andrewducker | Interesting Links for 08-10-2022

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That's a non-local hidden-variable theory, which is totally allowed.

Wait, sorry, do you mean "it's not a 'local hidden variable theory'" or a "it's a 'non-local" hidden variable theory". Wait, I guess maybe those are the same. But what do you mean, allowed? We have rapidly moved beyond the parts I actually know anything about, but I thought "local" meant "only normal forces, not secret superluminal effects" and I thought that probably was needed for any theory which might match reality.

I do not understand pilot wave theory! But my vague impression was that the original reason people liked it was because it hypothesised a pilot wave with clear physical existence which could be an underlying reality which could lead to behaviours of particles of which the observations and other theories were a close approximation, i.e. even if not practically detectable, in principle could produce different physical observations to all the other theories. But then it seemed that didn't really work out, mostly because it didn't explain non-local effects. So then there's a version which is more like "equivalent to the wave function but everywhere at once", but I'm not clear what the benefits are.

I'm sure there are *some* benefits, or physicists wouldn't still be thinking about. But I don't think it's a slam dunk, or I think physicists would be more excited by it...

Certainly for most physicists (see the poll) the answer is "Don't know, don't care, the numbers work".

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Interesting Links for 08-10-2022

Re: The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It

Re: The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It