Monday, February 27, 2012

Bohmian mechanics makes no sense

A. S. Sanz writes in a new paper:
At present, there is no doubt that quantum mechanics can be considered the most successful theory ever devised to explain the physical world. Its applicability ranges from very fundamental physical problems to the high-technology applications that are nowadays an important part of our daily life. This theory, though, still constitutes a veiled mystery at a deeper level of understanding, for there is a lack of a clear interpretation of the physics underlying quantum systems. This is somehow connected to its widely accepted interpretation, namely the Copenhagen interpretation [1], which not only does not allow us to think of quantum systems as we do of classical ones, but it just forbids such a thing.

A feasible way to surmount this drawback (although surely not the final one) comes through Bohmian mechanics [2–5].
There are two problems with this. First, Bohmian mechanics has not been able to reproduce the successes of quantum mechanics. Second, Bohmian mechanics is much more bizarre and harder to interpret physically than Copenhagen.

As Wikipedia explains:
The de Broglie–Bohm theory is explicitly non-local: The velocity of any one particle depends on the value of the wavefunction, which depends on the whole configuration of the universe. Because the known laws of physics are all local, and because non-local interactions combined with relativity lead to causal paradoxes, many physicists find this unacceptable.
Bohm ironicly called it a "causal interpretation" even tho it violates causality. I think that it is a little strange that Bohmian advocates act as if they are clarifying some quantum mystery, when they replace ordinary quantum mechanics with something that makes no sense.

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