This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Physics Low‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics Low This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

This has some famous name attached to it, but I can't remember which. Article should be moved to that name. linas 1 July 2005 22:28 (UTC)

Move comments by User:Pdn here from article:

It is more complicated, I think. The spherical wave is diluted by the inverse square law as it expands. This means that the problem just mentioned is not only with the detector. Quantum mechanics being inherently probabilistic, one really needs to deal with an ensemble of decays (to be sure of getting any signal for "a significant number of the cases." ) Then one is stuck with more problem about when the decay occurred. Pdn 8 July 2005 00:28 (UTC)

Hunting for refs. Appearently John Bell (of Bells thm) discusses this in several papers, giving several interpretations. Modern references that mention the Mott problem are:

• Andrew Platt, Ken Kiers, Wytse van Dijk, Numerical Simulations of Alpha Tracks (appears to be a student project guided by a professor)

• Mario Castagnino1 and Roberto Laura, Functional Approach to Quantum Decoherence and the Classical Final Limit: The Mott and Cosmological Problems, International Journal of Theoretical Physics, 39 no 7 pp 1737-1765. [1]

• J.J. Halliwell, Trajectories for the Wave Function of the Universe from a Simple Detector Model, (2001) Phys Rev D 64 pp 044008.

Appearently, astrophysicists enjoy looking at this problem. linas 16:36, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Note also: I have NOT verified any of the journal references; I have the impression that one of the two Mott references may be incorrect, and possible one of the Renninger references may be incorrect. linas 16:48, 10 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

On 5 July 2005, this article was nominated for deletion. The result was keep and cleanup. See Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Spherical decay experiment for a record of the discussion. – ABCD 18:31, 11 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

An earlier comment states that Schiff gives the details of the Mott computation (ray, plus two atoms of a gas.) I note it here because Schiff was a very popular the in the day, and yet I have had trouble finding good references. So it's worth a look.

• L. I. Schiff, Quantum Mechanics, 3rd ed McGraw-Hill Publishing, NY, 1968, ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0070856431

67.198.37.16 (talk) 21:50, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I can tell, Schiff discusses Mott scattering rather than the Mott problem. I think you comment would apply over there. Johnjbarton (talk) 22:26, 27 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]