Quantum Physics Is on the Wrong Track, Says Breakthrough Prize Winner | Hacker News Reader

Quantum Physics Is on the Wrong Track, Says Breakthrough Prize Winner

scientificamerican.com

18 pointsstogot23 comments

When Planck, and later Einstein, introduced the =ℎ formula , their conclusions were based on the interaction of light with matter at atomic and molecular scales. However, light–matter interaction fundamentally depends on the size of the receiver—effectively, the antenna. For efficient power absorption, the receiving antenna must typically be smaller than the wavelength of the incoming radiation. This is why =ℎ appeared valid when applied to sub-micrometer structures such as atoms and molecules. From an electromagnetic standpoint, these were effectively tiny antennas, smaller than the wavelength of visible light. But such antennas are inherently incapable of detecting radiation at millimeter or longer wavelengths. Therefore, the justification for =ℎ was rooted in a test setup that did not account for scale and wavelength limitations—calling into question its universal applicability. Despite this, the formula has been treated as foundational and even incorporated into the derivation of the Schrödinger equation. It is possible that some of the shortcomings of Schrödinger’s equation stem from this questionable assumption. Also, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382286416_Critique_...

He argues:

There must be an underlying deterministic system. - We don’t know what it is yet. - Quantum mechanics is incomplete, not wrong — it hides deeper rules. - His belief is based on logic, not current experimental proof.

In short, he says we don’t know what it is, but it’s something out there.

Very interesting. Isn't this calling for hidden variables again? I thought physicists largely dropped the idea in favour of Copenhagen interpretation. As a layman, this is exciting. Quantum mechanics really puts a barrier in terms of understanding through intuition, and if this leads to some new interpretation that is more "digestible", it might open up more things to access and learn about.

As far as I can tell, it's Bell's Theorem which shows that results we see can't be the result of hidden variables, so either this guy is throwing out this very well known and uncontroversial point, or he's doing something a bit more subtle.

I ain't no physicist but I learned about Bell's Theorem from a video where Feynman is explaining it in terms of boxes with buttons and lights on them, while dressed in a tracksuit. The audience keep asking questions so he goes over the idea about two dozen times, but that's not necessarily a bad thing in this case.

> As far as I can tell, it's Bell's Theorem which shows that results we see can't be the result of hidden variables

Strictly speaking, it can't be the result of local hidden variables under the assumption that you can make decisions in the detector that are independent of the experiment that you're doing. Usually those who argue for something like hidden variables try to find wriggle room in the latter part (that these decisions are somehow inherently correlated with what's being measured). But this is also deeply weird, because you could base these decisions in principle on information that has not had a causal relationship with the experiment since the start of the universe. (this idea is called superdeterminism)

This is formalized in the Kochen–Specker theorem [1]. Quantum mechanics is shown to incompatible with the following three assumptions being true simultaneously: (1) locality, (2) non-contextually (independent of the context of the experiments (3) realism.

AFAIK, at least one assumption needs to go.

There is a nice paper by N. David Mermin illustrating the incompatibility [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kochen%E2%80%93Specker_theor...

[2] https://www.physics.wisc.edu/courses/home/spring2020/407/exp...

I have never been able to understand how Bell's Theorem disproves hidden variables. The argument I hear is that when you measure spin of a particle pair 120° apart, they agree only 1/4 times instead of the expected 1/3. But who says the expected should be 1/3? Hidden variables give you an escape that can define anything you want it to. That's the point of a hidden variable, isn't it? Maybe the hidden variable function itself is such that the interaction when measuring along 120° is not symmetrical to that when measuring along 240°, and so could yield results different from 1/3 probability.

He seems to have decided there has to be a classical basis underlying quantum results. But offers no reasoning as to why he believes this. I'm sceptical.

I mean this much is clear within the physics community that we haven't found a complete understanding of quantum physics. We can explain what we can test and view but that is it. Wrong is such a strong term but I am sure some aspects will be revised with new information. We won't be spot on with everything.

I would recommend reading Chiara Marletto's book on Constructor Theory which is an attempt at breaking physics into fundamental can and can nots, which is a start for the next step of determining the missing physical rules.

't Hooft has been arguing for superdeterminism for quite some time. And it is a valid alternative to other interpretations of quantum mechanics.

But I don't think it really solves any of the problems people care about. It replaces superposition with a set of predetermined outcomes which you cannot possibly know. Instead of a random number generator, you have a list of numbers duplicated at every point in the universe -- but whose values cannot be read except by doing the thing and finding out the result.

It works, and it is different. But I'm skeptical that it will actually lead to the kind of genuinely novel insights that 't Hooft suggests it will.

Obviously, he's got a Breakthrough Prize and a whole passel of others, and I got nuthin', so I'd believe him over me. But I think that the "right track", if we ever find it, is going to be found in some completely different direction.

Unfortunately the correct simulation hypothesis not only can explain how, but also why. There are many wrong formulations of the sim hypothesis, but when done right it can explain almost everything. For example, Constructor Theory is in fact an instance of the simulation hypothesis done quite right, as it avoids the computational problem by stating that the universe is not computed but is itself a “constructor”, which is a computer that can manipulate matter (simplified). Although I agree that Quantum Physics is incomplete, I also don’t think there has to be an underlaying classical picture. But, yeah, we have the wrong point of view on it. The simulation hypothesis (if, again, done right) offers a far better insight on what QP is and why it works like it does. It can explain easily what is Entanglement and why it works like it does. It also offers a pretty good insight on what General Relativity actually describes, and why it works like that. Also offers a very good explanation of the “God plays with dice” problem, and the BH information paradox. That’s all IMHO, of course.

https://archive.md/20250412/https://www.scientificamerican.c...

Why does a cat being both alive and dead sound like nonsense? It seems to me to be the most accurate description of nature. The "cat" is some kind of soup of cells and other more primitive life forms engaged in a pitched battle for resources that results in the experience we categorize as "cat". To us at scale, we create the ontological notion 'cat" but reality does seem not care about our ontology. That is all you need to accept in order for the quantum mechanical formalism to lose its mysteriousness.

I have a gold medal in theoretical physics and I find quantum mechanics presents no difficulty or mysticism. There is however significant lament that the reductionist paradigm has failed to produce a deterministic universe from the decidedly probabilistic one we inhabit.

It's weird you would invoke actual cats made of cells to try to say something about reality, when the issue is macroscopic superpositions are never observed. You never see (1/sqrt(2))(alive+dead) cats.

Neither do we observe (left-path + right-path) electrons. QM being a computation tool and not a description of underlying reality is a coherent idea.

So you interpret QM as just math, with no physical meaning or interpretation, that's fine. "Shut up and calculate", is old hat.

My point is similar but not quite so prohibitive. It isn't about cats, rather it is about shedding your large scale ontologies when you work at much smaller scale. At these scales we have observation and evolution according wave equations, that is the ontology. In between there is nothing to conceive of or there are superpositions and non-locality. There is no comforting continuous existence across time and you need to accept that just as in classical physics you accepted the opposite, perhaps unknowingly. Do you not think your intuition about ontology may fail you when scales change 9 orders of magnitude?

Reality obviously reduces to QM in certain regimes. I'm quibbling with

> Why does a cat being both alive and dead sound like nonsense?

Alive and dead are coarse grained macrostates and these are never observed in superposition. Just like we don't observe asteroids in superpositions either. You could make some argument around decoherence to explain the absence while maintaining the possibility I guess. The absence of observation is why it sounds like nonsense. Cats aren't things that are alive and dead (sounds like category error to me), even though electrons (excitations of electron field, something something strings or loop or whatever) might be things that exist in superpositions over position space or momentum space and you can calculate observables from wavefunctions.

That doesn't say anything about what is "happening" IMO. I'm not saying macroscopic observations rule out microscopic ontologies.

I don't think there is anything interesting that we disagree on. I'm just not finding the ontology that I must accept/adopt to do quantum mechanics objectionable despite that it shows little respect for my scale-laden experiences. I find that superpositions, non-local couplings, etc. Do not mix well with coarse grained macrostates, or any sort of experience I have had at scale. This is probably because the entirety of my experience is rationalization after the fact of reality, constructed in my brain for the purpose of maximizing gene replication. But I am trained to deal with paradigm change -- incomensurability, ontology, and epistemology are part and parcel of that endeavour.

In QM, I don't even get the comfort of assuming there is an objective reality filled with entities that enjoy continuous existence in time.

Agree. I was a little curt saying "weird".

Probably the most persuasive point you make is about non-local couplings. I think that's the strongest evidence for me that macroscopic observations don't bind the microscopic ontology. I probably buy the "everything is relational/consistent histories" story the most.

> There is no comforting continuous existence across time

I think I agree. Using differential equations to model everything makes us think that the entities are really there and being pushed around by laws. But that's the map trying to sneak into the territory imo.

waiting for him to make some equations instead of Scientific American interviews

I think our numerical system is a bit like Fahrenheit.

Fahrenheit draws a line between three points and assumes a "law in nature". This was false (short answer).

The fact that there are things like PI for a circle means our numerical system has been invented before we had any knowledge about quantum quantities for lack of a better word (like autonomous autos X).

Math is wrong. But it's gotten this "holy" status of almost defining intelligence, like Latin is to English.

It's clearly wrong (to me at least) but it's such a big part of "smart" people's egos.

Hot take. Why shouldn't things like PI exist?

Because of time cubes? Just a guess.

PI appears when you’re trying to mathematically describe an oscillating quantity. So it could be a circle, or it could be a wave. So I don’t think it’s the red flag you think it is.

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