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At the end of introductory paragraph, there is the following sentence:
[...] In quantum mechanics, however, indeterminacy is of a much more fundamental nature, having nothing to do with errors or disturbance.
Could anyone expand on the ambiguious and highly subjective interpretative phrases like "much more" and "nothing to do". The whole sentence also is in almost direct contrast with the previous ones.
82.181.105.233 ( talk) 10:17, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Some comments on quotes from the present article:
[...] a particle with a definitely measured momentum for which there must be a fundamental limit to how precisely its location can be specified
A precise measurement of momentum (of a particle, in reference to a suitable system) simply cannot be obtained at all from observations on reference system locations within a finite distance of each other.
Vice versa, observations at one particular location (or at one particular distance x from the "origin" of the reference system, in one particular direction) don't allow to evaluate its momentum at all; i.e. as proportional to ∂/∂x ().
[...] for exampl,
(Note the typo.)
a particle with a definitely measured energy has a fundamental limit to how precisely one can specify how long it will have that energy
A precise measurement of energy (of a particle, in reference to a suitable system) simply cannot be obtained at all from observations by the reference system within a finite duration of each other.
Vice versa, observations at one particular moment (or at one particular duration t from any selected "reference moment") don't allow to evaluate its energy at all; i.e. as proportional to ∂/∂t (). Also ...
[...] concerned with the predictability of events
... the uncertainty relations (as derived by Robertson and Schrödinger anyways) are concerned with relations between concurrent measurements, from given observational data; not with predictions based on those measurements. The present article on the Uncertainty principle may not express this sufficiently ...
Regards, Frank W ~@) R 02:36 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC).
The last two paragraphs can go, as they have nothing to do with this topic, and seem to just be some crazy guy's theory based on a misunderstanding of what the quantum indeterminacy means. -- Havermayer 23:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Why does indeterminacy depend on the interpretation? I would say, that there can be no interpretation without indeterminacy. I would suggest removing that sentence.-- CSTAR 04:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Putting in extensive quotes from Chris Fuchs (or anybody else) is not a good idea.
-- CSTAR 05:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I suppose, but this is a lot of work. -- CSTAR 05:35, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Incompleteness is an old issue in quantum mechanics. Although I think Fuchs is highly quotable, I don;t think it is necessary to rely on anything he says about this topic.
-- CSTAR 05:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Chris Fuchs did not invent indeterminacy, and moreover his views on QM are too idiosyncratic. I think his view of QM strikes me as being some form of instrumentalism (about which I earlier had an exchange in the interpretation of quantum mechanics talk page.-- CSTAR 02:28, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Is User:CarlHewitt putting words into Chris Fuchs mouth or is he "channelling" Fuchs? Please could CarlHewitt please decide on what Fuchs said, when did he say it and where?-- CSTAR 22:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
What do these quotes from Heisenberg establish? That measurement is messy, well yeah we know that, but that's not the point of this article. Why did you take out the statement about quantum indeterminacy not being a result of error? Surely outside of crackpot circles that is a commonly held view. This article is not an essay on the history of quantum indterminacty.-- CSTAR 02:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Your edit summary asserted that my "flow" of my edit was not good and moreover, that it was not logical. This is an entirely unreasonable justification; you'll have to do better than that Flow is entirely subjective and what logic are you talking about. The only things that I changed were
-- CSTAR 19:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Uncertainty in measurement was not an innovation of quantum mechanics, since it had been well established that measurements have a certain variability. However, by the latter half of the 1700s, measurement variability was thought to be well understood and it could be reduced by better equipment and accounted for by statistical error models. That is to say, the general supposition was that there was a "true" value to be measured and that the variation was due to "errors in measurement" explainable by some "error parameter."
Quantum indeterminacy is intrinsically involved with measurement which itself involves intervention. Measurement in quantum physics has proved to be unexpectedly subtle. How the might the object be affected by the measuring process? This question concerned Werner Heisenberg.
-- Carl Hewitt 20:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Einstein's argument should be in one place, not two.-- Carl Hewitt 20:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
This article contains a long series of extensive quotes. This is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. The amount of quoted material should be reduced. -- CSTAR 21:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The article is ostensibly about quantum indeterminacy. Rather than limit the article to the meaning of indeterminacy with a statement about the relations with measurement, the article contains long quotes which are not supportive of any well-known, identifiable claim which would merit its inclusion in Wikipedia.-- CSTAR 03:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
This article purports to show that measurement is "theory laden". This is not a widely held philosophical position and which in any case does not belong in this article. Either move all sections on this to an article entitled Philosophical issues in the theory of measurement or delete those sections.
The article fails to discuss more standard issues such as von Neumann's theory of measurement and the relation of measurement to other problems and formalisms.
Based on this, I will add two new dispute claims to the article.-- CSTAR 19:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Call it what you will; the article alludes to (mainly in subsection headings) a difficult and philosophically controversial claim about the relationship between physical theory and the nature of measurement. Even if you have identifiable claims that are supported in existing literature which you can paraphrase, the discussion of those claims does not belong in this article. Please start a new article on Philosophical issues in the theory of measurement as I suggested.-- CSTAR 21:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
-- CSTAR 03:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
The issues you are raising are broader and are not specific to Wikipedia; for example Is the paraphrase better than the quote?. This is a general issue about writing (scholarly writing in particular) and referring to already published work. This applies for instance to authors of expository material. Why write a textbook? Just plunk in quotes and you're done.
What if a user wants to see the quote and it is not on line or if it is on line and then disappears? Universal problem. Again, don't try to solve it here or challenge me to solve it.
You are using Wikipedia to make a point (In fact several). Please don't. If you want to play the role of Socrates, start your own blog.
It is assumed that editors know the material they are writing about, unless they are editing for style. The ability to copy somebody else's work and put it in quotation marks is not (normally) considered an indication of knowledge.-- CSTAR 16:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Quantum indeterminacy is intrinsically involved with measurement which itself involves intervention. Measurement in quantum physics has proved to be unexpectedly subtle. How the might the system being measured be affected by the measuring process? This question concerned Werner Heisenberg.
Many years after the fact, Heisenberg recalled how when he was developing the uncertainty principle that Albert Einstein had emphasized the importance of some subtle issues involved in measurement [Heisenberg 1971]:
Thomas Kuhn emphasized issues in understanding observations in the development of quantum physics including further developing the thesis that it was Einstein who saw the revolutionary implications of the observations of black-body radiation whereas even Max Planck (who had pioneered in the work) initially resisted Einstein's views [Kuhn 1987].
Measurement in quantum mechanics has additional information.
I have placed two dispute banners on this article:
To explain the reasons for each one of those banners, let me remind the reader that this article is about quantum indeterminacy which is, as the introductory paragraph correctly states, the intrinsic impossibility of assigning to each system state a unique collection of real values to all observables. Indeterminacy has other manifestations, such as the non-determinisic nature of the measurement process, which is fundamental as well, and constitutes one of the main contributions of von Neumann to quantum mechanics. The article is silent on the matter, and moreover Hewitt has reverted my attempts to rectify this, by citing problems of flow and logic with my edit.
Indeterminacy has a long history in quantum mechanics and as the article intimates by a quote from Einstein, is also connected to issues of incompleteness exemplified by the EPR experiment. However, the main historical account of indeterminacy does not belong in this article, nor do fundamental issues in the theory of measurement.
Hewitt is using these quotes to claim a "theory laden" notion of measurement. It's fine to mention that there are complex relations between theory and measurement (this idea is not new with Heisenberg either); in a similar way, there are relations between object and measuring device (which as I mentioned go back at least to von Neumann) and maybe even a relation between consciousness, object and measurement device (that's a view which I don't like, but it has its proponents). It's one thing to mention this. However, to subvert the intent of the article, and use it as a subterfuge to argue for a particular (some would even say "postmodern") view of measurement is definitely a violation of POV. Moreover, I claim it is original research: Careful examination of Hewitt's contribution on wikipedia suggest a clear effort on his part to raise the actor model to the status of a fundamental theory of physics, which it currently does not have. In support of this claim, please see the following articles and/or their discussion pages:
The other contentious issue is the inclusion of long quotes in an article, preceded with little explanation. By that I mean, (as I have repeated at least 3 times in the above discussion), that a quote should be brought in to support an identifiable claim. An identifiable claim is one which already exists in the peer-reviewed scientificliterature, preferably has a name (such as "local realism", "instrumentalism") and can be summarized in a few phrases. I am not sure whether Wikipedia policy is yet clear enough on the matter, but an encyclopedia article should not be a series of quotes. It is particularly irksome to see inclusions of quotes by Chris Fuchs on the matter, as though they somehow support Hewitt's position.
I urge the reader to please consider the History of my comments on this article as well Hewitt's replies.
Thanks. -- CSTAR 17:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Remark: I have relocated the following response from Hewitt, which was originally in the middle of my explanatory statement above preceding the subsection what I intend to do. Request to Hewitt: Please answer questions in a separate area.
Far too much of the article (CH version) depends on quotes by Fuchs about words by Einstein. This is not good. Einstein was much cleverer than me, but he was out on a limb as far as QM is concerned, and the article (CH version) misrepresents his contributions anyway. As C* says, QI is not controversial. I would encourage people to support EMS's proposal. William M. Connolley 20:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC).
I have restored the 6/23/05 version of this page as a way of getting around the issues raised by Carl's edits. Part of my reason for doing this is to show that it can be done. I won't say that the old version is all that great, but it at least it is a foundation on which one can create a better article.
I leave it up to other editors to enforce this reversion if they share my preference for the June version of this article. I am willing to assist in maintaining this version as the current one, but will not repeat this stunt if I am the only one interested in doing so. -- EMS | Talk 20:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, it took Carl no time to undo the reversion. I encourage others to go to the history and look and what I did. This is an easier "out" than debating how to further modify the article, but without others enforcing this all that my efforts will become are a meaningless edit war. With support, Carl will be left on the short end of the 3RR stick very quickly.
I will admit that major reversions do have a downside in the loss of much effort on the part of others, but when an article has truly gone off in the "wrong" direction that becomes the best course of action. In the previous times that I have done this the affected editor(s) have not contested it, but it is no surprise that the situation is different this time. -- EMS | Talk 20:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it does present a std viewpoint. I think it misrepresents and oversells Einsteins views. But I suspect that others may have better knowledge of the details.
Also, adding Reverted so that the issues can be discussed. to your reverts isn't helpful. We can discuss it whichever version is there.
William M. Connolley 21:51, 17 October 2005 (UTC).
I've added an entry at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, natural science, and technology but don't hold your breath, waiting for a mass of editors coming over to help. -- Pjacobi 21:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I notice that Appleboy has joined the fray on the side of Carl. So amongst those of us who are willing to fight over this, we are now 2 to 2. As-is, this is the formula for a useless edit war. Therefore:
I will assume that (for the editors other then Carl Hewitt) this is a fight over technique instead of substance. In any case, I emphasize to everyone that a major revert has no busines standing without the consensus (either explicit or impled) of the editors to support it. I am glad to have tried it, but if the result is an unwinnable edit war then we must let Carl's version remain until a consensus is obtained on what to do instead. -- EMS | Talk 22:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
This article has proven to be extremely controversial in practice (although there has been a claim that the subject matter of the article may not be controversial). This poses the dilemma that an attempt to paraphrase a quote by a Wikipedia editor opens them to the charge of NPOV. At least the quotations currently in the article are the point of view of extremely reputable physicists published works that represent a mainstream of current physics.
-- Carl Hewitt 22:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC) (signed later; sorry for the mistake)
Long quotes are illustrative. An article should already be fine, without all the quotes. -- Pjacobi 22:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
sorry about that guys, when I followed the link from the vandalism channel it just showed a chunk of the page missing without any explenation and it looked like vandalism, please forgive me.
--
AppleBoy
Talk
22:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I am first and foremost, in the context of this community, an encyclopediaist. That I interpret to mean: it is my role to collect ideas and report them, in a condensed form and in such a way that the broadest cross-section of the general public may understand. This is the standard that I will hold any other editor to as well.
The disputed version of this article fails to meet that standard. QM and QT are complex enough for those of us that have studied it for years - filling the page with this sort of obscure, biased, and minority-view opinions will not do anything for the high school student with an interest in this field, or professional whose expertise lies far from physics.
Never forget that those are the people we are writing for. DV8 2XL 23:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Lest the content of the dispute gets lost in the tempest of a revert war, let me reiterate what the dispute is about (at least the way I formulated it). There are two issues
The other issues Hewitt raises (intellectual honesty, accessibility) I think are red herrings.
In my explanatory statement, I also conjectured why Hewitt seemed to be so intent on reverting my edits. That is not part of the dispute, only insofar as it bears on my claim that the article violated the no original research policy.
At this point, we might consider reverting to Hewitt's form, with all of the sections that currently include quotes deleted. But I don't think we should agree that the appropriate course of action is discussing the relevance of each quote.-- CSTAR 01:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
This may be influenced by the fact that I am to some extent a minimalist, but here goes. My opinion is that in cases where there is a dispute on some subject it is a good idea for both sides (or however many there are) to step back, remove the contraversial sections, and leave only what everyone agrees on - yes, leave a minimum of content. The subtelties (really!) about QM we are discussing are not entirely resolved in the scientific community, so how can we imagine to clarify them in an online encyclopedia article? If one side wins, then we shall have one POV. I know, there's alot of POV on this "leaking out" in other articles and that is bad. That is not a reason, however, to continue it here, and for a Wikipedia article it suffices to state the problem and not try to solve it (which is original research by the way). After all, this is not a scientific journal. Karol 08:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I moved the disputed content to Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics where it is used in reporting published work that relied on the results of quantum indeterminacy that used to appear in this article. In this way, work can continue there while decisions are made what to do here.-- Carl Hewitt 08:53, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
The aim of this article seems to be explaining quantum indeterminacy in a non-technical way as much as is possible.
My suggestions are:
Keep only the first and third paragraph of the introduction. Write in the first paragraph that QM only makes predictions in the form of a probability distribution over possible experimental outcomes.
The second paragraph starts with: "Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable." Change this sentence to make it clear that "a probability distribution" is in fact the probability distribution as predicted by QM.
Don't mention complementarity for noncommuting observables, uncertainty principle etc. in the introduction.
The third paragraph is ok.
The rest of the article should go to the dust bin. If you want to mention Einstein and von Neuman etc. do that in the intro.
This is what I would prefer for the rest of the article:
The second section should make the qualitative notions about quantum indeterminacy mentioned in the introductions more precise. Here you can mention complementarity and uncertainty principle etc. Then explain that the uncertainty principle implies the EPR paradox and refer to the EPR page for more details.
Then write about Bell's theorem, Aspect's experiment etc. Mention the accepted view of physicists that local realistic hidden variable models are ruled out.
Some of the interpretations of QM such as Kopenhagen, Many Worlds etc. should be mentioned. Mention that in Kopenhagen the wavefunction collapses while in MWI you end up with two parallel worlds after a measurement.
It would also be interesting to mention quantum noise. E.g. in any electrical circuit involving resistors at finite temperature there is Nyquist noise, but at zero temperature you have quantum noise. So, you cannot make an infinitely accurate voltmeter even at absolute zero.
Count Iblis
13:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
"In quantum mechanics, however, indeterminacy is of a much more fundamental nature, having nothing to do with errors or disturbance." I don't have much knowledge of the issue, but this sounds very bold, especially as unsourced, and for a field not understood so well. I believe measurements have been made in this universe, where there, at least logically, always exists disturbance of some sort. I could be wrong however, in which case please refer to a source, otherwise change the statement into a more moderate one, e.g. "is unlikely to have". 88.115.14.234 ( talk) 17:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Another pair of eyes needs to check my figure in the article. Remember this is a collabortaive effort I don't want to be responsible for all the dumb mistakes.-- CSTAR 22:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Err - I started reading this and I stopped when i got to the part where the calculations take into account "complex numbers"; i've always understood complex numbers as 'un-natural' and so why are they being used to describe interations within nature. I have no doubts that this indeterminism can exist in 'theory' but in practice is this really true? It would seem not to me - can someone explain this for me please :( mookid 12 Feb 2006
I've semi-protected the article for awhile, until Daniel Arbatsky gets tired of his unimaginative sockpuppet vandalism. -- Fastfission 23:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
When this gets unprotected again, will someone remember to put the missing "been" in the first sentence of pargraph 3?
What all is known to effect quantum indeterminacy? Black holes? Was quantum indeterminacy more or less at the Big Bang? -- 75.110.194.35 ( talk) 19:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
The section on logical independence and quantum randomness seems to have been written with the sole purpose of pushing the non-peer reviewed works of "independent researcher" Steve Faulkner. The referenced papers are published on a doubtful source (vixra instead of arxiv) and are of highly debatable content. While this does not make the content "wrong" it creates the need for more substantial references in case this section shall remain (I would rather suggest a complete rewrite of the section). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.207.197.108 ( talk) 14:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
The first sentence is not helpful. It is this:
Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics. is not helpful.
The introductory sentence is not helpful because it can be read as implying that quantum indeterminacy is merely apparent, and not actual. Furthermore it gives an impression that quantum indeterminacy is something belonging only in the description of Nature, and not how Nature actually is. Overall, it is a sentence telling about the description rather than the ontology; and one might infer from this that quantum indeterminacy is an expediency introduced into Theory as a way of overcoming something that can't be explained.
I propose this more definite sentence:
Quantum indeterminacy is the lack of complete information that is necessary for a quantum system to exist in a single definite state; prevented by the inherent limitation in information-content a quantum system is capable of.
If no none objects, I shall shortly make the replacement.
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At the end of introductory paragraph, there is the following sentence:
[...] In quantum mechanics, however, indeterminacy is of a much more fundamental nature, having nothing to do with errors or disturbance.
Could anyone expand on the ambiguious and highly subjective interpretative phrases like "much more" and "nothing to do". The whole sentence also is in almost direct contrast with the previous ones.
82.181.105.233 ( talk) 10:17, 22 July 2017 (UTC)
Some comments on quotes from the present article:
[...] a particle with a definitely measured momentum for which there must be a fundamental limit to how precisely its location can be specified
A precise measurement of momentum (of a particle, in reference to a suitable system) simply cannot be obtained at all from observations on reference system locations within a finite distance of each other.
Vice versa, observations at one particular location (or at one particular distance x from the "origin" of the reference system, in one particular direction) don't allow to evaluate its momentum at all; i.e. as proportional to ∂/∂x ().
[...] for exampl,
(Note the typo.)
a particle with a definitely measured energy has a fundamental limit to how precisely one can specify how long it will have that energy
A precise measurement of energy (of a particle, in reference to a suitable system) simply cannot be obtained at all from observations by the reference system within a finite duration of each other.
Vice versa, observations at one particular moment (or at one particular duration t from any selected "reference moment") don't allow to evaluate its energy at all; i.e. as proportional to ∂/∂t (). Also ...
[...] concerned with the predictability of events
... the uncertainty relations (as derived by Robertson and Schrödinger anyways) are concerned with relations between concurrent measurements, from given observational data; not with predictions based on those measurements. The present article on the Uncertainty principle may not express this sufficiently ...
Regards, Frank W ~@) R 02:36 Mar 4, 2003 (UTC).
The last two paragraphs can go, as they have nothing to do with this topic, and seem to just be some crazy guy's theory based on a misunderstanding of what the quantum indeterminacy means. -- Havermayer 23:45, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
Why does indeterminacy depend on the interpretation? I would say, that there can be no interpretation without indeterminacy. I would suggest removing that sentence.-- CSTAR 04:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Putting in extensive quotes from Chris Fuchs (or anybody else) is not a good idea.
-- CSTAR 05:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
I suppose, but this is a lot of work. -- CSTAR 05:35, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Incompleteness is an old issue in quantum mechanics. Although I think Fuchs is highly quotable, I don;t think it is necessary to rely on anything he says about this topic.
-- CSTAR 05:54, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
Chris Fuchs did not invent indeterminacy, and moreover his views on QM are too idiosyncratic. I think his view of QM strikes me as being some form of instrumentalism (about which I earlier had an exchange in the interpretation of quantum mechanics talk page.-- CSTAR 02:28, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
Is User:CarlHewitt putting words into Chris Fuchs mouth or is he "channelling" Fuchs? Please could CarlHewitt please decide on what Fuchs said, when did he say it and where?-- CSTAR 22:39, 9 October 2005 (UTC)
What do these quotes from Heisenberg establish? That measurement is messy, well yeah we know that, but that's not the point of this article. Why did you take out the statement about quantum indeterminacy not being a result of error? Surely outside of crackpot circles that is a commonly held view. This article is not an essay on the history of quantum indterminacty.-- CSTAR 02:19, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Your edit summary asserted that my "flow" of my edit was not good and moreover, that it was not logical. This is an entirely unreasonable justification; you'll have to do better than that Flow is entirely subjective and what logic are you talking about. The only things that I changed were
-- CSTAR 19:09, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Uncertainty in measurement was not an innovation of quantum mechanics, since it had been well established that measurements have a certain variability. However, by the latter half of the 1700s, measurement variability was thought to be well understood and it could be reduced by better equipment and accounted for by statistical error models. That is to say, the general supposition was that there was a "true" value to be measured and that the variation was due to "errors in measurement" explainable by some "error parameter."
Quantum indeterminacy is intrinsically involved with measurement which itself involves intervention. Measurement in quantum physics has proved to be unexpectedly subtle. How the might the object be affected by the measuring process? This question concerned Werner Heisenberg.
-- Carl Hewitt 20:43, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
Einstein's argument should be in one place, not two.-- Carl Hewitt 20:49, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
This article contains a long series of extensive quotes. This is not appropriate for an encyclopedia article. The amount of quoted material should be reduced. -- CSTAR 21:46, 10 October 2005 (UTC)
The article is ostensibly about quantum indeterminacy. Rather than limit the article to the meaning of indeterminacy with a statement about the relations with measurement, the article contains long quotes which are not supportive of any well-known, identifiable claim which would merit its inclusion in Wikipedia.-- CSTAR 03:12, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
This article purports to show that measurement is "theory laden". This is not a widely held philosophical position and which in any case does not belong in this article. Either move all sections on this to an article entitled Philosophical issues in the theory of measurement or delete those sections.
The article fails to discuss more standard issues such as von Neumann's theory of measurement and the relation of measurement to other problems and formalisms.
Based on this, I will add two new dispute claims to the article.-- CSTAR 19:54, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
Call it what you will; the article alludes to (mainly in subsection headings) a difficult and philosophically controversial claim about the relationship between physical theory and the nature of measurement. Even if you have identifiable claims that are supported in existing literature which you can paraphrase, the discussion of those claims does not belong in this article. Please start a new article on Philosophical issues in the theory of measurement as I suggested.-- CSTAR 21:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)
-- CSTAR 03:52, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
The issues you are raising are broader and are not specific to Wikipedia; for example Is the paraphrase better than the quote?. This is a general issue about writing (scholarly writing in particular) and referring to already published work. This applies for instance to authors of expository material. Why write a textbook? Just plunk in quotes and you're done.
What if a user wants to see the quote and it is not on line or if it is on line and then disappears? Universal problem. Again, don't try to solve it here or challenge me to solve it.
You are using Wikipedia to make a point (In fact several). Please don't. If you want to play the role of Socrates, start your own blog.
It is assumed that editors know the material they are writing about, unless they are editing for style. The ability to copy somebody else's work and put it in quotation marks is not (normally) considered an indication of knowledge.-- CSTAR 16:26, 12 October 2005 (UTC)
Quantum indeterminacy is intrinsically involved with measurement which itself involves intervention. Measurement in quantum physics has proved to be unexpectedly subtle. How the might the system being measured be affected by the measuring process? This question concerned Werner Heisenberg.
Many years after the fact, Heisenberg recalled how when he was developing the uncertainty principle that Albert Einstein had emphasized the importance of some subtle issues involved in measurement [Heisenberg 1971]:
Thomas Kuhn emphasized issues in understanding observations in the development of quantum physics including further developing the thesis that it was Einstein who saw the revolutionary implications of the observations of black-body radiation whereas even Max Planck (who had pioneered in the work) initially resisted Einstein's views [Kuhn 1987].
Measurement in quantum mechanics has additional information.
I have placed two dispute banners on this article:
To explain the reasons for each one of those banners, let me remind the reader that this article is about quantum indeterminacy which is, as the introductory paragraph correctly states, the intrinsic impossibility of assigning to each system state a unique collection of real values to all observables. Indeterminacy has other manifestations, such as the non-determinisic nature of the measurement process, which is fundamental as well, and constitutes one of the main contributions of von Neumann to quantum mechanics. The article is silent on the matter, and moreover Hewitt has reverted my attempts to rectify this, by citing problems of flow and logic with my edit.
Indeterminacy has a long history in quantum mechanics and as the article intimates by a quote from Einstein, is also connected to issues of incompleteness exemplified by the EPR experiment. However, the main historical account of indeterminacy does not belong in this article, nor do fundamental issues in the theory of measurement.
Hewitt is using these quotes to claim a "theory laden" notion of measurement. It's fine to mention that there are complex relations between theory and measurement (this idea is not new with Heisenberg either); in a similar way, there are relations between object and measuring device (which as I mentioned go back at least to von Neumann) and maybe even a relation between consciousness, object and measurement device (that's a view which I don't like, but it has its proponents). It's one thing to mention this. However, to subvert the intent of the article, and use it as a subterfuge to argue for a particular (some would even say "postmodern") view of measurement is definitely a violation of POV. Moreover, I claim it is original research: Careful examination of Hewitt's contribution on wikipedia suggest a clear effort on his part to raise the actor model to the status of a fundamental theory of physics, which it currently does not have. In support of this claim, please see the following articles and/or their discussion pages:
The other contentious issue is the inclusion of long quotes in an article, preceded with little explanation. By that I mean, (as I have repeated at least 3 times in the above discussion), that a quote should be brought in to support an identifiable claim. An identifiable claim is one which already exists in the peer-reviewed scientificliterature, preferably has a name (such as "local realism", "instrumentalism") and can be summarized in a few phrases. I am not sure whether Wikipedia policy is yet clear enough on the matter, but an encyclopedia article should not be a series of quotes. It is particularly irksome to see inclusions of quotes by Chris Fuchs on the matter, as though they somehow support Hewitt's position.
I urge the reader to please consider the History of my comments on this article as well Hewitt's replies.
Thanks. -- CSTAR 17:58, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Remark: I have relocated the following response from Hewitt, which was originally in the middle of my explanatory statement above preceding the subsection what I intend to do. Request to Hewitt: Please answer questions in a separate area.
Far too much of the article (CH version) depends on quotes by Fuchs about words by Einstein. This is not good. Einstein was much cleverer than me, but he was out on a limb as far as QM is concerned, and the article (CH version) misrepresents his contributions anyway. As C* says, QI is not controversial. I would encourage people to support EMS's proposal. William M. Connolley 20:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC).
I have restored the 6/23/05 version of this page as a way of getting around the issues raised by Carl's edits. Part of my reason for doing this is to show that it can be done. I won't say that the old version is all that great, but it at least it is a foundation on which one can create a better article.
I leave it up to other editors to enforce this reversion if they share my preference for the June version of this article. I am willing to assist in maintaining this version as the current one, but will not repeat this stunt if I am the only one interested in doing so. -- EMS | Talk 20:19, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Well, it took Carl no time to undo the reversion. I encourage others to go to the history and look and what I did. This is an easier "out" than debating how to further modify the article, but without others enforcing this all that my efforts will become are a meaningless edit war. With support, Carl will be left on the short end of the 3RR stick very quickly.
I will admit that major reversions do have a downside in the loss of much effort on the part of others, but when an article has truly gone off in the "wrong" direction that becomes the best course of action. In the previous times that I have done this the affected editor(s) have not contested it, but it is no surprise that the situation is different this time. -- EMS | Talk 20:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I don't think it does present a std viewpoint. I think it misrepresents and oversells Einsteins views. But I suspect that others may have better knowledge of the details.
Also, adding Reverted so that the issues can be discussed. to your reverts isn't helpful. We can discuss it whichever version is there.
William M. Connolley 21:51, 17 October 2005 (UTC).
I've added an entry at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Maths, natural science, and technology but don't hold your breath, waiting for a mass of editors coming over to help. -- Pjacobi 21:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I notice that Appleboy has joined the fray on the side of Carl. So amongst those of us who are willing to fight over this, we are now 2 to 2. As-is, this is the formula for a useless edit war. Therefore:
I will assume that (for the editors other then Carl Hewitt) this is a fight over technique instead of substance. In any case, I emphasize to everyone that a major revert has no busines standing without the consensus (either explicit or impled) of the editors to support it. I am glad to have tried it, but if the result is an unwinnable edit war then we must let Carl's version remain until a consensus is obtained on what to do instead. -- EMS | Talk 22:08, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
This article has proven to be extremely controversial in practice (although there has been a claim that the subject matter of the article may not be controversial). This poses the dilemma that an attempt to paraphrase a quote by a Wikipedia editor opens them to the charge of NPOV. At least the quotations currently in the article are the point of view of extremely reputable physicists published works that represent a mainstream of current physics.
-- Carl Hewitt 22:30, 17 October 2005 (UTC) (signed later; sorry for the mistake)
Long quotes are illustrative. An article should already be fine, without all the quotes. -- Pjacobi 22:18, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
sorry about that guys, when I followed the link from the vandalism channel it just showed a chunk of the page missing without any explenation and it looked like vandalism, please forgive me.
--
AppleBoy
Talk
22:21, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
I am first and foremost, in the context of this community, an encyclopediaist. That I interpret to mean: it is my role to collect ideas and report them, in a condensed form and in such a way that the broadest cross-section of the general public may understand. This is the standard that I will hold any other editor to as well.
The disputed version of this article fails to meet that standard. QM and QT are complex enough for those of us that have studied it for years - filling the page with this sort of obscure, biased, and minority-view opinions will not do anything for the high school student with an interest in this field, or professional whose expertise lies far from physics.
Never forget that those are the people we are writing for. DV8 2XL 23:37, 17 October 2005 (UTC)
Lest the content of the dispute gets lost in the tempest of a revert war, let me reiterate what the dispute is about (at least the way I formulated it). There are two issues
The other issues Hewitt raises (intellectual honesty, accessibility) I think are red herrings.
In my explanatory statement, I also conjectured why Hewitt seemed to be so intent on reverting my edits. That is not part of the dispute, only insofar as it bears on my claim that the article violated the no original research policy.
At this point, we might consider reverting to Hewitt's form, with all of the sections that currently include quotes deleted. But I don't think we should agree that the appropriate course of action is discussing the relevance of each quote.-- CSTAR 01:52, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
This may be influenced by the fact that I am to some extent a minimalist, but here goes. My opinion is that in cases where there is a dispute on some subject it is a good idea for both sides (or however many there are) to step back, remove the contraversial sections, and leave only what everyone agrees on - yes, leave a minimum of content. The subtelties (really!) about QM we are discussing are not entirely resolved in the scientific community, so how can we imagine to clarify them in an online encyclopedia article? If one side wins, then we shall have one POV. I know, there's alot of POV on this "leaking out" in other articles and that is bad. That is not a reason, however, to continue it here, and for a Wikipedia article it suffices to state the problem and not try to solve it (which is original research by the way). After all, this is not a scientific journal. Karol 08:22, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
I moved the disputed content to Actor model, mathematical logic, and quantum physics where it is used in reporting published work that relied on the results of quantum indeterminacy that used to appear in this article. In this way, work can continue there while decisions are made what to do here.-- Carl Hewitt 08:53, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
The aim of this article seems to be explaining quantum indeterminacy in a non-technical way as much as is possible.
My suggestions are:
Keep only the first and third paragraph of the introduction. Write in the first paragraph that QM only makes predictions in the form of a probability distribution over possible experimental outcomes.
The second paragraph starts with: "Quantum indeterminacy can be quantitatively characterized by a probability distribution on the set of outcomes of measurements of an observable." Change this sentence to make it clear that "a probability distribution" is in fact the probability distribution as predicted by QM.
Don't mention complementarity for noncommuting observables, uncertainty principle etc. in the introduction.
The third paragraph is ok.
The rest of the article should go to the dust bin. If you want to mention Einstein and von Neuman etc. do that in the intro.
This is what I would prefer for the rest of the article:
The second section should make the qualitative notions about quantum indeterminacy mentioned in the introductions more precise. Here you can mention complementarity and uncertainty principle etc. Then explain that the uncertainty principle implies the EPR paradox and refer to the EPR page for more details.
Then write about Bell's theorem, Aspect's experiment etc. Mention the accepted view of physicists that local realistic hidden variable models are ruled out.
Some of the interpretations of QM such as Kopenhagen, Many Worlds etc. should be mentioned. Mention that in Kopenhagen the wavefunction collapses while in MWI you end up with two parallel worlds after a measurement.
It would also be interesting to mention quantum noise. E.g. in any electrical circuit involving resistors at finite temperature there is Nyquist noise, but at zero temperature you have quantum noise. So, you cannot make an infinitely accurate voltmeter even at absolute zero.
Count Iblis
13:41, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
"In quantum mechanics, however, indeterminacy is of a much more fundamental nature, having nothing to do with errors or disturbance." I don't have much knowledge of the issue, but this sounds very bold, especially as unsourced, and for a field not understood so well. I believe measurements have been made in this universe, where there, at least logically, always exists disturbance of some sort. I could be wrong however, in which case please refer to a source, otherwise change the statement into a more moderate one, e.g. "is unlikely to have". 88.115.14.234 ( talk) 17:22, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
Another pair of eyes needs to check my figure in the article. Remember this is a collabortaive effort I don't want to be responsible for all the dumb mistakes.-- CSTAR 22:49, 18 October 2005 (UTC)
Err - I started reading this and I stopped when i got to the part where the calculations take into account "complex numbers"; i've always understood complex numbers as 'un-natural' and so why are they being used to describe interations within nature. I have no doubts that this indeterminism can exist in 'theory' but in practice is this really true? It would seem not to me - can someone explain this for me please :( mookid 12 Feb 2006
I've semi-protected the article for awhile, until Daniel Arbatsky gets tired of his unimaginative sockpuppet vandalism. -- Fastfission 23:52, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
When this gets unprotected again, will someone remember to put the missing "been" in the first sentence of pargraph 3?
What all is known to effect quantum indeterminacy? Black holes? Was quantum indeterminacy more or less at the Big Bang? -- 75.110.194.35 ( talk) 19:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
The section on logical independence and quantum randomness seems to have been written with the sole purpose of pushing the non-peer reviewed works of "independent researcher" Steve Faulkner. The referenced papers are published on a doubtful source (vixra instead of arxiv) and are of highly debatable content. While this does not make the content "wrong" it creates the need for more substantial references in case this section shall remain (I would rather suggest a complete rewrite of the section). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.207.197.108 ( talk) 14:06, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
The first sentence is not helpful. It is this:
Quantum indeterminacy is the apparent necessary incompleteness in the description of a physical system, that has become one of the characteristics of the standard description of quantum physics. is not helpful.
The introductory sentence is not helpful because it can be read as implying that quantum indeterminacy is merely apparent, and not actual. Furthermore it gives an impression that quantum indeterminacy is something belonging only in the description of Nature, and not how Nature actually is. Overall, it is a sentence telling about the description rather than the ontology; and one might infer from this that quantum indeterminacy is an expediency introduced into Theory as a way of overcoming something that can't be explained.
I propose this more definite sentence:
Quantum indeterminacy is the lack of complete information that is necessary for a quantum system to exist in a single definite state; prevented by the inherent limitation in information-content a quantum system is capable of.
If no none objects, I shall shortly make the replacement.