It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
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Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#2From the point of view of chemistry, QM “works”. It provides results that can be tested experimentally and predictions that can be validated. There are issues with computability but that’s more engineering than science. Determining structure, spectra and other physical properties is quite helpful.
What was the cliche? All theories are wrong, some theories are useful. It needs to be rephrased from vector codes into massively parallel codes but people can work with that.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#3Yes, but go back to philosophy not math.
All the evidence suggests the "particle" interpretation of QM is simply wrong, that light or energy really is just a self propagating wave, which explains the double slit experiment cleanly, and is not incompatible with energy levels or quantization if formulated correctly.
Experiments that claim to show light consists of particles need to be reassessed wearing a philosopher's hat.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#4From the point of view of chemistry, QM “works”. It provides results that can be tested experimentally and predictions that can be validated. There are issues with computability but that’s more engineering than science. Determining structure, spectra and other physical properties is quite helpful. What was the cliche? All theories are wrong, some theories are useful. It needs to be rephrased from vector codes into ma…
To me, this always felt like programmers excusing abhorrent code with "but it works".
Quantum theory isn't. It's not a single, cohesive, consistent theory.[1] There is no recipe you can apply, it's just a bunch of guessworks and heuristics that happen to produce the numerically correct equations if you keep trying long enough. This isn't secret or some sort of external criticism, you'll find this front-and-centre in the foreword of many a QM text!
Schrödinger famously arrived at his equation basically through numerical methods. He just tried things until it "fit" the desired output.
Now, there's nothing wrong with this, per-se. It's a perfectly viable approach for getting going, for getting something and using it as a starting point. But it isn't the endpoint, because approaches like this often have virtually no explanatory power.
A similar example is collecting insects, categorising them, giving them Latin names, and putting them up for display in a museum. You can learn a lot, amass enormous amounts of information, but without a theory of genetics and natural selection you will always be blind to the underlying truth of it all.
QM is just like bug collecting. We're collecting numerical equations that work, but we have essentially no clear understanding why. We've built a tree of life, and nobody has had the lightbulb moment that explains why it's a tree.
[1] There was a paper published a few years back where a bunch of working quantum physicists were asked some simple multiple-choice questions about the fundamentals of the theory. There was no consensus opinion on anything! PS: You'll get similar results if you ask priests of a random Christian sects about the basics of religion. Conversely, you will get nearly zero disagreement if asking Chemists about the basics of their science.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#5For some time already we are in an "epicyclean phase" of physics, trapped by the extraordinary predictive success of Quantum Electrodynamics and still using mathematical methods devised in the 19th century (variational calculus). This has lead us to the current situation, with extremely complicated theories at the limit of human understanding that bear no new results.
It will take a modern day Copernicus to come up with a new view of physics, that will result in simpler, more productive models, to take us out of the local maximum we are in.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#6From the point of view of chemistry, QM “works”. It provides results that can be tested experimentally and predictions that can be validated. There are issues with computability but that’s more engineering than science. Determining structure, spectra and other physical properties is quite helpful. What was the cliche? All theories are wrong, some theories are useful. It needs to be rephrased from vector codes into ma…
To me, this always felt like programmers excusing abhorrent code with "but it works". Quantum theory isn't. It's not a single, cohesive, consistent theory.[1] There is no recipe you can apply, it's just a bunch of guessworks and heuristics that happen to produce the numerically correct equations if you keep trying long enough. This isn't secret or some sort of external criticism, you'll find this front-and-centre in…
Come on. We have plenty of good heuristics for why things are the way they are. Quantum theory is no more a bunch of "guessworks and heuristic" than Newtonian mechanics.
Also, physicists disagreeing on interpretational issues related to quantum foundations is not the same thing as disagreeing about the fundamentals of the theory.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#7I get your point, how long do we keep digging before we reach the center of the earth?
It is human nature to quit, most especially, when there is no foreseeable benefits.
But think about it this way, science is like the human body.
The head of science, are those scientists who make a new discovery by going through research articles of their predescessors, who were just 1 mm from digging up gold.
The necks are those scientists, who almost made a new discovery, but couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And the legs, are the early scientist like Galileo, who laid the ground work.
Anyways, wherever you find yourself, it is imperative you don't lose faith in the process.
Afterall, everybody mocked the Wright brothers, for building a plane. And most advanced scientist question, why they venture into this field called science, afterall it is a labor of love, and only the lucky few get glorified.
But I get your point through and through, it is better scientists pour in their brains in more linear science, like things we can see and computate, instead of pouring brain power in abstract concept that has no current benefit in the present society.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#8Sigh, yet another Nautil.us article. One or two meaningful paragraphs buried in a clickbait title by someone bored with their own academic work.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#9Yes, but go back to philosophy not math. All the evidence suggests the "particle" interpretation of QM is simply wrong, that light or energy really is just a self propagating wave, which explains the double slit experiment cleanly, and is not incompatible with energy levels or quantization if formulated correctly. Experiments that claim to show light consists of particles need to be reassessed wearing a philosopher's…
Could you point to some articles on this? It's way outside of my field, but it sounds very interesting.
Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end
#10Maybe start connecting the structures in our brains with the structures in our math. The limited representational capacity of meat-based brains is probably constraining what can be understood. Even math may be too constrained to go beyond current level of detail. I imagine an AI doing its own experiments with the universe will have unbounded understanding, but i doubt we d be able to understand her when she tries to explain to us puny humans