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The Octonion Math That Could Underpin Physics

quantamagazine.org

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Re: The Octonion Math That Could Underpin Physics

#191

Post by codethief »

kgilpin wrote: post #146
nessus42 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Einstein never accepted quantum mechanics Wait? Since when did Einstein not accept Quantum Mechanics? He won the Nobel Prize for his work in discovering an important part of Quantum Mechanics. Einstein rejected the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. That's not the same thing as rejecting Quantum Mechanics. I've seen no claims that he would object to either the Everett or Bohm Interpretations of QM. (Bu…

Well, he never accepted non-locality. And it turns out, quantum mechanics is indeed non-local.

This is a common misconception. (The Copenhagen interpretation of) QM is a local theory, in the sense that there's no faster-than-light travel of information.

Otherwise you'd have to take into account what's happening at the other end of the universe in order to successfully predict the outcome of experiments. (Which I hear is what the people working on Bohmian mechanics struggle with.)

Re: The Octonion Math That Could Underpin Physics

#192

Post by nessus42 »

codethief wrote: post #191
kgilpin wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he never accepted non-locality. And it turns out, quantum mechanics is indeed non-local.

This is a common misconception. (The Copenhagen interpretation of) QM is a local theory, in the sense that there's no faster-than-light travel of information. Otherwise you'd have to take into account what's happening at the other end of the universe in order to successfully predict the outcome of experiments. (Which I hear is what the people working on Bohmian mechanics struggle with.)

It's been a while since I studied this, and I know that some Copenhagenist try to wiggle their way out of this, but if you consider the probability waves in the Copenhagen interpretation to be "real" and "measurement" to cause their collapse, book-keeping information by the universe would seem to have to travel at faster than the speed of light, IIRC.

On the other hand, it's certainly been proven that this cannot be used to transmit information that you might like to at faster than the speed of light. So causality is preserved in any case.

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