From: jos.bergervoet@xs4all.nl
On 21/02/25 9:20 AM, George Hrabovsky wrote:
> On Saturday, February 20, 2021 at 3:21:56 PM UTC-6, Jos Bergervoet wrote:
>> On 21/02/19 9:45 AM, p.ki...@ic.ac.uk wrote:
>>> Jos Bergervoet wrote:
...
>> ... If on the other hand, you merely mean it is intractable
>> due to many dependencies on initial- and boundary conditions, then it
>> was just not addressing the point in my post you responded to, where I
>> wrote that the QM description of a tunneling process is deterministic.
>>
>> So you first need to clarify whether you actually disagree with me
>> on that (by clarifying 'statistical') before I can raise any queries.
>
> This last post contains is a common misconception,
Which one is that? I'm merely asking a question: whether 'statistical'
was meant as intractable due to many dependencies or as an inherent
stochastic mechanism in the laws of nature..
> ... and is almost a
> straw-man kind of argument.
You mean that my requirement for proof (of either of the two options
mentioned above) is inappropriate?
> The rules of quantum mechanics actually
> allow you to calculate the probability distributions from which the
> results of measurements are taken. These are completely precise to
> our ability to measure. Just because the results are probabilistic
> (not statistical)
What do you mean with "probabilistic (not statistical)"? Do you mean
intractable due to many dependencies? Or proving that there is an
inherent stochastic mechanism in the laws of nature? That remains
just as unanswered as it was..
> ... does not mean they cannot be made precisely. What
> is determined is a distribution rather than a number.
A distribution of complex amplitudes. In Maxwell theory the E-field
was also a distribution (of real numbers as a function of space). So
nothing essentially new here, those amplitudes may be all that exists..
> ... Here is the
> misconception, the prediction does not allow any more precise
> calculation that the distribution--it does not allow you to know
> the actual number being measured.
> ...
Why do you believe there is an 'actual number'? If the distribution
of complex amplitudes is the full description of nature, then we do
not need that. And 'being measured' does not help, we can describe
everything by the complex amplitude distribution of QM: experimental
equipment, the experimenter, his friends, the books he writes..
There will never be a moment when your "actual number" would be
needed. Also the phrase "probability distribution" for the amplitudes
is then misleading, since there never is any mechanism in the laws of
physics that uses those amplitudes to generate things with certain
probabilities.
It seems that you do not want to accept this description of physics,
but then the burden of proof is on you! Note that I do not claim that
it is true, I only point out that it is possible. If you want to deny
that, you have to give proof, and until now all experiments have failed
to do that.
The initial attitude of a century ago, that there may be a wave function
describing the electron in hydrogen but there still should be a "true"
position as well, and that the theory was just "incomplete" by not yet
describing that additional part, and that for macroscopic systems it
would become "obvious" that wave functions are not the full description,
simply has not been proven. On the contrary: experiments with bigger and
bigger molecules are still consistent with the other view, that the
wave function is the full description (which of course is then a big,
entangled wave function of many degrees of freedom.. So where's your
proof that this cannot be the full description of physics?)
--
Jos
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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