Quantum Logic?
Most recent answer: 07/12/2014
- Fernando (age 20)
Brazil
I'm not a big fan of "quantum logic", but here's a little introduction. In the two slit experiment with slits A and B and arrival sites say X and Y one might think that the condition ( (A OR B) AND (X OR Y)) distributes into ((A AND X) OR (A AND Y) OR (B AND X) OR (B AND Y)). Now if you try to assign probabilities to each of those outcomes there's no way to get them to add up to match experimental results. So it's tempting to say that the distributive law of OR and AND only works as an approximate result for large-scale classical events.
These days even the people who once eloquently advocated quantum logic (e.g. Hilary Putnam) have generally lost interest in it. The main reason is that quantum logic doesn't help with the central mysteries: how the predictions of local realism break down (search this site for "Bell Inequalities"), and how a random experience arises from an underlying deterministic equation. Instead we think that the problems lie not with logic but with the attempt to project a quantum reality onto some classical possibilities. The physical state as the quantum object goes through the slits is (some of A plus some of B).
So what is the relation between the "observer effect" and the "uncertainty principle"? We've addressed that exact question in follow-up #5 here: https://van.physics.illinois.edu/qa/listing.php?id=1228.
Mike W.
(published on 07/12/2014)