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I'm a postdoc in theoretical quantum optics. The answer is: both all of it and a none of it. All of it is real in the sense that Quantum Mechanics has been aggr

I'm a postdoc in theoretical quantum optics. The answer is: both all of it and a none of it. All of it is real in the sense that Quantum Mechanics has been aggressively and extensively tested against measured observations of reality and has not yet found a discrepancy with it. None of it is real in the sense that it is all a mathematical model that is supposed to make predictions about reality.

michaelwww 4y ago
Interesting. So there are mathematical systems that describe reality extremely well and this is testable. There's beauty in that, like the sun flower and Fibonacci. I was looking for something to rekindle my interest in math and this might be it.
orlp 4y ago
> Quantum Mechanics has been aggressively and extensively tested against measured observations of reality and has not yet found a discrepancy with it That isn't true. Here's a discrepancy: the universe appears to be following the laws of general relativity, but quantum mechanics does not account for this and returns wrong answers. Here's another discrepancy: quantum field theory predicts an energy density of the vacuum off by 120 orders of magnitude of the observed value. "All models are wrong, but some are useful." But it's disingenuous to claim we haven't even found any discrepancies and that it appears to be a perfect model.
- bowsamic 4y ago
  Sorry, I meant only non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum optics. I don't know anything about QFT or GR
solarist 4y ago
Quantum mechanics has been already falsified. Good explanation here: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/05/chaos-real-problem-with-quantum.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/05/chaos-real-problem-...
- bowsamic 4y ago
  This is a good point, but that is more of a consequence of the fact that we do not yet know how to recover classical mechanics from quantum mechanics

michaelwww 4y ago

Interesting. So there are mathematical systems that describe reality extremely well and this is testable. There's beauty in that, like the sun flower and Fibonacci. I was looking for something to rekindle my interest in math and this might be it.

orlp 4y ago

> Quantum Mechanics has been aggressively and extensively tested against measured observations of reality and has not yet found a discrepancy with it That isn't true. Here's a discrepancy: the universe appears to be following the laws of general relativity, but quantum mechanics does not account for this and returns wrong answers. Here's another discrepancy: quantum field theory predicts an energy density of the vacuum off by 120 orders of magnitude of the observed value. "All models are wrong, but some are useful." But it's disingenuous to claim we haven't even found any discrepancies and that it appears to be a perfect model.

bowsamic 4y ago
Sorry, I meant only non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum optics. I don't know anything about QFT or GR

solarist 4y ago

Quantum mechanics has been already falsified. Good explanation here: http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/05/chaos-real-problem-with-quantum.html http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2022/05/chaos-real-problem-...

bowsamic 4y ago
This is a good point, but that is more of a consequence of the fact that we do not yet know how to recover classical mechanics from quantum mechanics