Collapsing the Wavefunction of a Baseball

Tarun Biswas

Published 2003-11-12, updated 2003-11-28Version 2

The transition from microscopic to macroscopic in quantum mechanics can be seen from various points of view. It is often not merely a transition from quantum to classical mechanics in the sense of the Correspondence Principle. The fact that real macroscopic objects like baseballs are composites of an extremely large number of microscopic particles (electrons, protons etc.) is a complicating factor. Here such composite objects are studied in some detail and the Copenhagen interpretation is applied to them. A computer game model for a simplified composite object is used to illustrate some of the issues.