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Duppers

(28,094 posts)
Fri Dec 4, 2020, 01:17 AM Dec 2020

30 yrs of 'against measurement'

Thirty years of ‘against measurement’ – Physics World


Despite its many successes, physicists are still struggling to nail down a coherent interpretation of quantum mechanics, as it best represents “reality”. Jim Baggott explores the arguments first put forth by John Bell three decades ago, and looks at theoretical and experimental evidence accumulated since

“Surely, after 62 years, we should have an exact formulation of some serious part of quantum mechanics?” wrote the eminent Northern Irish physicist John Bell in the opening salvo of his Physics World article, “Against ‘measurement’?”. Published in August 1990 just two months before his untimely death at the age of 62, Bell’s article outlined his concerns. As he further explained, “By ‘exact’ I do not of course mean ‘exactly true’. I mean only that the theory should be fully formulated in mathematical terms, with nothing left to the discretion of the theoretical physicist…until workable approximations are needed in applications.”

Although Bell spent the majority of his career as a theoretical particle physicist and worked on accelerator design at the CERN lab in Geneva, today he is best known for his contributions to deep, foundational questions that probe the meaning of quantum mechanics. Nearly a century after it was first formulated, there is still no consensus among physicists on how the theory should be interpreted. “I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics,” Richard Feynman famously declared – a rather extraordinary admission for a foundational theory that underpins much of our understanding of modern physics.


https://physicsworld.com/a/thirty-years-of-against-measurement/


What if there's just a missing key?
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30 yrs of 'against measurement' (Original Post) Duppers Dec 2020 OP
Good read! CloudWatcher Dec 2020 #1

CloudWatcher

(1,831 posts)
1. Good read!
Fri Dec 4, 2020, 10:22 PM
Dec 2020

Thanks for posting! Such a shame John Bell died so young.

Bell hoped that the Aspect experiments were not the end. “I think that the probing of what quantum mechanics means must continue,” he said, “and in fact it will continue, whether we agree or not that it is worth while, because many people are sufficiently fascinated and perturbed by this that it will go on.”

There are many people that are still very perturbed. I wonder what our interpretation of quantum mechanics will be in another hundred years!
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