Explain to the humanist what is the main idea of indeterminism in quantum physics and is it true that the behavior of quantum particles can sometimes be determined by nothing, how is this possible?

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  1. The main idea of indeterminism is that according to modern ideas in our world there is a place for random processes, the result of which is not determined by the laws of nature.

    How is this possible?

    Strange question. Actually, why should it be impossible?

    Physics is a descriptive science. It only states that nature obeys such and such laws. And at the moment, physicists have found out that, apparently, the state of any quantum system is basically impossible to determine with 100%, even with all imaginable initial data.

  2. There is no determinism in the world in Laplace's formulation — “if at some point in time we have the positions of all particles and their velocities in the universe, then we can calculate their behavior at any time in the past and future.” This principle strongly contradicts quantum mechanics, where particles cannot have a certain position and velocity (momentum) at the same time, and obey the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The evolution of the state of a quantum system (particle, atom) defined by a wave function is described by the Schrodinger equation (Dirac in the relativistic case). The description of the state of a microobject using a wave function has a statistical probabilistic character. For example, the square of the modulus of the wave function for a particle determines the probability of finding it in a given volume. �

    All attempts to derive classical mechanics from quantum mechanics have so far failed. Apparently, there is no dividing line between the quantum and the real world. This is evident from magnetic levitation over a cooled superconductor, helium II superfluidity, quantum tunneling, and even quantum superposition at the macroscopic level. phys.org . �It's not quite evening yet, but today we can safely say that according to quantum physics, the future of the universe is still undefined in the Laplace sense, but as Steve Hawking put it on this occasion: “God still has a couple of tricks up his sleeve.”

  3. An interesting question that has an energy background is that there is no conditionality – this is an absolute randomness of the origin of a certain event in time. I.e., the matrix should generate some absolutely random number T seconds. But the more random a number is, the more calculations are needed and the more energy is needed to calculate it. Thus, any absolutely random event requires an infinite amount of energy to calculate the time of its occurrence. I.e., absolute randomness is impossible… Perhaps this paradox is resolved in

    “A quantum field is an ensemble of an infinite number of interacting harmonic oscillators. Excitations of these oscillators are identified with particles.”

    Unlike quantum mechanics ,there are no” particles ” as some indestructible elementary objects in QFT. Instead, the main objects here are Fock space vectors describing various excitations of the quantum field. The analog of the quantum mechanical wave function in QFT is a field operator (more precisely ,a” field ” is an operator — valued generalized function, from which only after convolution with the main function an operator acting in the Hilbert space of states is obtained), which can act on the vacuum vector of the Fock space (see fig. vacuum) and generate single-particle excitations of the quantum field. Operators made up of field operators also correspond to physical observable objects here.

  4. Response from the biologist

    Indeterminism, translated into Russian, means uncertainty. As I understand it, the point is that quantum systems are simultaneously in states that are accessible to them, but mutually exclusive from the point of view of classical mechanics, the principle of quantum superposition. These states are described by a wave function. An example of such uncertainty, transferred to our level of existence – the macro level, is the thought experiment with Schrodenger's cat. From the same operathe Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which says that there is a fundamental impossibility of absolutely accurate measurement of the parameters of a physical system: due to the presence of quantum effects, there will always be some error, which is calculated according to the equation given in the uncertainty principle.

    It is also important that we cannot know what state a quantum system is in without measuring it, but measurement means interaction with the system, and this in turn will lead to a change in its state.

    Let's imagine an electron, since it is quite small, quantum effects are very significant for it. It is not a formalized object in space corresponding to our philistine ideas about it, such as a tennis ball or the moon, because it simultaneously exhibits the properties of both waves and particles, this is a particle-wave dualism, and it was known for some particles long before the advent of quantum mechanics. That is, in fact, an electron is such an abstract cloud, the shape and density of which is described by the wave function mentioned earlier. The density of this, I note, mental cloud reflects with what probability we will get the answer that the electron is located at a given point in space, if we want to measure its position.

    In the macrocosm, we hardly notice quantum effects, because basically these effects are just very very weak, like many other physical effects. For example, we do not feel the pressure of light that falls on us and is partially reflected in the eyes of the person standing in front of us. Light quanta also have their own momentum, which they transmit to us, but this momentum is too weak to noticeably change our position. Even more often, we simply do not guess, seeing something that the observed effect is based on quantum physics. So the enzymes that catalyze chemical reactions in our body work precisely due to the existence of this quantum uncertainty.

    By the way, a common mistake of people who are very mediocre familiar with quantum mechanics, including myself, is to try to transfer some of the principles of quantum mechanics to the macrocosm. This is an area where mistakes are very common (the concepts of the multiverse in comics (not to be confused with scientific astronomical concepts related to the inflationary theory), and other fantasies that are too free, sometimes conscious, but more often not, interpretation of some physical phenomena)

    This is a very primitive representation, since I am not an expert in this topic. I tried not to give any in-depth understanding, but only to formulate a simple primitive answer. Please do not scold me too much, and if you find an inaccuracy, please point it out.

  5. Quantum mechanics does not support indeterminism, which is understood as the absence of causality and connection of phenomena. It only indicates an infinite number of circumstances that affect the quantum particle and its behavior. We can take into account only a finite set of these circumstances, and therefore we cannot predict its behavior unambiguously. The term “indeterminism”should not be absolutized.

  6. There is a good book ” Ponomarev. On the other side of the quantum.” It's simple, with a timeline and motivation.

    The point is not that causal relationships are “nonexistent in principle.” It's just that no one has yet got to the bottom of the mechanism of their implementation in the framework of quantum mechanics.

    There is a security question that any “humanist” can ask himself. Here is the question:

    WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE STABILITY OF AN ATOM?

    You can copy it directly and ask Yandex, for example. If you find it, let us know. And if we do not know why the atom is stable, then everything else that can be with it is just “maybe”for us. Determinism manifests itself precisely in our assessment. “We don't know much yet, but we have to … guess? But we already know-with what accuracy! Everything is simple. And even easier.

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