The only way to collapse the wave function (and retroactively force the isotope to have decayed or to have not decayed) is to open the box and find out. This is pretty embarrassing.

Each of these wave functions has its individual shape and associated energy level, but how does the wave function "collapse" into what we see as the classical world—atoms, ...

The collapse of the quantum wave function – in which quantum objects go from existing within many possible states at once to settling into a concrete one understood by classical physics – does ...

LLMs and the Quantum Superposition of Meaning. This brings us to an interesting and very conceptual analogy rooted in quantum mechanics: the concept of wave function collapse.

NEW YORK, April 3, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Scientists at Valis Corporation have demonstrated gravitationally induced wavefunction collapse on an IBM Eagle quantum chip and will present their findings ...

But a crucial step is skipped because it has puzzled scientists since the earliest days—how does the real, classical world emerge from, often, a large number of solutions for the wave functions?