Comments on: The Quantum Zeno Effect http://quantum-mechanic.com/2006/02/26/the-quantum-zeno-effect/ Uncertain rants and musings Wed, 07 Jan 2009 05:26:13 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.3.3 By: qm http://quantum-mechanic.com/2006/02/26/the-quantum-zeno-effect/#comment-50 qm Mon, 27 Feb 2006 03:40:27 +0000 http://quantum-mechanic.com/2006/02/26/the-quantum-zeno-effect/#comment-50 The neat thing isn't so much that the particle is kept from decaying for a probabalistically long time, it's that you can do that without actually doing anything (in that the unabsorbed photon, which can, by virtue of being unabsorbed, go off to do other useful things). You'd naively think you'd have to be pumping energy into the system to keep the particle in the excited state for that length of time, but you don't. The neat thing isn’t so much that the particle is kept from decaying for a probabalistically long time, it’s that you can do that without actually doing anything (in that the unabsorbed photon, which can, by virtue of being unabsorbed, go off to do other useful things). You’d naively think you’d have to be pumping energy into the system to keep the particle in the excited state for that length of time, but you don’t.

]]> By: TJIC http://quantum-mechanic.com/2006/02/26/the-quantum-zeno-effect/#comment-49 TJIC Mon, 27 Feb 2006 02:57:12 +0000 http://quantum-mechanic.com/2006/02/26/the-quantum-zeno-effect/#comment-49 Huh? If the chance of decay in any time slice is epsilon, but you check at 1/epsilon different time slices, during one of those tests you'll suddenly find that the particle dropped out of the excited state, no? Unless there's something more clever going on here than you lay out (is it proven that a drop from state X to state Y takes more time than the sample interval allows?), this seems like nonsense. (which doesn't mean it's not true - not only do all false QM things sound like nonsense, but so do 80% of the true things) Huh?

If the chance of decay in any time slice is epsilon, but you check at 1/epsilon different time slices, during one of those tests you’ll suddenly find that the particle dropped out of the excited state, no?

Unless there’s something more clever going on here than you lay out (is it proven that a drop from state X to state Y takes more time than the sample interval allows?), this seems like nonsense.

(which doesn’t mean it’s not true - not only do all false QM things sound like nonsense, but so do 80% of the true things)

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