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I don't get it. Either quantum waves correctly describe particle physics, or they don't. If the waves behave correctly in all observable ways, how can we judg

I don't get it. Either quantum waves correctly describe particle physics, or they don't. If the waves behave correctly in all observable ways, how can we judge whether they are "actually" what's going on, rather than some mathematically different – but observably identical – process? Is it that quantum waves were thought to overfit the observations which led to QM, and now these folk have made a prediction using waves of something hereforeto unobserved, and have in fact observed the predicted behavior? In that case I would say that the refinement of QM involving quantum waves has been further shown to be consistent and in fact necessary to describe quantum theory, not that quantum waves have been shown to be "real".

andrewcooke 14y ago
it's not well explained, but i think it's about whether or not physical theories with "hidden variables" are possible. the idea is that maybe the uncertainty of quantum mechanics is a result of us simply not understanding things right, and there's actually some deeper "reality" (a better theory that we don't have yet) without the uncertainty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory i thought this was already disproved (or it may be that hidden variable theories can only work if physics is non-local? which is something people don't like), but it's been years since i understood / tried to understand this, and it's horribly subtle, so i guess there's more detail than i ever knew...
- sp332 14y ago
  Hidden variables are disproved by violations of Bell's Inequality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments#A_typical_CHSH_.28two-channel.29_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments#A_typica... Basically, quantum systems are better (at certain statistical correlations) than any classical system could be. The only classical-ish explanation is transmitting information faster than light.
  - andrewcooke 14y ago
    ie non-local.

andrewcooke 14y ago

it's not well explained, but i think it's about whether or not physical theories with "hidden variables" are possible. the idea is that maybe the uncertainty of quantum mechanics is a result of us simply not understanding things right, and there's actually some deeper "reality" (a better theory that we don't have yet) without the uncertainty. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory i thought this was already disproved (or it may be that hidden variable theories can only work if physics is non-local? which is something people don't like), but it's been years since i understood / tried to understand this, and it's horribly subtle, so i guess there's more detail than i ever knew...

sp332 14y ago
Hidden variables are disproved by violations of Bell's Inequality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments#A_typical_CHSH_.28two-channel.29_experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments#A_typica... Basically, quantum systems are better (at certain statistical correlations) than any classical system could be. The only classical-ish explanation is transmitting information faster than light.
- andrewcooke 14y ago
  ie non-local.