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Quantum Mechanics, and why we need interpretations of it.

>>crazyp+(OP)
Like.... why are sub-atomic phenomena important in general?

>>crazyp+(OP)
Why Quantum Mechanics I have no idea.

Why interpretations: There is an experiment you can do that is hard to explain: Either particles are able to somehow influence each other faster than light (non-local), or the particle somehow doesn't exist except when interacting with some other particle (non-real).

Try this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcqZHYo7ONs the AHA moment in the video comes when you realize you can entangle the light and that adding a filter by one stream of light somehow causes the other stream of light to also be influenced.

>>qqqqqu+j
To add to all this, the double-slit experiment. What exactly does it mean that light moves as a wave or a particle?

>>crazyp+(OP)
I have tried to grok it multiple times but escapes my feeble mind. I have developed some intuition, but not sure it's quite right. Hopefully someone can correct me:

1. Subatomic Matter is by default both mass and a wave, but when "observed" it becomes a particle as we know it i.e. with mass.

2. Atomic bonds are formed due to electrons (waves) being shared between adjacent atoms.

Hope I have some parts correct. Perhaps someone can shed some photons.

>>crazyp+(OP)
the problem with quantum mechanics is that we cannot directly observe what is going on (and the instruments we use to do the observations are also subject to quantum mechanics effects), so to explain certain phenomena we have come up with different theories that approximate what is going on. These theories work for certain cases but nobody has come up with a comprehensive theory that can be experimentally tested and works for all cases.

Here is a few books you can read on the subject. They do a pretty good job on describing what the issue is and what the interpretations mean:

Max Tegmark - Our Mathematical Universe

Sean M. Carroll - Something Deeply Hidden

Adam Becker - What is real?

Here are some things you can google if you want to just skim the subject: Wave–particle duality, The Measurement Problem, Quantum decoherence, Copenhagen interpretation, Bell's theorem, Superdeterminism, Many-worlds interpretation, Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber theory (GRW).

Last but not least, look at the Wolfram Physics Project. (https://wolframphysics.org). The take on quantum mechanics if you go along with the idea of hyper-graph is fascinating (to me)

>>crazyp+(OP)
There are two broad reasons for having interpretations. First, because the results contradict our intuitions, and there's no agreement on which ones are sensible to abandon. Second, because there are experiments that we can't perform now (and maybe ever), so there's room for different hypotheses. This would lead to different theories, not just interpretations, but often these ideas are lumped together.

>>Cheyan+s2
>What exactly does it mean that light moves as a wave or a particle?

One idea is known as the Copenhagen interpretation.

It basically says that the wave-like effects we associate with matter is merely a wave of probabilities. Or in terms of the double-slit experiment and in other words, light behaves like a particle, but the wave-like effects you see is just the result of probabilities where the particles end up. Dark areas are areas of low probability, and lighter areas high probability.

One might imagine the light particles streaming through the slit end up having slight variation in trajectory from one particle to another (for various reasons such as interference with other particles), which results in areas where most particles end up and others where few end up... representing a wave.