The Problem of Decoherence in Quantum Mechanics

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In quanta mechanics, the environment becomes entangled with you very quickly. This process of becoming entangled with the environment is what decoherence is. Can you shield one kind of system from becoming entangled with another? Yes. You can't shield decoherence for a microscopic system. It's harder to shield out photons than people would think. The word 'decoherence' is not fuzzy because it means something that we see physically happening during the act of measurement.

Welcome to the September 2021 Ask Me Anything episode of Mindscape! These monthly excursions are funded by Patreon supporters (who are also the ones asking the questions). I take the large number of questions asked by Patreons, whittle them down to a more manageable size — based primarily on whether I have anything interesting to say about them, not whether the questions themselves are good — and sometimes group them together if they are about a similar topic. Enjoy!

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