A Few Questions on the Reasoning on Quantum Physics

Basil J. Hiley, F. David Peat

There can be few physicists who have delved as deeply into the philosophical implications of their subject as has David Bohm. It is therefore with some trepidation that I am paying my respects to him on the occasion of his retirement with an attempt of my own to relate questions of philosophy to those of the foundations of physics. The viewpoint that I am putting forward here attempts to relate questions that have been two of Bohm's major interests over the years; namely, a possible breakdown of quantum mechanics on a macroscopic scale and the physical basis of conscious thought. It must be evident to the reader that in both these topics I am venturing into dangerously speculative territory. Moreover others more expert that I (such as Wigner 1, as well as Bohm 2 himself) have put forward strongly-reasoned views which relate these topics. Yet I do feel that my own viewpoint is both well worth describing and sufficiently different from these others that the reader may find something of value here. But my account must necessarily be somewhat truncated, for reasons of space and of time. It is my intention to expand these thoughts at much greater length elsewhere.

Luis de la Peña, Ana Marı́a Cetto, Andrea Valdés Hernández

Luis de la Peña, Ana Marı́a Cetto, Andrea Valdés Hernández

Ryan Sayer, Alexandru Maries, Chandralekha Singh

We describe an investigation focusing on advanced students' and faculty members' reasoning about two questions related to the double-slit experiment with single particles.One question posed was a standard double slit question while the other question was more speculative.First, students in advanced quantum mechanics courses were asked the questions in written form and individual interviews were conducted with six students in which they were asked follow up questions to make their thought processes explicit.We also interviewed five faculty members who had taught modern physics, quantum mechanics and/or solid state physics to understand their reasoning and thought processes.The faculty members' responses shed light on what it means to think like a physicist.Student responses varied greatly in their correctness and sophistication of reasoning, suggesting that even advanced students need scaffolding support in order to learn to think like a physicist.

Donald C. Chang

P. Enders

This chapter introduces the paradigm ‘quantization as selection problem’ by means of few historical remarks. They include Einstein’s 1907 reasoning, Schrödinger’s 1926 derivation of his wave equation, and Gödel’s theorem and Munchhausen’s trilemma. The latter ones concern questions, which can be posed, but not be answered within CM. Such questions transcendent CM. This book poses the question, how the mechanics of oscillators without turning points looks like. (“oscillators without turning points” means oscillators, which may assume configurations beyond the classical turning points.)