It’s interesting to note how most scientist at one time upheld the phlogiston theory and opposed to the proposition to overthrow it by Lavoisier , despite of gross inconsistencies that were associated with it. It provided explanations for observations of combustion phenomena and relatively reasonable ability to make predictions. Eventually the theory evolved. I wonder sometimes if QM is a more refined and intellectually coherent equivalent to the type of theory like the phlogiston theory. Griffiths in his QM book in the last chapter said that we might look back on this today’s QM theory in the future, and wonder how could we have been so gullible.
This was an excellent presentation, one of the best short and yet comprehensive summations of the subject I have ever seen, and I have watched dozens. Well done
I was curious when I was in college what was the motivation of shrondinger - it was serious, a gendaken, what? As far as I read, it seems it was a "reduction at absurdum" against Copenhagen, but this became kinda of forgot because of pop culture
(We *presume* systems are in a superposition before we make a measurement. We don't *know* that. Have you ever checked? No, you haven't, because checking would involve a measurement and we're talking about the time *before* the measurement. So no one has ever confirmed this, and no one can. The truth of this matter is that before the measurement the system's state is not an eigenvector of the measurement observable (generally), and therefore it has no value for that observable. When we make the observation we kick it into an eigenvector state, but that doesn't happen until we make the measurement (and we're talking about the time before the measurement). Do we know for sure that the system is in the state predicted by the Schrödinger equation before we make the measurement? No - we don't. We *presume* it is, but as noted above it's impossible to confirm. And it's not possible to directly measure the wave function anyway. So, the truth here, guys, is that we have a theory we've cooked up that has a lot of steps in between setting up the experiment and getting the answer. We generally get the right answers in our experiments, so we take that as proof that every step in our theory is correct and actually happened. It does *not* prove that. It proves *nothing* about the process by which the system evolved from the initial conditions to the final. It proves that the value we predicted for the answer is the answer. And that is *all* it proves. We need to be more circumspect about what things we call "proven."
Bravissimo! Yes, and SM QM explains nothing and, on its own, enables no understanding. Therefore, it fails to fulfill the main purpose of real science in general and of good theory in particular. Worse yet, it's subverted most of STEM and what's left of civilization (in this post-truth era of the Age of Show Biz).
"Whose land we occupy" - what is he talking about? The land is currently legally owned in 2023. It's not owned by anyone else at this point in history.
Everett interpretation is specifically the rejection of the Born rule axiom and the equivalent treatment of a measurement device as somehow non-quantum. "Many worlds" is a misnomer; there is only one wavefunction. It is a simplification of Copenhagen, not added assumptions and complexity. It's Occam's razor taken to QM. The illusion of the Born rule under Everettian QM is a solved problem, btw.
There is no real answer to this question. The problem rests with the wavefunction being nonlocal. That means the wavefunction cannot be cut up into parts. As soon as you try to do that you run into problems with trying to extricate the observer from the system. This was highlighted recently by an implementation of the Wigner's friend paradox using photons, which suggested that measurements are subjective. However, that required a photon to act as an observer. Many people reject the conclusion of this experiment because of this. However, this then results in your question: What constitutes an observer? Some researchers propose that an observer must be in some sense sentient, without any further justification.
Mark Fernee Sentience is defined how, specifically? And how does sentience physically influence quantum systems? This answer creates more questions than solutions.
@@chrisdistant9040 That's the point. The definition of sentience is ill-defined for this purpose. With respect to measurements in quantum mechanics, the observer does not seem to be well-defined by the theory, but is instead axiomatic.
The answer is actually simple. Einstein and Schrodinger were right. There is no such thing as particles in reality. Particles are simply our interpretation of a measurement. We assign mass, location, momentum and spin to measurements of things that are not actually particles. Hence the need to apply the Born equation. The Born equation is simply to particalize the measurement results for us humans who want to interpret the results as the measurement of a particle with a location, momentum, spin etc. The phenomenon (which is actually a wave) has none of these properties in the way us humans interpret it. The cat is dead if the geiger counter detected the phenomenon (that us humans are interpreting as detection of a particle) and not dead if not. There is no collapsing of a wave function or multiverses. It is just our incorrect interpretation of our measurements as particulate when they are actually just waves. Everything is waves, interacting with other waves. There is no locality as there is no particle. Hence the ability for entanglement at an apparent distance; as the waves can interact over a field not across two point locations between two non-existent particles with two non-existent locations.
Hi Jeff! If a thing has the ability to deliver momentum and spin in a single interaction and it is never capable of splitting into more parts each of which carries a piece of momentum and a piece of spin then that's behaving sufficiently like a single particle to be called a particle. That is totally unlike physical waves which can and will split momentum, etc. Now sure, that particle-type aspect can be called _the local excitation of a field_ instead but that idea of fields giving rise to quantised excitations and those quanta being indivisible etc, was all done to explain such things as the non-conservation of particle number in high-energy collisions, it is also a good way to permanently stick the relativity theory into QM. That is to say you can sort of get rid of the particles by thinking in terms of fields instead but you're then stuck reintroducing the same idea of quantisation of energy and strictly local conservation laws (gauge symmetry) and inventing new language like 'field excitations' in order to explain any interactions between fields or a field interacting with itself and this is not substantively or quantitatively different from just calling them particles anyway. So this allegedly simple stuff isn't simple at all and it isn't even really consistent with the more sophisticated and more modern version of quantum theory in which matter waves for fermions are described by spinor fields not vector fields. Spinors are anything but 'actually simple'. Also the idea that you can reduce the wave to a statistical wave, a probability amplitude (i.e. the Born interpretation) was in fact an effort to give the particle theory a foundation in statistics. So this idea that the particle aspects are not important and the thing is reducible to some kind of physical wave cannot really be right - it behaves like a statistical wave involving spinor-type components which is nothing at all like a physical wave which always has vector-like components.
Jeff Popova-Clark except that's not at all the position of Einstein and Schrodinger... also we observe particles in experiments, as both are equally correct answer hence one of the many aspects that makes QM more interesting and complex than classical mechanics. These are empirical facts devoid of opinion, you can argue that one is more fundamental than the other but we already have observations that show both are correct and they are not contradictory as already proven by Bohm, but clearly you have not read enough of the literature to have understood that given your naive position....get caught up on how far the field has come since classical mechanics, cheers...
@@RickB500 Ok fair point. Einstein & Schrodinger were simply pointing out the inconsistencies. I accept that I have misrepresented their viewpoint in my simplistic explanation above.
Rite, and why do so many believe that exploding anything will help us understand what its like before we explode it? May as well expect exploding frogs to help us understand frogness.
Everyone insists on waves, being there at all; Why? The problems start due to waves acting in superposition. Remove the waves from everything and no other levels of explanations need to be introduced. That kind of physics works at all scales and levels, as was achieved by Randell Mills. Three items have been successfully developed using that theory.
The many worlds interpretation is a lame excuse. Because of that decoherence crap, it will never be proven and proof is how theory becomes fact. If Schrodinger got a letter from himself asking 'Why'd you send me a dead cat?' I'd give the theory some credibility.
All interpretations are indistinguishable from each other. However, there are some modifications to quantum mechanics that are testable and will be tested in the near future. Decoherence does not explain the many worlds interpretation, as some people suggest. Decoherence simply explains why local phenomena appear classical.
@Crucibelle Theories are supposed to be provable. Some suggest string theory needs 6 dimensions which are either too small to see or outside our universe. There are those who would tell you gravity is the weakest force (by far) because it spans these 6 other dimensions. Scientist back themselves into a corner repeatedly. 'Expansion theory' was flawed from the beginning which gave us the 'big bang theory'...also poppycock...yet we base the rest of our understanding on them. Science is comedy at this point. You'll discover that in another 20 years or so. You want to do a job right, you'll need to understand your most important tool...the brain. As a species we've continually thought we were right and proven ourselves wrong. The aforementioned "theories" will prove that...eventually, lol.
Bravo & rite on! Not even a wavicle exists. They're all constantly streaming wavefronts, plasmoids, & vortical filaments of double-helical contra-rotatory plasma flows surrounding similar filaments of hyper-plasma and, at the center, the densest vector of streaming fluid flow.
Real science exists for the sake of better understanding of life, being, the universe, and its nature, for the sake of better quality of life (QOL) and wisdom, for the sake of all generations. + So, as SM scientism increases the quantity of anomalies, unscientific absurdities, and mystifying mythifications it fails and falls farther astray. + FYI: Approximate descriptions and explanations of processes, effects, and subsystems partially observed and not fully understood are not explanations of the realities current SM QM gurus claim to explain. Thus, as some Chinese sages noticed +/-3000 years ago, though understanding more than know is good, knowing more than we understand is not only bad, it's an illness. + Modern SM status quo can only be cured by post-modern theory, metatheory, and science that do what they're meant to do, enhance our wisdom and QOL (not degrade and destroy both for the sake of egos' illusory status).
“What is Real?” "No energy system can produce sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it. This universal truth applies to all energy systems. Energy, like time, flows from past to future." There is no enough energy to run the cat dead, jumping, sleeping, etc all at the same time, or you could drive your car on an empty fuel tank around the world, too. Wailing.
Yes, but 'time' is an a posteriori artifact (AKA figment) of socially programmed consciousness stuck with categorical perception enforced by mass-fear/reward tactics that maintain SM conformity to the status quo (renormalized mass-delusion+mass-stupidity in service of rampant ecocidal kleptocracy and the 0.001%ers Plutonomy pyramid game). Thus, like all attempts to get more stuff out of reality's energy budget than its infinity contains, SM QM and dystopian civilization are doomed to worse decline and the worst fall of all, possibly taking 97% of all Earthling species with it. Sigh... Oh, well, if life, planets, stars, and galaxies were not transient & impermanent, no doubt our mass-stupidity would be chronic forever, and human life would lose all its sweetness and exquisite beauty, eh?
@@mlmimichaellucasmontereyin6765 Too much fossil fuels traded cheaper than water - as of looted - which enabled you writing and propagating your comment worldwide, free of charge (but might be paid for). This cannot go on forever, though. "Energy, like time, flows from past to future."
I find Adam Becker's references to Albert Einstein, "in youth a bomb throwing revolutionary", "elderly and not at the height of his powers when quantum physics came along", inappropriate and disrespectful. Prof Einstein was only 51 years old in 1930, two years after P.A.M. Dirac published his classic textbook on the mathematics of QM. I stopped watching Becker.
Talk tainted by social "justice" garbage inserted. Can physicists give a talk without saying stupid stuff like Feynman thought only men could do physics, or apologizing about "occupied" land that was settled centuries ago?
I know I am biased because I am a Christian, but I can't compute how he has no problem with the fantastic idea of the many-world interpretation, but at the same time quickly dismisses the possibility of the immaterial soul.
I'm agnostic but I'm with you in this one. Both of them unobservable ideas. Why should we dismiss only one of them if we dismiss something because it is unobservable?
I agree with both answers before me, and with your objection. But, to play devils advocate, quantum physics allows us to make incredibly accurate predictions, and to find a non-verifiable explanation for how it works could be viewed as more founded and justified than the concept of a soul, which in multiple millennia of human history has not been able to be defined, let alone experimentally verified. Any experiments into how we work has led away from the concept of a soul, and toward a mechanistic understanding of the brain. Many worlds theory is not falsifiable either, but at least it is better defined ;-)
At least we know what is ment by it, wr have mathematics for it and it can be connected to an actual working theory that can be tested empirically. What even is an immaterial soul supposed to mean? I don't believe in either.
@@IsomerSoma in quantum physics it is also unclear what, say, a wavefunction is. It is open to interpretation. It is not material in the conventional way (therefore immaterial?) . Yet it is at the basis of all that is material. And 200 years ago was not even in science's wildest dreams. Even in string theory, the strings themselves are not physical in the conventional way. And there is no real evidence of their actual existence either. Yet, these things were not immediately dismissed. Because of ample anecdotal evidence, I would not a priori dismiss the soul or the spiritual realm either. I guess my point is that there appears to be an unjustified bias against the existence of the spiritual world. I would have preferred an agnostic answer like "we don't presently know if the soul exists". That would be ok with me.
@@videos_iwonderwhy Maybe the interpretation isnt entirely clear, but it is absolutely clear mathematically. Also based on this formalism we can make predictions and test them. That's the main difference. I don't believe in string theory either. There isn't even a pathway to test it let alone any evidence for it. String theorists made promises that were disappointed, but string theory has a beautiful excuse: it stimulates mathematical research. Immaterial souls also have a beautiful excuse: it can help people with fear of death and loss. I however have no reason to believe in this. Why should i? I disagree: there's an epistemological unjustified bias in favor of a mythological/ spiritual world. We don't have any evidence for it yet i am pretty certain the vast majority of humanity believes in one of its iterations. Sure i don't know, but i think for one such immaterial soul is unplausible and also not needed to explain consciousness. We do have a pathway towards understanding even if we aren't there yet. I don't think the bible has anything interesting or convincing to offer in this question. To me the concept of immaterial soul and therefore immortal souls sound like a psychological coping narrative. Surely useful but also all to human to be plausibly true.
QM is just fine by most physicists. The "objections" are philosophical and not scientific. Nowadays there is a cottage industry of complainers, people with books to sell, get some attention, it brings in $ and gives them a feeling of importance. Some physicists get grants and something to publish.
This isn't true. One has to cherry-pick the objections to make this claim. One must only reach for the low-hanging fruit while ignoring the rotten trunk and lack of roots. A logical audit of the information in question demonstrates the indisputable fact that modern Science is a secular religion that ignores a logical application of the scientific method in favor of peer-reviewed, Pavlovian-conditioned nonsense. Schrödinger's cat is meant as mockery. It demonstrates how absurd these (QM) ideas are.
