Talk:Elitzur-Vaidman bomb-testing problem

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Aren't the mirrors incorrectly orientated?

Yes, the one is, top left corner. -Brak710101

No, all four are. Plus there was no distinction made between half-silvered plane mirrors and fully silvered plane mirrors. Also, the bomb detector needs to lie on the lower path. I've uploaded a correction. Thoreaulylazy 17:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

By 'device' you mean the upper right hand half-silvered mirror? also when listing the scenario explaining which interferon (C or D) recieves or doew not recieve a photon might help. Stupid people like me need half-steps. I'm guessing in scenario (1) no photon is observed, in (2) D observes photon, (3) D observes photon, and (4) C observes photon? HiS oWn 18:53, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I hope it's clearer now. I created nested If branches to explain what all happens under each possibility. Thoreaulylazy 20:06, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

  • Sexy informative. HiS oWn 00:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] superposition

"... even though only one path is actually taken" That is a classical point of view and has no real meaning in quantum mechanics. The usual interpretation is that the photon does go through all possible paths, not that it somehow remotely "senses" them. Moo 02:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Not when an observer is introduced. An observer, at the moment of observation, collapses the wave function, so the photon cannot be at two places at once. The bomb detector acts as the observer. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thoreaulylazy (talk • contribs) 21:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC).
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