Understanding Popper's Experiment

Abstract

An experiment proposed by Karl Popper is considered by many to be a crucial test of quantum mechanics. Although many loopholes in the original proposal have been pointed out, they are not crucial to the test. We use only the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics to point out what is fundamentally wrong with the proposal, and demonstrate that Popper's basic premise was faulty.Comment: Edited version, to appear in Am. J. Phy