Quote:
Originally posted by Shpoop
Now CSFilm, im not entirely sure what you are talking about, nor do i pretend to be, but you said that "once waves reach a limit (like energy) they collapse and instantaneously become particles"
For sure, has been proved, E =MC^2 ... anything with enough energy can be converted to mass, just has to be ALOT of energy (the certain things limit) That is why 'supposedly' it is impossible for most things to travel faster than light, because that is the energy limit, and once you try to accelerate it further, it adds to the mass instead of the speed
but once again, im not sure what you were talkin about
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No, you're thinking of something else. The limit that must be broken is something quite small.
I'm not talking about energy being
iconverted into particles, I'm talking about the ordinary low energy particles that we are familliar with on a daily basis.
At the quantum level, the levels of energy we are talking about are so small that we cannot directly detect them. To indirectly detect them we must "make a measurement", which is another way of saying "magnify its energy to macroscopic levels".
To give you a solid example, think of a geiger counter. This is a device for measuring radioactive decay. When it detects a particle, it lets out a loud click.
This loud click has a relatively high level of energy. Some where between the quantum level of the atom being in a superposition of decaying and not decaying, and the geiger counter clicking, the system has crossed some "limit", where the quantum wave stops behaving as a superposition, and starts behaving as a definite particle.
Passing this "limit" is reffered to as quantum wave function collapse, and we don't really know what causes it,
some people see it as being entirely subjective, in other words, it is our conscious hearing of the click, that causes it. Me, I think that's quite an unhelpful way of looking at things, and see the phenomenna as something real and objective.
As for what this "limit" is...well it could be anything...energy seems to sound likely though.