Awatmath.2346
net.misc
utzoo!decvax!watmath!djmdavies
Fri May 7 20:15:39 1982
wavefunction propagation speeds
Er, i do not think wave functions 'propagate' at a speed limited to the
speed of light. Schroedinger's equation is "definitive" (though hard to
solve except in standard cases, and especially tricky in most time-dependant
cases). Remember that QM and its successors (Quantum Chromodynamics, etc)
were developed to meet the experiences in the 'small'. General Relativity
is experimentally verified (so far, if it is) only in 'large' scale phenomena;
Special Relativistic effects have been verified in both the small and the
large, in different ways, but the 'speed limitation' effects only show up
directly in the large. The concept of 'propagation' in the wave function
is at odds with an idea of limiting speed of something, because the concept
'speed' presupposes an idea of localising a sharp object at several different
places in succession, and this sort of thing doesn't really make much sense
as a way of looking at sub-atomic phenomena. The conceptual frameworks are
somewhat incoherent. Hence all this inconclusive discussion in net.misc
I suppose. Julian Davies, Waterloo.
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