brain_in_a_box [he/him] @ brain_in_a_box @hexbear.net

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3 yr. ago

I didn't realize that lemmy.world had actually reached the point of being worse than reddit ever was.

I'm not so sure. I think a degree of shut up and calculate if you actually want to get a physicists level understanding, a large degree. But I strongly believe that it's no harder to give a clever layman a working understanding of the underlying concepts, in purely conceptual terms. Honestly, I think the reason the quantum mechanics has been so prone to pop-sci charlatans is that legitimate science communicators keep trying to explain it in interpretation-agnostic terms, which makes it sound far more mystical and paradoxical than it is.

The various interpretations help in processing the math

In the same sense that the territory helps in processing the map, I suppose.

but isn't the same as understanding - there are a bunch of fundamental facts about quantum mechanics that we just don't understand, even though we know the elements exist, that they happen, and even how we can take advantage of them.

I'm not sure what you mean here; discussions of interpretation are literally about understanding these facts.

The difference between quantum mechanics and other high level theories like relativity is actually quite large, because the higher level interactions all derive from quantum level states and interactions. At the point where question marks really start popping up (weak and strong nuclear forces, gravity, dark matter &/ energy) it's almost always a matter of quantum mechanics getting involved and being weird.

Going to have to disagree with you here, relativity, both special and general, get just as weird without any need to invoke quantum physics. And they're not the only one. The only difference is that we have a general consensus on how to interpret them, which we don't with QM.

My quantum mechanics professor started our first lecture with "if you think you understand quantum mechanics you do not understand quantum mechanics", because there are still some really big question marks around our understanding of it. Especially what in the fuck spin actually is.

I think this is equivocating a bit; there is a difference between the things we don't understand about quantum physics, and the things we just straight up don't know. I think it's possible to understand quantum physics, with the caveat that understanding means recognizing that there are things about it that we simply do not know.

Well they've purged their comments now.

IMO, the perceived inscrutability of quantum mechanics is mostly the result of the dominance of the "shut up and calculate" approach to the question of interpretation.

Don't get me wrong, I understand why focusing on the math and ignoring the rest is a good approach to have when you're actually doing practical scientific work in the field. But if you're wanting quantum physics to "make sense", then you're asking about what it actually says about the underlying reality, and that's a question that requires thinking about interpretations of QM.

Once you start thinking about it in terms of a particular interpretation (or category of interpretation), then QM makes as much sense as any other high level physical theory (certainly no worse than general relativity.)

Working towards justice means working against genocide apologism and American exceptionalism.

Nazi shit.

The mod log continues to be public.

For what it's worth, I would say those sources mostly lean center right.

https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/

I suggest you read some actual political theory.

Comment written with one hand under the table.

China produces less pollution then most western countries while also doing all their manufacturing, you racist cretin.

There are firsthand accounts of human rights abuses taking place against the Uyghur people on Xinjiang.

There are first hand accounts of human rights abuses taking place against Chinese people in the USA, I guess America is genociding the Chinese.

he Chinese fucking government reported a 60% decline in birthrates in certain Uyghur-majority regions in the province between 2015 and 2018. If that doesn't scream forced sterilization then I don't know what does.

Imagine trying to make this argument in a serious court.

You really dodged the question there.

Also Taiwan is as much a puppet state of the USA.