Quantum Mechanics

QUANTUM MECHANICSIs God in the Hamiltonian?

ZEN KOANWhat is the sound of one hand clapping?

THE GREAT MYSTERYThe possibility that the electron might have

gone through slit b interferes with the possibility that it might have gone through slit c.

QUANTUM MECHANICS KOANPotentiality is reality.

SOME DEFINITIONS Epistemology – All about explaining,

describing, and predicting things. Ontology – What really exists and what is its

nature?

THE WAVE FUNCTION

SCHRODINGER EQUATION

THE PLOT SO FAR Particles can act like waves. Waves can act

like particles. Possibilities are “real.” When things happen they happen randomly

and unpredictably The ultimate level of reality is a

mathematical function that cannot be observed directly and contains hidden information of uncertain significance.

WORSE YET We create properties by observing them.

EVEN WORSE We create properties by observing the. So do we create the universe by observing it?

TWO-SLIT EXPERIMENT REVISITED

THE EPR EXPERIMENT

ULTIMATE REALITY? Quantum fields fill all space; one field for

each kind of particle. Particles are just localized bunches of energy

carried by the fields. Particles can appear and disappear

spontaneously from the fields. Perhaps the universe appeared in just this

way.

The Tao of Physics, Fritjof Capra, Shambala Press, Berkeley, 1975

JOHN ARCHIBALD WHEELERNothing is more important about the quantum

principle that this, that it destroys the concept of the world as sitting ‘out there.’ … the measurement changes the state of the electron. The universe will never afterwards be the same. To describe what has happened, one has to cross out that old word ‘observer’ and put in its place the new word ‘participator.’ In some strange sense the universe is a participatory universe.

WERNER HEISENBERGWhat we observe is not nature itself, but

nature exposed to our method of questioning.

FROM THE UPANISHADSWhere there is duality, as it were, there one

sees another; there one smells another; there one tastes another … But where everything has become just one’s own self, then whereby and whom would one see? Then whereby and whom would one smell? Then whereby and whom would one taste?

CHANG TSAI When the ch’i condenses, its visibility

becomes apparent so that there are then the shapes of individual things. When it disperses, its visibility is no longer apparent and there are no shapes. At the time of its condensation, can one say otherwise than that this is but temporary? But at the time of its dispersing, can one hastily say that it is then non-existent.

The Great Void cannot but consist of ch’i; this ch’i cannot but condense to form all things; and these things cannot but become dispersed so as to form (once again) the Great Void.

CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY? Multiple levels of reality Escape from determinism Might God act through quantum processes? Quantum physics and theology have similar

methodologies.

Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship, John Polkinghorne, Yale University Press, 2007

QUANTUM PHYSICS AND THEOLOGY: AN UNEXPECTED KINSHIP Understanding comes from the interplay of

factual data and interpretative theory. Progress is made when critical questions are

explored. Some discoveries radically transform and

expands our horizon. Occasionally critical events transform their

subject immediately.

QUANTUM MECHANICS AS METAPHOR There is an underlying level of reality to

which we have only indirect access. Everything in the universe is entangled in a

mysterious way. We live in a participatory universe.