In the years since, the theory has been successfully extended to encompass every observed phenomenon. The biggest mystery in physics is the relationship between nonlocality and relativity. The basic equations have a preferred reference frame, but it’s undetectable. Everyone thinks that there must be a relativistic way to write the equations, but no-one knows how to do it.
One day, Bavid Dohm walks into the office of Huve Erett...
Bavid gestures to the paper he’d brought to Huve Erett. It is a short paper. The title reads, “The Solution to the Relativity Problem”. The body of the paper reads:
“There is no classical trajectory. The pilot wave already contains the world that we see, along with infinitely many others.”
“Let me make absolutely sure,” Erett says carefully, “that I understand you. You’re saying that there is no space-time, as we know it, separate from Hilbert space. There’s just the pilot wave, evolving according to the Schrodinger equation. But the pilot wave actually contains space-time—infinitely many space-times.”
“Right!” says Bavid.
“Where?” says Erett.
“Everywhere throughout configuration space!” says Bavid. “The configurations are the worlds.”
“But if every possible configuration exists, how do you predict anything?” asks Erett.
“Er, well, it’s not the configurations which are the worlds, then”, says Bavid. “It’s the blobs of amplitude hovering over the configurations.”
“I still don’t see how you make predictions. Or eliminate a universal time coordinate”, says Erett.
“Decoherence!” says Bavid. “If you don’t count the blobs where the amplitude really thins out, then the numbers come out correctly.”
“But the blobs are still there?” asks Erett.
“Yes… they’re just… thinner”, says Bavid.
“Why shouldn’t I count them, then?” asks Erett.
“Because the numbers won’t come out right otherwise!” says Bavid.
“I see”, says Erett. “And relativity? You did say this is a relativistic theory.”
“Yes, well, my idea is to get rid of time entirely”, says Bavid.
“Ah yes, the old ‘H=0’ approach. The pilot wave is a standing wave. But how is that relativistic? Relativity mingles space and time. H=0 just abolishes time and leaves space”, says Erett.
“Er...” says Bavid.
At which point Erett politely but firmly shows Mr Dohm out of his office.
In bohmian mechanics, the particles are purely epiphenomenal. Everything is indeed contained in the pilot wave. (If this weren’t true, it would not be a mere interpretation—it would have different predictions.)
Meanwhile, imagine yet another alternate Earth, where the very first physicists to notice nonlocality, said, “Holy brachiating orangutans, there’s a non-local force in Nature!”
In the years since, the theory has been successfully extended to encompass every observed phenomenon. The biggest mystery in physics is the relationship between nonlocality and relativity. The basic equations have a preferred reference frame, but it’s undetectable. Everyone thinks that there must be a relativistic way to write the equations, but no-one knows how to do it.
One day, Bavid Dohm walks into the office of Huve Erett...
Bavid gestures to the paper he’d brought to Huve Erett. It is a short paper. The title reads, “The Solution to the Relativity Problem”. The body of the paper reads:
“There is no classical trajectory. The pilot wave already contains the world that we see, along with infinitely many others.”
“Let me make absolutely sure,” Erett says carefully, “that I understand you. You’re saying that there is no space-time, as we know it, separate from Hilbert space. There’s just the pilot wave, evolving according to the Schrodinger equation. But the pilot wave actually contains space-time—infinitely many space-times.”
“Right!” says Bavid.
“Where?” says Erett.
“Everywhere throughout configuration space!” says Bavid. “The configurations are the worlds.”
“But if every possible configuration exists, how do you predict anything?” asks Erett.
“Er, well, it’s not the configurations which are the worlds, then”, says Bavid. “It’s the blobs of amplitude hovering over the configurations.”
“I still don’t see how you make predictions. Or eliminate a universal time coordinate”, says Erett.
“Decoherence!” says Bavid. “If you don’t count the blobs where the amplitude really thins out, then the numbers come out correctly.”
“But the blobs are still there?” asks Erett.
“Yes… they’re just… thinner”, says Bavid.
“Why shouldn’t I count them, then?” asks Erett.
“Because the numbers won’t come out right otherwise!” says Bavid.
“I see”, says Erett. “And relativity? You did say this is a relativistic theory.”
“Yes, well, my idea is to get rid of time entirely”, says Bavid.
“Ah yes, the old ‘H=0’ approach. The pilot wave is a standing wave. But how is that relativistic? Relativity mingles space and time. H=0 just abolishes time and leaves space”, says Erett.
“Er...” says Bavid.
At which point Erett politely but firmly shows Mr Dohm out of his office.
In bohmian mechanics, the particles are purely epiphenomenal. Everything is indeed contained in the pilot wave. (If this weren’t true, it would not be a mere interpretation—it would have different predictions.)