'Pick Your Poison'

.... Like a magician who has inherited a wonderful magic wand that works every time without his knowing why, the physicist is at a loss to explain quantum theory’s marvelous success.

Nick Herbert - Quantum Reality

Since I wrote an article on the passing of Peter Higgs I have been trying very hard to find out what quantum physics currently is and also what it means to me and the universe, given current interpretations.

This is a quick recap of the bewildering and colorful journey so far.

I think Sir Roger Penrose describes the journey so far best in his book The Emperor's New Mind:

If you are a reader who finds any formula intimidating (and most people do), then I recommend a procedure that I normally adopt when such an offending line presents itself. ...Spare the poor formula a perusing ..., and then press onwards. After a little, if armed with new confidence, one may return to that neglected formula to pick some salient features.

This advice is absolutely worth it's weight in palladium when delving into this topic. A bit of a mathematics background helps also.

In my adventures of the last weeks and months I realized that it is important to approach the subject from a frame of reference. It need not be your belief, but use it to anchor yourself and push forward into the complexity. In a way you need to deny yourself, adopt for a short time a viewpoint, explore it thoroughly, and begin over again, repeating until it starts making some sense.

What I mean seems to be best summed up in the book Quantum Reality by Nick Herbert, linked above. In the book Nick Herbert discusses 8 different approaches to quantum reality that can serve as anchor points to the brave explorer.

1. The Copenhagen Interpretation - There is no deep reality
2. The Copenhagen Interpretation - Reality is created by observation
3. Reality is an undivided wholeness (The contention of David Bohm and others)
4. The many worlds interpretation
5. Quantum Logic - The world obeys a non-human kind of reasoning
6. Neorealism - The world is made up of ordinary objects.
7. Consciousness creates reality - First suggested by eminent mathematician, John von Neumann.
8. The duplex world of Werner Heisenberg - The world is twofold, consisting of potentials and actualities.

The fact that the Copenhagen interpretation is split into two is telling and indicative of the magnitude of the problem caused by the unbelievable success of quantum physics.

Before choosing red or blue I think the following quote by Niels Bohr must always be kept in your back pocket:

"It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature."

This combined with a healthy awareness of the Dunning-Kruger effect should be enough to keep the avid closet researcher in stable waters.

I wish for you wonderful quantum adventures and remember to stay safe.

B=F(PE)