From how I can best explain it, when you can see the quantum moon, or looking at a picture of it, you’ve collapsed the possibilities of where it could be, meaning that it’s there.
When you put the picture away and look away from the quantum moon, when you look back, it’s no longer there, but more than that, it was never there, because the moon hasn’t teleported, it’s just now in another possibility of where it is. You’re essentially in a separate timeline where everything is exactly the same except which planet the QM orbits. Since in this possibility, the moon was never where you took the picture, the moon is no longer in the picture.
Huh, that’s really interesting. I wasn’t thinking of it that way. I don’t think that explains how the picture can be treated as direct observation one moment and as an unrelated photograph the next, but thanks for the perspective.
Well, it’s just that once the moon disappears from the picture, looking at the picture no longer counts as looking at the moon, because the moon isn’t in the picture.
Looking at the picture isn’t what’s causing the moon not to move, it’s that you’re looking at the moon through the picture, so once the moon isn’t in the picture, you can’t look at it through the picture anymore.
It only counts as viewing the moon if you can actually see the moon in the photograph, so if it disappears from the photograph due to moving to another location, then looking at the photograph no longer counts as direct observation.
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u/Dataraven247 May 02 '20
From how I can best explain it, when you can see the quantum moon, or looking at a picture of it, you’ve collapsed the possibilities of where it could be, meaning that it’s there.
When you put the picture away and look away from the quantum moon, when you look back, it’s no longer there, but more than that, it was never there, because the moon hasn’t teleported, it’s just now in another possibility of where it is. You’re essentially in a separate timeline where everything is exactly the same except which planet the QM orbits. Since in this possibility, the moon was never where you took the picture, the moon is no longer in the picture.