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Isn't this just a question of whether they believe in quantum mechanics?
by j2kun 13y ago
Isn't this just a question of whether they believe in quantum mechanics?
- pavpanchekha 13y agoBelieving in quantum mechanics is much like believing in gravity or relativity—it is definitely a part of the universe we live in, and no mainstream physicists disagree on its correctness.
- tedsanders 13y agoHowever, there is a degree of belief in the interpretation of quantum mechanics that you choose. It's odd that the author of this article espouses the Many Worlds interpretation without pointing out that it's not a consensus viewpoint. Also oddly, the Many Worlds interpretation is known for being a deterministic interpretation yet the author promotes it as a non-deterministic interpretation.
- pavpanchekha 13y agoBelieving in quantum mechanics is much like believing in gravity or relativity—it is definitely a part of the universe we live in, and no mainstream physicists disagree on its correctness.
- pavpanchekha 13y agoBelieving in quantum mechanics is much like believing in gravity or relativity—it is definitely a part of the universe we live in, and no mainstream physicists disagree on its correctness.
- panic 13y agoIt's not about "belief" -- you can perform the experiment described in the article and see for yourself.
- cwzwarich 13y agoThere are deterministic interpretations of quantum mechanics, under which the usual randomness in quantum mechanics is not truly random.
- ngoldbaum 13y agoBut Bell's inequality says that these hidden variable theories are incompatible with the results of experiments. Real experiments. Like these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_test_experiments It may be the case that there really is a hidden variable, but it would need to communicate it's value nonlocally, which I'd argue is stranger than the universe just being somewhat random.
- Grieverheart 13y agoBell's theorem is based on the assumption of free will, see eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superdeterminism
- dllthomas 13y agoEeeeh, not quite "free will", but "choices that are not structured relative to the thing being measured", which is a much weaker assumption (though still an assumption).
- cwzwarich 13y agoThe Copenhagen interpretation is arguably the most popular interpretation of quantum mechanics and is nonlocal.
- ngoldbaum 13y agoTrue, but there are no hidden variables in the copenhagen interpretation.
- davorak 13y agoNo, the many worlds interpretations of quantum mechanics, those that I am familiar with, do not contain any randomness.
- baddox 13y agoI'm struggling to understand the distinction between randomness and unpredictability. The many worlds interpretation still implies unpredictability, doesn't it?