Study Says Quantum Wavefunction Is a Real Physical Object 373
cekerr writes with this excerpt from an article in Nature
"The wavefunction is a real physical object after all, say researchers. ... the new paper, by a trio of physicists led by Matthew Pusey at Imperial College London, presents a theorem showing that if a quantum wavefunction were purely a statistical tool, then even quantum states that are unconnected across space and time would be able to communicate with each other. As that seems very unlikely to be true, the researchers conclude that the wavefunction must be physically real after all. David Wallace, a philosopher of physics at the University of Oxford, UK, says that the theorem is the most important result in the foundations of quantum mechanics that he has seen in his 15-year professional career. 'This strips away obscurity and shows you can't have an interpretation of a quantum state as probabilistic,' he says."
Re:Weird (Score:5, Informative)
This isn't science, this is slashdot. Facts are out the door here.
Re:Dumb question (Score:5, Informative)
Its more like this mathematical construct we had to describe something we really didn't understand ... but let other mathematical constructs work out properly and achieve results that matched reality ... in fact appears to be the proper mathematical construct to define a portion of reality.
But thats what the summary says, not what the article says.
What the article says is more long the lines of:
Well, either this math is right or faster than light communications are possible. As far as we can tell, we see evidence that suggests faster than light communication is possible, so we conclude that we were probably right about this mathematical construct.
Considering that we have conflicting (and also unproven) reports of faster than light travel, we have two directly conflicting scientific theories on the table at the moment that can not possibly be right.
Or it could just mean that neutrinos are faster than light and the universal speed limit is actually neutrinos speed, not photon speed.
Truth be told, it all doesn't matter until we achieve the speed of bad news.
Re:Proof by disbelieving .. (Score:5, Informative)
The big difference from Bell's theorem is that in Bell's theorem, the quantum states are entangled. Here they are not, and the idea that un-entangled states would be able to communicate with one another is a bit more problematic than the idea that entangled states would be able to communicate with one another.
Lumo weighs in... (Score:4, Informative)
http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/11/nature-hypes-anti-qm-crackpot-paper-by.html [blogspot.com]
"Whatever way you choose to read the text [of the paper by Pusey et al], it makes no sense whatsoever. How they suddenly jump to the conclusion that there is a problem with the probabilistic meaning of the wave function remains completely mysterious."
Re:Bad example (Score:3, Informative)
The sun isn't an inertial frame of reference either. Both the sun and the earth orbit something called the barycenter, which is the center of mass of the sun-earth system. This just happens to be so near the center of the sun (because the sun is so massive) that for most intents and purposes, the earth can be said to orbit the sun.
This discussion, however, is not one of those intents and purposes.