torsdag 8 december 2016

Quantum Mechanics as Theory Still Without Meaning

Yet another poll (with earlier polls in references) shows that physicists still today after 100 years of deep thinking and fierce debate show little agreement about the stature of quantum mechanics as the prime scientific advancement of modern physics.

The different polls indicate that less than 50% of all physicists today adhere to the Copenhagen Interpretation, as the main text book interpretation of quantum mechanics. This means that quantum mechanics today after 100 years of fruitless search for a common interpretation, remains a mystery without meaning. Theory without interpretation has no meaning and science without meaning cannot be real science.

If only 50% of physicists would agree on the meaning of the basic text book theories of classical physics embodied in Newton/Lagranges equations of motion, Navier's equation for solid mechanics, Navier-Stokes equations for fluid dynamics and Maxwell's equations for electromagnetic, that would signify a total collapse of classical physics as science and subject of academic study.

But this not so: classical physics is the role model of science because there is virtually no disagreement on the formulation and meaning of these basic equations.

But the polls show that there is no agreement on the role and meaning of Schrödinger's equation as the basis of quantum mechanics, and physicists do not seem to believe this will ever change. This is far from satisfactory from scientific point of view.

This is my motivation to search for a meaningful quantum mechanics in the form of realQM presented in recent posts. Of course you may say that for many reasons my chances of finding some meaning are very small, but science without meaning cannot be real science.

PS Lubos Motl, as a strong proponent of a textbook all-settled Copenhagen interpretation defined by himself, reacts to the polls with
  • The foundations of quantum mechanics were fully built in the 1920s, mostly in 1925 or at most 1926, and by 1930, all the universal rules of the theory took their present form...as the Copenhagen interpretation. If you subtract all these rules, all this "interpretation", you will be left with no physical theory whatsoever. At most, you will be left with some mathematics – but pure mathematics can say nothing about the world around us or our perceptions.
  • In virtually all questions, the more correct answers attracted visibly greater fractions of physicists than the wrong answers.
Lubos claims that more correct views, with the true correct views carried by only Lubos himself, gathers a greater fraction than less correct views, and so everything is ok from Lubos point of view. But is greater fraction sufficient from scientific point of view, as if scientific truth is to be decided by democratic voting? Shouldn't Lobos ask for 99.9% adherence to his one and only correct view? If physics is to keep its position as the king science?

Or is modern physics instead to be viewed as the root of modernity through a collapse of classical ideals of rationality, objectivity and causality?



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