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It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

nautil.us

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Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#131

Post by michaelwilson »

shoyer wrote: post #73

As former quantum physicist, I find it little troubling to read "quantum theory has reached a dead end" in specific reference to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Most quantum physicists could not care less about how quantum mechanics is interpreted when it makes highly accurate quantitative predictions, and there are still plenty of interesting open problems for quantum theory (e.g., related to the practical…

How can you be a "former quantum physicist"? Did you somehow unlearn everything that made you a quantum physicist?

Maybe you meant to say "formerly paid to be a quantum physicist"? :-)

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#132

Post by hither_shores »

pshc wrote: post #66
esteth wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be exhausted over time? When things come close to the magnet it uses its potential energy to pull them. When some force acts to remove those objects from the magnetic field, that energy is converted into potential in the magnet again. Are you claiming that the alignment of the magnet will fade slowly over time when the field is interacted with, more quickly than it would if it were left on a proverbial s…

Yeah, that was my claim, that the atoms will slowly return to a chaotic high-entropy organization over time, and more rapidly as forces are exerted against the magnet. I guess I was wrong.

> that the atoms will slowly return to a chaotic high-entropy organization over time, and more rapidly as forces are exerted against the magnet

This is true, it's just not why magnets can lift things.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#133

Post by raphlinus »

mrjangles wrote: post #111

I come to HN to learn new things in fields I know little about, like tech and computers, I always find the comments to be authoritative and interesting. However, whenever I read the comments on any subject I happen to know something about, like physics, they are always completely nonsense from people who clearly have absolutely not even the smallest amount of experience in the area they are talking about. The worst p…

The Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is real here. The difference is that, for many computer and computer-adjacent topics, the principals will often chime in. That gets you a level of authoritativeness that's hard to match. Even within computer topics, though, you see authoritative-sounding comments that are just wrong. That happens like clockwork in any thread having to do with undefined behavior, for example.

I also know a little about Covid (having a minor in molecular and cell biology, and obsessively consuming resources like TWiV for a while), and the median amateur virologist comment here is just a howler. Occasionally you'll have people who really know what they're talking about comment, but it usually gets drowned out.

The key, then, as always, is to read everything critically. Then there's some real insight to be gained here.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#134

Post by DonHopkins »

irrational wrote: post #120
mellosouls wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t use your intuition developed from grinding out web crap to try and reason about the forefront of human knowledge. Have you tried front end web frameworks recently? String theory has nothing on them.

Eventually there will be so many JavaScript libraries and frameworks that they will collapse in upon themselves and create a black hole.

node_modules

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/6s0wov/hea...

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#135

Post by AnimalMuppet »

LeapingLennie wrote: post #67
petmon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have several single photon sources, including nitrogen vacancy centers and quantum dots. Nobody has ever produced a "half-photon source" though.

What would half-photons look like? I guess photons with half the energy expected given their wavelength and the Planck relation E = hc/λ?

No, that's a complete photon, just one with a different wavelength. A half photon would have E = hc/2λ; that is, half the energy for the same wavelength.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#136

Post by chasil »

michaelwilson wrote: post #130
chasil wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many practical applications of quantum mechanics. The one that I remember foremost is tunneling to (dis)charge the floating gates on flash memory transistors, but that just scratches the surface. "Flash memory chips found in USB drives use quantum tunneling to erase their memory cells." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applications_of_quantum_mech... This I did not know: "It even exists in the simple light s…

But does it flow through wires? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY

It collapses through chloroplasts!

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-it-comes-to-...

Ironic that plastid-based life is so much more advanced than us, but we are the ones that ended up with (super)intelligence.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#137

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

mrjangles wrote: post #111

I come to HN to learn new things in fields I know little about, like tech and computers, I always find the comments to be authoritative and interesting. However, whenever I read the comments on any subject I happen to know something about, like physics, they are always completely nonsense from people who clearly have absolutely not even the smallest amount of experience in the area they are talking about. The worst p…

From what I've seen on HN, things about tech implementations and software libraries are generally rock-solid. But if you venture into something else, such as QM, the humanities or god-forbid politics, that's when it becomes a nightmare mix of pseudo-intellectualism.

That isn't to say that there aren't voices from experts in those fields that contribute to the discussion, but they are usually drowned out with "The sample size it too small" with an n=20000 or "they aren't letting different ideas into [insert scientific field here]" as they've mentioned further up in this thread.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#138

Post by ravi-delia »

selfhifive wrote: post #128
fennecs wrote: post #64

Amusing to see all the pessimistic comments form programmers who have zero understanding beyond high school maths thinking somehow there is a magic solution to all the problems in physics like you can just refactor everything. Quantum field theory is definitely not stuck in the 1920s. Modern physics has a lot more going on than 19th century mathematics. We understand quite a lot about the mathematical structure under…

While I do get what you're trying to say, it has to be said that many CS people have been exposed to Quantum Physics. Quantum computing is an elective at every half-decent University. To think that programmers have zero understanding beyond high school math is just ignorant.

At least for me and my classmates, we got a lot more wrong before we got right. Nothing is worse in this world than an undergrad fresh out of an intro quantum class with a neutered Schrodinger's equation and whatever nonsense pseudo-philosophy they picked up to deal with it. After taking a proper mathematical methods class you start to get the beginnings of an intuition for what's going on for quantum mechanics.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#139

Post by analog31 »

michaelwilson wrote: post #131
shoyer wrote: post #73

As former quantum physicist, I find it little troubling to read "quantum theory has reached a dead end" in specific reference to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Most quantum physicists could not care less about how quantum mechanics is interpreted when it makes highly accurate quantitative predictions, and there are still plenty of interesting open problems for quantum theory (e.g., related to the practical…

How can you be a "former quantum physicist"? Did you somehow unlearn everything that made you a quantum physicist? Maybe you meant to say "formerly paid to be a quantum physicist"? :-)

I can't speak for the parent, but I have a physics degree from 30 years ago. Since then my career has diverged from academic physics to the point where it would take some effort to re-learn even my graduate level QM coursework, much less familiarize with current research topics. So I could see where the "former" status comes from.

Re: It’s time to admit quantum theory has reached a dead end

#140

Post by qumpis »

fennecs wrote: post #64

Amusing to see all the pessimistic comments form programmers who have zero understanding beyond high school maths thinking somehow there is a magic solution to all the problems in physics like you can just refactor everything. Quantum field theory is definitely not stuck in the 1920s. Modern physics has a lot more going on than 19th century mathematics. We understand quite a lot about the mathematical structure under…

I'm not sure where such negative emotions towards people throwing their intuition and expecting further discussing from experts comes from. Don't think anyone is suggesting that people at the "forefront" aren't capable of coming up with such ideas themselves, more like framing the familiar in other contexts to kick-off a discussion.
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