Raju Korti
As a student perpetually befuddled by the complexities of Quantum Mechanics in my college days, I marvel at how the Nobel Prize this year -- incidentally shared by three phycisists -- acknowledges efforts to take quantum weirdness out of philosophy discussions to place it on experimental display for all to see. The three; Alain Aspect of France, John Clauser of California and Anton Zeilinger of Vienna have shown what is now understood as mastery of entanglement -- a quantum corelation between particles that seemingly share information across large distances. But of course, that is not the object of my discourse here.
In my blog on the spookiness of Quantum Physics exactly around this time two years back, I had written: "A recent article at pains to establish how Quantum Physics and Consciousness can come together to help us understand the true nature of reality, has set me back by at least 47 years. That was the time when the likes of Max Planck and Albert Einstein had just begun to stir and torment my abstract imagination. Quantum Physics, true to its spirit, took me -- and I suspect many others of my ilk -- on a long journey of love-hate relationship with the subject. The apparent simplicity of the theories I had been grappling until then was getting shaken at its roots with th advent of these two gentlemen along with co-conspirators like Satyendra Nath Bose, Englert Brout and Peter Higgs. From the plain vanilla Newton's Law of Gravitational Forces to the multiple conundrums brought forth by Niels Bohr, Warner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrodinger and others who took a sadistic delight in queering the pitch, my lowest common denominator was the inherent paradox with Quantum Mechanics. You love and hate it for the same reason. That is its USP."
Multiple quantum theories made it more interesting and esoteric at the same time. It took years to realize that these theories in their ramshackle condition were given a semblance of order through a "standard model" of particle Physics held together with a make-shift tape but giving a comparatively much accurate picture. The God particle emerged from this tumult to give all other particles their mass.
I am still tempted to linger in those days when the turn of the century saw Physics undergoing two major upheavels around the same time in Einstein's Theory of Relativity which dealt with the universal realm of Physics and the other, the Quantum Theory which proposed that energy exists as discrete packets (each called a quantum). In my limited understanding, the new branch of Physics described the interaction between energy and matter down through the subatomic realm.
Einstein saw Quantum Theory as a means to describe Nature on an atomic level but he had doubts if it held any uselful basis for the whole of Physics. His argument was describing reality called for firm predictions followed by direct observations. Apparently, Einstein drew a blank here as individual quantum interactions could not be observed directly. In other words, quantum physicists had to depend on predictions on the probability that events would occur. It was Bohr who made out case that quantum predictions based on probability accurately describe reality. What followed was a raging debate between the two physicists but from public accounts, Bohr had an edge. Much to my chagrin as my loyalties lay with Einstein.
Einstein and two others suggested that the theory of quantum mechanics was incomplete as their were "hidden variables" yet to be discovered that could resolve what they asserted was a paradox. Einstein ironically stated that quantum mechanics was implicitly hypothesising a "spooky action" at a distance, suggesting there was some supernatural force at play. The world of Physics was in some kind of turbulence as multiple debates and thories were put forward without any empirical evidence.
Richard Feynman once said, "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, its wrong". In this case, however, theory was not the only problem. Physicists did not know which experiments could solve the issue. If you are laying addled eggs as I am and find the Quantum Theory hard to swallow, you are not alone. Schrodinger himself did not like it. He was in fact sorry he had anything to do with it. In a book gifted to me by a relative who worked with Dr C V Raman in his research on what is known as Raman Spectra and later went on to become a key figure at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Einstein has been quoted as saying "if the Quantum Theory is correct, it signifies the end of Physics as Science."
I would hate that. I would rather let Quantum Physics remain in the realms of relentless ferment. That is where its appeal lies. The book also quotes Max Planck, considered as the father of Quantum Physics: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I look at matter as a derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness, Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as xisting, postulates consciousness.
Little wonder, Plank remains a "constant". Everyting else can shake and tumble. The beauty of Science is sometimes more in the problems than solutions. I rest my case.
