It is a common consensus that the best way to make sure you've learnt the subject-matter properly is to try and explain it to someone else who is completely clueless about said subject-matter. Before that, I shall just try explaining it to no one in particular. Comments are welcome. The subject-matter at hand is the contents of John Gribbins' In Search of Schrodinger's Kittens and the Search for Reality.
The main point of the Copenhagen Interpretation is that no property of a quantum system exists until it is observed. Before that, there are only probability waves. George Bush is a quantum system with a complex wave function. (No, it is incorrect to say that he is a wave function) He might be anywhere in this space with probability given by the square of the modulus of his wave function. He does not have a definite position, only probabilities of being in various places, until someone, anyone, makes a measurement of his position; this act of measurement collapses his wave function, and this, sadly for the rest of the world, particularly Iraq, gives him a definite position. It is rather a stretch from this to the slightly sensationalised simplification "reality does not exist"; it is only correct in the sense that the act of observation being what collapses wave functions and leads to the properties of quantum systems having definite values, there can be said to be no "objective reality" existing independent of this act. (Yucks. The whole truth is such a unwieldy thing.)
Okay. Now I observe that George Bush is not in the flat. Does that mean I have altered his wave function, by "measuring" (or restricting, rather) his position to be somewhere outside the flat?
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