Indeterminacy of Quantum
Mechanics
In
my ongoing mission to convince the general public that physicists are not crazy
when they talk about quantum mechanics, I’ve decided that I should tackle the largest
challenge I can find: why do physicists insist that at the quantum level things
are indeterminate? Why aren’t they
determined by some unknown factor that we don’t yet understand? How can we be so certain that they
aren’t? This is something that is
uncomfortable to many philosophers, and even a few physicists are working hard
to undermine this theory (see http://www.stwing.org/~lwozniak/RandomMusings/QuantumMechSurvives.html), but even
they are not taken seriously by the physics community. If you’ve ever wondered why physicists are so
adamant on this unsettling point, I hope this can help- and the conclusion just
might surprise you!
Background and Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics
Of course, as always, please email
me with comments, suggestions, and especially if I’ve made any mistakes! (Contact email: laurenatupenn@yahoo.com.)
General information for these posts
was gathered from:
Introduction
to Quantum Mechanics by David J. Griffiths (Second Edition)
The
Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene