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Comment by wpietri | Hacker News Reader

Could you point to some articles on this? It's way outside of my field, but it sounds very interesting.

The person you are replying to is either wrong or has stated it very badly.

The idea of their being both a wave and particle based description of photons that don't mix well is basically physics as known in the 1920s. The modern theoretical framework of light is quantum field theory (special relativity + quantum mechanics, but actually not quite that for [insert qft textbook] reasons...), which doesn't fit into either of those old ideals particularly well because they are basically shadows of an underlying model projected at different angles.

Edit (further detail): The way physics is taught in British secondary schools is a tragedy - ignoring that you don't even learn the fundamentals properly (no calculus!) - you aren't given a non-mathematical outline of these modern theories. In their eyes quantum mechanics has not really advanced beyond the photoelectric effect, which is where unhelpful weirdness like you'll see in this thread comes from.

We need to go back to the 1920s and start again. As the article explains, modern QM has hit a dead end, and it's little more than mathematical games that have not helped us understand reality.

Those mathematical games quite literally have helped us understand reality. The standard model made predictions, which were then tested.

Has it though? Do certain predictions presuppose a particular intepretation of reality? Does QM actually predict the double slit experiment?

> it's little more than mathematical games that have not helped us understand reality

i dont think that's true. A lot of people would assume that this "mathematical game" is like theories with air pressure. The statistical methods used for computing heat and pressure can be "explained" as little particles of atoms moving about due to their vibrations, and the ultimate observed behaviour is just that - a lot of particles pushing and shoving dependent on the temperature of these particles. this simple explanation can be understood without the maths - after all, the maths is only there to tackle the large numbers and statistical inferences needed. The statistical methods "isn't the theory".

However, such views restricts the mind imho. To seek a simple, understandable explanation that is not mathematical is probably a wrong goal. A lot of people have tried to explain laws such as gravity using such simple rules - a particle that moves and hits in all directions, but bigger bodies will block certain direction (thus resulting in a net force from the opposite side - aka, gravity).

This is cool IMO (2016):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRSBaq3vAeY

Apologies if its considered off topic - I see double slit experiment and I always think of this. It blew my mind.

Pretty fascinating stuff, seems like it's time to implement some quantum CAPTCHAs

Crackpot vibes

Where did he go wrong in the experiment?

Of course "consciousness is special" is what you'd expect someone with a consciousness to say, so we shouldn't trust it unless we can prove the video was made by a p-zombie.

I'd be curious to hear what happens with a fake tone or indicator.

I would expect that to decouple the experimenter to the experiment and should result in no change to the output.

It is more than just interesting, it's the central unsolved conundrum in physics

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_m...

I thought GUT was at the core of modern physics studies?

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