User:Tsirel

Wikipedia editor From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I am Boris Tsirelson, an experienced mathematician and less experienced wikipedian...


RETIRED

Articles I've written (started)

Articles I've contributed to

On different wikis (if you like)

Quantum mechanics is not a physical theory

So, what is quantum mechanics? Even though it was discovered by physicists, it's not a physical theory in the same sense as electromagnetism or general relativity. In the usual "hierarchy of sciences" — with biology at the top, then chemistry, then physics, then math — quantum mechanics sits at a level between math and physics that I don't know a good name for.

Scott Aaronson, "Quantum computing since Democritus", Cambridge 2013 (p. 110).

About 0.999...

That is mathematics, of course. But it reminds me some physics. One often says that "99.9% of atoms is empty space", or "You are 99.999% Empty Space", or "99.9999999% of Your Body Is Empty Space", or "A hydrogen atom is about 99.9999999999996% empty space", and finally, "I will go further - it’s 100% space". Indeed, in physics we do not discover an infinite hierarchy of levels; rather, at some finite step we recognize that the "empty space", skipped so lightheartedly as containing "only" fields, was just the matter we are looking for. By the way, inside atom, a typical electric field strength is about 1012 V/m (volts per meter), and intensity (energy flux, irradiance) about 1020 W/m2 (watts per square metre), see here. Not at all empty space...

Oddities of mathematical terminology

Choice versus randomness

Why not a textbook

Notes for myself

Related Articles

Wikiwand AI