10 ms·

This seems like another case where the alternate of "...or simply use the DeBroglie Bohm interpretation and most of the mysticism of this goes away." I'm not r

This seems like another case where the alternate of "...or simply use the DeBroglie Bohm interpretation and most of the mysticism of this goes away." I'm not remotely an expert in this, but non-locality always seems like the "simpliest" explanation. Like two boat floating on a lake, things you do in your boat that create waves can affect me in my boat even though our boats never touch. The world around us has a similar lake surface which explains all of this without giving up objective reality. Every QM article I read, I try to repicture using DeBroglie Bohm and it always gives an easier to grasp, although less sensational explanation. It surprises me it's never presented.

teilo 8y ago
The article explicitly states that non-locality could explain it: >But Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions — the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality — must be wrong.
- mistershrubber 8y ago
  I personally think that the idea that we have freedom of choice is the incorrect one. I believe our idea of free will is an illusion created by how our mind works. Instead, our decisions come from totally predictable processes and we hallucinate the choice afterwards.
- AnimalMuppet 8y ago
  I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that, of the possibilities, "reality we can agree on" is the least likely to be wrong.
  - teilo 8y ago
    I agree. I'm in the non-locality camp myself.
earthicus 8y ago
How are you interpreting this experiment with DeBroglie-Bohm? This is bumping up into the area where the theory gets into trouble, as photons aren't described by the Schrodinger equation or Dirac equation, and don't have wave functions at all. However in interferometry you might talk about the wave function of a photon if it is not emitted or absorbed. Re: Locality. The issue is not nearly as simple as you are making it out to be. You are not allowed to naively dispense with locality because locality, described quantitatively by Lorentz invariance, is one of the most well tested physical principles in the history of science. You don't get to ignore observations to conform to your philosophical biases regarding interpretations of your theories. The principles of special relativity and quantum mechanics are combined in quantum field theory, which is the most accurate and well tested description of the world we currently have. Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics (where debroglie bohm is nice and simple) is a (0+1) dimensional quantum field theory, whereas our universe is described by (3+1) dimensional quantum field theories like quantum electrodynamics or the standard model. To dispense with locality in a non-naive way requires extending the theory to this more complicated setting, which is an unsolved problem, and an active are of research. According to the wikipedia page, even developing a complete theory of the photon is an active area of research! Whereas developing QED the first time around only took a handful of people 15 years...and they didn't know what the answer was going to turn out to be! I think we can conclude from this that the theory is no longer so simple and easy to grasp.

teilo 8y ago

The article explicitly states that non-locality could explain it: >But Proietti and co’s result suggests that objective reality does not exist. In other words, the experiment suggests that one or more of the assumptions — the idea that there is a reality we can agree on, the idea that we have freedom of choice, or the idea of locality — must be wrong.

mistershrubber 8y ago
I personally think that the idea that we have freedom of choice is the incorrect one. I believe our idea of free will is an illusion created by how our mind works. Instead, our decisions come from totally predictable processes and we hallucinate the choice afterwards.
AnimalMuppet 8y ago
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that, of the possibilities, "reality we can agree on" is the least likely to be wrong.
- teilo 8y ago
  I agree. I'm in the non-locality camp myself.

earthicus 8y ago

How are you interpreting this experiment with DeBroglie-Bohm? This is bumping up into the area where the theory gets into trouble, as photons aren't described by the Schrodinger equation or Dirac equation, and don't have wave functions at all. However in interferometry you might talk about the wave function of a photon if it is not emitted or absorbed. Re: Locality. The issue is not nearly as simple as you are making it out to be. You are not allowed to naively dispense with locality because locality, described quantitatively by Lorentz invariance, is one of the most well tested physical principles in the history of science. You don't get to ignore observations to conform to your philosophical biases regarding interpretations of your theories. The principles of special relativity and quantum mechanics are combined in quantum field theory, which is the most accurate and well tested description of the world we currently have. Non-relativistic Quantum Mechanics (where debroglie bohm is nice and simple) is a (0+1) dimensional quantum field theory, whereas our universe is described by (3+1) dimensional quantum field theories like quantum electrodynamics or the standard model. To dispense with locality in a non-naive way requires extending the theory to this more complicated setting, which is an unsolved problem, and an active are of research. According to the wikipedia page, even developing a complete theory of the photon is an active area of research! Whereas developing QED the first time around only took a handful of people 15 years...and they didn't know what the answer was going to turn out to be! I think we can conclude from this that the theory is no longer so simple and easy to grasp.