Originally posted by EAPOEhow do you know there's no one in the forest, you're not there..? to answer your question, no it doesnt make a sound, the tree checks on the fall, if no ones looking, why bother?
If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?
Originally posted by EAPOEYes.
If a tree falls in a forest and there is no one there to hear it fall, does it make a sound?
The Soft G
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The answer depends on whether or not the definition of sound requires there to be a listener.
Define it as a physical phenomona (wave motion through a physical medium in the form of alternating compression and decompression of said matter), and you can be reasonably certain that that phenomena would be present as an aftereffect, and thus it would make a sound.
But if something has to be verified by a listener and none is there to fulfill the role, then no, it doesn't make a sound.
Regardless, it is impossible to answer this as anything but a philosophical question.
Originally posted by geepamoogleI made the parallel of the Schrödinger's cat which in essence is that you can't tell anything about anything if there is no one observing it. The cat is neither or both dead and/or alive until you look.
The answer depends on whether or not the definition of sound requires there to be a listener.
Define it as a physical phenomona (wave motion through a physical medium in the form of alternating compression and decompression of said matter), and you can be reasonably certain that that phenomena would be present as an aftereffect, and thus it would make ...[text shortened]... sound.
Regardless, it is impossible to answer this as anything but a philosophical question.
If no one hear the sound, there is no way to find out if there were a sound or not. Even no way to tell that it was a tree that fell. Only when you observe, in one way or another, the probability wave collapses and the effect is evident.
Is this philosophical or not? Is quantum mechanics philosophical or not? I say it is neither until you think about it.
Point taken. There is only a hint of it in my reply, but my own personal point of view is that truth does not depend on one's ability to confirm it. Something that is true is true even if others (including myself) are ignorant of that fact.
Of course, it is usually nice for us to perceive and thus confirm things with our own senses, and that's perfectly fine. (We like to verify for certain that the cat is indeed dead, and oftentimes cannot proclaim him dead until such verification is made by opening the box.)
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Originally posted by FabianFnasNo.
Is Schrödinger's cat alive or dead before you open the box and look?
(Well, actually, yes. The experiment is flawed, because the cat itself is also macroscopic ("an observer"😉. But assuming a quantum-physical cat, as the experiment has to do to work, the answer is no.)
Richard