On Sun, Oct 8, 2017 at 11:53 AM, Bob Higgins <rj.bob.higg...@gmail.com> wrote:
Continued investigation of the EM-drive may be the crack in physics that > finally shows that conventional quantum mechanics is an arcane, obsolete, > and incomplete formulation of the physics of small matter. Just because > quantum mechanics mostly works, doesn't mean it is a good formulation of > the problem. > It is important to distinguish the Copenhagen interpretation of QM from the results of the mathematical calculations. I understand that many physicists consider the mathematical calculations to be the essential part of QM and the Copenhagen interpretation to be something that is up for debate and a function of personal tastes. I gather that the results of the QM calculations are the effectively the same in almost all cases, whether you're considering standard calculations or ones based on pilot waves. When the topic of the Copenhagen interpretation and pilot waves has come up for discussion, the challenge that has been raised is to produce a case where an experiment will distinguish between the two. Without an experiment to sort between the two descriptions, the selection of interpretation is perhaps a philosophical/esthetic one. There are a few corner cases where the pilot wave approach will yield different results. Perhaps the EM drive is tapping into one of them. Eric
