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Talk:Quantum superposition

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 174.16.133.235 (talk) at 00:08, 28 February 2011 (Cries for improvement). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Incomplete, unbalanced and probably offtopic

Let us examine, of what topics the article currently consists.

  • Probability theory and stochastic processes (~35%)
  • Some examples with a repeating word “particle”, instead of “quantum system” (~15%)
  • Path integral (~20%)
  • Some stuff on eigenstates and observables, masked as a so named formal interpretation (~20%)

These mistakenly give an impression that the article is well developed and complete.

Is there an explanation about the difference between states and measurements? There is not. Does the article mention such directly relevant things (for n=2) as Bloch sphere and qubit? No. Something substantial about the light polarization? Almost no, even number of states was not given explicitly. For more than 2 states, is there something about difference between vectors and states, about a complex projective space which is an underlying mathematical structure (comparable to Euclidean space for macroscopic scale)? No such thing. About quantum entanglement which is nothing but a direct consequence of the quantum superposition? Also nothing. In other circumstances I tried myself to rewrite a text, but it would be hard for me to write such complicated things in English from scratch. Any volunteer, for whom English is a native language? Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:19, 9 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Could be a bit more laymantastic (Needs to Include Writing that the Average Reader Can Understand)

Really needs sections for laymen on "how we know this is true", and "why it matters". At the moment the page basically seems to be saying "it's like probability, but for small stuff". The link to the double slit experiment, at nearly the bottom of the page, hidden amongst what (to a layman) is pure waffly white noise, just isn't enough.

I mean, if I read a news article like "someone has shown that macroscopic objects can be put into quantum superposition", I expect to come to this page and be able to find out at least something on what that means in real terms, and how it'd ever be provable, since it appears that if taking a measurement of an object is enough to make the states collapse, so you can never directly see it being superpositioned. If you can't measure it (I naively thought) you'd never be able to prove it. I still have no idea what the equivalent of the double-slit experiment for a macroscopic object would be, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DewiMorgan (talkcontribs) 19:28, 21 March 2010 (UTC) ~~[reply]

Wikipedia is a public use encyclopedia. Articles should be written to be intelligible to the average reader where possible. Scientific language may be used, but should be in parallel to language that the average reader can understand.

98.245.148.9 (talk) 07:21, 5 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Cries for improvement

I think that the message of the previous posts, well mostly, is that the lead in to this article sucks. I have rewritten the introduction. It is still not so good but I hope that it help get this article rolling. Also the section on superposition is pretty bad. I need to sleep on this article in order to figure out what needs changed and how. If anyone has some ideas lay them on me please. Phancy Physicist (talk) 07:58, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with the above-comment. This article, as all physics-related articles, should have a cogently written summation in terms a layperson can fathom before going headlong into the esoteric equations.

Use good examples and stuff

Really, this is boring and there's too much math. Can't you use some better examples, like Schroedinger's cat or some cool alternate universe hypothesis, or wormholes or something? You wonder why nobody finds this interesting, it's because it is so dry. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.150.48.174 (talk) 22:17, 9 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]