Recent content by WernerQH

Yes. In his book "The Road to Reality" Penrose offers a similar picture: a zig-zag-line. The velocity operator has eigenvalues ## \pm c ##. For an electron "at rest" the average speed is zero, but because spin is conserved its helicity is constantly flipping from right-handed to left-handed...

Okay, perhaps I should also read the parts of the paper that I skipped. :-) The electron is "tunneling" most of the time (is nowhere). But because of its mass it is forced to reappear incessantly, on the order of ## 10^{21} ## times per second.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Our evolution did not force us to deal with velocities close to the speed of light. Relativity still runs counter to our intuitions. But there are few physicists inventing ever new interpretations of electrodynamics. We got used to electric fields and accept them as real. I...

I don't think this paper can further the discussion. What an outrageous statement! How can the measurement problem be an empirical fact? Even claiming to be interpretation-independent! What is meant are interpretations of quantum theory, but of course what can count as empirical depends on...

What happens when a particle irreducible representation of the Poincaré group becomes entangled?

Thank you. For the first time I have the impression that somebody is actually trying to understand what I have written. Yes, this sounds very familiar. Feynman issued a warning about this (The Character of Physical Law, p. 129) : But I do think that the situation is not so hopeless, that...

I've been wasting my time! The point I've been trying to make didn't get across -- people just don't heed John Bell's recommendation to ban the word "system" (= "object") from the foundations of quantum theory. :-) It is precisely the use of this word with its unfortunate classical...

What is quantum theory about? Is it about quantum objects and measurements performed on them? Or Hilbert spaces? For me the most pressing question is about its ontology, not about a more "coherent" presentation of the formalism.

Not quite. He added: "Experiment" is more appropriate than "measurement", because it also includes (state) preparation, and is not assumed to happen "in an instant". It is important to consider an entire process, from beginning to the end. In this respect Consistent Histories provides a useful...

I share John Bell's view that the words "system" and "measurement" should not be used in expositions of the fundamentals of quantum theory. I also think that quantum theory is a miscroscopic theory, and that quantum "mechanics" is a misnomer. It suggests that quantum theory is a more general...

I don't think it is of so much use for physicists. You might be able to check if your concepts are used consistently, but not whether they are appropriate and useful in a particular context. Let me return to the preconceptions that you mentioned: causality and locality. We have a strong...

I was curious and looked at "Picturing Quantum Processes" a while ago. But it doesn't appeal to me. (Maybe because I'm definitely not an instrumentalist. Rather a realist.) I think of QFT as a microscopic theory, and Feynman diagrams as a more direct way of "picturing quantum processes". I...

@Demystifier -- is there a measurement problem? Is a language (interpretation) in which "measurement" (let alone a "measurement problem") cannot even be formulated, defective or superior? Or does your polyglot stance allow you to remain agnostic? There is and there is not a measurement...

Thanks, but this isn't at all what I had in mind. I wanted a physical answer, but anticipated that nothing satisfactory would be forthcoming. Yes, "What are they?" was a rhetorical question. I think that "objects" are not a very useful category in the microcosmos, something which we simply...

Quantum "objects" are neither waves nor particles. But what are they? In my view, the biggest conceptual hurdle is that we think of the world as composed of objects (which is of course natural in the classical world that we perceive).