So you're saying that a tree that falls in a forest where no one is around to hear it DOES make a noise? I think he was just trying to say the opposite, but in any case:
Yes, of course. That's kind of basic physics. Sound is just a pressure wave and it propagates through a medium, air in the case of the forest. In this case, we don't even need to solve the partial differential equation which describes the phenomena(it's kind of really difficult to make a realistic model of the falling tree without taking an spherical cow approach), we can use the experimental result that you can hear the tree when you're there to see it falling. Just in case there's someone more pedantic than me, let's suppose that you're not near to it but a little far from the tree so you don't have to be included in the boundary conditions for the PDE and so, if it makes noise when you're there to hear it, it will also produce sound when you're not.:).
Yeah, I suppose that the question was ironic, but I feel in the pedantic mood so...:)
Actually, Copenhagen interpretation is just a way of connecting theoretical results with those of experiments. That is, the macroscopically observable phenomena(let's say it is a pulse from a geiger counter, a dash in a photografic plate or whatever cool way you have to detect, say, an electron). And, although it could fail to give logical account of tomorrow's experiment, until now it is in completely agreement with them giving a coherent view of nature. And of course, the world is Quantum Mechanical, people and non-people things, we are all made of little jiggling things called elementary particles. But as h(Planck constant) is so small when compared with our everyday life it turns out that we behave "classically", as Ehrenfest theorem says. And all those particles seem to us like a continuum(that's way fluid dynamics was developed before solid state physics;) )
But that is just my view as a fourth year Physics student.
Anyway, I hope that I have missunderstood what you wanted to say with that thing about "proving" Copenhagen interpretation. I hope that what you meant was that it is a theory and it will be taken as good and valid as long as the experiments don't disagree with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, Copenhagen interpretation is just a way of connecting theoretical results with those of experiments. That is, the macroscopically observable phenomena(let's say it is a pulse from a geiger counter, a dash in a photografic plate or whatever cool way you have to detect, say, an electron). And, although it could fail to give logical account of tomorrow's experiment, until now it is in completely agreement with them giving a coherent view of nature. And of course, the world is Quantum Mechanical, people and non-people things, we are all made of little jiggling things called elementary particles. But as h(Planck constant) is so small when compared with our everyday life it turns out that we behave "classically", as Ehrenfest theorem says. And all those particles seem to us like a continuum(that's way fluid dynamics was developed before solid state physics ;) )
But that is just my view as a fourth year Physics student.
Anyway, I hope that I have missunderstood what you wanted to say with that thing about "proving" Copenhagen interpretation. I hope that what you meant was that it is a theory and it will be taken as good and valid as long as the experiments don't disagree with it.