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Can Fractals Make Sense of the Quantum World?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the cuz-i-sure-can't dept.

Keith found a New Scientist story about fractals and quantum theory. The article says "Take the mathematics of fractals into account, says Palmer, and the long-standing puzzles of quantum theory may be much easier to understand. They might even dissolve away."

7 of 236 comments (clear)

  1. Poppycock by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Using fractals as a way of viewing a problem can be useful, but it doesn't fundamentally offer any new ways to solve a problem over conventional methods.

    1. Re: Poppycock by Black+Parrot · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is an illuminating and interesting idea, and it may point directly to how we could measure both at the same time, which would make a lot more sense to some of us. Me included.

      Whence the presumption that "makes sense" is a relevant criterion for evaluating hypotheses?

      Our brains didn't evolve to operate on scales where quantum or cosmological phenomena are relevant. There's not the slightest reason to suppose that such phenomena, or their explanations, would "make sense" to us.

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    2. Re: Poppycock by GauteL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's not the slightest reason to suppose that such phenomena, or their explanations, would "make sense" to us.

      If we were always to accept that a solution would never make sense to us, we would have missed out on a lot of our scientific discoveries.

      Also, "reason to suppose" is not the only argument for investigating an issue. Sometimes "because it would be great if it was so" is an equally good reason.

      In this case, it would be fantastic if there is an explanation behind it that makes sense to us. It would make the theories immeasurably easier to work with and might provide us with answers we could otherwise not comprehend.

      Since it turns out that we have found many answers that "makes sense" to us in other areas of science, it is perfectly reasonable to hope that we can make sense of quantum mechanics one day as well, as long as we don't take for granted that there is a sensible explanation and mistake 'hope' for 'assumption'.

    3. Re: Poppycock by greg_barton · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Our brains didn't evolve to operate on scales where quantum or cosmological phenomena are relevant.

      Our brains didn't evolve in the sky, and yet we make machines that fly, and it sure "makes sense" to a whole lot of people.

    4. Re: Poppycock by cjfs · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your opinion is just as bad as those of the creationists in that if we can't comprehend it now, then we aren't meant to comprehend it.

      I think he's referring to the feeling that we need to break things down into traditional categories (think wave vs particle) for them to "make sense" on an intuitive level. This is very different than never being able to comprehend them.

  2. Re:All it really means. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Uh? Some fractals are the infinite sum of a bunch of cosines. No "switch and loop and jump" statements -- just a plain sum of continuous functions. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weierstrass_function

  3. Re:All it really means. by tjstork · · Score: 3, Insightful

    He selects a subset of integers... if positive then... :-)

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