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# If you get into quantum explanations of the atomic level, it'll be less striking.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:10, archived)
# Unless you believe in hidden-variables
Then it gets a bit tidier again. But you will be called a loon, and with some justification.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:13, archived)
# Ah, I vaguely remember all this.
I think in the end I mostly agreed with Bohm. And this just reminds me how much I've managed to forget in just a couple of years.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:19, archived)
# The problem with the Bohmian approach
is that you assume something totally ridiculous at the outset to justify a result you know to be true. I like it but I don't really believe it for a moment.

Unless I'm meaning something very different by the Bohmian approach but I don't think so. You arbitrarily change you potential and then recover Schroedinger's equation, right?
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:27, archived)
# My memory is a little hazy, but I think he set up something mathematically equivalent to schroedinger, probably with random assumptions, yes.
I remember very pretty drawings showing that instead of a probabilistic approach, you can show deterministic paths for particles diffracting through a slit.
Where basically, the path of the particle is determined by exactly which part of the slit it passes through, under the influence of some kind of 'quantum force field'.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:31, archived)
# Yep, that's the one :)
I like it and in the unlikely event that I ever have to teach people quantum mechanics that's how I'll start it off, but personally I don't take it very seriously although there are people who do. I also don't take the many-worlds nonsense at all seriously although there are people who do.

I pity anyone I'll ever teach quantum mechanics to.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:35, archived)
# Haha, it's more intuitive but the maths was pretty horrible if I remember rightly.
I think the best we can really do is be pragmatic, use the formulas that we know work brilliantly, and leave the interpretation to philosophers.
I can't really see us being able to distinguish between them experimentally.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:40, archived)
# damn straight
my view exactly. feynam once slagged off physicists for being obsessed with a theory of everything and said "they're just algorithms" and i think there's a lot in what he said.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:43, archived)
# Yeah so I've heard
But I'm not nearly intelligenter enough to unnerstand it. I mean - I still have trouble understanding why, when I tilt a picture of a lady in a skirt, I can't see up it.
(I helped save b3ta! Je suis un vagabond is an unfunny, up your own arse middle class knob, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:14, archived)
# Ah, noone understands that.
Pictures of ladies in skirts will forever be a mystery.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:16, archived)
# I think they're all using gaffer tape
It's the only explanation that makes any sense to me :(
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:18, archived)
# Ah, well this is where we differ.
I think sellotape.
(I helped save b3ta! my other username is a porsche , posting shit pictures so you don't have to, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:20, archived)
# Both work
But I'm sticking with the gaffer tape.
(I helped save b3ta! boris the spider, Tue 15 Apr 2008, 16:25, archived)