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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

#71

Post by [deleted] »

jiggawatts wrote: post #4
jleyank wrote: post #2

From 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…

[deleted]

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

#72

Post by analog31 »

donutdan4114 wrote: post #48

Does anything think Wolfram Theory is going to end up being the right approach to go deeper down the rabbit hole? Personally I think the theory is really interesting and intuitively feels like the universe at some core level may work as the theory suggests. But I’m not sure if many people are considering the theory to have serious promise in the long term.

It has to find the rabbit hole first. So far as I understand, Wolfram theory hasn't yet been testable against any experimental data. So it's 100 years behind quantum theory. And in the final analysis, even if it achieves the same exquisite accuracy as quantum theory, will it do any better with the problem that really bugs people, which is the ability to tell us what we're really made of? That's the problem stated at the beginning of the article:

>>> But I’m still waiting for a straight answer as to what the structure of the atoms that make up my body is.

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

#73

Post by shoyer »

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 design of algorithms and hardware for quantum computers).

This article also misses what is likely the leading interpretation of quantum mechanics by actual quantum physicists, namely that the measurment problem is solved by decoherence (the quantitative theory of how classical states emerge from quantum states):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Measurement_problem#The_role_o...

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsta.2011.049...

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

#74

Post by chii »

jiggawatts wrote: post #4
jleyank wrote: post #2

From 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…

> because approaches like this often have virtually no explanatory power.

the famous feynman have produced a response to this train of thought - usually from the laymen - where they demand an "explanatory theory". The answer is usually "don't know"; why gravity work the way it does? - don't know, but we can calculate orbits to great precision; why does photons or electrons travel the way it does? - don't know, but we can make very precise predictions via Quantum Electrodynamics theory.

The laymen demands an explanatory theory, because there's an underlying assumption they don't even verbalize - that such an explanatory theory can be understood _without the maths_, that the principles of the laws of physics operate on basic, understandable lego pieces. What is somewhat unconceivable is that the explanation _is_ the maths. To whit, we don't even have an explanation for the idea of inertia! We just observe it, and measure it (as mass). There's no explanatory theory.

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

#75

Post by agumonkey »

mellosouls wrote: post #69
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…

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.

C String > String

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

#76

Post by stjohnswarts »

tus666 wrote: post #12
wpietri wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point to some articles on this? It's way outside of my field, but it sounds very interesting.

It is more than just interesting, it's the central unsolved conundrum in physics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_m...

I thought GUT was at the core of modern physics studies?

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

#77

Post by CSSer »

mellosouls wrote: post #69
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…

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.

Now I want my new job title to be string interpolation theorist.

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

#78

Post by user3939382 »

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…

> Quantisation is a nearly well understood process

The layman’s explanation I received for this, perhaps incorrectly, is that you fill in variables for factors that you don’t understand or can’t measure with whatever value makes the rest of the theory / equation work. Is that at all correct?

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

#80

Post by AnimalMuppet »

xyzzyz wrote: post #50
aaaaaaaaaaab wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Iron filings fly up because of the principle of minimum potential energy. They can lose potential energy by moving closer to the magnet, so they do. No energy is gained - potential energy is converted to kinetic energy, then heat when they hit the magnet.

Your answer is basically a tautology: if we observe work being performed, there must be some potential energy being converted, that’s what the potential energy is; the ability to perform work. The real question rather is: why doesn’t the same thing happen when I get a stick close to wood shavings? How is energy stored in a magnet in a way that is not stored in a stick?

Because sticks don't have magnetic fields, and there isn't a "stick field" that has potential energy.

And why is there a magnetic field? Basically it's a consequence of the electric field plus relativity.

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