23 February, 2002
The Editor
Physics
World
“It is
pointless to teach … quantum mechanics”
Dear Sir
As Rachel
Padman said (letters, January 2002 p18), “It is pointless to teach advanced
quantum mechanics to students whose minds are occupied only with the choice
between [various management consultants]”.
I’m afraid the time has come to ask if it should be taught at all! As she also says: “It seems that the
specific knowledge of physics graduates is not essential even to the high-tech
economy” – a fact that I have recently
seen illustrated in some internet discussions.
There are
many devices now that clearly involve “quantum tunneling”, but does this tell
us how they work? What use have
practical people for “probability waves” or “entangled states”? Probability waves would be fair enough if
they could in turn be explained using “hidden variables”, and the experimental
evidence does not rule these out.
(See my letter in the November issue, p17, and web site: http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cat .) Bring in hidden variables and new
possibilities are open. Intuitive ideas
that have lain dormant for the past 100 years are much more likely to provide
the causal explanations that are needed.
Perhaps the 100 years of rest will prove to have advantages, as it must
be admitted that few were absolutely correct.
They need revision in the light of new facts.
If new
theories are not supported by elegant mathematics, does this really
matter? Theories are in any case be
replaced by empirical rules when it comes to applications!
I fear that
Jim Al-Khalili’s quest for the true interpretation of quantum theory (see
letter, page 19, January 2002) is likely to be long and unrewarding: it needs
replacement, not re-interpretation.
And you ask
why it is hard to recruit physics students!
Yours
sincerely
Caroline H
Thompson