Abstract The Bohmian interpretation of quantum mechanics is controversial because it attributes deterministic trajectories to microscopic particles. I propose a reformulation that sidesteps this controversy: rather than applying Bohmian mechanics at the microscopic level, I recast it as an effective deterministic description of the macroscopic pointer of a measuring apparatus, with no claims about the…
The Tolman law describes how the temperature in a fixed gravitational field depends on the position (see https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.04106 for a pedagogic review). Here I present a simple general derivation of the Tolman law. It’s generally in the sense that it is applicable to any (thermalized) physical degrees of freedom for which one can define Lagrangian…
Here I present a simple (but to the best of my knowledge, new) derivation of the formula for the sum of the infinite geometric series. The derivation is based on the use of basic probability theory. Suppose that you play a game (e.g. lottery or roulette) for which the probability of winning is ##p\neq 0##….
Incomplete interpretations of quantum mechanics I argue that all interpretations of quantum mechanics (QM) are incomplete, each for its own reason. I also point out that for some interpretations (those marked with (*)) this incompleteness is in fact a good thing because in principle this incompleteness may be resolved experimentally. Interpretations and their incompleteness Shut…
Against interpretations in QM I am against “interpretations” of Quantum Mechanics (QM) in a sense in which John Bell [1] was against measurement in QM and Travis Norsen [2] is against realism in QM. Bell was not against doing measurements, he was against using the concept of measurement as a central concept in quantum foundations….
Why I’m a Bohmian and Questioning Orthodox QM Many people here know that I am a “Bohmian”, i.e. an adherent of a very non-orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM). Indeed, in the past, I have published a lot of papers on Bohmian mechanics in peer-reviewed journals from 2004 to 2012. So how can I not…
Every quantum physicist knows that all particles are either bosons or fermions. And the standard textbook argues that this so does not depend on the number of dimensions. On the other hand, you may have heard that in 2 dimensions particles can be anyons, which can have any statistics interpolating between bosons and fermions. And…