Sort of. Disclaimer, I’m not a quantum scientist, but I like to think I have a level of understanding.
First off, observation does not change outcomes. It’s the tools that do that. Quantum mechanics often involve particles so small that bouncing a photon will create disruption, and you need photons to observe, so that’s why.
Secondly, if superposition holds in the same way as Schrödinger’s Box, then when you see the presents under your tree, that’d still collapse the probabilities.
Thirdly, and this is headcanon, but superposition isn’t actually something being in multiple conflicting states at once. Rather, when you don’t know what state something’s in, you can determine the probability of each state. The way I see it, they just use “it’s 70% A and 30% B” as a shorthand for “there’s a 70% chance that it’s A and a 30% chance that it’s B so we’re going to calculate both of them until we know.” When you observe the outcome (and this isn’t talking about the cases where you disrupt it with photon action,) you are able to determine from that whether it was A or B, and the probabilities collapse.
So Santa Claus will visit one lucky household, but don’t look under your tree, because chances are it wasn’t yours!
Sort of. Disclaimer, I’m not a quantum scientist, but I like to think I have a level of understanding.
First off, observation does not change outcomes. It’s the tools that do that. Quantum mechanics often involve particles so small that bouncing a photon will create disruption, and you need photons to observe, so that’s why.
Secondly, if superposition holds in the same way as Schrödinger’s Box, then when you see the presents under your tree, that’d still collapse the probabilities.
Thirdly, and this is headcanon, but superposition isn’t actually something being in multiple conflicting states at once. Rather, when you don’t know what state something’s in, you can determine the probability of each state. The way I see it, they just use “it’s 70% A and 30% B” as a shorthand for “there’s a 70% chance that it’s A and a 30% chance that it’s B so we’re going to calculate both of them until we know.” When you observe the outcome (and this isn’t talking about the cases where you disrupt it with photon action,) you are able to determine from that whether it was A or B, and the probabilities collapse.
So Santa Claus will visit one lucky household, but don’t look under your tree, because chances are it wasn’t yours!