Dr. Sheldon Cooper has all the answers.
Professor John Lennox, who is the mathematics chair at Oxford University has made many of the same observations.
My desk is made of waves, not particles?
Well, it is still just a theory.
““If we tell the public that quantum theory is weird, we better go out and test that’s actually true,” he says. “Otherwise we’re not doing science, we’re just explaining some funny squiggles on a blackboard.””
The classic wave-slit experiment showing photons are both waves and particles isn’t a test? And doesn’t show weird?
And if “spooky action at a distance,” which also can be tested, isn’t weird, then what does this guy want? Particles to wear spandex and sing “Springtime for Hitler”?
There is a guy, Randell Mills, from Blacklight Power, who had some problems with Quantum Physics a while ago and posited a new theory of the atom. He’s privately funded because he believes that the real theory of the atom is key to abundant energy availability from water.
He has university reviewed experiments to document his observations and is now in the prototype stage for some serious power generation capabilities. He calls his theory Classical Quantum Mechanics and I’ve been monitoring a Yahoo News Group where there is lively interaction on the subject.
When I was in Quantum Mechanics class in grad school, I was very skeptical that the real universe was based on random and/or even probabilistic events.
http://www.blacklightpower.com
for more info.
Theories in Quantum Physics make predictions, many of which have been tested in particle accelerators. Quantum effects have been used to make practical electronic components. Weird as it is, it seems apparent that it is describing SOMETHING about reality. Now, it is very likely that we will find that the “real” “physical” underpinnings for these phenomena are even STRANGER.
QM is the standard boilerplate fodder for pop-sci articles since it’s weird, kinda sexy, and there’s a high likelihood that your audience doesn’t know enough obscure math/physics to prove your article wrong. Those who actually ‘do’ QM, long gave up trying to explain it in lay terms, and have moved on.
At least quantum physicists don’t tell me I need to shut down the world economy to appeased their angry sky gods.
And ask the folks in Hiroshima whether nuclear science does have some applications.
Quantum physics is obviously pure science and not having an application it is very hard to tell what is real and what is fraudulent.
But the usefulness of any pure science is that sometimes something useful does spin out and it becomes applied science. For example, in the 18th century, electricity was just something cool people with too much time n their hands experimented with, now it’s kind of useful.
The copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is to science like egalitarianism, redistributionism,environmentalism, and equality of result are to politics. Both are products of the disintegrated mode of thought.
The most “real” thing about it is the amount of tax dollars spent on it.
I just explain to people that the world we live in is really very much like “The Matrix” or an incredibly detailed video game and perception really IS reality. All matter is basically “coagulated energy”.
I like to press my hands together and explain to people that they are not touching, but the forces are repelling much like two magnets repel. But we’ve lived with the phenomenon our whole lives and our PERCEPTION is that our hands are touching - and for all practical purposes they ARE touching, except they are not.
And everything that appears solid is mostly empty space, just like a galaxy.
But eternity (with God) is the “real” world. That is why it says in the bible that now we see as through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Just as Model T’s were AMAZING when they were introdiced, and now are quaint relics, in the afterlife, that is how we will view this semi-existence.
They use the dead cat / live cat too much. The cat is either alive or dead and observing it will not change that. I don’t care how many times you open the box. I am not looking at my car right now, although I know it is in the parking lot. For all I KNOW it could be on it’s way to New York. But going out to look to make sure it is still there won’t change the fact of where it is, only the KNOWLEDGE of where it is. It is not BOTH on the way to New York AND in the parking lot.
They need to STOP using that analogy.
Next, of course particles and waves will work the same when shot through a little slit. The wave hits and particles slip through. You have CHANGED the wave to particles.
It’s like a large body of water behaves like a stream through a hose when you force it through a little hole. Well, duh!!
Then of course the continually rearranging universe to alternate reality business. These people really need to get an actual job.
I don’t think their research is unimportant, it is just that they either misinterpret what is going on or they have a very bad way of explaining it.
Essentially all of the “problems” with “interpretation” of QM come from the insistence of physicists of stuffing it back inside intuitions formed from the only-approximately-true classical physics of Newton, as if those intuitions were somehow more real that what is actually observed in 2-slit experiments, the EPR experiment (no longer a thought experiment, actually done verifying “spooky action at a distance”), and the like.
I learned my physics backwards, learning quantum physics because it was related to mathematics I was doing before really learning classical physics by teaching diff eq and vector calculus. I see no need for an interpretation. The interesting thing is that classical physics emerges from quantum physics by decoherence and the statistical properties of large ensembles.
See the totality of the universe as a pie.. cut the pie in half and you have to equal pieces..now cut one of those pieces in half..
You alter instantaneously not just the piece you cut but the piece you did not cut because its relative position in that totality also changes from part of two pieces to the largest piece.
at least that's my take on quantum...I could be all wet