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+--- Thread: Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? (/thread-18902.html)
Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? - Magical Realist - Oct 4, 2025
Sabine describes it this way at the IAI:
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1690805501610570
RE: Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? - confused2 - Oct 6, 2025
My take on 'the thing'.
A half-silvered mirror has a 50% probability of passing a photon and a 50% probability of reflecting it. Assume the mirror is set at 45 degrees to the beam. If the photon goes straight through no momentum is transferred to the mirror and if the photon is reflected the mirror gets a small kick to conserve momentum.If the passed and reflected paths are brought back together you get an interference pattern from 50% through and 50% reflected so the momentum transferred to the mirror is ..something (half of something?). If the path is detected 'somehow' the interference pattern goes away and the mirror gets either no momentum kick or the entire momentum kick from reflecting the photon. So what momentum kick the mirror gets is determined by events that may take place yards or miles away and obviously long after the photon has left the mirror. I have probably missed something but I don't see how gravity helps resolve this puzzle.
RE: Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? - Syne - Oct 6, 2025
Sounds like she's basically just describing gravity as an agent of decoherence, so that the photon is localized, by gravity, at the prism, instead of any kind of reverse causation.
Sounds far too broad to me.
RE: Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? - confused2 - Oct 7, 2025
Syne Wrote:so that the photon is localized, by gravity, at the prism,Prism? =Beam splitter (half silvered mirror)? If the decision is made at the beam splitter it wouldn't know whether you were detecting which way information .. so whether or not to kick the mirror. If the photon goes both ways .. even worse .. to knick or not to kick?
RE: Does gravity cause the collapse of the wavefunction? - Syne - Oct 8, 2025
Yeah, prisms are common beam splitters. Yeah, I'd don't think gravity can solve the quantum weirdness the way Sabine seems to describe.