Discovery shakes up QM (or not....)

[entropy1]

A yet unverified experiment may mean a paradigm shift in QM:

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1501466.full

http://futurism.com/new-evidence-could-break-the-standard-view-of-quantum-mechanics/

What do you make of this?

 

[ZapperZ]

A yet unverified experiment may mean a paradigm shift in QM:

http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/2/2/e1501466.full

http://futurism.com/new-evidence-could-break-the-standard-view-of-quantum-mechanics/

What do you make of this?

I'm more curious on why you think this ".. may mean a paradigm shift in QM..."? Why is this surprising after previous experiments using the same weak-measurement technique that have produced similar conclusion? See S. Kocsis et al., Science v.332, p.1170 (2011). We may even have several threads on this topic already on here.

Zz.

 

[entropy1]

I'm more curious on why you think this ".. may mean a paradigm shift in QM..."? Why is this surprising after previous experiments using the same weak-measurement technique that have produced similar results? See S. Kocsis et al., Science v.332, p.1170 (2011).

Zz.

I only understand the second link, not the paper. The second link speaks of simplification of QM and nonlocal realism confirmed, as I understand.

 

[ZapperZ]

I only understand the second link, not the paper. The second link speaks of simplification of QM and nonlocal realism confirmed, as I understand.

The "second link" was written by whom? Is it a reliable source? Has it reported it without overblowing and dramatizing the impact to make it sexier, like most news reports are apt to do?

Zz.

 

[entropy1]

Has it reported it without overblowing and dramatizing the impact to make it sexier, like most news reports are apt to do?

Zz.

Probably not.

 

[entropy1]

Why is this surprising after previous experiments using the same weak-measurement technique that have produced similar conclusion?

I found several earlier similar news items indeed. But what is the 'significance' of this? Does it have none?

 

[Strilanc]

Your first link is to the paper. They do an experiment and talk about pilot-wave and how the two relate and how it demonstrates the resolution to what was an apparent paradox:

Englert, Scully, Süssmann, and Walther (ESSW) (12) asserted that in the presence of such a Welcher Weg measurement (WWM) device, the particle’s Bohmian trajectories can display seemingly contradictory behavior: There are instances when the particle’s Bohmian trajectory goes through one slit, and yet the WWM result indicates that it had gone through the other slit. ESSW concluded that these trajectories predicted by Bohmian mechanics could not correspond to reality and they dubbed them “surreal trajectories.” This serious assertion was discussed at length in the literature (13–17), after which a resolution of this seeming inconsistency was proposed by Hiley et al. (18). Here, we present an experimental validation of this resolution

They're clearly fans of pilot-wave, but they're appropriately careful to note that all other interpretations of QM give the same predictions:

As with any interpretation of quantum mechanics, the experimental predictions of Bohmian mechanics are the same as those in the operational theory.

So the paper is fine.

Your second link is a pop-science article. It's a waste of time. There's a sprinkling of facts, but it's laced with unjustified high-level assertions like:

new evidence suggests that the current standard view of how particles behave on the quantum scale could be very, very wrong

Which is just straight up wrong about the content of the paper.

 

[entropy1]

They're clearly fans of pilot-wave, but they're appropriately careful to note that all other interpretations of QM give the same predictions

I wonder what the experiment has demonstrated then...

 

[Demystifier]

I wonder what the experiment has demonstrated then...

It has demonstrated that, for entangled particles, Bohmian particle trajectories correspond to something real. But it does not provide evidence that Bohmian interpretation is correct. They have measured only "average" trajectories of a large ensemble of particles, while Bohmian interpretation claims much more, that even individual particles have those trajectories.