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Posted on 11/18/2011 5:52:08 AM PST by ShadowAce
At the heart of the weirdness for which the field of quantum mechanics is famous is the wavefunction, a powerful but mysterious entity that is used to determine the probabilities that quantum particles will have certain properties. Now, a preprint posted online on 14 November1 reopens the question of what the wavefunction represents — with an answer that could rock quantum theory to its core. Whereas many physicists have generally interpreted the wavefunction as a statistical tool that reflects our ignorance of the particles being measured, the authors of the latest paper argue that, instead, it is physically real.
“I don't like to sound hyperbolic, but I think the word 'seismic' is likely to apply to this paper,” says Antony Valentini, a theoretical physicist specializing in quantum foundations at Clemson University in South Carolina.
Valentini believes that this result may be the most important general theorem relating to the foundations of quantum mechanics since Bell’s theorem, the 1964 result in which Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell proved that if quantum mechanics describes real entities, it has to include mysterious “action at a distance”.
Action at a distance occurs when pairs of quantum particles interact in such a way that they become entangled. But the new paper, by a trio of physicists led by Matthew Pusey at Imperial College London, presents a theorem showing that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, then even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely to be true, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all.
David Wallace, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford, UK, says that the theorem is the most important result in the foundations of quantum...
(Excerpt) Read more at nature.com ...
Unlike this guy. :)
LOL, I love it.
Ping
The article made my brain freeze. I am depending on freepers to put it into language I can understand. Brain still going in circles saying “WHAT” GG
It is twice the fun in a parallel universe.
If energy never dies but just changes form, does it not in fact die to be born as something else?
Check your bath tub, thats where I finally found my glass's after days of searching.
Whoops! Thanks Captain Beyond!
The Universe is right handed.
Schrodinger’s wheat field?
I do believe you're conflating transverse waves (motion of particles perpendicular to the motion of the wave) and longitudinal waves (motion of particles parallel to the motion of the wave).
Water waves are confusing because they involve both types of motion. G'rrr.
Here's a website which gives a good run down:
And a link therein.
If you think that's weird, then feast your eyes on this:
Cheers!
A philosopher of physics? Now that's a mighty interesting job title.
This is an example that we shall not believe everything we read. Their arguments are wrong as the state vectors are not orthogonal, hence their conclusions are not correct.
Read more here http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/11/nature-hypes-anti-qm-crackpot-paper-by.html
So if a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise?
The quote attributed to Lord Kelvin (sometimes Rutherford or Bohr) when chastising a group of postgraduate students philosophizing about a phenomenon,...was, “If you can’t quantify and qualify what the hell you are talking about, then you don’t really know what the hell you are talking about!”
It was also expressed more tactfully by Lord Kelvin in a documented lecture.
PS (no implications towards yourself were intended)
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