<story><title>Feynman&apos;s Public Lectures on Quantum Electrodynamics</title><url>http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bsaul</author><text>Just saw the first video, but i found his analogy with mayan priests calculating Venus trajectory correctly, having no clue of the &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; quite disturbing.&lt;p&gt;There is a HUGE difference between knowing &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; and not knowing it. Mayans priests couldn&amp;#x27;t guess the real &amp;quot;why&amp;quot;, because they had no notion of gravity or a correct description of the solar system, but now we do and we know.&lt;p&gt;The fact that quantum effects aren&amp;#x27;t grasped right now (at least by me :), means a very different thing whether we believe there will be such an explanation one day, with a more complete description of nature, or if such an explanation is inexistant.&lt;p&gt;Which makes me wonder : i&amp;#x27;ve read that there was a proof that the &amp;quot;hidden variable hypothesis&amp;quot; is wrong. Does anyone know of someone explaining that proof in a comprehensible way ? Has this proof been contested by some parts of the scientist working on the field ?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qwertyboy</author><text>I think Feynman&amp;#x27;s point is that to be a good scientist, you must keep in mind the difference between the map and the territory.&lt;p&gt;You preform observations. You think of explanations (&amp;quot;why&amp;quot;s) and try to fit them in a model. You make testable predictions using your model. You test them. If the experiments support your model, then it&amp;#x27;s a good and useful model. People will use it to achieve cool and terrible things. But it&amp;#x27;s still just a model. And you have to be ready at a moment&amp;#x27;s notice, as soon as the empirical data demands it, to drop your model like a hot potato and start looking for a better one.&lt;p&gt;To do otherwise - to believe that you already know the &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; - is to abandon the scientific method. &amp;quot;Knowing&amp;quot; is the opposite of &amp;quot;learning&amp;quot;, and the antonym of scientific progress.</text></comment>
<story><title>Feynman&apos;s Public Lectures on Quantum Electrodynamics</title><url>http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bsaul</author><text>Just saw the first video, but i found his analogy with mayan priests calculating Venus trajectory correctly, having no clue of the &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; quite disturbing.&lt;p&gt;There is a HUGE difference between knowing &amp;quot;why&amp;quot; and not knowing it. Mayans priests couldn&amp;#x27;t guess the real &amp;quot;why&amp;quot;, because they had no notion of gravity or a correct description of the solar system, but now we do and we know.&lt;p&gt;The fact that quantum effects aren&amp;#x27;t grasped right now (at least by me :), means a very different thing whether we believe there will be such an explanation one day, with a more complete description of nature, or if such an explanation is inexistant.&lt;p&gt;Which makes me wonder : i&amp;#x27;ve read that there was a proof that the &amp;quot;hidden variable hypothesis&amp;quot; is wrong. Does anyone know of someone explaining that proof in a comprehensible way ? Has this proof been contested by some parts of the scientist working on the field ?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>m1el</author><text>&amp;gt; Has this proof been contested by some parts of the scientist working on the field?&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a story I find interesting.&lt;p&gt;Einstein got his nobel prize for discovering the law of photoelectric effect [1]. This discovery influenced the development of quantum mechanics quite a lot. I&amp;#x27;d say that this discovery alone is enough for the theory of QM to emerge.&lt;p&gt;However, Einstein did not like the &amp;quot;probabilistic&amp;quot; nature of QM, &amp;quot;God doesn&amp;#x27;t play dice with the world.&amp;quot;[2], and he argued against it. Albert Einstein along with Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen have formulated a paradox[3] which was resolved many years later by Bell&amp;#x27;s Theorem and corresponding experiments[4].&lt;p&gt;So yes, there were scientists arguing against the probabilistic nature of QM.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Does anyone know of someone explaining that proof in a comprehensible way?&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Comprehensible&amp;quot; explanation in this case mostly depends on the reader. The wiki[4] gives a pretty good explanation of the Bell&amp;#x27;s Theorem and experiments.&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nobelprize.org&amp;#x2F;nobel_prizes&amp;#x2F;physics&amp;#x2F;laureates&amp;#x2F;1921&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nobelprize.org&amp;#x2F;nobel_prizes&amp;#x2F;physics&amp;#x2F;laureates&amp;#x2F;192...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;books.google.com.vn&amp;#x2F;books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;books.google.com.vn&amp;#x2F;books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;EPR_paradox&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;EPR_paradox&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bell%27s_theorem#Practical_experiments_testing_Bell.27s_theorem&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Bell%27s_theorem#Practical_exp...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>