Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All

By Aussiegirl

Phew! Just when my poor brain was ready to implode from trying to understand, even if dimly, quantum mechanics -- with its quantum entanglement and quantum-this and quantum-that -- along comes Paul Quincey to apply a cold compress to my fevered brow and reassure me that the quantum world is understandable after all.
This is a very interesting article, clearly written and well worth your perusal.

Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All (Skeptical Inquirer July/August 2006)

Why Quantum Mechanics Is Not So Weird after All
Paul Quincey

The birth of quantum mechanics can be dated to 1925, when physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger invented mathematical procedures that accurately replicated many of the observed properties of atoms. The change from earlier types of physics was dramatic, and pre-quantum physics was soon called classical physics in a kind of nostalgia for the days when waves were waves, particles were particles, and everything knew its place in the world.

Since 1925, quantum mechanics has never looked back. It soon became clear that the new methods were not just good at accounting for the properties of atoms, they were absolutely central to explaining why atoms did not collapse, how solids can be rigid, and how different atoms combine together in what we call chemistry and biology. The rules of classical physics, far from being a reliable description of the everyday world that breaks down at the scale of the atom, turned out to be incapable of explaining anything much more complicated than how planets orbit the sun, unless they used either the results of quantum mechanics or a lot of ad hoc assumptions.

But this triumph of quantum mechanics came with an unexpected problem-when you stepped outside of the mathematics and tried to explain what was going on, it didn't seem to make any sense. Elementary particles such as electrons behave like waves, apparently moving like ripples on a pond; they also seem to be instantaneously aware of distant objects and to be in different places at the same time. It seemed that any weird idea could gain respectability by finding similarities with some of the weird features of quantum mechanics. It has become almost obligatory to declare that quantum physics, in contrast to classical physics, cannot be understood, and that we should admire its ability to give the right answers without thinking about it too hard.

And yet, eighty years and unprecedented numbers of physicists later, naked quantum weirdness remains elusive. There are plenty of quantum phenomena, from the magnetism of iron and the superconductivity of lead to lasers and electronics, but none of them really qualifies as truly bizarre in the way we might expect. The greatest mystery of quantum mechanics is how its ideas have remained so weird while it explained more and more about the world around us.

Perhaps it is time to revisit the ideas with the benefit of hindsight, to see if either quantum mechanics is less weird than we usually think it is or the world around us is more so. [....]

Quantum Mechanics-Bringer of Stability

One of the benefits of viewing the quantum world as not fundamentally different from the classical world is that we can imagine how one changes into the other. With a few simple assumptions, a classical world of point-like electrons and nuclei is blindingly chaotic. Atoms are continually trying to collapse, but are prevented from doing so by the huge amount of electromagnetic radiation that is released in the process. It is not the comfortable place that the word classical implies.

As we imagine moving to the quantum realm by increasing the size of Planck's constant from zero, something remarkable happens. At some point, the blinding light disappears to reveal stable atoms, capable of forming molecules. Far from making everything go weird, quantum mechanics makes it go normal. To be sure, if Planck's constant increases too far, the atoms fall apart and a different form of chaos takes over, but that just makes the story even more interesting.

So it seems that quantum physics is not weird and incomprehensible because it describes something completely different from everyday reality. It is weird and incomprehensible precisely because it describes the world we see around us-past, present, and future.