Are physicists happy with Quantum Mechanics as it is?

[Neo_Anderson]

Sorry, but this is nonsense. Physicists always look for loopholes, and Aspect got the result that almost everyone expected, so it's not like everyone felt that they needed to "figure out what he did wrong".

Alain Aspect did get the resulthat was expected of theory. So why does the physics community go out looking for loopholes in his experiment's sucess?

If I test my guitar's amplifier and found it to be working, why should I go out and figure out why the amplifier is working?!

 

[alxm]

I was trying my best metaphor on the issue, alxm. The metaphor was the aether and special relativity, and their relationship to the current state of quantum mechanics, that's all.

You stated:

The Michleson/Morley experiment is explained away with a modified version of the Aether called the ohr/Sommerfeld Model, in which the Aether moves with the x and y coordinate frames.

Which looks more like a load of nonsense than a metaphor. And metaphor or no, it's simply wrong to bring Maxwell into it the theory of the ether, and an omission to leave Lorentz out.

And the purpose of my metaphor is just this: that the current state of QM may rest on an "incomplete or unsatasfactory theory" (Einstein), just as my metaphor tried to illustrate QM as being incomplete, just as the aether was.

The theory of the ether wasn't an 'incomplete' theory in the sense that Einstein defined it in the EPR paper. It was just wrong.

Now would you please point out the forum rule I violated. You said you would...

I didn't say I would. But nevertheless: No overly speculative posts and no 'alternate theories' in this forum.

 

[alxm]

Alain Aspect did get the resulthat was expected of theory. So why does the physics community go out looking for loopholes in his experiment's sucess?

Because that's how science is done.

It's bad scientific practice not to look for alternative explanations and reasons to doubt your results, even if they were the expected results. Have you ever submitted a peer-reviewed paper? Or at least seen the process?

The #1 thing reviewers are going to criticize you on is "Did you consider this? Did you try that?". Simply put, it's never been about proving you're right: It's about proving you're not wrong. More people trying to find fault with an experiment only means it's an important experiment, not that it is in doubt. Many of the most important verifications in the history of science came from people trying to prove the opposite.

 

[Fredrik]

Alain Aspect did get the resulthat was expected of theory. So why does the physics community go out looking for loopholes in his experiment's sucess?

Because physics is a science. You need to read up on the scientific method.

If I test my guitar's amplifier and found it to be working, why should I go out and figure out why the amplifier is working?!

Suppose someone has claimed that your amplifier isn't working. Your test appears to have disproved that theory. If you want to be even more sure that this guy is in fact wrong, it makes perfect sense to try as hard as you can to find something wrong with the test you did. If you try and you find nothing wrong with it, you're even more sure than before. It's not about trying to find out why your amplifier is working. It's about e.g. proving that the sound you heard during the test couldn't possibly have come from another source.

Aspect's results disproved certain claims. Anyone who wanted to be even more sure that those claims were in fact false was of course right to look for flaws in Aspect's experiment.

 

[Demystifier]

Do you know how either the pilot wave interpretation or ensemble interpetation interprets the Born postulate?

As Fredrik answered for the ensemble interpretation, let me answer for the pilot wave case. In pilot wave theory, the Born rule emerges from ignorance (lack of knowledge) of the initial particle positions.

 

[Demystifier]

Proof that the theoretical community is not happy with quantum mechanics: In Aspect's Experiment, physicists looked for all kinds of 'loopholes' to find out why Alain Aspect's experiment worked. THIS HAS BEEN THE ONLY INSTANCE IN THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS WHERE THE PHYSICIST SET OUT TO LOOK FOR FLAWS IN AN EXPERIMENT THAT VERIFIED THE THEORETICAL RESULT!
Only abject doubt of the theory can inspire the physicist to do this.

Unlike Fredrik, I think it is an excellent point!
Of course, Fredrik is right that in science, all results should be tested over and over again.
However, the point is that most other results in physics are NOT tested SO frequently, and that repeated tests of most other results in physics are not considered SO important.

For example, if I make a new test of the principle of conservation of energy, most journals will reject my paper by saying that it is not interesting. But if I make a new test of quantum nonlocality, I will not have problems to publish it in Nature or at least in Physical Review Letters.