korrents

quantum mechanics

The theory itself and the arguments about what it means -- measurement, collapse, and whether nature is locally causal.

FilterEveryone, all time14 from 8 people
Group All Scientists 7Writers & journalists 1
Who Everyone SHSabine Hossenfelder 4 SCSean Carroll 3 JLJanna Levin 2 AFAdam Frank 1 LRLisa Randall 1 NLNathan Lambert 1 SWSara Walker 1 TTTerence Tao 1
When All time Past 1 yearPast 3 yearsPast 5 years
  1. TT

    Terence Tao quoted

    Our readingPhysics will be unified again as it has been before; the obstacle is that relativity and quantum mechanics already explain almost everything we can measure.

    physics

    Their wordsBut I have faith that we've been doing this for centuries and we've made progress before. There's no reason why we should stop.

    ↗Terence Tao: Hardest Problems in Mathematics, Physics & the Future of AI | Lex Fridman Podcast #472youtube.com 3rd of 20 in this recording

  2. 6 weeks earlier
  3. JL

    Janna Levin quoted

    Theoretical cosmologist

    Our readingInformation is not lost in a black hole; the paradox is a crisis handing us clues, not a sign that quantum mechanics fails.

    physics

    Their wordsI’m unhappy with that. I would not be happy with information loss. I love that it’s telling us that there’s this crisis because I do think it’s giving us the clues, and we have to take them seriously.

    ↗Janna Levin: Black Holes, Wormholes, Aliens, Paradoxes & Extra Dimensions | Lex Fridman Podcast #468youtube.com 11th of 24 in this recording

  5. JL

    Janna Levin quoted

    Our readingThe thing to give up in the information paradox is locality: keep the empty event horizon, and let things be connected non-locally by wormholes.

    Their wordsI’m going back to the vacuum. The empty space, the beautiful event horizon I’ll give up locality, meaning that I will allow things to be connected non-locally by a wormhole.

    ↗Janna Levin: Black Holes, Wormholes, Aliens, Paradoxes & Extra Dimensions | Lex Fridman Podcast #468youtube.com 14th of 24 in this recording

  6. 3 months earlier
  7. NL

    Nathan Lambert quoted

    Machine-learning researcher on open language models

    Our readingExport controls cannot stop China from training frontier models; what they can do is cap how much AI China gets to run.

    China

    Their wordsThere's not many worlds where China cannot train AI models. I think export controls are decapping the amount of compute or the density of compute that China can have.

    ↗DeepSeek, China, OpenAI, NVIDIA, xAI, TSMC, Stargate, and AI Megaclusters | Lex Fridman Podcast #459youtube.com 6th of 44 in this recording

  8. 6 weeks earlier
  9. AF

    Adam Frank quoted

    Professor of astrophysics at the University of Rochester

    Our readingThe many-worlds interpretation invents infinitely many unobservable universes to avoid what quantum mechanics is plainly saying: that measurement matters.

    physics

    Their wordsMany of them try to pretend the measurement problem isn't there. Go to enormous lengths like the many-worlds interpretation, literally inventing an infinite number of unobservable parallel universes to avoid the thing that quantum mechanics is telling them, which is that measurements matter.

    ↗Adam Frank: Alien Civilizations and the Search for Extraterrestrial Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #455youtube.com 23rd of 24 in this recording

  10. 6 months earlier
  11. SW

    Sara Walker quoted

    Astrobiologist and theoretical physicist at Arizona State University

    Our readingYou are not constantly branching into many worlds — you are that space, and the quantum reality is not the one you live in.

    Their wordsSo my interpretation of reality is if you fold it up, all that bifurcation of many worlds, and you just fold it into the structure that is you, and you just said you are all of those many worlds and your history converged on you, but you’re actually an object exists that was selected to exist, and you’re self-consistent with the other structures. So the quantum mechanical reality is not the one that you live in. It’s this very deterministic, classical world, and you’re carving a path through that space. But I don’t think that you’re constantly branching into new spaces. I think you are that space.

    ↗Sara Walker: Physics of Life, Time, Complexity, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #433youtube.com 21st of 22 in this recording

  12. 7 weeks earlier
  13. SC

    Sean Carroll quoted

    Theoretical physicist at Johns Hopkins University

    Our readingThe story that Einstein could not keep up with quantum mechanics is almost exactly backwards: his philosophical objections were correct and should have been taken far more seriously.

    physics

    Their wordsI think that that story about the latter part is completely wrong, almost 180 degrees wrong. I think that Einstein understood quantum mechanics as well as anyone, at least up through the 1930s. I think that his philosophical objections to it are correct. He should actually have been taken much more seriously about that.

    ↗Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428youtube.com 1st of 20 in this recording

  15. SC

    Sean Carroll quoted

    Our readingThe Copenhagen interpretation taught to physics students is a God-awful mess; many-worlds is beautiful because it needs fewer ingredients and one equation.

    physics

    Their wordsIf you think about how we teach quantum mechanics to our students, the Copenhagen interpretation, it’s a God-awful mess. No one’s going to accuse that of being very beautiful. I’m a fan of the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, and that is very beautiful in the sense that fewer ingredients, just one equation, and it could cover everything in the world.

    ↗Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428youtube.com 7th of 20 in this recording

  17. SC

    Sean Carroll quoted

    Our readingDeclining many-worlds because it extrapolates past what we can observe is methodologically respectable and still a failure of nerve.

    courage

    Their wordsAnd if you just wanted to be methodologically conservative and say, “That’s a step too far; I don’t want to buy it,” I’m sympathetic to that. I think that you’re just wimping out, I think that you should have more courage, but I get the impulse.

    ↗Sean Carroll: General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Black Holes & Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast #428youtube.com 8th of 20 in this recording

  18. 5 months earlier
  19. LR

    Lisa Randall quoted

    Theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Frank B

    Our readingThe universe does not come into being when we measure it: electrons and their wave functions are there whether or not anyone is looking.

    Their wordsI could believe that the Middle East doesn’t exist because I’m not there now. That would be kind of ridiculous, I think we would all agree on that. I think there’s only so much that we can attribute to our own powers of seeing. The whole system doesn’t come into being because I’m measuring it.

    ↗Lisa Randall: Dark Matter, Theoretical Physics, and Extinction Events | Lex Fridman Podcast #403youtube.com 11th of 16 in this recording

  20. 2 months earlier
  21. SH

    Sabine Hossenfelder quoted

    Physicist and science communicator

    Our readingThe Copenhagen interpretation is not locally causal in Bell's sense.

    Their wordsThe Copenhagen Model-and because of that, the Copenhagen Interpretation-is not locally causal in Bell's sense.

    ↗Quantum Confusions, Cleared Up (or so I hope)arxiv.org All 4 from this paper

  23. SH

    Sabine Hossenfelder quoted

    Our readingViolations of Bell inequalities reveal only properties of models, not of nature itself.

    Their wordsSince Local Causality is a property of a model, observing violations of Bell's inequality cannot tell us anything about nature itself, but merely about the properties of the model that we use to describe nature.

    ↗Quantum Confusions, Cleared Up (or so I hope)arxiv.org All 4 from this paper

  25. SH

    Sabine Hossenfelder quoted

    Our readingDecoherence has not yet satisfactorily solved the measurement problem and does not restore local causality.

    Their wordswhile decoherence has the potential to solve this aspect of the measurement problem, it hasn't yet been satisfactorily done. Decoherence also certainly does not return us to Local Causality.

    ↗Quantum Confusions, Cleared Up (or so I hope)arxiv.org All 4 from this paper

  27. SH

    Sabine Hossenfelder quoted

    Our readingThe collapse postulate cannot simply be discarded without replacement instructions for measurements.

    Their wordsAs we just saw, one cannot just discard the Collapse Postulate. For this reason, if one does calculations in any Many Worlds approach, one must effectively replace the Collapse Postulate by other assumptions, notably about what happens to observers and/or measurement devices when worlds branch.

    ↗Quantum Confusions, Cleared Up (or so I hope)arxiv.org All 4 from this paper