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Edit war
An editor,
Naeemshahzada, has been repeatedly inserting a sentence into the Interpretations section
"It has been recently proposed that biological cells solve the measurement problem being the smallest agents capable of processing quantum information within the framework of the holographic principle, entropic gravity, and emergent dimensionality."
The problem with this addition is that it is inadequately sourced. It is supported by only two
WP:primary sources, research papers by the same author, Szymon Łukaszyk. WP requires secondary sources (
WP:PSTS). After this was pointed out,
Naeemshahzada added two additional sources, also research papers by the same author, neither of which mention anything about the measurement problem, the previous papers, or the subject of the sentence. Any relation of these papers to the topic is
WP:SYNTHESIS. In addition this sentence gives
WP:UNDUE WEIGHT to a speculative theory with no support in a section that is limited to the main
interpretations of quantum mechanics that have stood the test of time.
The first two sources, in addition to being primary, were below the standard we should adhere to. One was an item in conference proceedings, which in physics typically means no meaningful peer review, and the second was a book chapter in a collection published by
a company on Beall's List. The other two were in
MDPI journals, which again means that we can't expect any meaningful degree of peer review to have been applied.
XOR'easter (
talk)
15:23, 21 March 2024 (UTC)reply
You submit that
Institute of Physics and
MDPI lack credibility, while at the same time unpublished, non-peer-reviewed
preprints are commonly used on Wikipedia to debase and discredit valid scientific research, even if they are plainly false.
For example, this non-peer-reviewed preprint[1] is an attempt to discredit
assembly theory which has been experimentally confirmed through
tandem mass spectrometry,
nuclear magnetic resonance,
infrared spectroscopy, etc. The authors of this preprint claim, for example, (p.9), that an "object with a low assembly index (...) necessarily displays lowentropy. In the opposite direction, an object with a high assembly index will (...) necessarily display highentropy". This is untrue (!). For example, two binary strings and have the same lengths ,
Hamming weights, and therefore the same
Shannon entropies bit, but different assembly indices!
, while .
When does a fringe idea stop becoming a fringe idea? When it becomes more popular (
User:Tercer), gets more support (
User:Chetvorno), in particular from physical authorities (
User:SageGreenRider)?
Will a
flat Earth theory stop being a fringe idea when it becomes popular among physicists, as
User:Tercer proposes?
And what does it mean that the main
interpretations of quantum mechanics have stood the test of time? No consensus on any particular interpretation has been reached so far[2].
Perhaps life is an explanation of the measurement problem, then?
There are several important differences between
MDPI journals versus
arXiv. Journals published by the first two organizations claim to be peer-reviewed, when in fact they are not. (I have seen multiple articles in their journals that do not even appear to have been properly copyedited!) arXiv, however, has never claimed to be other than what it is: a publishing clearinghouse for non-peer-reviewed preprints, many of which subsequently are published in journals having a more rigorous review process (which becomes noted in the articles' publishing history). A second important difference is in their funding sources. MDPI journal article processing charges are generally paid for by the authors, whereas arXiv is funded by Cornell University Library, the Simons Foundation, and various member institutions. MDPI journals are hence considered to be predatory, and many academic institutions and scientific bodies actively discourage their members from publishing in those venues. Indeed, publication in such journals is often considered in a negative light in regards to academic promotion, etc. Crackpots, of course, couldn't care less. Publication in arXiv carries no negative stigma, provided that one has a decent publication history in properly peer-reviewed journals.
You misunderstood what I wrote. First of all, Perelman did not publish in a predatory journal, but on arXiv, and his arXiv article was extensively reviewed over a several year period. Second, I did not say that citation of arXiv should be forbidden. I merely pointed out that such citations are discouraged. Sometimes there is no choice, but we editors have to use our best judgement, and ultimately the contributions have to meet consensus.
Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (
talk)
15:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)reply
^Abrahão, Felipe; Hernández-Orozco, Santiago; Kiani, Narsis A.; Tegnér, Jesper; Hector, Zenil (2024). "Assembly Theory is an approximation to algorithmic complexity based on LZ compression that does not explain or quantify selection or evolution". arXiv.
arXiv:2210.00901.
Bohr offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer, or measurement, or collapse; instead, an "irreversible" or effectively irreversible process causes the decay of quantum coherence which imparts the classical behavior of "observation" or "measurement".
I believe this is incorrect. I believe this is actually (at most) Rosenfeld's rationalization, not something Bohr ever said. But I don't have access to the primary ref (Bohr collected works) @
ReyHahn WDYT?
Johnjbarton (
talk)
22:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I got access to the book. The page referenced is a letter from Bohr to Pauli where Bohr discusses measurement. I will take a look, but I need a few days.--
ReyHahn (
talk)
00:02, 3 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Interpretations
The "Interpretations" section is really just a repeat or summary of the interpretations. As far as I can tell the discussion and refs never cover "the measurement problem" as considered from each interpretation.
This ref covers how each interpretation deals with the measurement problem:
I thought the paragraph on each major interpretation did a pretty good job of relating how it explains wavefunction collapse, and isn't wavefunction collapse what the measurement problem is all about? --
ChetvornoTALK23:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks. I think your perspective clarifies to me why the section seems off to me.
Only some interpretations posit that "the measurement problem is about wavefunction collapse". I think the paragraphs for each interpretation should explain how "collapse" addresses the "measurement problem" directly.
To be sure, "wavefunction collapse" is so vaguely described that it sounds like "presto" most of the time. Thus one can easily conclude that "collapse is the solution to the measurement problem" simply because collapse can be anything one wants.
Johnjbarton (
talk)
01:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Section 3, The Measurement Problem Reconsidered in
Bub, Jeffrey. "Why the quantum?." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35.2 (2004): 241-266.
The section is a summary of the major interpretations, written for general readers, which is the main readership of WP. To address general readers it can't include mathematics. Given those limitations, I think it is an excellent summary.
You say: "I think the paragraph for each interpretation should explain how "collapse" addresses the "measurement problem" directly". I'm not sure what you mean, each paragraph does discuss collapse. You say collapse is vaguely described: one can conclude that "collapse is the solution to the measurement problem" just because it can be anything one wants. The section makes clear that in some interpretations like many-worlds and De Broglie-Bohm there is no collapse, and in others like some versions of Copenhagen apparent "collapse" is just updating of information.
I would agree that the article does not have a description of the measurement problem itself; of what the "problem of definite outcomes" is. That would include a mathematical definition of eigenstates and what "reduction of the wavefunction" is, as found in
Wavefunction collapse. And discussion of complicated stuff like preferred basis, objective vs subjective definiteness, etc. But that does not belong in the Interpretations section. I would suggest a separate section for that.--
ChetvornoTALK02:58, 3 May 2024 (UTC)reply
The cat
I recently
deleted an unsourced section on Schrodinger's annoying cat. Since then I have found references for the Cat in the context of the measurement problem:
Bell, John. "Against ‘measurement’." Physics world 3.8 (1990): 33.
Schlosshauer, Maximilian. "Decoherence, the measurement problem, and interpretations of quantum mechanics." Reviews of Modern physics 76.4 (2005): 1267. "A book has never been observed to be in a state of being both “here” and “there” si.e., to be in a superposition of macroscopically distinguishable positions, nor does a Schrödinger cat that is a superposition of being alive and dead bear much resemblence to reality as we perceive it."
Bub, Jeffrey. "Why the quantum?." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35.2 (2004): 241-266. "This is the measurement problem, or the problem of Schrodinger’s cat (where the cat plays the role of a macroscopic measuring instrument): it is impossible to extend the Hilbert space theory as a noncommutative mechanics to include the black box measuring instruments."
I have no objection to your deleting that unsourced section. But I think the article certainly should have a section on the thought experiment. Whether or not there are any current physicists who believe that any of the interpretations could result in an alive/dead cat superposition, the experiment was historically used to discuss the measurement problem, is a great way of explaining wavefunction collapse to general readers, and today is constantly referenced in articles about the subject. And of course today the question raised by the cat, whether a macroscopic object or system can be in a superposition, is no longer hypothetical, it has been shown to be possible. The issue has extreme practical importance: that is what is required to create a quantum computer. --
ChetvornoTALK19:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)reply
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Physics, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of
Physics on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join
the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhysicsWikipedia:WikiProject PhysicsTemplate:WikiProject Physicsphysics articles
This page has archives. Sections older than 90 days may be automatically archived by ClueBot III when more than 4 sections are present.
Edit war
An editor,
Naeemshahzada, has been repeatedly inserting a sentence into the Interpretations section
"It has been recently proposed that biological cells solve the measurement problem being the smallest agents capable of processing quantum information within the framework of the holographic principle, entropic gravity, and emergent dimensionality."
The problem with this addition is that it is inadequately sourced. It is supported by only two
WP:primary sources, research papers by the same author, Szymon Łukaszyk. WP requires secondary sources (
WP:PSTS). After this was pointed out,
Naeemshahzada added two additional sources, also research papers by the same author, neither of which mention anything about the measurement problem, the previous papers, or the subject of the sentence. Any relation of these papers to the topic is
WP:SYNTHESIS. In addition this sentence gives
WP:UNDUE WEIGHT to a speculative theory with no support in a section that is limited to the main
interpretations of quantum mechanics that have stood the test of time.
The first two sources, in addition to being primary, were below the standard we should adhere to. One was an item in conference proceedings, which in physics typically means no meaningful peer review, and the second was a book chapter in a collection published by
a company on Beall's List. The other two were in
MDPI journals, which again means that we can't expect any meaningful degree of peer review to have been applied.
XOR'easter (
talk)
15:23, 21 March 2024 (UTC)reply
You submit that
Institute of Physics and
MDPI lack credibility, while at the same time unpublished, non-peer-reviewed
preprints are commonly used on Wikipedia to debase and discredit valid scientific research, even if they are plainly false.
For example, this non-peer-reviewed preprint[1] is an attempt to discredit
assembly theory which has been experimentally confirmed through
tandem mass spectrometry,
nuclear magnetic resonance,
infrared spectroscopy, etc. The authors of this preprint claim, for example, (p.9), that an "object with a low assembly index (...) necessarily displays lowentropy. In the opposite direction, an object with a high assembly index will (...) necessarily display highentropy". This is untrue (!). For example, two binary strings and have the same lengths ,
Hamming weights, and therefore the same
Shannon entropies bit, but different assembly indices!
, while .
When does a fringe idea stop becoming a fringe idea? When it becomes more popular (
User:Tercer), gets more support (
User:Chetvorno), in particular from physical authorities (
User:SageGreenRider)?
Will a
flat Earth theory stop being a fringe idea when it becomes popular among physicists, as
User:Tercer proposes?
And what does it mean that the main
interpretations of quantum mechanics have stood the test of time? No consensus on any particular interpretation has been reached so far[2].
Perhaps life is an explanation of the measurement problem, then?
There are several important differences between
MDPI journals versus
arXiv. Journals published by the first two organizations claim to be peer-reviewed, when in fact they are not. (I have seen multiple articles in their journals that do not even appear to have been properly copyedited!) arXiv, however, has never claimed to be other than what it is: a publishing clearinghouse for non-peer-reviewed preprints, many of which subsequently are published in journals having a more rigorous review process (which becomes noted in the articles' publishing history). A second important difference is in their funding sources. MDPI journal article processing charges are generally paid for by the authors, whereas arXiv is funded by Cornell University Library, the Simons Foundation, and various member institutions. MDPI journals are hence considered to be predatory, and many academic institutions and scientific bodies actively discourage their members from publishing in those venues. Indeed, publication in such journals is often considered in a negative light in regards to academic promotion, etc. Crackpots, of course, couldn't care less. Publication in arXiv carries no negative stigma, provided that one has a decent publication history in properly peer-reviewed journals.
You misunderstood what I wrote. First of all, Perelman did not publish in a predatory journal, but on arXiv, and his arXiv article was extensively reviewed over a several year period. Second, I did not say that citation of arXiv should be forbidden. I merely pointed out that such citations are discouraged. Sometimes there is no choice, but we editors have to use our best judgement, and ultimately the contributions have to meet consensus.
Prokaryotic Caspase Homolog (
talk)
15:14, 22 March 2024 (UTC)reply
^Abrahão, Felipe; Hernández-Orozco, Santiago; Kiani, Narsis A.; Tegnér, Jesper; Hector, Zenil (2024). "Assembly Theory is an approximation to algorithmic complexity based on LZ compression that does not explain or quantify selection or evolution". arXiv.
arXiv:2210.00901.
Bohr offered an interpretation that is independent of a subjective observer, or measurement, or collapse; instead, an "irreversible" or effectively irreversible process causes the decay of quantum coherence which imparts the classical behavior of "observation" or "measurement".
I believe this is incorrect. I believe this is actually (at most) Rosenfeld's rationalization, not something Bohr ever said. But I don't have access to the primary ref (Bohr collected works) @
ReyHahn WDYT?
Johnjbarton (
talk)
22:35, 30 April 2024 (UTC)reply
I got access to the book. The page referenced is a letter from Bohr to Pauli where Bohr discusses measurement. I will take a look, but I need a few days.--
ReyHahn (
talk)
00:02, 3 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Interpretations
The "Interpretations" section is really just a repeat or summary of the interpretations. As far as I can tell the discussion and refs never cover "the measurement problem" as considered from each interpretation.
This ref covers how each interpretation deals with the measurement problem:
I thought the paragraph on each major interpretation did a pretty good job of relating how it explains wavefunction collapse, and isn't wavefunction collapse what the measurement problem is all about? --
ChetvornoTALK23:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)reply
Thanks. I think your perspective clarifies to me why the section seems off to me.
Only some interpretations posit that "the measurement problem is about wavefunction collapse". I think the paragraphs for each interpretation should explain how "collapse" addresses the "measurement problem" directly.
To be sure, "wavefunction collapse" is so vaguely described that it sounds like "presto" most of the time. Thus one can easily conclude that "collapse is the solution to the measurement problem" simply because collapse can be anything one wants.
Johnjbarton (
talk)
01:17, 1 May 2024 (UTC)reply
Section 3, The Measurement Problem Reconsidered in
Bub, Jeffrey. "Why the quantum?." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35.2 (2004): 241-266.
The section is a summary of the major interpretations, written for general readers, which is the main readership of WP. To address general readers it can't include mathematics. Given those limitations, I think it is an excellent summary.
You say: "I think the paragraph for each interpretation should explain how "collapse" addresses the "measurement problem" directly". I'm not sure what you mean, each paragraph does discuss collapse. You say collapse is vaguely described: one can conclude that "collapse is the solution to the measurement problem" just because it can be anything one wants. The section makes clear that in some interpretations like many-worlds and De Broglie-Bohm there is no collapse, and in others like some versions of Copenhagen apparent "collapse" is just updating of information.
I would agree that the article does not have a description of the measurement problem itself; of what the "problem of definite outcomes" is. That would include a mathematical definition of eigenstates and what "reduction of the wavefunction" is, as found in
Wavefunction collapse. And discussion of complicated stuff like preferred basis, objective vs subjective definiteness, etc. But that does not belong in the Interpretations section. I would suggest a separate section for that.--
ChetvornoTALK02:58, 3 May 2024 (UTC)reply
The cat
I recently
deleted an unsourced section on Schrodinger's annoying cat. Since then I have found references for the Cat in the context of the measurement problem:
Bell, John. "Against ‘measurement’." Physics world 3.8 (1990): 33.
Schlosshauer, Maximilian. "Decoherence, the measurement problem, and interpretations of quantum mechanics." Reviews of Modern physics 76.4 (2005): 1267. "A book has never been observed to be in a state of being both “here” and “there” si.e., to be in a superposition of macroscopically distinguishable positions, nor does a Schrödinger cat that is a superposition of being alive and dead bear much resemblence to reality as we perceive it."
Bub, Jeffrey. "Why the quantum?." Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 35.2 (2004): 241-266. "This is the measurement problem, or the problem of Schrodinger’s cat (where the cat plays the role of a macroscopic measuring instrument): it is impossible to extend the Hilbert space theory as a noncommutative mechanics to include the black box measuring instruments."
I have no objection to your deleting that unsourced section. But I think the article certainly should have a section on the thought experiment. Whether or not there are any current physicists who believe that any of the interpretations could result in an alive/dead cat superposition, the experiment was historically used to discuss the measurement problem, is a great way of explaining wavefunction collapse to general readers, and today is constantly referenced in articles about the subject. And of course today the question raised by the cat, whether a macroscopic object or system can be in a superposition, is no longer hypothetical, it has been shown to be possible. The issue has extreme practical importance: that is what is required to create a quantum computer. --
ChetvornoTALK19:01, 2 May 2024 (UTC)reply