Despite all the popular media attention given to fantastical interpretations of quantum mechanics which invoke the existence of multiple, parallel universes, according to a survey published in 2016, the Copenhagen interpretation remains the most favoured.
Nice essay! Some new history and clarity for me there. I hope I live long enough to see an experiment testing for the putative wavefunction of a macro-object (there was a proposal I saw for an ESA satellite mission that looked interesting, but which seems to have vanished). I think the Heisenberg Cut is meaningful. The Diósi–Penrose model of objective collapse appeals to me.
I'm curious if there could be any correlation between de Broglie's matter waves and the wave function (or is the only connection the word "wave" appearing in both). Understanding the ontology of the wavefunction seems central to progress here.
Very interesting. The way the Bohr v Einstein narrative has shifted in my information cone seemed to go roughly like this. 1) Einstein despite being a genius just couldn’t get onboard with the new groovy truth from Copenhagen. He went to his grave stomping his foot and forbidding God to gamble [ Sadly the movie Oppenheimer seemed to portray him that way. It came to me first through “Tao of Physics” and “Dancing Wu Li Master”. Not great books] 2) Actually Bohr was a hypnotic cult leader who wrote gibberish and wasted 60 years of potential good science. Von Neumann is partly to blame and if only people had read Grete Hermann’s ignored debunk of Von Neumann we would be further down the road. We should have listened to Paris not Copenhagen! [Lee Smolin and Adam Becker had versions of this story.] 3) “Bohr bullied senile Einstein” wasn’t on my radar before reading your critique of it here. It’s pretty close to #2. Anyway I like tracking these stories because I can’t grock the math. Ultimately I will not pick a favorite interpretation for myself because I have the luxury of not being required to. But I am drawn to Smolin’s idea of “let’s stick to one universe and assume that time is real”. If I could order from the science menu that’s the meal I’d choose. But Ladyman and Ross do seem appetizing.
Thank you for your interpretation (!). There are a few writers who can write about science clearly and understandably. You are among of them))
Nice essay! Some new history and clarity for me there. I hope I live long enough to see an experiment testing for the putative wavefunction of a macro-object (there was a proposal I saw for an ESA satellite mission that looked interesting, but which seems to have vanished). I think the Heisenberg Cut is meaningful. The Diósi–Penrose model of objective collapse appeals to me.
I'm curious if there could be any correlation between de Broglie's matter waves and the wave function (or is the only connection the word "wave" appearing in both). Understanding the ontology of the wavefunction seems central to progress here.
Very interesting. The way the Bohr v Einstein narrative has shifted in my information cone seemed to go roughly like this. 1) Einstein despite being a genius just couldn’t get onboard with the new groovy truth from Copenhagen. He went to his grave stomping his foot and forbidding God to gamble [ Sadly the movie Oppenheimer seemed to portray him that way. It came to me first through “Tao of Physics” and “Dancing Wu Li Master”. Not great books] 2) Actually Bohr was a hypnotic cult leader who wrote gibberish and wasted 60 years of potential good science. Von Neumann is partly to blame and if only people had read Grete Hermann’s ignored debunk of Von Neumann we would be further down the road. We should have listened to Paris not Copenhagen! [Lee Smolin and Adam Becker had versions of this story.] 3) “Bohr bullied senile Einstein” wasn’t on my radar before reading your critique of it here. It’s pretty close to #2. Anyway I like tracking these stories because I can’t grock the math. Ultimately I will not pick a favorite interpretation for myself because I have the luxury of not being required to. But I am drawn to Smolin’s idea of “let’s stick to one universe and assume that time is real”. If I could order from the science menu that’s the meal I’d choose. But Ladyman and Ross do seem appetizing.