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Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

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Re: Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

#3
Liquid dynamics sounds like an interesting hypothesis, but I agree with the critics that entanglement presents a tough analogy. If Pilot Wave theory suggests that the particle-wave duality is actually two distinct actors - a wave and a particle riding the wave - then 1) each particle has an independently generated wave? and 2) it's difficult to see how that wave could be exactly preserved for both particles over the long distances of entanglement experiments. That's like envisioning a ripple on the far side of a large lake exactly mimicking a ripple here. Granted, the entanglement result of simultaneous collapse of probabilities is also tough to rationally understand. But Pilot Waves maintaining their effect, regardless of various asynchronous interactions encountered between the distances of entanglement experiments, seems naive. Then again, I'm not a particle physicist.

Re: Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

#4
I've liked:

Clearing up Mysteries - The Original Goal http://bayes.wustl.edu/etj/articles/cmystery.pdf

" ...we must keep in mind that Einstein's thinking is always on the ontological level; the purpose of the EPR argument was to show that the QM state vector cannot be a representation of the "real physical situation" of a system. Bohr had never claimed that it was, although his strange way of expressing himself often led others to think that he was claiming this.

From his reply to EPR, we find that Bohr's position was like this:

"You may decide, of your own free will, which experiment to do. If you do experiment E1 you will get result R1. If you do E2 you will get R2. Since it is fundamentally impossible to do both on the same system, and the present theory correctly predicts the results of either, how can you say that the theory is incomplete? What more can one ask of a theory?"

While it is easy to understand and agree with this on the epistemological level, the answer that I and many others would give is that we expect a physical theory to do more than merely predict experimental results in the manner of an empirical equation; we want to come down to Einstein's ontological level and understand what is happening when an atom emits light, when a spin enters a Stern-Gerlach magnet, etc. The Copenhagen theory, having no answer to any question of the form: "What is really happening when - - - ?", forbids us to ask such questions and tries to persuade us that it is philosophically naive to want to know what is happening. But I do want to know, and I do not think this is naive; and so for me QM is not a physical theory at all, only an empty mathematical shell in which a future theory may, perhaps, be built."

Re: Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

#5
post #3

Liquid dynamics sounds like an interesting hypothesis, but I agree with the critics that entanglement presents a tough analogy. If Pilot Wave theory suggests that the particle-wave duality is actually two distinct actors - a wave and a particle riding the wave - then 1) each particle has an independently generated wave? and 2) it's difficult to see how that wave could be exactly preserved for both particles over the…

[deleted]

Re: Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

#7
post #6

Are there any experiments where the pilot wave theory and the Copenhagen interpretation predict different results?

If the pilot wave really drives the behavior of the particle to a very large extent, finding such experiments would be exceedingly difficult.

Re: Fluid Tests Hint at Concrete Quantum Reality

#9
post #3

Liquid dynamics sounds like an interesting hypothesis, but I agree with the critics that entanglement presents a tough analogy. If Pilot Wave theory suggests that the particle-wave duality is actually two distinct actors - a wave and a particle riding the wave - then 1) each particle has an independently generated wave? and 2) it's difficult to see how that wave could be exactly preserved for both particles over the…

In interpretation of dual slit experiment people do the main mistake of mixing up the 2 waves - one is wave like quantization of position and another is de Broglie wave-equivalent of the particle. The mix up is caused by photon where both have the same wavelength. They are different in the case of all other particles. Hitachi experiment shows its the best - it clearly shows interference of the positional waves of different particles, not the de Brogile wave (ie. not the particles themselves). It thus also lends very credible support to statistical ensemble interpretation (which, as far as i know, Einstein favored)

People frequently bring up single-particle self-interference as explanation for Hitachi too. Well, in case of photon the self-interference pattern looks the same as positional interference because of the same wavelength. In case of electron and especially neutron the self-interference pattern would be much more dense than observed one because of the much higher de Brogile frequency than the frequency of the positional quantization.

The wave-like quantization of position is the Pivot Wave. The really important thing here is to understand that Pivot Wave isn't a real wave/object. It is just a description of possible positions of the particle at specific times. Like a trajectory of a bullet isn't a real thing, it is just description of possible positions of the bullet at specific times. It is just in QM the trajectories are wave-like quantized and probabilistically spread - that the non-smooth at small scales structure of our Universe shows its "ugly" face :)

Again, taking the quantized wave-like trajectory description of a particle for a real thing, the particle itself, is the main misinterpretation that has been going for years, especially in Copenghagen interpretation.

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