Tuesday, March 11, 2014

[imyxpxhr] Newtonian Copenhagen

The "shut up and calculate" aspect of the popular Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics might be similar to the historical mindset towards Newtonian mechanics before relativity: It gives very good answers, so don't think too hard about its fundamental underpinnings.  And most people didn't.

Einstein did think hard about its fundamental underpinnings, examining the paradoxical nature the speed of light in various reference frames (perhaps vaguely similar to the paradoxical nature to Schrödinger's cat), and only then did science make a great leap forward.

Is the Copenhagen interpretation bad for science?

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