Why the interference pattern, then? Why not some other probability distribution? It's highly suggestive that something is interfering. — Marchesk
At one time, atoms were just theoretical posits. Anti-realists could have (and maybe did) argue that they were useful fictions for making sense of experiments at the time. But now we can observe them, so obviously they are more than useful fictions. — Marchesk
That's fine. I am sympathetic to everything you report him as saying there, and it's a widely held interpretation. All I was concerned about was whether he was rejecting either the postulates of QM, or results derived from them alone, such as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Relation. It is now clear that he was not. Questions of whether certain things are epistemological or ontological are matters of pure interpretation, since the postulates make no distinction between the two.No, that's not what he was arguing for. Binney stated several times that the probabilistic nature of the value obtained was due to our epistemic uncertainty about the exact quantum state of the measuring device, and not anything fundamental about the state of the particle prior to being measured. A little reading up on HMI reveals that this particular interpretation understands probability to be entirely epistemic (our ignorance or inability to measure everything accurately) and not ontological or fundamental. — Marchesk
That is why, I think, it is 'rate independent' - the 'wave pattern' really is embedded in the fabric of reality itself, it is of a different order to the physical. That is why the 'nature of the wave function' is the metaphysical question par excellence. — Wayfarer
This is where I get confused about the Copenhagen interpretation. — Marchesk
that the world is actually made of probability waves until a measurement (or decoherence) takes place, is puzzling, weird, and almost mystical. — Marchesk
Alright point taken, but the question is whether the Schrödinger equation is describing the real state of the particle before it's measured, or it just has predictive power as a useful tool, and the reality is something else. Afterall, what the hell is a probability wave supposed to be? — Marchesk
In context of Binney and HMI, if the reality would be our epistemic uncertainty about the complex state of the measuring device having a large influence on the particle it's detecting. — Marchesk
If MWI is the case, then probability wave is a description of other worlds. Or it could be pilot waves guiding the particle. But then again, perhaps reality is a jumble of possibilities when we're not looking? Question is why does measurement make it classical? Why is our lived experience mostly classical? — Marchesk
If MWI is the case, then probability wave is a description of other worlds. Or it could be pilot waves guiding the particle. But then again, perhaps reality is a jumble of possibilities when we're not looking? Question is why does measurement make it classical? Why is our lived experience mostly classical? — Marchesk
This is where I get confused about the Copenhagen interpretation. Is it anti-realist, or is it saying that reality is this non-classical stuff of possibilities that behave like a wave? That seems to be two different interpretations. — Marchesk
In terms of the double slit experiment, we don't know why it results in an interference pattern when there isn't a detector on one of the slits. — Marchesk
Yes we do — tom
For systems of more than one particle, QM takes place explicitly in Hilbert space - not in the space-time. — tom
For those who like the pilot wave theories: — Agustino
This one touches upon an important issue. When we say there is a unique ket for each physical state, we are saying that the relation between physical states and kets is a 'function', as that word is technically understood in mathematics. That means that any physical state can only have one associated ket. It does not, however mean that two different physical states cannot have the same ket, and that's where your point about complete descriptions comes in. For any two different states to necessarily have different kets would imply that the ket is a complete description of the physical state. The postulates of QM do not claim that the ket is a complete description. Claims of completeness or otherwise of the kets are either interpretations of QM, or part of theories that seek to extend QM. They are not part of core QM. — andrewk
I didn't completely grasp all of your question, but I answered it as best I could. Let me know if I left anything out. — andrewk
Actually, that video was pretty amazing! Maybe there really is something to pilot waves. I didn't know there was a classical system that produced similar results for the double slit experiment. And you can see it happening! Definitely helps visualize de Broglie's interpretation.
I guess the bouncing silicon oil drops creating the standing waves is a classical pilot wave system. — Marchesk
What is Hilbert space, and what makes it any more real than probability waves? And I don't mean what is the math, I mean what does the math represent? — Marchesk
Quite right, they are not the same uncertainty and, as far as I know, Heisenberg had nothing to do with the time-energy relation. The explanation of the relation in Shankar is just a hand wave, not a mathematical derivation. When I looked it up in my hard copy I found some scathing comments I had written about it at the time I read it, which is probably why I dismissed it from my mind and didn't remember it.The other issue I was trying to bring to your attention is the nature of the time-energy uncertainty relation. Some may say that this uncertainty relation is just a form of expression of the Heisenberg uncertainty, but it is impossible that these are the same uncertainty because time and energy are not canonically conjugate variables. — Metaphysician Undercover
According to wikipedia, those are the people that invented that relation, and published it in that paper. One would have to read the paper to find out what assumptions it uses, and I have not read it.So the question is what is the relationship between these two distinct uncertainties, the time-energy uncertainty, and the Heisenberg uncertainty. .......... There's a Soviet paper, by Mandelshtam and Tamm, (Journal of Physics, vol. 9 no. 4, 1945), entitled "The uncertainty relation between energy and time in non relativistic quantum mechanics" which is quite descriptive. — Metaphysician Undercover
What a philosopher would ask is a question that science will never address, but desperately needs an answer to (so it will not be so easily commandeered by mindless megalomaniacs), a question that we all need an adequate answer to, the Greatest of the Great Questions of Life: that of "Why Bother?"
Without an adequate answer to that Greatest of the Great Questions of Life (for you must admit, you must answer that question before you even begin to address the others), all will crumble in uncertainty. (I have the answer, by the way) (and no - it is not a smart-ass answer. so don't go there). — Numi Who
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