Interpretation Definition and 803 Threads

Hello, My question relates to gamma spectroscopy. I understand how the net peak area is calculated for any photopeak. Fortunately, gamma-spec software (e.g., Genie-2000 from Canberra) provides Net peak area and associated uncertainty (for Cs-137 661.7 keV peak, as an example). My question: are...

I wasn't sure if i should call it an "interpretation" and post it in this forum or not as it isn't entirely clear if it makes any different predictions within its region of it validity. Anyhow, the original idea of Schrödinger that made him come up with his equations is very different from the...

Summary:: Please tell me an example Determine the distance traveled by the object between 0-7 s. Determine the acceleration of the piece in the range of 0-4 s Determine the acceleration of the piece in the range of 4-7 s.I've tried, but something I'm doing wrong. Could you clarify?

Is it still true that under the Copenhagen Interpretation the standard theory of QM tells us that a measurement apparatus gets into superposition of possible measurement outcomes and does not tell us how and when we get a single decisive outcome? (The so-called "Measurement problem")

I've had an oil sample analysed by 2 separate labs; one of the labs came back with the analysis stating large amount of contamination with element X (sorry, I won't prejudice any responses with the element name for now). Unfortunately one lab used transmission FTIR and the other used absorbtion...

the Feynmann-Stuckelberg interpretation: a negative energy solution of the Dirac equation is interpreted (1) as a negative energy particle traveling backwards in time or (2) as a positive energy anti-particle going forwards in time. However, if a positron and an electron annihilate each other a...

I consider three material points O, O', M, in uniform rectilinear motion in a common direction, so that in relation to the point O, the points O' and M move in the same direction with the constant velocities v and u (u>v>0). Assuming that at the initial moment (t0=0), the points O, O', M were in...

The likelihood for dark matter appears to be lessening in direct detection and in its utility in explaining astronomical anomalies. With regard to the former, a trio of recent dark matter detection experiments (LUX 2016, PandaX II 2017 and Xenon1t 2018) have all failed to show any non-baryonic...

The concept of decoherence seems to be a major progress in quantum mechanics. Has decoherence or any other new finding the potential that a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics will prove correct or incorrect resp. in the foreseeable future?

Hello, So I was reading about Hawking radiation and I read a QFT interpretation of it. It went something like this: A vacuum contains virtual particles (vacuum energy), which in qft can be described as waves that are out of phase and cancel each other out (matter and antimatter). I a black...

Hello. I am curious to learn many world interpretation. In collapse of state 3/5 |0>+ 4/5 |1> to |0> or |1>, it jumps to |0> with probability 9/25 or to |1> with probability 16/25. In many world interpretation I assume 9 worlds of |0> and 16 worlds of |1> so total 25 (or its multiple)...

dP = F dt dE = F dr or if we introduce ds = (dt, dr) (dP, dE) = F ds And both dP and dE are constant in closed system. Some questions: - How does its implies on definition of Force? - Is there some clever geometrical interpretation of Force? - Why P and E seems almost interchengable?

Matt Leifer gives criteria that any good quantum interpretation should satisfy. http://mattleifer.info/2006/06/28/professional-jealousy/?fbclid=IwAR2wl5kEzcfbn6doA53UMty42JP5dADhA5SDxRjaTMNPkq1i9Ag3WPCwB5Q

Those days I'm in the mood of criticizing the Ballentine's statistical interpretation, also known as the minimal statistical interpretation. Here I will argue that it is, in fact, neither minimal nor statistical. The main culprit is that Ballentine repeatedly insists that there is no wave...

I am a big fan of Ballentine's book on QM and was reading the discussions about the Ensemble Interpretation. Although, I am not an expert on these matters I reject the idea of the wave function collapse as a fundamental postulate of QM. Instead, I've come to the conclusion that we don't...

[Moderator's note: Spun off from another thread due to topic and subforum change.] I think Ballentine's interpretation is ruled out by the PBR theorem. Maybe we could discuss that?

I will quote this statement from another thread: In that thread number of other posters seemed to agree with this statement. So I tried to analyze it a bit. For the sake of my questions let's say we limit GR to Schwarzschild spacetime and if there are problems with gravitational potential...

I have just finished reading the book 'Three Roads to Quantum Gravity' by Lee Smolin. My question interestingly is associated with my geology background. Lee Smolin notes Fay Dowker concludes that if Consistent Histories is true then we cannot deduce the existence of dinosaurs 100 million...

Every second the universe branches into 5000 universes and each of those 5000 universes branches into 5000 more after one more second. Now, consider an 80 year old person, he has lived close to 80*365*24*60*60 seconds, which is 2.5 Billion seconds. So, in his life time, universe has branched...

I am in my self-driving car and approaching an intersection, where I can either drive to the right or left. I choose to drive to the right. There are two buttons on the instrument panel, R (ight) and L (eft). I press R, and a QM random number generator is activated. My car drives to the right...

I feel that contemporary authors' statements about the copenhagen interpretation don't really match with what the founders of quantum mechanics said. Also, different authors give seemingly contradictory statements about it is. What do the members here think about this? What is the copenhagen...

Suppose we have an operator with three eigenvectors/eigenvalues ##e_1##, ##e_2## and ##e_3##. The operator measures wavefunction ##\psi##. Could we say that we find outcome ##e_x## with probability ##P(\psi,e_x)##, and could we extend this to an infinite dimensional operator as a spectrum of...

Perhaps the reason is that the principle of least action is elevated to a divine principle that does not require materialistic interpretation. If so, then the solution to the "secrets" of quantum theories lies in the solution of the materialistic essence of the physical magnitude of action.

Would it make sense to say that the entire evolutionary history of the universal wavefunction could simply be a single, continuous moment of self-measurement? In other words, that the universe exists for no other reason than to be the apparatus that is always in the process of measuring its own...

Hello,everyone. Which material is best for Nelson's stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics?

What is an interpretation of wave of field(wave that its medium is field) in QFT?Is it correct that the trajectory that wave propagates is the "classical trajectory" of particle created by the field?

Back in the day, there were a few Quantum Interpretation polls on here, as of late I have not seen any. I love that we now have a sub-forum for Foundations discussions. I figured it would be interesting to see how the participants of PhysicsForums feel about the different interpretations these...

One hypothesis (may be a mainstream interpretation now, I didn't follow this subject very closely) about why "quantum communication" isn't possible using quantum entanglement is that we as observers, the physicists who conduct such experiments are automatons, and that at which instant would he...

For explaining Delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment, what if I change the Copenhagen interpretation a little. When the experiment is concluded, we observe one detector (the first detector with the shortest path) has detected the pattern long before the wavefunction is collapsed (before the...

As I understand it, from the instrumentalist perspective the wavefunction is not more than a mathematical tool which predicts probabilities. So he could say a mathematical tool can't collapse because it is not a real physical thing. So to talk about a collapse of the wavefunction is meaningless...

So the many worlds interpretation describes every quantum events as a branch point, where in which all events happen. I'll use the example of a coin toss to illustrate my question. If I flip a coin, I create a branch point in my universe from which two universes emerge, where both heads and...

Actually, is not a doubt as a question, in which there is wrong or right. I just want to update myself with respect to the current physicists opinion about the Copenhagen interpretation of Bohr and Heisenberg. Summarizing, there is a consensus among the majority? In another words, there is still...

Jim explores what are the most popular interpretations of quantum mechanics and how we might need to be a little more specific when we talk about ‘reality’. Excellent layman's explanation of the Bell Inequality experiments.

The two volume treatise Bryce DeWitt, The global approach to quantum field theory, Oxford Univ. Press 2003. which discusses the canonical approach to dynamical quantum gravity, is probably responsible for the fact that the many worlds interpretation (MWI) of quantum mechanics has a sizable...

It is usually said that unitarity is necessary for the consistent probabilistic interpretation. But is that really so? Suppose that ##|\psi(t)\rangle## does not evolve unitarily with time, so that ##\langle\psi(t)|\psi(t)\rangle## changes with time. Even then one can propose that probability...

I think Weinberg is quite clear about this: On p.87 of the second edition of his quantum mechanics book, he says, and on p.88: After having discussed decoherence, he says on p.92: For the instrumentalist approach (apparently your view of the matter), he states on p.92f this drawback: Then...

Given the various different interpretations of quantum mechanics, I am interested in getting a general overview of most/all of them. I think it would be interesting to hear what people list as the positives of each interpretation as well as issues they perceive with each. I was thinking that, if...

I'm diving into the RQM and one thing still puzzles me. I have hard time understanding this: Taking the model system discussed above, if O′ has full information on the S+O system, it will know the Hamiltonians of both S and O, including the interaction Hamiltonian. Thus, the system will evolve...

Understand me well. My appeal is to observation- observation that each of you must make for himself" . Charles Sanders Peirce What is your interpretation of this?

I wanted to know what the usage of the following could be : Let ##A\in M_{n\times n}(K)## a matrix over the field K. Suppose we look for ##x,\lambda\in M_{n\times 1}(K)## such that $$Ax=(\lambda_i x_i)$$ Hence instead of having a global eigenvalue we would have local ones. I know the...

So back in the other thread I asked about compatibility of classical probability theory (PT) and QM – and it turns out there is no inherent reason why they need to be incompatible. Therefore I was looking for something that makes them compatible, which wasn’t easy to search for. But there seems...

Schrodinger’s Cat and the many worlds interpretation states that the wave function collapse doesn’t happen at all; every possible outcome of an observation actually comes to pass in its own separate universe. We are presented with a binary (discrete) outcome (dead or alive) but what if there...

Hey! :o Which is the geometric interpretation of the following maps? $$v\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} 0&-1&0\\ 1&0&0\\ 0&0&-1\end{pmatrix}v$$ and $$v\mapsto \begin{pmatrix} 1& 0&0\\0&\frac{1}{2} &-\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\\ 0&\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}&\frac{1}{2}\end{pmatrix}v$$

Hey! :o Let $\phi_1:\mathbb{R}^3\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^3$, $v\mapsto \begin{pmatrix}0 & -1 & 0 \\ 1 & 0 & 0 \\ 0 & 0 & 1\end{pmatrix}\cdot v$, $\phi_2:\mathbb{R}^3\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^3$, $v\mapsto \frac{1}{3}\begin{pmatrix}2 & - 1& - 1\\ - 1& 2 & -1\\ - 1&-1 & 2\end{pmatrix}\cdot v$ which...

I'm studying physics with math as a minor and I'm currently at 4th semester. Don't get me wrong, I love studying physics. But I'm starting to feel that something is missing. Most of my courses are really focused on learning the formalism and technical methods, so we are able to solve different...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00120-6

Hey! :o We have the below maps: $f_1:\mathbb{R}^2\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^2, \ \ \begin{pmatrix}x \\ y\end{pmatrix}\mapsto \begin{pmatrix}-x \\ -y\end{pmatrix}$ $f_2:\mathbb{R}^3\rightarrow \mathbb{R}^3, \ \ \begin{pmatrix}x \\ y\\ z\end{pmatrix}\mapsto \begin{pmatrix}x \\ -y\\...

I have already discussed the ontology problem of thermal interpretation (TI) of quantum mechanics (QM) several times in the main thread on TI. The following is supposed to be the final refined version of my argument, so I don't want it to be lost among other posts in the main TI thread...

Regarding the paper Bohmian mechanics for instrumentalists I like the ideas put forward in the paper because it provides a basis for an intuitive and logical explanation of quantum mechanics. I have many questions about it, but I will start with 3. Question 1: In this interpretation, what is...

[Moderator's note: Thread spun off from previous thread due to topic change.] The thermal interpretation of the double slit experiment is very appealing alternative explanation to the Bohmian interpretation as I understood it from these discussions...