Recent content by Tao-Fu

When you have vector quantities that get squared in physics, it usually means taking the dot product (scalar product) of the vector with itself. This gives the square of the magnitude of the vector, since it is always parallel with itself and gives a directional cosine of 1. Similarly, a...

Yes, I still find Occam's razor to be a good principle. It simply urges you not to multiply entities in your theory beyond need: Don't insert superfluous agents into the model. If you can explain the same phenomena with less machinery then do that for your own convenience! If another theory...

We can only ever describe our observations. We cannot address ontological truth in any tangible way. I can only say that certain things appear random. Similarly, I can state that certain relationships permit a deterministic description. However, this determinism is a property of the...

Hi. I found this text to be very helpful: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198520638/?tag=pfamazon01-20 You should be able to find it at a university library if you don't have the money to purchase it.

Open systems quantum mechanics shows that time asymmetries can arise from time reversible interactions when we only have access to incomplete information. Almost any modern text on quantum optics will discuss these ideas.

You make a good point. It seems I wrote a bit too generally. Of course, you can write things in terms of dressed states (the basis that diagonalizes the Hamiltonian -- i.e. normal modes). In a closed system this leads to a density matrix that is diagonal. However, it is my understanding...

It seems like you are referring to the appearance of the arrow of time. There is a lot of discussion about this, actually. Considerations of open systems seem to lead naturally to an arrow of time. Open-system methods are used very commonly in quantum optics and they successfully describe...

Why ether? They don't imply any rest frame. A more direct comparison would be photons appearing as elements of electromagnetic fields. If I wanted to look for gravitons I would try hard to see classical gravitational waves and then work to get the sensitivity up and see if I could see...

We don't know anything of the sort. Interpreting gravity as deformations in a manifold is consistent with our observations so far and it has made predictions that have been verified to a degree (frame dragging, for example), however, this does not mean that it it is somehow true. It is still a...

edpell, I'm not sure what you mean by that. The wavefunction for an electron can certainly disperse -- as in cease to be localized at a particular location in space. It can only be detected at a single location, but this isn't the same thing as localization of its wavefunction.

In the classical theory of gravitation (general relativity) there is no messenger particle. Gravity is a manifestation of deformations in the space-time manifold due to distribution of energy in various forms. Gravitons are predicted to be the bosons (massless and with spin-2) that mediate a...

By my understanding, a law isn't specifically something that you derive from a theory. Laws describe empirical relationships. Determinism is a feature of a theory, not of a law. Laws just relate measurable quantities without regard to particular mechanisms for explaining the relationship...

This doesn't quite work, though. A set of waves at one time may possesses a totally different number of peaks as at a different time. Additionally, the single-particle wave function can exhibit arbitrarily many peaks without implying production of extra particles. The peaks simply correspond...

Okay. Granted. My point being, any measurement is simply counting, which does not involve any thing more exotic than a real number line (or even natural numbers in many cases). I can certainly describe my observations non-quantitatively and this obviously would not involve real numbers (or...

How do either of those links point a way to differentiate different interpretations of QM? I'm not seeing it.