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(This post was last modified: Yesterday 07:29 PM by C C.)
Reality is quantum through and through
https://iai.tv/articles/everything-in-th..._auid=2020
INTRO: A radical new interpretation of quantum mechanics is offered here. Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Oxford, Vlatko Vedral, argues that everything in the universe is a quantum wave. The difficulty of uniting the classical world and the quantum world is overcome; everything is quantum, and the quantum gives rise to the classical. His theory also overcomes the measurement problem, the observer problem, and the problem of quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance). Poof goes the classical world!
EXCERPT: Since everything is quantum, there is no need or special place for observers, in contrast with the Copenhagen Interpretation and QBism. Entanglement is a completely symmetric property of entangled systems and the observers and the observed can swap places without any consequences: an atom is as much observing us as we are observing the atom. Both Hidden Variable and Many-Worlds interpretations would agree with the lack of need for observers. An immediate consequence is that there are no discontinuities or quantum jumps that are caused by measurements either. The dynamical evolution is always smooth as there is no artificial boundary between the quantum and the classical world.
Second, we can retain the notion of locality which has served us so well in classical physics (classical field theory, to be more specific). Q-numbers in one location cannot be changed by changing q-numbers in another location. There is no spooky action at a distance in a universe in which everything is made of quantum waves. This even applies to entanglement, where particles become quantum supercorrelated; even entangled particles cannot affect each other instantaneously. The account of entanglement according to q-waves is that the q-numbers of particles become entangled through their interaction and then, when we interact with one of the particles, our own q-numbers become correlated to the q-numbers of that particle.
But, crucially for the concept of locality, there is no change in the q-numbers of the other particle until we also interact directly with it. In contrast, the Hidden Variable interpretation, which holds onto the c-number-based reality, can only do so by introducing spooky action to explain quantum entanglement and our observations of entangled particles. QBists presumably don’t worry about this issue, since everything takes place inside the heads of observers (and is therefore always local). The Many Worlds interpretation should also be seen as local, although some of its proponents claim otherwise.
Third, all the symmetries that we think are important, such as the laws of energy and momentum conservation, as well as the equivalence principle of General Relativity, can be phrased within the fully q-number-based universe without any inconsistencies. In the Copenhagen interpretation, where observers are classical, energy and momentum are only conserved “on average.” Sometimes a measurement can give us more energy, sometimes less, and it is only in the long run, when we average over all the outcomes of our measurements, that we will get the same amount as we started with. I suspect that QBists and Hidden Variable interpretations must have the same problem of not being able to conserve things exactly. So far, no experiment has detected any violation of conservation laws, which is another reason for advocating quantum waves.
In fact, I would say that all apparent paradoxes in quantum physics (apparent because there are no real paradoxes), be they related to the measurement problem or entanglement or Heisenberg’s uncertainty, appear only because we do not treat everything on an equal q-number footing. If there is a radical component to my view, it is this: I am suggesting that we purge physics of all classical notions. This is why I think that the Many Worlds Interpretation is insufficient, as the notion of a world itself is also a relic of classical physics.
It’s more appropriate to say that there is only one world, but that it is quantum through and through. Quantum universe is not just a superposition of classical ones (though that’s a possible quantum state too)—it contains infinitely many more possibilities. It even allows us to recombine (quantum interfere) some worlds and merge them back into a single one (this manoeuvre is key to quantum computation since there is no point in getting the correct result in another universe)... (MORE - missing details)
https://iai.tv/articles/everything-in-th..._auid=2020
INTRO: A radical new interpretation of quantum mechanics is offered here. Professor of Quantum Information Science at the University of Oxford, Vlatko Vedral, argues that everything in the universe is a quantum wave. The difficulty of uniting the classical world and the quantum world is overcome; everything is quantum, and the quantum gives rise to the classical. His theory also overcomes the measurement problem, the observer problem, and the problem of quantum entanglement (spooky action at a distance). Poof goes the classical world!
EXCERPT: Since everything is quantum, there is no need or special place for observers, in contrast with the Copenhagen Interpretation and QBism. Entanglement is a completely symmetric property of entangled systems and the observers and the observed can swap places without any consequences: an atom is as much observing us as we are observing the atom. Both Hidden Variable and Many-Worlds interpretations would agree with the lack of need for observers. An immediate consequence is that there are no discontinuities or quantum jumps that are caused by measurements either. The dynamical evolution is always smooth as there is no artificial boundary between the quantum and the classical world.
Second, we can retain the notion of locality which has served us so well in classical physics (classical field theory, to be more specific). Q-numbers in one location cannot be changed by changing q-numbers in another location. There is no spooky action at a distance in a universe in which everything is made of quantum waves. This even applies to entanglement, where particles become quantum supercorrelated; even entangled particles cannot affect each other instantaneously. The account of entanglement according to q-waves is that the q-numbers of particles become entangled through their interaction and then, when we interact with one of the particles, our own q-numbers become correlated to the q-numbers of that particle.
But, crucially for the concept of locality, there is no change in the q-numbers of the other particle until we also interact directly with it. In contrast, the Hidden Variable interpretation, which holds onto the c-number-based reality, can only do so by introducing spooky action to explain quantum entanglement and our observations of entangled particles. QBists presumably don’t worry about this issue, since everything takes place inside the heads of observers (and is therefore always local). The Many Worlds interpretation should also be seen as local, although some of its proponents claim otherwise.
Third, all the symmetries that we think are important, such as the laws of energy and momentum conservation, as well as the equivalence principle of General Relativity, can be phrased within the fully q-number-based universe without any inconsistencies. In the Copenhagen interpretation, where observers are classical, energy and momentum are only conserved “on average.” Sometimes a measurement can give us more energy, sometimes less, and it is only in the long run, when we average over all the outcomes of our measurements, that we will get the same amount as we started with. I suspect that QBists and Hidden Variable interpretations must have the same problem of not being able to conserve things exactly. So far, no experiment has detected any violation of conservation laws, which is another reason for advocating quantum waves.
In fact, I would say that all apparent paradoxes in quantum physics (apparent because there are no real paradoxes), be they related to the measurement problem or entanglement or Heisenberg’s uncertainty, appear only because we do not treat everything on an equal q-number footing. If there is a radical component to my view, it is this: I am suggesting that we purge physics of all classical notions. This is why I think that the Many Worlds Interpretation is insufficient, as the notion of a world itself is also a relic of classical physics.
It’s more appropriate to say that there is only one world, but that it is quantum through and through. Quantum universe is not just a superposition of classical ones (though that’s a possible quantum state too)—it contains infinitely many more possibilities. It even allows us to recombine (quantum interfere) some worlds and merge them back into a single one (this manoeuvre is key to quantum computation since there is no point in getting the correct result in another universe)... (MORE - missing details)
