The Interpretation of Classical Physics

Arkady Plotnitsky

This article reconsiders E. Schrödinger's cat paradox experiment from a new perspective, grounded in the interpretation of quantum mechanics that belongs to the class of interpretations designated as "reality without realism" (RWR) interpretations. These interpretations assume that the reality ultimately responsible for quantum phenomena is beyond conception, an assumption designated as the Heisenberg postulate. Accordingly, in these interpretations, quantum physics is understood in terms of the relationships between what is thinkable and what is unthinkable, with, physical, classical, and quantum, corresponding to thinkable and unthinkable, respectively. The role of classical physics becomes unavoidable in quantum physics, the circumstance designated as the Bohr postulate, which restores to classical physics its position as part of fundamental physics, a position commonly reserved for quantum physics and relativity. This view of quantum physics and relativity is maintained by this article as well but is argued to be sufficient for understanding fundamental physics. Establishing this role of classical physics is a distinctive contribution of the article, which allows it to reconsider Schrödinger's cat experiment, but has a broader significance for understanding fundamental physics. RWR interpretations have not been previously applied to the cat experiment, including by N. Bohr, whose interpretation, in its ultimate form (he changed it a few times), was an RWR interpretation. The interpretation adopted in this article follows Bohr's interpretation, based on the Heisenberg and Bohr postulates, but it adds the Dirac postulate, stating that the concept of a quantum object only applies at the time of observation and not independently.

Detlef Dürr, Stefan Teufel

Andrew Das Arulsamy

Interpreting quantum mechanics is a hard problem basically because it means explaining why and how the mathematics exploited to formulate wave-particle duality are related to observations or reality in classical physics. Consequently, interpretation of quantum mechanics and its formalism should involve proper physical mathematics, physical logic and classical physics, which is not the case from the Copenhagen interpretation. Here, we shall revisit all the postulates of quantum mechanics with proper physics and physical logic and reconstruct them to establish the less-complex interpretation of quantum mechanics with additional new postulates from classical physics. A new quantum mechanical postulate (Postulate 9) is also introduced to understand the meaning of the forbidden gap between discrete energy levels and/or electron orbitals in atoms that is valid for molecules and condensed matter based on quantum mechanics that is technically well-defined and experimentally observable. Here, we tackle all the problems arise from the Copenhagen interpretation systematically by revising and/or extending them with proper classical and quantum physics without violating established experiments and without proposing ideas that violate physical reality.

A. O. Bolivar

Jack Van

Wyman Kwok

An indeterministic interpretation of classical physics has been proposed recently, in which the argument relies on attacking an alleged unwarranted metaphysical hidden assumption of the standard deterministic interpretation. This short paper aims at showing that it is arguably a strawman attack.