In light of our recent debates on science I thought others might
enjoy reading this Carver Mead interview on Quantum Mechanics and
his criticism of Bohr and the Copenhagen School, and other topics as
well.
106446538310636532.html
TangoMan
--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> In light of our recent debates on science I thought others might
> enjoy reading this Carver Mead interview on Quantum Mechanics and
> his criticism of Bohr and the Copenhagen School, and other topics
as
> well.
>
> http://www.laputanlogic.com/frontiers/2003/09/21-
> 106446538310636532.html
>
> TangoMan
material to wade through :)
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/94/12/6013.pdf
http://www.zeh-hd.de/
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~as3/no-quantum-jumps.pdf
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/9812/9812059.pdf
http://math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/papers/crlet.ps.gz
http://math.rutgers.edu/~oldstein/papers/crea1.ps.gz
http://arxiv.org/find/nucl-ex,astro-ph,nucl-th,math-ph,hep-
ex,physics,hep-lat,cond-mat,quant-ph,gr-qc,hep-ph,hep-
th/1/ti:+bohmian/0/1/0/all/0/1
TangoMan
> --- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> > In light of our recent debates on science I thought others might
> > enjoy reading this Carver Mead interview on Quantum Mechanics and
> > his criticism of Bohr and the Copenhagen School, and other topics
> as
> > well.
a little out of his depth here. At least half of his criticisms
of Bohr have nothing to do with the nature of quantum mechanics -
macroscopic quantum effects have been well understood in the traditional
manner since superconductors were first explained in the 1950's - Townes's
laser, Josephson junctions, quantum Hall etc. all have perfectly
normal explanations founded in regular quantum theory.
Worse than that, Mead seems to reject the photo-electric effect.
Since that is one of the two major foundations of the original
quantum theory (and the one for which Einstein received his Nobel
prize!), is an experiment that any college undergraduate
can reproduce, and is the basis for any number of modern
experimental techniques (for example, photoelectron spectroscopy),
and moreover is essentially the same effect that photo-voltaic
solar cells rely on, denial of the effect means he is denying
observational reality. Not a good way to proceed. Unless, of course,
I've misinterpreted the various statements there and his version
of quantum theory does actually reproduce the effect. In which case
it just enters the field along with about 450 other fundamental
approaches to quantum theory that produce exactly the same answers
in the end.
Arthur
--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
Hmmm, I'll have to read the essay more carefully after your
critique, for I missed the significance of this point that you're
making.
I'm not sure how one could reject the photo-electric effect for as
you correctly point out it is observable reality.
Interesting analysis.
TangoMan
--- In ssi_list@... "victoriatangoman"
> --- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
>
> > Worse than that, Mead seems to reject the photo-electric effect.
>
> Hmmm, I'll have to read the essay more carefully after your
> critique, for I missed the significance of this point that you're
> making.
Collective Electrodynamics: Quantum Foundations of Electromagnetism
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-
/0262632608/ref=cm_cr_dp_2_1/002-2302197-5586450?
v=glance&s=books&vi=customer-reviews
He doesn't sound like a crank to me. The book was published by MIT
Press. My preliminary impression is that he is challenging dogmatism
and the people who quickly jump to defend the dogmatism rather than
look at the material with fresh perspective.
Here is a paper he wrote in 1997 for the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences:
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid 992
I'm working my way through this and it's taking time because I'm not
a physicist. I'm sure that this is more up your alley rather than
the article written for the general public that I posted initially.
Does his argument make sense to you?
TangoMan
It's possible Mead is just re-casting quantum mechanics in a new
framework - if it produces the same mathematical results, then really
it's just a question of philosophical stance. It's often a very tough
thing to actually understand these different recastings as being the
same or not. Some well-known examples:
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%F6dinger_equation
Heisenberg: matrix mechanics -
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics
Dirac - operator theory - http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bra-ket_notation
(von Neumann gave this a rigorous mathematical basis)
Feynman - many paths approach (functional integral) -
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_integral
and Feynman diagrams - http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feynman_diagram
Bohm - hidden variables theory -
http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohm_interpretation
Everett - many-worlds interpretation
And there are at least half a dozen other formulations of the basic
quantum theory that I've seen. All of them are, at the bottom,
mathematically equivalent. It's kind of amazing how many different
perspectives there are on it.
Arthur
--- In ssi_list@... "Arthur P. Smith"
> framework - if it produces the same mathematical results, then
> really it's just a question of philosophical stance.
My readings of the material indicate that the results all work out
the same. He's not casting aside QM. I clearly got the message that
his work was directed at forming a coherent understanding of the
phenomena that has a different philosophical underpinning than that
promulgated by the Copenhagen School. I think that he hopes that, if
adopted, such a new underpinning could lead to new conceptual
insights that don't flow from the Bohr & Heisenberg conception of QM.
Of course, all of the above is tenative until I read the book for
myself.
TangoMan