[Music] [Music] The first question that I just want to ask you is one that actually the man who introduced me to your work said: What is the quantum enigma? Well, it's a wonderful question because whatever it is, it has puzzled the best physicists for much over a century. And if you look at the physics landscape, the literature, there's as much uncertainty and confusion about this issue today as there ever has been. In fact, I would almost say more so. So, the quantum enigma, it is really concentrated upon the measuring problem. Science is supposed to measure, it is supposed to experimentally verify theories. So, the physicist does his work and he comes up with a certain picture of a portion of reality which is described by the so-called wave function. And so then he wants to verify whether this corresponds to the facts. And the only way to verify a physical theory is to measure. So, you set up apparatus to measure a quantum system, and at the end of this measurement, you have basically a number.

a reading on a dial, and lo and behold, you, for example, suppose you're measuring the position of a quantum part. So, on this level of physics, theoretical physics, that quantum particle actually has no position. It is described by a wave function, which gives you a whole spectrum of possible positions, and each position is associated with the probability measure. And then, the instant you measure this probability curve collapses into one particular value. Now, from the standpoint of the theoretical physicist, this is miraculous because there's nothing in quantum theory per se which explains how a wave function can collapse, how a quantum particle which is distributed over basically an unlimited space can suddenly in an instant assume a particular position. So, this is really the measuring problem, and the fact that there is no physical way, there are no equations that you can use to resolve that problem, renders that problem into an enigma. So, the physicist is, so to speak, at his wit's end. Here is what happens in the measuring problem and all the equations that he has, all the equations that he can conceivably arrive at in the future.

will not give you this miracle of wave function collapse and so very, very correctly one speaks of the quantum enigma. And as I said before, I think this enigma has been out there. The quantum mechanics assumed its final form around 1925. So now we are almost 100 years later, and there is not a physicist out there who has the ghost of an idea of what to do with that enemy. You

The Philos-Sophia Vlog | What is the Quantum Enigma?

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