Rob Spekkens: Why the Quantum Wave Function Is Not Real
episodePreviously titled “This Quantum Physicist Says The Wave Function Isn't Real: Rob Spekkens” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
Transcript
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Why does Spekkens claim Feynman’s “interference is essential” is wrong?
Ultimately, I don't think any of these models are the right picture of reality. We need to try something completely different. Feynman famously said interference is the essence of quantum theory. My work showed that
well, that's just not true. Feynman declared interference as the essence of quantum theory, with quote, absolutely no way to reproduce this classically. However, Robert Speckens of the Perimeter Institute proved him wrong. In 2004, he found a theory of a classical world where your maximum knowledge is always incomplete. What happens is out pops the no-cloning theorem, teleportation, and even those interference. Effects that Feynman deemed impossible.
We need to invest in people who have very different ideas of how things are gonna go, and some of those are gonna be right and revolutionary.
I'm Kurt Jaimungle. On this channel, Theories of Everything, we don't sidestep the recondite technicalities of a theory, as that's the whole point of this channel is to go research level deep. So allow me to explain some of the prerequisites for those who aren't physics professors. Speckens is trying to understand what exactly quantum mechanics is. What features of quantum mechanics are irreducibly quantum and not classical? As you'll see in this episode, he argues it's Bell inequality violations. These are statistical correlations between distant measurements that exceed any classical bound. Most physicists conclude nature is non-local. Speckens disagrees. In 1716, Wybnes had a debate against Clark, saying basically, look, if you move every particle, say a few meters in
Absolute space, it leaves every single observation unchanged. Thus, that displacement isn't real. Einstein actually wielded this principle twice. Number one, eliminating the ether, and number two, identifying gravity with space-time curvature. This liveness principle is called the identity of indiscernibles. Specken says that superluminal influences violate the same principle. They're constructed to be undetectable. And if there is no empirical difference, then there's no ontological difference. Quite a controversial claim. Now for Speckens, his target is the entire commodious framework of hidden variable models. That's that apparatus that underlies psionic interpretations. Now, psionic is just jargon meaning that the wave function is real, like Bohmian mechanics.
It refers to an element of reality, and this contrasts with what's called Called Psi epistemic, which is again just jargon, meaning that the wave function represents knowledge. Speckens wants to reject this dichotomy altogether. He compares our situation to Egyptian hieroglyphs. Toward the end of this conversation, Speckens says there's a similar category mistake we're making that we used to make when interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphs. A mistake we're continuing to make in interpreting our most fundamental theory. Quantum mechanics. You challenge something quite sacred. So many popularizers of science love to talk about how quantum mechanics is mystical or magical and no one understands it, bro, and there's some assumptions that physicists, many physicists have that these quantum quirks or bizarre aspects of quantum mechanics are unique quantum features like interference, superposition, entanglement.
They're said to be non-classical. Build for me the case that it is non classical just so that people can get some context, and of course explain any jargon along the way so that no one's lost, and then we'll get to why you protest.
Mm-hmm. Um Yeah, I guess the The the standard assessment of, you know, i is this classical or not. Um so first let me put out there that I I think it's an important question. So sometimes uh it gets labeled as, oh, that's just semantics, you know, how we're going to use the language. But uh ultimately what's at issue here is, you know, what's what's the real innovation that quantum theory has brought relative to classical theories? And I think that's a really important foundational question. Um so to look at the phenomenology of quantum theory and say, okay, what in there is truly innovative is is important.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does Spekkens claim Feynman’s “interference is essential” is wrong?
0:00–6:00
2
How do realism and empiricism differ and why is the Leibnizian principle important?
6:00–26:02
3
What is the distinction between causal influence and signaling in quantum foundations?
26:02–1:02:52
4
Why does the host argue that philosophy of physics is essential for revolutionary science?
1:02:52–1:22:35
5
How did Rob’s interdisciplinary background and the joint philosophy‑physics degree shape his early interest in quantum foundations?
1:22:35–1:37:00
6
What is the culture like at the Perimeter Institute and how has it evolved as the institute grew?
1:37:00–1:57:39
7
How does Rob explain the PBR theorem, its assumptions, and why it doesn’t settle the debate over epistemic vs. ontic quantum states?
1:57:39–2:18:27
8
What advice does Rob give about communicating research, and what would he ask a truthful quantum‑mechanics oracle?
2:18:27–2:39:56
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from Theories of Everything with Curt Jaimungal
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Tim Maudlin: Quantum Nonlocality Explained FROM SCRATCH
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Jacob Tsimerman: He Won Math's Highest Prize. Then Announced the End