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Quantum mechanics of seeing

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Abstract

A human being viewing a defocused television tube with sweep voltages turned off will see point scintillations at sufficiently low intensities. We show that quantum mechanics predicts these scintillations. Furthermore, by assuming a response of the human nervous system of a type not inconsistent with experiment, measurement theory is used to show that these scintillations will be distributed in proportion to the magnitude squared of the electron wave function incident upon the television tube screen. This nervous system response is to break up the wave incident upon a spot on the retina into a number of similar waves transmitted by different nerves to the brain. The number of these waves is proportional to the incident energy density. Since the theory itself predicts the proper probability distribution, it is unnecessary to introduce a postulate for it.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

    A. A. Broyles

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  1. A. A. Broyles
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Broyles, A.A. Quantum mechanics of seeing. Found Phys 14, 553–560 (1984). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00736600

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00736600

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