Scientists find new quantum behavior in unusual superconducting material. Via @sciencex.physorg #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics
Scientists find new quantum be...

Scientists find new quantum behavior in unusual superconducting material. Via @sciencex.physorg #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics
Scientists find new quantum be...
Meet the 'neglectons': Previously overlooked particles that could revolutionize quantum computing. Via @live_science #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics #ParticlePhysics #ComputerSciences
Meet the 'neglectons': Previou...
https://www.europesays.com/2330816/ US testing quantum navigation aboard secretive military space plane #AOSense #AtomInterferometry #Block3 #Boeing #GPSNavigation #nasa #QuantumInertialSensor #QuantumMechanics #QuantumNavigation #QuantumPhysics #space #TheConversation #USSpaceForce #USSpacePlane #X37BSpacePlane
https://www.europesays.com/2328011/ Can AI Solve Quantum Physics? ##Spotlight #AI #Data #MachineLearning #QuantumMechanics #QuantumPhysics #SatyenK.Bordoloi
At present, all that the people involved can do is agree to disagree.
"Hundreds of physicists (and a few journalists) journeyed to Helgoland, the birthplace of quantum mechanics, and grappled with what they have and haven’t learned about reality."
'Like a master Tetris player': Scientists invent quantum virtual machines — they'll slash turnaround times from days to hours. Via @live_science #ComputerSciences #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics
'Like a master Tetris player':...
1/2 Notes on #UAP Discussions: In the late eighties - early nineties we had a lot of #NewAge writers going all in on #QuantumMechanics as The Explanatory mechanism for all sorts of parapsychology and #Psi phenomenologies. There wasn’t much in the way of direct evidence and the primary angle of attack for debunkers was the simple referral that quantum weirdness was only ever seen on the scale of the very small and elementary particles. It was valid criticism…
Einstein was wrong: @MIT just settled a 100-year quantum debate. Via @sciencedaily_official #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics
Einstein was wrong: MIT just s...
Scientists Just Admitted Nobody Really Gets Quantum Physics. Via @sciencealert #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics #ParticlePhysics
Scientists Just Admitted Nobod...
What physicists believe about quantum mechanics
A few years ago David Bourget and David Chalmers did a follow up survey to the 2009 one polling philosophers on what they believe about various questions. One of them was quantum mechanics, particularly the measurement problem and its various interpretations. Over the decades there have been surveys of physicists themselves on this question, but most, if not all, were with a very small sample size, usually only the attendees at a particular conference.
As part of the Quantum Centennial (the celebration of 100 years of quantum mechanics) Nature has done a fairly large survey of the community of quantum researchers with over 1100 respondents. The results are interesting, although not particularly surprising.
Copenhagen still comes out on top with 36%. It’s interesting that it’s stronger with experimentalists than with theorists (half vs a third). I suspect the experimentalists are hewing to a very pragmatic version of the interpretation. Which highlights a concern that the term “Copenhagen interpretation” means different things to different people. The article acknowledges this, noting that 29% of those who selected Copenhagen favored an ontic version of the wave function vs 63% who came down epistemic.
15% are Everettians (or “consistent-history” advocates, who I suspect object to being lumped in with the many-worlders), 7% Pilot-wave, 4% Spontaneous collapse, 4% Relational Quantum Mechanics, and a smattering in other views.
Overall 47% of respondents see the wave function as just a mathematical tool, with 36% taking a partial or complete realist take (my view), and 8% taking it to only represent subjective beliefs about experimental outcomes.
45% see a boundary between classical and quantum objects (5% see it as sharp) while 45% don’t (my view).
Just before the paywall, there is a question about the observer in quantum mechanics, with 9% saying it must be conscious. Another 56% said there had to be an observer, but that “observer” can just be interaction with a macroscopic environment, and 28% arguing that no observer at all is needed. (I think interaction with the macroscopic environment and the resulting decoherence is key, but it seems misleading to call that environment an “observer”.)
All interesting. Of course, how popular or unpopular a view is has no real bearing on whether it’s reality. Prior to Galileo’s telescopic observations in 1609, an Earth-centered universe was the most popular cosmology. Only a miniscule handful of astronomers accepted Copernicus’ view about the Earth orbiting the sun. Until the quantum-measurement equivalent of the telescope comes along, all we can do is reason as best as possible with the current data.
The results here are interesting to compare with what the philosophers thought on the Bourget-Chalmers survey. On quantum mechanics, philosophers were 24% agnostic, 22% hidden variable theories, 19% many-worlds, 17% collapse, and 13% epistemic. Once we take into account all the various forms of “Copenhagen interpretation”, these seem in a similar ballpark, except that philosophers are more open to hidden variable approaches. (It may be easier to favor hidden variables if you’re not the one who has to find them.)
My own view comes down to a preference for structural completeness (or at least more structurally complete models), which to me currently favors a cautious and minimalist take on the Everettian approach (as I described a few months ago). However, my credence in this conclusion is only 75-80%. That the survey indicates most physicists aren’t super confident in their own conclusions here makes me feel better.
This reminds me of a new approach that Jacob Barandes has been promoting on various podcasts (see this recent Sean Carroll episode as an example). Barandes calls it Indivisible Stochastic Quantum Mechanics. I won’t pretend to understand exactly what he’s trying to accomplish with it, but it involves rejecting the wave function completely, and replacing it with something more stochastic from the beginning. Which strikes me as less structurally complete than the wave function, and so a move in the wrong direction. But maybe I’ll turn out to be wrong.
Anyway, now we have a firmer idea of where the physics community currently stands on quantum interpretations, or at least a firmer one than we did before. How would you have answered the survey questions? (There’s actually a small quiz in the article which is worth taking to see the logic leading to particular interpretations.)
New discovery at CERN could hint at why our universe is made up of matter and not antimatter. Via @spacedotcom #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics #ParticlePhysics
New discovery at CERN could hi...
Einstein was wrong (slightly) about quantum physics, new version of the famous double-slit experiment reveals. Via @spacedotcom #Science #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics
Einstein was wrong (slightly) ...
New Nature survey on quantum foundations: 15,582 physicists (1,101 responded, ~7 %) were asked about their preferred interpretation of #QuantumMechanics. The #Copenhagen interpretation remains most popular (36%) – but mainly out of habit. Only 24% are confident in any interpretation. A sign of deep conceptual unease, nearly 75% expect a future theory to replace all current interpretations
https://www.europesays.com/2284254/ Kevin Roccapriore: The quantum leap of startup AtomQ #Data #Energy #engineering #Entrepreneurship #MaterialsScience #Nanotechnology #Newswise #OakRidgeNationalLaboratory #OakRidgeNationalLaboratory(ORNL);InnovationCrossroads;Quantum;QuantumComputing;Entrepreneur #QuantumMechanics #technology
Some teenagers wreck their rooms, others wreck cars, this teenager wrecked your quantum computing theory.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/teenager-finds-classical-alternative-to-quantum-recommendation-algorithm-20180731/ #quantum #quantumphysics #physics #science #quantummechanics #astrophysics
https://www.europesays.com/2279406/ A strange quantum battery concept reveals the second law of entanglement #battery #Data #physics #QuantumMechanics #Thermodynamics
@454bc2771a69e30843d0fccfde6e105ff3edc5c6739983ef61042633e4a9561a @4c800257a588a82849d049817c2bdaad984b25a45ad9f6dad66e47d3b47e3b2f
The device you hold in your hand employs hundreds of thousands of quantum tunneling effect transistors.
Alien tech.
Electrons disappear in one spot, teleport to another and continue.
Australia’s Breakthrough: NEW Quantum Battery Charges Instantly. Via @theelectricvking #ScienceThreads #Physics #QuantumPhysics #QuantumMechanics #engineeringThreads
Australia’s Breakthrough: NEW ...
In 1935, Ettore Majorana described particles that are their own antiparticles. #Poetry #Science #History #Physics #QuantumMechanics #Fermion #Majorana (https://sharpgiving.com/Sharp/thebookofscience/items/p1935d.html)