I On the relation between physics and philosophy

[Auto-Didact]

Here Feynman teaches Bohmian mechanics without admitting so.
View attachment 255716

Unbelievable, Bohmian Mechanics is lurking right there in full glory at the very end of the Feynman Lectures! I can't believe I missed this before, but tbh I haven't reread the Lectures since early uni days when I knew neither BM, nor hydrodynamics.

In any case, this finding deserves its own thread.

 

[vanhees71]

Here Feynman teaches Bohmian mechanics without admitting so.
View attachment 255716

Hm, and he doesn't mention that this leads to the Abelian Higgs mechanism :-(.

 

[Auto-Didact]

Hm, and he doesn't mention that this leads to the Abelian Higgs mechanism :-(.

Perhaps, even Feynman had his limits? Are you indirectly acknowledging the utility of BM? :)

 

[vanhees71]

BM is a funny curiosity working for non-relativistic QT. I don't see much merit in it compared to minimally interpreted QT, but it shows how a non-local deterministic theory compatible with non-relativistic QT looks like. As such it's interesting for some philosophers who cannot accept the indeterminism of the world, which I consider an established fact though, given the plethora of Bell tests in favor of QT, and the compatibility of relativistic local QFT with all observations. I've not seen a convincing non-local relativistic theory a la Bohm though.

 

[Auto-Didact]

I'm not talking about the Bohmian interpretation, I'm talking about the utility of equation 21.33 itself for utilization in physics generically e.g. like how Feynman is using it there. Is that equation part of physics or isn't it, in your opinion?