Quantum mechanics is an important discipline that explains complex phenomena in the microscopic world. This article explores the complexity of quantum mechanics and explains why the Copenhagen Interpretation has been supported by many scientists for so long, comparing it to other interpretations.
Quantum mechanics is the study of microscopic particles, such as atoms and molecules. It is the basis of semiconductors, including transistors, and has had a profound impact on many fields of science and technology, including molecular biology. It has also influenced philosophy and art through its interpretations, such as subjectivism and positivism. But another reason why quantum mechanics is so famous is its complexity. Even Niels Bohr, whose discovery that electrons orbiting around the nucleus of an atom have quantized physical quantities was a key contribution to the establishment of quantum theory, said. “If you don’t get dizzy looking at quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics!” Quantum mechanics is complex, but what makes it so complex?
The main reason for the complexity of quantum mechanics is its difference from classical mechanics. In classical mechanics, the meaning of the formulas was clear, and you could use them to accurately describe motion or the state of an object. In quantum mechanics, it’s not clear what the wavefunction, the solution to Schrödinger’s equation, means physically. Quantum mechanics revealed that the wave nature of microscopic particles cannot be ignored, and the Schrödinger equation is the wave equation that describes this wave nature. In quantum mechanics, the wavefunction is related to the probability of finding matter at a location in space at any given time, but it has no physical meaning in and of itself.
This lack of meaning has led to many different interpretations of quantum mechanics, which in turn has led to debates about how to interpret the wave function. The most famous of these interpretations is the Copenhagen interpretation. It was advocated by Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, and others. The Copenhagen interpretation views the square of the absolute value of the wave function as an existence probability density function, which represents the probability that a microscopic particle is in a particular location, meaning that its location cannot be determined and that it is superimposed on many locations before it is observed.
Scientists familiar with classical mechanics objected to representing particle positions as probabilities, which led to other interpretations of quantum mechanics. For example, the Everett interpretation states that particles are not superposed, but rather that there are different worlds and that choosing one state creates a universe. Another example is the ensemble interpretation, which is a statistical interpretation of the probabilities in quantum physics, which states that there are a certain number of particles at a given location.
These are the three main interpretations of quantum mechanics. All of these interpretations can be complex and difficult to understand. But as Max Born said, it’s only natural. So why is the Copenhagen interpretation the one that has been adopted by the most scientists?
Is it because the proponents of the Copenhagen interpretation made major contributions to the study of quantum mechanics at the time? It might seem so, but this is not necessarily the case, as Albert Einstein, who proved that light is a particle and not a wave, also argued for the theory of hidden variables, which is an extension of the ensemble interpretation. Hidden variable theory states that there are more variables that go into describing the state of a particle, but we don’t know them, so we represent them probabilistically. Albert Einstein believed that if these variables were known, quantum mechanics could be described with the same certainty as classical mechanics.
Nils Bohr’s persuasive style played an important role in the Copenhagen interpretation’s widespread adoption. Influenced by positivism, Niels Bohr believed that scientific theories did not need philosophical explanations. He avoided philosophical discussions with scientists and tried to explain them only through experiments. He argued that the Copenhagen interpretation was the right theory because it could explain the results of experiments and predict the results of new experiments.
But is the Copenhagen interpretation the only one that can explain experimental results? No, it doesn’t. But thanks to Niels Bohr’s explanation, we spend less time trying to interpret quantum mechanics. If a theory can explain the results of experiments and predict the results of new experiments, then it is the right theory. Many interpretations of quantum mechanics have since emerged.
The Copenhagen interpretation was no longer overwhelmingly supported. According to John Gribbin, a British science writer, the Copenhagen Interpretation still has the most support among scientists after the 1980s, but its popularity has declined. This can also be seen in the changing trends in science. In the case of the Everett interpretation, it was philosophically marginalized, but it gained new attention when David Deutsch applied it to his quantum computer theory.
In this blog post, we’ve reviewed the history of interpretations of quantum mechanics, and in particular, the reasons for and consequences of the diversity of interpretations of quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics is applied to everything that involves molecules or atoms, and an understanding of quantum mechanics is essential for this understanding. It’s also important to know about the interpretations of quantum mechanics. Currently, the Copenhagen interpretation is the most widely supported, but since the advent of quantum computers, the Everett interpretation has gained renewed attention and is losing support. Given this situation, it is important to understand multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics rather than just one.
