20 Years Later - Hackdot

Re:20 Years Later by whatshisface on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @05:36PM (#25575922)

I don't understand how you could imagine having a discussion about "what the standard model doesn’t solve and why new theories are interesting," that wasn't in the language of quantum mechanics, which the dead/alive cats in boxes thing would be an elementary first step of learning. Field theory is way farther off the deep end than the measurement of a two-state system.

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Re:20 Years Later by whimsicalism on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @06:42PM (#25576485)

I managed to learn QM without reference to cats in boxes, I suspect others may be able to as well.

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Re:20 Years Later by mhh__ on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:30PM (#25577305)

> I managed to learn QM without reference to cats in boxes,

This is because we teach students the "Shut up and calculate" formulation of Quantum Mechanics by default. Interpreting your mathematics doesn't build transistors or fund particle accelerators, for example.

It's still an important thing to consider but it doesn't have the same logical structure as day-to-day Quantum Mechanics

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Re:20 Years Later by whimsicalism on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @03:15AM (#25579687)

The "shut up and calculate" method is common in university, but I don't think is antithetical to interpretation/prediction so much as metaphysics!

Plus, I think it's possible to have a smart discussion about QM interpretations without reference to cats in boxes.

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Re:20 Years Later by centimeter on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @06:32PM (#25576395)

There are several languages with which you can discuss the standard model, particularly Group Theory, which I don't think require much familiarity with the details of QM. I assume this is what the GP is talking about given his mention of Noether currents.

I say this as someone who is quite familiar with QM, so it's very possible I'm just neglecting to consider all the implicit context I'm working with.

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Re:20 Years Later by whatshisface on Tuesday December 29, 2020 @08:16PM (#25577213)

Group theory has applications in QM, but you can't go from the standard model to experimental results through group theory alone. To do that, you need to understand all of the physics concepts leading up to it. Even knowing what a conserved quantity is involves some of that implicit context you're talking about.

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Re:20 Years Later by centimeter on Wednesday December 30, 2020 @03:57PM (#25586010)

I don't agree that this is the case; it's possible to make predictions about physics over the SM in the language of group theory without understanding how they map to experimental results in physics.

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