On 23 Nov 2014, at 17:24, John Clark wrote:
On Sun, Nov 23, 2014 Bruno Marchal <[email protected]> wrote:
> "real" is when I saw things, $and* I am not dreaming (say).
Dreams are thoughts and thoughts exists in the same way that lines
of longitude and latitude exists, on the other hand the evidence
favors the theory that the sun has additional qualities of
existence. Is the quantum wave function more like a dream or more
like the sun? I think it's more like a dream, although I admit that
maybe Shakespeare got it backwards and such dreams are stuff made of.
>> Yes you can give examples of quantum weirdness without using
complex numbers or even mathematics, but if you want to actually
perform a calculation you're going to have to use complex numbers.
> ?
!
> No, when i explain quantum weirdness, I do a lot of calculations,
and we can get many quantum weirdness without using complex matrix.
Please teach me how to calculate the Probability Amplitude without
using complex numbers. And then teach me, still without using
complex numbers, how to take the absolute value of that Probability
Amplitude and how to square it so I can get a probability density,
something I can actually test against the observable world if I
repeat the procedure often enough,
It is easy for the state whose amplitude are given by real numbers,
and those are enough to illustrate quantum weirdness.
>> If it makes you feel better you can say that guardian angels are
"real" too, but just remember that they and Schrodinger's Wave are
equally unobservable.
> Yes, but guardian angels have no effects (well actually they do,
but that is another topic).
Hmm, well maybe the absolute value of a guardian angel squared does
have some effect, at least as a probability of committing sin.
> Atoms, quark, and most notion in physics are also not observable
Today atoms are easily observable,
You don't observe atoms directly. In fact we never observe anything
directly.
it's more difficult but quarks are too, super high speed electrons
shot into protons and neutrons show that those particles are not
uniform but are made of parts, they contain lumps. On the other hand
the Quantum Wave is totally unobservable and even something
completely different, the square of the absolute value of the
Quantum Wave, is only semi-observable as a abstract probability.
We can't observe probabilities. We can observe observable only, and
find eigenvalues of the Hermitian operator representing the
observable. Of course we need the theory to interpret this.
> If the wave is not real, explain me the interference experience
with one photon?
If the lines of longitude and latitude are not real explain how
people can use them to fly huge airplanes from London to Tokyo.
The latitude and longitude does not interfere with observable
consequences of the interferences. The comparison does not make sense.
And regardless of whether the quantum wave is real or not I cannot
explain quantum weirdness in a way that would seem reasonable to
most people, it's just the way the world is.
We have some choice on the type of weirdness. Like Einstein, the
physicist in me, prefers to keep 3p determinacy and 3p locality, so it
is simpler to take QM without collapse axiom, for which I have not
found any interpretation which is not too much like fairy tale. Many-
worlds is not more strange than many stars, or many electrons. Nature
is used to to do things in many exemplars.
I never reason in term of what is real or not, but in terms of what we
can deduce from assumptions or not.
Bruno
John K Clark
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