In the double-slit experiment, the interference pattern (*) disappears when it is performed at the slits.
The formalization of this process relied heavily on evidence from the Compton-Simon experiment. Decoherence has been used to describe one result of this process, which causes non-unitary evolution of the state, as the state is projected onto one of the real eigenvectors forming the basis of the applied operator; the operator corresponding to this process must be self-adjoint or Hermitian. In the double-slit experiment, the interference pattern (*) disappears when it is performed at the slits. This process results in wave-function collapse. Because their observables do not commute, one cannot do this for position and momentum simultaneously by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. For 10 points, name this process which for length might be done by a ruler.
The formalization of this process relied heavily on evidence from the Compton-Simon experiment.
measurement [or word forms, like measuring things]