vanhees71 said:
Indeed, the distribution of many equally prepared electrons on the photoplate is given by ##|\psi(t,\vec{x})|^2##, the solution of Schrödinger's equation, but the single electron is not detected as a smeared charge distribution but as a dot.
The modern formalism assigns physical meaning to quantities that can be associated to self-adjoint measurement operators. As long as no qualification on the physically relevant measurement operators (spin, energy, momentum, ...) and the physically relevant quantities (probabilities for single outcomes, expectation values, ...) are added, this remains a pure description of a mathematical framework (like ordinay differential equations are the framework for classical point particle physics, partial differential equations are the framework for classical field theories, ...), to which the physical content must still be added.
vanhees71 said:
No observations so far contradict this interpretation and it has nobody come up with a satisfactory alternative description.
And still this brute force interpretation might miss some subtle details, like I tried to illustrate above.
(
Edit: I remember a huge table from "Quantenchemie: Eine Einführung" by Michael Springborg, where many relevant physical interpretations of quantities occurring in quantum chemistry computations were given. If I can find it again, I will include it in another reply.)
vanhees71 said:
I don't know, what you are referring to here.
The discussions with RUTA about conservation on average only
vanhees71 said:
I don't know, which "boundary conditions" you are talking about.
The easiest way to break a symmetry of the equations of motion is by having physically relevant boundary conditions that are incompatibe with that symmetry, which would have given rise to the conserved quantity. The example from RUTA seem to be easiest explained in terms of such boundary conditions, from my point of view. Of course, symmetries can also be broken for other reasons (at least in classical continuum physics), but those reasons did not apply to his examples, from my point of view.
vanhees71 said:
I don't know, what the fundamental axioms of math have to do with this problem. QT is formulated in terms of standard functional analysis.
They illustrate the subtleties which can still remain despite the agreement that axioms or postulates are indispensible.
vanhees71 said:
I've also no clue. Just look at, where (relativistic) QFT is applied to experiments, and you see that the ensemble interpretation perfectly fits. It has a good reason that the LHC and all of its big detectors were upgraded for more luminosity enabling "more statistics"!
If you always say "it is simple," or "I don't understand your problem," or "...", then this might be harmless as long as your conversation partner is right anyway and doesn't need your input. But you get him into trouble in the occasional cases where he is wrong, and would have benefitted from you input to see this for himself.