Quantum mechanics under attack

zaybu · #1 by **zaybu** » Nov 19, 2011 6:34 pm

The internet is full of crackpots, but it seems that this disease has now reached ArXiv. This paper claims that QM has been wrong all along:

"the statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory."

There is a nice and entertaining rebuttal by Lubos here.

Jumbo · #2 by **Jumbo** » Nov 21, 2011 12:07 pm

zaybu wrote:The internet is full of crackpots, but it seems that this disease has now reached ArXiv. This paper claims that QM has been wrong all along:

"the statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory."

There is a nice and entertaining rebuttal by Lubos here.

I wish just for once Lubos would not sit on the fence and say just what he thinks! :whistle:

twistor59 · #3 by **twistor59** » Nov 21, 2011 12:52 pm

Tom Banks essay, available from Sean Carroll's page, is well worth a read. In fact it should be compulsory.

Edit: The link is that I got to it via Lubo's rant page !

zaybu · #4 by **zaybu** » Nov 22, 2011 2:27 pm

Matt Leifer has a nice explanation of the PBR theorem:

see: http://mattleifer.info/2011/11/20/can-t ... istically/

PS: I guess, I am a psi-epistemic, anti-realist in his scheme. LOL.

Preno · #5 by **Preno** » Nov 22, 2011 3:03 pm

zaybu wrote:The internet is full of crackpots, but it seems that this disease has now reached ArXiv. This paper claims that QM has been wrong all along

No, it doesn't. Jesus Christ.

zaybu · #6 by **zaybu** » Nov 22, 2011 9:10 pm

Preno wrote:
zaybu wrote:The internet is full of crackpots, but it seems that this disease has now reached ArXiv. This paper claims that QM has been wrong all along
No, it doesn't. Jesus Christ.

No it doesn't....to what? The internet is full of crackpots? or that QM has been wrong all along? or what the paper claims?

More details would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Preno · #7 by **Preno** » Nov 23, 2011 10:38 pm

No, it doesn't claim that QM has been wrong all along.

houseofcantor · #8 by **houseofcantor** » Nov 23, 2011 11:20 pm

Jumbo wrote:
zaybu wrote:The internet is full of crackpots, but it seems that this disease has now reached ArXiv. This paper claims that QM has been wrong all along:

"the statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory."

There is a nice and entertaining rebuttal by Lubos here.

I wish just for once Lubos would not sit on the fence and say just what he thinks!

That Lubos character is awesome. I've heard that the arXiv is under attack for being too full of crack-pottery...

zaybu · #9 by **zaybu** » Nov 23, 2011 11:50 pm

Preno wrote:No, it doesn't claim that QM has been wrong all along.

The paper says, "Here we show that, given only very mild assumptions, the statistical interpretation of the quantum state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory." Ok, they are looking at interpretations of QM. I should have been more precise in my statement. But my post was directed at Lubos and his rebuttal. The dude is a riot.

PS: a better source on the paper is from Leifer, the link is given in my post above right after Twistor's post.

twistor59 · **#10** by **twistor59** » Jan 09, 2012 1:12 pm

Lubos pointed out a rebuttal paper.

I love reading the discussions on Lubos' blog. If anyone wants to experience a "robust discussion" I heartily recommend it. Here's an extract :

Stephen
Hi,

I would like to comment on one portion of the paper:

"Obviously, the authors of [1] are unaware of the diﬃculties associated with terms like “existence”, otherwise they
would not think that the conviction that objects must “exist” in some absolute form could justify their assumption
of a measurement independent reality. The positions that collide here are the empirical tradition that assumes that
the existence of an object is known by its observable eﬀects (and nothing else) [2], and the idealist or dogmatic [3]
position that we know about the existence of an object from an authoritative theory."

There is some confusion here! It seems to me that the error is the conflation of the "existence" of an object with the "definiteness" of its properties. The former is necessarily independent on the contingecies of observation while the former is not. Measurement is required to generate information about an object and information is binary. The state of a QM system absent a measurement cannot be represented as a definite binary string and thus no information of it can be said to exist prior to measurement, but the existence of the QM system is independent of measurement.
A theory can only act as a map between possible properties and actual properties that are measured, it cannot determine or cause existence. Existence is not a property as it is not contigent or supervenient on anything else.
Yesterday, 15:48:49

Lubos Motl
Sorry, I don't know what all those "contingency" etc. philosophical buzzwords mean (and probably no one does) but what I know is that everyone I have met in my life who has used them completely misunderstood quantum mechanics. You're clearly among them, too.

If you read Hofmann paper, you would realize that your sentence

"A theory can only act as a map between possible properties and actual properties that are measured"

is just bullshit because there exist (in the classical sense) no additional "possible properties" of the system except for those that are measured, and a valid theory obviously isn't a map between the results of measurements and things that don't exist. A correct theory is a system of laws that explains the (statistical) relationships between the results of measurements *only* and nothing else.

Hofmann's comment that people like you who aren't even willing to *consider* this basic principle of all of physics since 1925 behave just like religious bigots is surely very accurate and important.
Yesterday, 17:24:35

Stephen
Failure to deal with the philosophical issues by casting aspursions upon philosophy will not solve anything. You seem to be fine with using argument from authority and ab homimen. This does not help your case.
Yesterday, 17:42:01

Lubos Motl
It's correct that I won't solve anything because there is nothing to solve here. It was solved in the mid 1920s. You may deny it and produce lots of irrelevant pseudoscientific would-be philosophical gibberish but that's the only thing you can try to do against the fact that Nature obeys quantum mechanics which contradicts your primitive medieval dogmas.

By the way, given the fact that you're a typical pompous fool who loves to impress others with fancy words while you completely ignore the substance, it's remarkable that you have made 3 typos while you tried to spell "ad hominem". If you were carefully observing our exchanges, you would know that I haven't made any ad hominem arguments. I just wrote, in a polite way, that you were an idiot because of the physical arguments you refuse to understand.
Yesterday, 18:21:54
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