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This is a question particularly geared toward the Many Worlds interpretation, but I think it could be translated to other approaches as well.

I am not sure I understand exactly what sort of events cause the wavefunction to branch into orthogonal states. Is the wavefunction simply "smearing out" constantly, or are there distinct point-like events where the orthogonality "seeds"? Please let me know if I can clarify the question.

Qmechanic
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Jeff Bass
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  • While it doesn't address your actual question, I think you'll find the info here to be of interest: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/536522/123208 – PM 2Ring Dec 26 '20 at 08:43
  • @PM2Ring I guess I'm just not sure how to picture these wavefunction "splits" in the first place, regardless of how thick each branch is. Do the splits tend to be binary like this, or can there be a wavefunction splitting off into 20 different directions? Or just for sake of argument, is the wavefunction simply branching infinitely every moment? – Jeff Bass Dec 26 '20 at 08:48
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    The wavefunction tells you the probabilities for the different possible outcomes of a measurement, but you can perform any measurement in a binary fashion. Is the particle inside this region? Is its x coordinate <0? Etc. So you can partition the splits in a binary fashion. OTOH, if the particle can have an x coordinate that's anywhere from 0 to 1 and you want to know that x value, then you could say there are an infinite number of branches. Of course, any actual measurement process has limited precision, so in practice we're always working with a finite number of branches. – PM 2Ring Dec 26 '20 at 09:03
  • @PM2Ring I will probably make this a separate post, but write my question here first. I think my deeper question is about particle interactions. Since the interacting particles are probably not in well-defined positions, does the interaction take place in a "diffuse way" or is there suddenly a point where the interaction takes place? I feel the Feynman diagrams getting closer. – Jeff Bass Dec 26 '20 at 09:28
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    @JeffBass The wave functions are not real. It’s just a way to calculate the probabilities. – Bill Alsept Dec 26 '20 at 09:34

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