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olcay
Aug18-08, 12:59 PM
Hi guys...

I have read most of bohmian argument and critics about it here. But unfortunately, I'm an economist, have not a physics B.A.!

I want to ask stg., I'll be grateful if you answer...

I read Englert's argument (ESSW paper) and also replies... But surely, I can not understand the picture. They say Bohm's trajectories is "surrealistic" because with A "which way" experiment, we see the opposite of bohmian prediction. They also say bohm's particle should have been bouncing, but it doesn't. Can anyone tell me what does it mean?

Secondly, All the replies to this paper are talking about "configuration space". I know what is configuration space but I also think, Bohmians always say about reality of particle and trajectories... So, what the -beep- is this 3N configuration space in Bohmian mechanic?

I think you got the point. Please someone explain me what's the critics, and what's the reply?

Thanks.

Demystifier
Aug21-08, 04:38 AM
Surreal trajectories are not a sign of any inconsistency of the Bohmian interpretation. They only show that the Bohmian trajectories may significantly differ what one might naively expect.
A good (somewhat neutral) discussion is given in
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0312227

Concerning the apparent clash with "which way" experiments, the clash is a consequence of the fact that the "which way" experiments are the so called "weak measurements", i.e., they do not really measure the path of the particle. They only measure the final position of the particle, from which one makes an indirect (and somewhat naive) conclusion about the actual path.

The configuration space is important in Bohmian mechanics because it is the simplest way to understand the origin of nonlocality. In fact, in the configuration space Bohmian mechanics is completely local.