At an old job I worked on atomic interferometry R&D. We were developing atomic clocks and atomic accelerometers for practical applications. In that field, pretty much every advance is intelligently designed in advance using an analysis involving stereotypical quantum-mechanics analysis (bras and kets and Hamiltonians). For example, here are my former coworkers calculating small correction terms in the scale factor of atomic accelerometers: Analytical framework for dynamic light pulse atom interferometry at short interrogation times (Stoner et al., 2011). Everyone in the field does this type of analysis all the time, and this activity is invaluable for inventing, designing, debugging, and optimizing the instruments.
We don’t have a counterfactual of people trying to invent and design atomic clocks or atomic accelerometers at the modern performance state-of-the-art without knowing anything about quantum mechanics or atomic physics. Seems implausible, right? Well, realistically, if people were messing around in that area without knowing quantum mechanics and atomic physics, they would probably just wind up inventing large parts of quantum mechanics and atomic physics in the course of trying to understand their instruments.
As another example: our understanding of orbital mechanics preceded going to the moon, and I don’t think it’s plausible that people would have made it to the moon without already understanding orbital mechanics, and if people were trying to launch things into space without understanding orbital mechanics, realistically they would just wind up inventing orbital mechanics in the course of trying to solve their engineering problems.
At an old job I worked on atomic interferometry R&D. We were developing atomic clocks and atomic accelerometers for practical applications. In that field, pretty much every advance is intelligently designed in advance using an analysis involving stereotypical quantum-mechanics analysis (bras and kets and Hamiltonians). For example, here are my former coworkers calculating small correction terms in the scale factor of atomic accelerometers: Analytical framework for dynamic light pulse atom interferometry at short interrogation times (Stoner et al., 2011). Everyone in the field does this type of analysis all the time, and this activity is invaluable for inventing, designing, debugging, and optimizing the instruments.
We don’t have a counterfactual of people trying to invent and design atomic clocks or atomic accelerometers at the modern performance state-of-the-art without knowing anything about quantum mechanics or atomic physics. Seems implausible, right? Well, realistically, if people were messing around in that area without knowing quantum mechanics and atomic physics, they would probably just wind up inventing large parts of quantum mechanics and atomic physics in the course of trying to understand their instruments.
As another example: our understanding of orbital mechanics preceded going to the moon, and I don’t think it’s plausible that people would have made it to the moon without already understanding orbital mechanics, and if people were trying to launch things into space without understanding orbital mechanics, realistically they would just wind up inventing orbital mechanics in the course of trying to solve their engineering problems.