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I would disagree with you there, actually. As Scott Aaronson says: "Quantum mechanics is what you would inevitably come up with if you started from probability

I would disagree with you there, actually. As Scott Aaronson says: "Quantum mechanics is what you would inevitably come up with if you started from probability theory, and then said, let's try to generalize it [...] As such, the theory could have been invented by mathematicians in the 19th century without any input from experiment. It wasn't, but it could have been. [...] In this lecture, I'm going to try to convince you -- without any recourse to experiment -- that quantum mechanics would also have been on God's whiteboard. I'm going to show you why, if you want a universe with certain very generic properties, you seem forced to one of three choices: (1) determinism, (2) classical probabilities, or (3) quantum mechanics. Even if the "mystery" of quantum mechanics can never be banished entirely, you might be surprised by just how far people could've gotten without leaving their armchairs! That they didn't get far until atomic spectra and so on forced the theory down their throats is one of the strongest arguments I know for experiments being necessary." http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html http://www.scottaaronson.com/democritus/lec9.html

noobermin 12y ago
I don't really like arguing back and forth, but the way I read that is he is describing calculations in QM, not the "why" behind QM. QM is not a mystery in calculationally, it is a mystery in interpretation. The generalization of probability theory to include "negative" probabilities, really, amplitudes is just the method in quantum mechanics. It's like knowing what a derivative is to obtain exponential population growth. That's just mathematics. No one says people who have solved dN/dt=aN predict that bacteria will grow exponentially, it's just how a system acts like that would behave, and we found an example. But, I've thought a little more about it, I think my original comment was touching a personal bias more than making an argument. I asked, "why does the time evolution operator have to be on a fock space and why do P and X commute like ~i?" I'm not sure physics can answer beyond that at this point, since it matches experiment, we should or could just accept it the way it is. May be there is no "deeper" reason after all.

noobermin 12y ago

I don't really like arguing back and forth, but the way I read that is he is describing calculations in QM, not the "why" behind QM. QM is not a mystery in calculationally, it is a mystery in interpretation. The generalization of probability theory to include "negative" probabilities, really, amplitudes is just the method in quantum mechanics. It's like knowing what a derivative is to obtain exponential population growth. That's just mathematics. No one says people who have solved dN/dt=aN predict that bacteria will grow exponentially, it's just how a system acts like that would behave, and we found an example. But, I've thought a little more about it, I think my original comment was touching a personal bias more than making an argument. I asked, "why does the time evolution operator have to be on a fock space and why do P and X commute like ~i?" I'm not sure physics can answer beyond that at this point, since it matches experiment, we should or could just accept it the way it is. May be there is no "deeper" reason after all.