- #1
Fra
- 4,140
- 612
I skimmed an old paper and found this honest and clearly stated viewpoint.
"Needless to say, one might suspect that some or all of the quantum mechanical postulates could break down at the Planck scale[2]. But then one might as well throw away anything we know about physics, and that is not the route I want to follow. I have never seen convincing models where ordinary quantum mechanics breaks down at a microscopical level but is somehow recovered at the atomic scale. Therefore I prefer not to speculate that quantum mechanics breaks down at the Planck scale, but in stead to suspect that quantum mechanics becomes trivial there: quantum superpositions are still allowed there but become irrelevant."
-- G. 't Hooft, Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9310026
Edit: I'm sorry for the stupid (and misspelled) title, but I submitted the new thread prematurely before finishing it and changing the title to something sensible. I tried to delete the thread but couldn't find howto to it?
I know this is an old paper but my main question in this thread is I'm curious if this is a common view, that drastic measures that revising QM fundaments equals "throwing away all we know about physics"?
If everyone has this attitude, the who is going to even TRY to make up those "convincing models where ordinary quantum mechanics breaks down at a microscopical level but is somehow recovered at the atomic scale" that would provide people with motivation?
/Fredrik
"Needless to say, one might suspect that some or all of the quantum mechanical postulates could break down at the Planck scale[2]. But then one might as well throw away anything we know about physics, and that is not the route I want to follow. I have never seen convincing models where ordinary quantum mechanics breaks down at a microscopical level but is somehow recovered at the atomic scale. Therefore I prefer not to speculate that quantum mechanics breaks down at the Planck scale, but in stead to suspect that quantum mechanics becomes trivial there: quantum superpositions are still allowed there but become irrelevant."
-- G. 't Hooft, Dimensional Reduction in Quantum Gravity, http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9310026
Edit: I'm sorry for the stupid (and misspelled) title, but I submitted the new thread prematurely before finishing it and changing the title to something sensible. I tried to delete the thread but couldn't find howto to it?
I know this is an old paper but my main question in this thread is I'm curious if this is a common view, that drastic measures that revising QM fundaments equals "throwing away all we know about physics"?
If everyone has this attitude, the who is going to even TRY to make up those "convincing models where ordinary quantum mechanics breaks down at a microscopical level but is somehow recovered at the atomic scale" that would provide people with motivation?
/Fredrik
Last edited: