doesn't apply to the macro world. Let's say that there's a person having lunch with you today. After you have lunch, you each go your separate ways and don't have any physical contact for the next week. The following Monday, you wonder about that person. In theory, s/he could be in any place at all on the planet, doing any number of things (or dead and doing nothing) and you won't know exactly where and in what state they exist (dead, alive, moving, still, here or there) there until you "measure" their existence, i.e., you do something that allows you to determine where they are.
Haven't we all lost something that we are certain exists within the confines of our home and even though we know it's in our house somewhere, we don't know where it is? We don't know until we see it, that is, we measure its position. Who hasn't left a child at school or had a friend go on a vacation and wondered what they were doing during?
So, what I'm trying to understand is this. What's so Earth shaking about the fact that one cannot know the details of a particle's status until it is measured? Can't the same equations that prove a particle might be in any number of places be applied to the macro world too?
By my simple mind, all that's different between the particles physicists chase around and things like people and animals is that one needs "better glasses" to see those tiny particles, and one may not need glasses (hopefully) to see other people or things like our lost car keys.
Thanks for any input you folks can share.
Tony
I don't see why it doesn't apply to the macro world. Let's say that there's a person having lunch with you today. After you have lunch, you each go your separate ways and don't have any physical contact for the next week. The following Monday, you wonder about that person. In theory, s/he could be in any place at all on the planet, doing any number of things (or dead and doing nothing) and you won't know exactly where and in what state they exist (dead, alive, moving, still, here or there) there until you "measure" their existence, i.e., you do something that allows you to determine where they are.
Haven't we all lost something that we are certain exists within the confines of our home and even though we know it's in our house somewhere, we don't know where it is? We don't know until we see it, that is, we measure its position. Who hasn't left a child at school or had a friend go on a vacation and wondered what they were doing during?
So, what I'm trying to understand is this. What's so Earth shaking about the fact that one cannot know the details of a particle's status until it is measured? Can't the same equations that prove a particle might be in any number of places be applied to the macro world too?
By my simple mind, all that's different between the particles physicists chase around and things like people and animals is that one needs "better glasses" to see those tiny particles, and one may not need glasses (hopefully) to see other people or things like our lost car keys.
Thanks for any input you folks can share.
Tony
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