Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
scientificamerican.com
Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
1–10 of 171 posts
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#2The article touches upon something that I think most people that learn about physics don't realize. The models physicists use to describe nature do NOT exist in reality. They are mere concepts that work well to describe natural phenomena.
My favourite example for this is the electron. Does an electron how we describe it in quantum mechanics exist in nature? The answer is no. The electron is a model construct we have made up that describes natural phenomena. Nothing more.
This is where non-experts that didn't study physics get confused when they read that an electron is a wave but also a particle. All of these concepts are just physical models that again do not exist in nature. But they describe different aspects of nature pretty well. And so we assign them a meaning beyond what the mathematical or physical model contains, a part of reality.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#3>Mathematical models such as quantum mechanics and general relativity work, extraordinarily well. But they aren’t real in the same sense that neutrons and neurons are real
Why not? When you really get down to it, aren't both neutrons and neurons ultimately also models?
When most people think of a neutron, they think of a classical particle, yet we know experimentally that there is no such thing.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#4The author of this piece says he was struggling to understand complex conjugates. If you don't understand what that is, please read the wikipedia, so you can contextualize his level of familiarity with the material he speaks about.
I don't think the author is being dishonest. But that admission is extremely striking to me.
[edit: Can some admin give me guidance on how to make the point I'm clearly trying to make? I'm not sure how to make this point without being discourteous.]
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#5The author of this piece says he was struggling to understand complex conjugates. If you don't understand what that is, please read the wikipedia, so you can contextualize his level of familiarity with the material he speaks about. I don't think the author is being dishonest. But that admission is extremely striking to me. [edit: Can some admin give me guidance on how to make the point I'm clearly trying to make? I'm…
> [edit: Can some admin give me guidance on how to make the point I'm clearly trying to make? I'm not sure how to make this point without being discourteous.]
not an admin, but seems like you made your point
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#6One of the interesting questions (without any satisfactory answers) in Philosophy is “How does language relate to the world?”
Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps language is just a tool we, humans, use for thinking and representing our knowledge.
Mathematics is a language...
Mathematical objects need not exist anywhere else but in the Mathematician’s head.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#7The article touches upon something that I think most people that learn about physics don't realize. The models physicists use to describe nature do NOT exist in reality. They are mere concepts that work well to describe natural phenomena. My favourite example for this is the electron. Does an electron how we describe it in quantum mechanics exist in nature? The answer is no. The electron is a model construct we have…
Physics isn't special in this regard, though. All conscious thought is about models, abstractions and filing things away in boxes. I might think this post of mine starts with the letter P, but if I made the http request by hand, starting it by sending the utf8 encoding of P to the network card won't work, because I need headers. On the other hand if my child tried to render the opening P I'd ask her to not draw on my phone screen please.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#8>Mathematical models such as quantum mechanics and general relativity work, extraordinarily well. But they aren’t real in the same sense that neutrons and neurons are real Why not? When you really get down to it, aren't both neutrons and neurons ultimately also models? When most people think of a neutron, they think of a classical particle, yet we know experimentally that there is no such thing.
Yeah the author is assuming that "neutrons" have definite boundaries and are unambiguously distinguishable from the soup they inhabit.
This is not the case.
This is a simple example of how hard quantum mechanics is to think about.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#9The article touches upon something that I think most people that learn about physics don't realize. The models physicists use to describe nature do NOT exist in reality. They are mere concepts that work well to describe natural phenomena. My favourite example for this is the electron. Does an electron how we describe it in quantum mechanics exist in nature? The answer is no. The electron is a model construct we have…
> The answer is no
Well technically I think the answer would he "We don't know" instead. We don't have anything better than the standard model - the perceived clash between wave and particle is resolved by a more general theoryz for example.
Re: Is the Schrödinger Equation True?
#10One of the interesting questions (without any satisfactory answers) in Philosophy is “How does language relate to the world?” Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps language is just a tool we, humans, use for thinking and representing our knowledge. Mathematics is a language... Mathematical objects need not exist anywhere else but in the Mathematician’s head.
If you read Wigner's famous essay, you can make an argument that if not the mathematics itself, there is some kind of structure which is mathematical if not symbolic.