Tim Maudlin: Quantum Mechanics Explained FROM SCRATCH
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What is the lecture’s goal and overview of EPR and Bell’s significance?
But notice the deep problems were about spooky action at a distance, not particularly about determinism. I'm really gonna try to do this once properly from beginning to end, what's going on with EPR, what's going on with Bell. This is Tim Maudlin, professor of philosophy at New York University and one of the world's leading philosophers of physics. Today, I'm thrilled to bring you a lecture with the breathing room it requires. to explain quantum physics and what Bell did with zero background knowledge. I've been told I have an unlimited amount of time. On this channel, I, Kurt Jaimungal, interview researchers regarding their theories of reality with rigor and technical depth. Unfortunately, most people haven't understood the EPR paper.
This is to set the record straight once and for all on what? The great ironic reversal at the end is that Bell undermines Einstein's fundamental thesis that there's no action at a distance. But he undermines it using Einstein's own tools Professor, welcome. I'm super excited. Thank you for coming. I'm very glad to be here. So this title, okay, as far as I can see, EPR Bell, The Completeness of the Wave Function, Spooky Action at a Distance, and all that. That's the title of this. Take it away. The title of the YouTube video may be something that can fit into the character count of the YouTube video. And I went to all that trouble. Okay, so let me explain to anybody watching this what this is. It's not a kind of normal back-and-forth conversation designed that way.
It was supposed to be a real careful presentation essentially of Bell's theorem and then a little bit on the problems that arise because of Bell's theorem. And In preparing for this, I thought, all right, I have a kind of, I've been told I have an unlimited amount of time, which is unlike what I normally have. Usually you have to squeeze it down. And I thought, all right, if I really do have a lot of time, I'm really going to try to do this once properly from beginning to end. what's going on with EPR, what's going on with Bell, what Einstein was thinking, what Bell was thinking, other things that happened in the meantime, the logic of Bell's argument and the conclusions of it. So that's what this is all about.
I should say that because I want this to be absolutely clear, I've essentially written everything out. Perfect. And it's going to be a little boring because I'm going to be more or less reading what's on the screen unless I riff on something or if Kurt has something he wants to interrupt me about and ask me about, which is fine. But don't be surprised that that's what's going on. Okay, so should we begin? Please. Okay, so this comes in various acts, historical acts. I think there'll be some history here that almost nobody listening to this is aware of. Historians of physics are aware of it, but it's not usually talked about. So we're going to start in 1905. The Annus Mirabilis, when Einstein proved that there were atoms and developed the special theory of relativity and proved E equals MC squared, and on top of that, really began quantum theory with his paper on the photoelectric effect.
So let's just begin there. So although Planck is usually credited with being the originator of quantum theory because of work he did on thermal radiation and black body radiation in 1900, I think it's really not fair to say that Planck began what became what we now think of as quantum theory. Why? He was doing some statistical calculations in a normal way for a classical physicist doing statistical calculations. He knew what he was trying to get. He was trying to get a certain spectrum of radiation for black body radiation. He found that he could get the right answer out if instead of taking a limit going to zero, which is what you'd normally do, he stopped at a certain point. And so he stopped. And that point had little finite regions of phase space, which were characterized by this Planck constant H. He knew that gave him the result he wanted.
It's not clear that he thought that what he was doing was quantizing anything.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the lecture’s goal and overview of EPR and Bell’s significance?
0:00–18:58
2
How did Einstein’s 1905 photoelectric insight lead to wave-particle discussions?
18:58–1:33:50
3
What is the EPR reality criterion and why is it argued to be analytic?
1:33:50–1:38:47
4
How does EPR use locality (no spooky action at a distance) to infer incompleteness?
1:38:47–1:47:30
5
Why does EPR focus on momentum and position correlations to claim simultaneous reality?
1:47:30–1:58:00
6
Does EPR assume determinism or counterfactual definiteness, and how did Bohr and others respond?
1:58:00–2:58:58
Speakers
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