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The Scientific Method and Quantum Physics

Since one of the assumptions of the scientific method is predictability by repeated patterns, doesn't that make quantum mechanics the horizon where the reliability of the scientific method breaks down? Or maybe there is some pattern woven into the machinations of the quantum system and we haven't found it yet?

Auty89 6 Sep 29
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The scientific method does indeed call for replicability. When it comes to those fields of study where the body of knowledge and the attending phenomena are either too small, or to grand to observe directing, one takes the extant knowledge and forms an informed model.

The model asks the question, if what we understand is true and the best explanation for the data and observations we have, all things being equal, we should expect to observe "this". Based upon mathematical and scientific principle and probability, we set up our experiment and run our model. If the data we derive falls within the acceptable range of probability and outliers and anomalies remain at a minimum, we begin to accept that our hypothesis and our model may be a plausible understanding for explaining the observed phenomenon.

That's the beginning though. Here's where the replicability comes in. We run it again and again. We offer it to the scientific peers so they can run it and see if they acquire similar results. If replicability holds up, after a reasonable period of time, and the reasonable veracity of the replication and consistency, the information becomes part of the scientific body of knowledge.

Science is dynamic by definition. This means that if technological developments allows scientists to take measurements that are more precise and accurate than previously possible, the understanding can be revised, or even rejected based upon the new evidence (eg. rejection of a flat earth, or the workings of plate tectonics). This dynamism conforms to the scientific method and process. John Dalton thought atoms were solid particles, we know know this is not true because of the veracity of experimentation and the demand for replicability.

Thanks for the info! I heard recently that particles aren't technically solid. If that's true, what does that mean they're made of? Energy?
I may have missed this part, but when it comes to large scale models: if repeatability is not practical, how does one gain peer review?

@Auty89
One doesn't try to design a model that is too big. That would be counterproductive and a waste of time and funding. Its important to design a model, experiment, or hypothesize that has some hope of success. You take your cumulative evidence and then design another model that expands the previous one one more step.

I don't know if youre being facetious or sarcastic about the atom comment. Dalton hypothesized his model in the middle 1800's. The history of the atomic theory is a testimony of designing models for things one cannot see.

@t1nick, not being facetious. Genuinely curious. But I can understand how it came off that way. Like how would you describe the properties of a particle?

@Auty89 I asked a PhD physicist friend what occupies the “empty” space in an atom.

He said an electric field whose forces maintain the distances between the atom’s particles, nucleus and electrons.

@yvilletom
This is true. The majority of the space in an atom is just electrified space . Things are held together by the electrical charges between atoms. Most solids are in fact mostly this electrified space. The fact that atoms are so small, and the electrical bonds so binding, that is why things don't fall through.

@yvilletom, see, I've always wondered about that. If "nothing" is not physically true, how can there be "empty" space? Thanks for shedding some photons on the matter.

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Maybe you can just believe what you want to and the cat is both present and gone, alive and dead all at the same time. Does that bring us back to 'god did it" or just wishful thinking?

Do I detect a note of sarcasm? 😏 I wasn't being cynical of the SM (scientific method). I was merely asking an honest question.

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That is what Einstein thought, the randomness could be resolved. Since we have limits to resolution though it is moot.

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I believe you mean "repeated results" not "patterns....to be accepted as true, test results must be verifiable by numerous tests/testers.
The little we know about quantum mechanics is that results Can be verified.....for example, predictions of certain particles (ex: the Boson) have been found to be true, so, no contradictions at all in the way you describe.

Yeah, but what about certainty of an electron's superposition or spin?

@Auty89 need more data & better ways to track them...then we can see if the math is again correct. I read about Lister calling bacteria "wee beasties" when he saw them in his primitive microscope....kind of like where we are now with this.

Anne, many press releases tell of the LHC’s having found the Higgs boson.

However, the LHC’s being history’s costliest experiment will prohibit verification by others.

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