this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2025
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xkcd #3134: Wavefunction Collapse

Title text:

Wavefunction collapse is only one interpretation. Under some interpretations, graduate students also have souls.

Transcript:

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Source: https://xkcd.com/3134/

explainxkcd for #3134

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[–] FundMECFS@anarchist.nexus 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The thing is we have no fucking clue what happens down there. The Copenhagen interpretation is just the “default” one because it’s the one that got taught.

All of the possible interpretations require on massive leaps of faith, miracles, hidden variables etc.

[–] bunchberry@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

That's the thing, though. Einstein's interpretation did not require a "miracle" because his interpretation was merely to believe quantum mechanics is incomplete because we don't currently fully understand "what happens down there." It was more of a statement of "I don't know" and "we don't have the full picture" rather than trying to put forward a full picture. Most people agree that GR is merely an approximation for a more fundamental theory and there is a lot of work on speculative models to potentially replace it one day, like String Theory or Loop Quantum Gravity. But it has become rather taboo to suggest that maybe quantum mechanics is not the most fundamental "final" theory either and that maybe potential speculative replacements for it should be studied as well.

Those were the kinds of things that interested Einstein in his later years. He had published a paper "Does Schrodinger’s Wave Mechanics Completely Determine the Motion of a System, or Only Statistically?" where he proposed an underlying model similar to pilot wave theory, although later retracted it because it was later showed to him to be nonlocal and he hoped to get rid of then nonlocal aspect of it. He had published a paper earlier titled "Does Field Theory Offer Possibilities for the Solution of the Quantum Problem?" in which he had hoped to figure out if you could use an overdetermined system of differential equations to restrict the possible initial configurations of the system such that it would not be physically possible for the experimenter to choose the initial conditions of the experiment freely. If he was still alive today, he would probably take interest in the works of people like Gerard 't Hooft.

Most interpertations say "we know what happens down there," meanwhile Einstein's interpretation was a more humble one of saying we do not know yet.