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To: Brilliant
Physicists often talk about how the predictions of quantum mechanics have never been proven wrong. But you won’t hear them say, “except that time we predicted only a few mesons, and we actually got a lot.”

This does not prove Quantum Mechanics wrong. QM is a framework within which theories about how particles and fields interact can be constructed. It's this framework which has always held up no matter what kind of interactions are being considered, and there is no exception in this case.

10 posted on 02/05/2010 5:00:14 PM PST by dr_lew
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To: dr_lew

“This does not prove Quantum Mechanics wrong.”

But if the predictions are wrong, then how can you say that?

In fact, it is the “fantastic accuracy” of the predictions that has been cited by physicists as proof that the theory is right.

I think that what you’re trying to say is that they did their math wrong, and that the theory itself is not the problem. But how do you know? I think that the physicists like to use lofty language to describe the success of the theory because of the need to convince doubters, but in reality, it does not measure up to the claims.

The crown achievement of quantum mechanics, for example, is Feynman’s calculation of the charge of an electron. He calculated it to... I forget... something like the 32nd decimal point? But what is often not mentioned is that no one has ever measured the charge to that level of accuracy, so no one really knows that the prediction is correct. They only know that it he made a very precise PREDICTION. And sometimes, physicists use inexact verbiage and claim that he made an “accurate” prediction instead of a “precise” one.

In fact, there has been very little comparison of the predicted probabilities to the actual probabilities.


22 posted on 02/05/2010 5:45:38 PM PST by Brilliant
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