What is the difference between science and magic? Is there less magic and more science in our modern technological society ultimately geared by Human Intelligence HI? Let' see, with connection to recents posts.
This years Nobel Prizes in Physics and Chemistry were given to Artificial Intelligence AI and not HI as all previous years, which can be seen as an expression of the crisis of modern theoretical physics witnessed by leading physicists in popular science media/web.
Modern theoretical physics was born 100 years ago in the form of Quantum Mechanics QM for atomic microscopics without gravitation and Einstein's General Theory of Relativity GR for macroscopic gravitation, still today serving as foundation, although incompatible.
Both QM and GR introduced new elements of magic into theoretical physics, in classical form carried by logic and clarity in the spirit of Leibniz and Euler, as expressed by Nobel Laureates:
- If quantum theory is correct, it signifies the end of physics as a science. (Einstein 1921)
- If you can fathom QM without getting dizzy, you don't get it. (Bohr 1922)
- It seems clear that the present quantum mechanics is not in its final form. Some day a new quantum mechanics will be discovered ....determinism in the way that Einstein wanted. (Dirac 1933)
- I don't like QM, and I'm sorry I ever had anything to do with it. (Schrödinger 1933)
- Planck, himself, belonged to the sceptics until he died. Einstein, De Broglie, and Schrödinger have unceasingly stressed the unsatisfactory features of quantum mechanics and called for a return to the concepts of classical, Newtonian physics while proposing ways in which this could be done without contradicting experimental facts. Such weighty views cannot be ignored. (Born 1954)
It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness. (Wigner 1963)
- Nobody understands QM. (Feynman 1965)
- Many people probably felt relieved when told that the world could not be understood except by Einstein and a few other geniuses who were able to think in four dimensions. (Alfven 1970)
- QM is wrong. QM makes absolutely no sense.(Penrose 2020).
Nevertheless QM is viewed to have, then apparently by magic, delivered wonders like the atomic bomb and the computer and all physicists confess to GR even if its "four dimensional curved space time" is pure magic.
We are led to conclude that modern science ultimate based on QM + GR has very strong elements of magic. To this picture we can now add AI as something magical beyond understanding, because the computational optimisation process behind AI is too complex to be inspected and understood.
The essence of science in a classical sense is to be understandable by HI, while magic is not understandable by HI. Understanding is important because that opens for constructive improvement/advancement, while shear magic does not.
The crisis of modern theoretical physics can thus be seen as an expression of the difficulty of advancing science based on magic. QM and GR has not evolved since birth 100 years ago and science without advancement is dead science.
Origin of the mystery of QM.
QM is based on Schrödinger's Equation SE presented in 1925 for the hydrogen atom with one electron, and then formally extended to atomic systems with $N>1$ electrons, with solutions named wave functions denoted by $\Psi$ depending on $N$ three-dimensional spatial coordinates altogether $3N$ coordinates and a time coordinate. Theoretical physicists like to speak about $\Psi$ as offering a full description of the World, unfortunately maybe way beyond the imagination of a general public.
The mystery of QM introduced by Born, is that the wave function $\Psi$ has a meaning only as probability and not as actuality, and since physics concerns actuality the wave function lacks physical meaning. In addition it is uncomputable because computational work scales exponentially with $N$. The effect is that QM describes physics in terms of wave functions without direct physical meaning, which in addition are uncomputable. The wave function carries information about all possibilities but no single actuality and as such is an uncomputable monster which cannot be used constructively.
In this hopeless situation, physicists compute solutions to simplified SE and adjust computations until fit with experiments. The mantra then reads that QM always gives exact agreement with observation as evidence that QM is a complete success (and as such truly magical).
The probability interpretation of QM appeared as a necessity from a trivial formal mathematical generalisation of SE for one electron with physical meaning, into a canonical SE for many electrons without physical meaning. Non-physical formality thus dictated resort to probability instead of physical actuality, and the result was mystery beyond HI.
Is there then no hope? Yes, there is a different generalisation from one to many electrons based on physics into a deterministic model in the form of classical continuum mechanics, which we refer to as Real Quantum Mechanics RealQM. This model is understandable and computable and as such can open to advancement of fundamental science. Take a look.
PS Note that science as magic is not the same as science fiction, which is based on physics albeit fictional.
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