Quantum Metaphysics

What's really behind all the strange phenomena and obtuse mathematics found in quantum mechanics?

Jim and Randy discussed this before the last published episode of PhysicsFM as a warm up after a hiatus and as a preview for episode 9: Quantum Cats. Discussing the same ideas in general with reference to a chapter of Quantum Mechanics and the Particles of Nature by Anthony Sudbury, which conveniently discussed four aspects of quantum mechanics that need interpreting and nine ways of interpreting them, some more objective than others.

Almost every belief about quantum mechanics can be described in one of these interpretations, and each of these interpretations have some adherents. And each of them, at some level are wrong.



Also, don't forget to check out Physics Frontiers, where Randy and Jim discuss a different subject in each episode.

Physics Frontiers

Randy and I have started up a companion podcast, Physics Frontiers, with shorter discussions of topics in physics. Check it out! Show notes at the Physics Frontiers website.

Quantum Cats

How can you go from a probabilistic description of a phenomenon to a physical measurement?

Contrary to classical probability and statistical mechanics, where we have a separation between the governing physics of a situation (mechanical laws) and our knowledge of it (thermodynamics), in quantum mechanics the governing physics is in some way probabilistic in nature.  This means that we cannot interpret probability in the same way that we do in macroscopic phenomena.  The Schroedinger's Cat Paradox shows us that we need to have an interpretation of the transition from the probabilistic regime of theory to the material regime of reality to understand what the wave function -- the complete description of a quantum system -- means

The thing is: there is no adequate interpretation of the wave function.

In this episode, we talk about Aharonov and Rohrlich's Quantum Paradoxes, chapter 9: "Quantum Cats:"




We're reading the book Quantum Paradoxes by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich. This is a technical book that is making an argument for a specific interpretation of quantum theory. The first half of the book uses paradoxes to explore the meaning of quantum theory and describe its mathematics, then after interpretations are discussed in the middle chapter, an interpretation of quantum mechanics is explored with paradoxes based on weak quantum measurements.

Schrodinger's Cat

I've put together a video describing Schrodinger's cat and explaining why its important to have an interpretation of quantum mechanics.  It doesn't give any answers, just explains why the question is so important.  We overview some of the answers in the next podcast, which I will hopefully get up tomorrow (I'm putting in the breaks right now.  I need to record the intro and upload it, so it's pretty likely).

Plus, I drew the pictures.

Videos

I've got the first of the explanatory videos up. Randy and I have talked about putting up videos to help explain what is going on in the experiments for almost a year now. It can be really hard for someone to visualize what's happening in the experiments for the paradoxes just from our description. I've even found that in writing descriptions: the more precise someone describes something, the harder it is for someone else to understand it.

That's just not how we talk.

Unfortunately, the vaguer the description the more easily the listener misconstrues what is being said. And it turns out it's not an easy needle to thread: it takes many years for someone to be able to reliably read a geometrical description of a problem without getting confused.

But never fear, video is here! I can draw out what I want to talk about for you, as I have in this video.

Measurement and Compensation

Unfortunately, I deleted much of the intro. I'll fix it later.

e-mail me if this is still here after September. Thanks!

In this episode, we talk about Aharonov and Rohrlich's Quantum Paradoxes, chapter 8: "Measurement and Compensation":



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We're reading Quantum Paradoxes by Yakir Aharonov and Daniel Rohrlich. This is a technical book that is making an argument for a specific interpretation of quantum theory. The first half of the book uses paradoxes to explore the meaning of quantum theory and describe its mathematics, then after interpretations are discussed in the middle chapter, an interpretation of quantum mechanics is explored with paradoxes based on weak quantum measurements.

Early Edition Is Up!

I finally got Show 8 mostly edited and uploaded to Patreon. As per my promise there, I won't publish it here for a day or two, but I've got both of those working. Last month I tried to put up the special discussion we had on quantum interpretations and had a lot of problems for no known reason. Now that I've got that working, I'll try putting that up again in about two weeks. Show 8 is the first show that goes up early, so I wanted to inform people that I'd made the Patreon feed work the way it's supposed to. This is the last time I'll post about Patreon here unless there is some important change.