fredag 12 juni 2015

Tragedy of Modern Physics: Born's Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics





It did not help that grandfather Lorentz joined Schrödinger's protest:


Next follows an excuse with reference to "intellectual crisis": 
Then Born puts the blame on Heisenberg, his assistant:


But some doubts presented themselves:
And then Born's commits the crime:
Here is Born's justification of the crime:
with more "proof" from Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle:




5 kommentarer:

  1. Hi!

    Since you seem to like the use of rhetoric of words as crime and such I guess you wouldn't mind me pointing out one of your own crimes here. It would be really nice of you if you could give some kind of rationalization for the crimes you here commit.

    Your crime consists of a logical fallacy. Simply in that you assume that the behavior of physical systems must correspond to processes that agrees with the way our brains process and filters the world.

    It is not controversial to clam that it is shown beyond any reasonable doubt that the information that our brains process ends up biased to how the macroscopic world around us behave. But that says nothing on how the microscopic world behave. There is a logical fallacy in assuming that there must be a direct connection.

    Think about the averaged quantities that constitutes a classical behavior. There is no way that you can say anything about the microscopic processes that average up to a net effect from the averaged quantities alone.

    Crime number two.

    You assume that statistics isn't real mathematics. A statistical model of a physical phenomena can be just as good as an analytic model. Many times allot better since the analytic model isn't feasible to solve.

    One really good example is molecular dynamics (MD). MD is a classical model that with certainty do not give a correct direct solution to the problem. The initial conditions is not known, that is problem one. When solved, instability in precision will result in a quick deviation from the "true" path the classical system takes. This is problem two.

    But these problems isn't important for the final use since the result are interpreted statistically. The evolution is 100% wrong but the statistical averages are not and can be used to compare to experimental data and making further predictions. All this given that the force fields used are good enough.

    This shows that statistical models are fundamental even in the event of classical physics.

    For me it feels like a really strange thing to get hung up on. This with the statistical element of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is the most fundamental theory we know of. It is possible that there may be a more fundamental theory. But until one is known, there is no way to really make a meta analysis of quantum mechanics.

    There is not really any possibility to evaluate the physical meaning of quantum mechanics in this perspective because quantum mechanics is then the fundamental physical meaning. Fundamental reasonable means that there is no deeper way to explain. Or do you disagree?

    With that said. Unfortunately, based on quantum mechanics there is some limitation in what we can know about the outcome of certain experiments. One of best experiments to easy understand this is different variations of the Stern-Gerlach experiment. If you haven't done so already you should really try and understand the importance of the results from these kind of experiments. If you don't do that, and from what you write I'm quite certain that you don't, the recommendation is to look at the first lecture here (Lecture 1: Introduction to Superposition)

    The whole concept is beautifully demonstrated in that lecture. That lecture and the following one gives a very solid ground for understanding quantum mechanics so that is my warm recommendation to you. If you want edge of your aversion towards modern physics a nudge, here is a good way to start.

    Enjoy the sun, and take care!

  2. Superposition is superstition. Why must atoms subject to linearity? Classical mechanics is non-linear. It is inconcievable that microscopic mechanics sudddenly should become linear.

  3. You seem to have missunderstood what superposition means in this context and why it is necessary to describe correct physics. By physics is meant a process that shows a real experienceable effect.

    Did you watch the lecture?

  4. You say it is inconceivable that mechanics 'suddenly becomes linear'. But, the difference between a linear and a nonlinear theory is not so clear. If x(t) is the solution to, say, Hamilton's equations (that are non linear), we can consider the induced flow on functions f on phase space, and get F(t,x)= f(x(t)). Then F satisfies the equation


    This is a linear equation that is equivalent to Hamiltons equations.