Reply to Comment on "Surrealistic Bohm Trajectories"

Abstract

Let us begin with a response to the summary of the Comment by D. Durr, W. Fusseder, S. Goldstein, and N. Zanghi [1]. We are accused to not stay inside orthodox quantum but to employ a naive, largely incoherent operationalism instead. We think that this charge is not justified, because we did apply standard quantum theory correctly and also followed the rules of Bohmian Mechanics (BM) carefully. In the following we react to the more essential points of the Comment in some detail. The Comment suggests that we have conceded many virtues to BM and that we have admitted that standard quantum theory is plagued by notorious conceptual difficulties. This is not the case. On the contrary, we maintain that BM is not needed to have the Schrodinger equation embedded into a physical theory. Standard quantum theory has already clarified the significance of Schrodinger's wave function as a tool used by theoreticians to arrive at probabalistic predictions. It is quite unnecessary, and indeed dangerous, to attribute any additional meaning to the (/^-function. The semantic difference between inconsistent and surrealistic is not the issue. It is the purpose of our paper to show clearly that the interpretation of the Bohm trajectory as the real retrodicted history of the atom observed on the screen is implausible, because this trajectory can be macroscopically at variance with the detected, actual way through the interferometer. And yes, we do have a framework to talk about path detection; it is based upon the local interaction of