fredag 26 december 2025

Basic Mystery of Quantum: Shared vs Individual

The basic mystery of textbook Standard Quantum Mechanics StdQM serving as the foundation of modern physics, is the physical meaning of the wave function $\Psi (x_1,...,x_N)$ for a system with $N$ electrons depending on  $N$ spatial variables $x_1,...,x_N$ each $x_i$ serving as the 3d Euclidean coordinate of a copy $E_i$ of the same Euclidean space $E=\Re^3$, for $i=1,...,N$, with the total coordinate $x=(x_1,...,x_N)$ sweeping over configuration space as $\Re^{3N}$.

The mystery comes from the fact the each $E_i$ is connected to an electron $i$ and so serves as an individual universe for each electron. Very strange. The inspiration maybe came for the Monad Theory of Leibniz where each monad (as form of elementary unit like an electron) has its own universe to dwell in, while taking in blurred perceptions from all other monads.  

But electrons interact through Coulomb potentials 

  • $\frac{1}{\vert x_i -x_j\vert}$ with $i\neq j$ 
which means that both $E_i$ and $E_j$ are identified with the same $E$, where the Coulomb interaction takes place.

We see that each $E_i$ serves a double role as both representing an individual and a common shared 3d space. Very confusing. 

The physics of QM has two elements:
  1. Coulomb interaction between electrons in a common shared physical 3d space.
  2. Kinetic energy from presence of a Laplacian acting in each individual $E_i$. 
Here 1 is shared and 2 individual and QM as the combination of 1 + 2 has to struggle to make sense of this contradictory mix. Ok?

Recall that StdQM is uncomputable because of the $3N$ spatial dimensions. 

RealQM is an alternative to StdQM formulated in terms of a wave function depending on a single physical variable in a 3d Euclidean space E. RealQM is computable because computational complexity scales linearly with $N$. 

It is a mystery that RealQM has been developed only recently, since it is very natural and does not suffer from the many unresolved issues of StdQM. Why not give it a try, after having struggled for 100 years to make sense of StdQM?

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