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Previous comments... You are currently on page 3.
He did not analyze Heisenberg's book because he chose to write about something else: an elementary description of a more widespread phenomenon.
You didn't say what about quantum mechanics you discussed as "mysticism", but the most extreme, overt example of it is the 'Tao of Physics' movement explicitly endorsing and tying quantum theory to Eastern mysticism. Even David Bohm was lured into it with Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama mysticism for decades. They had no difficulty finding similarities with quantum theory but lacked the sense to reject it as a reductio ad absurdum.
Do marbles diffract?
Perhaps "there are people" who are willing to question the authority of intellectual lemming conservatism under the name of science, especially when it is so often accompanied by insistence on such bad philosophy tied to it as part of the theory. Perhaps these people are seeking to understand and they reject the standard nonsense as not providing that, you know -- like real scientists do. Perhaps this questioning has nothing to do with "hatred" or "any course" whatever to challenge it regardless of what it is. Perhaps your accusation is blatant ad hominem.
The article he linked to did not challenge relativity as science, it argued that GPS is not a "test" for it. Do you agree with that or not? Do you regard your own (very interesting) work as a "test" for GR?
Lasers embody the essence of quantum mechanics. Quantized states with specific lifetimes are played against each other to achieve a population inversion (many more hot atoms/molecules than cool ones), which is impossible in the world of classical thermodynamics. One item drops a quantum of energy stimulating all to emit the same energy to produce miracle light. Today we take lasers for granted, but our supplications before the quantum gods made CD's, DVD's, and Blu-rays possible.
The Schrödinger equation, central to quantum mechanics, does indeed show the probabilistic element to which Einstein was hostile, thus his "Gott würfelt nicht" (approximately: God doesn't throw dice.)
But the beautifully elegant Klein-Gordon equation absorbs Schrödinger's equation, including Planck's constant h (the natural line-width of the probabilistic universe), mass, and the speed of light c, central to Einstein's relativity. I realized the compatibility of quantum mechanics and relativity when I first noticed that the product of quantum conjugates (position/momentum and time/energy) were relativistic invariants under Lorentz transformations. So, Planck's constant is truly constant—what the quantum dice measure produces no conflict with relativity.
The math involved is beyond the scope and character capabilities available here. See this Wikipedia entry for a taste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klein%E...
Electricity propagates in the 120-180 ps/inch range, so the pulse is only a few inches long on a wire. Seen in the freq domain, the pulse has spectral components into several GHz, and any loop of wire is a significant inductor at those frequencies. I bet the circuit looked a lot like a wide-band transmitter operating in the GHz range.
"We were hardcore scientists/techies/Objectivists who debated about quantum mechanics."
I always imagined that if I had studied quantum physics, it would be non-mystical but different from the macroscopic world. i imagined quantum mystics take confusion about the quantum world and macroscopic world and give us The Tao of Physics and What the Bleep Do We Know?
I, too, found Harriman's article less than satisfying or compelling. It validated something from long ago when my research lab coworker, who had first introduced me to Objectivist philosophy, said, "Modern science aids and abets a primitive mysticism."
I debated this notion with him at length, particularly in that we were not laymen. He was designing electronics to send as close as possible to a one amp, one nanosecond wide(!) square-wave pulse through laser diodes we were growing in-house. I (MIT degreed physicist) was measuring the resulting spectra and other optical parameters. We were hardcore scientists/techies/Objectivists who debated about quantum mechanics.
So, no, I concur that Harriman's essay is not an excellent article.
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