A radical vision of quantum reality

If we admit that quantum numbers are the true essence of reality – not particles, space or time – then a surprising and beautiful new vision of reality opens up to us

Many have pinpointed the birth of quantum mechanics to the small, treeless island of Helgoland, where a young Werner Heisenberg went in the summer of 1925. There, he sketched out the basics of what would become our most brilliant and successful way of explaining reality. At the heart of his approach was the decision to focus exclusively on what observers would find when they measured particles.

Beach Basket Chairs on Sandy Beach, Helgoland, SH, Duitsland by Dick Scholten: https://www.pexels.com/photo/beach-basket-chairs-on-sandy-beach-19348222/

It was a flash of genius – but it has also tied physicists up in knots for 100 years. Much of the trouble comes down to questions about what an observer is and what exactly constitutes an observation. Are we to believe that reality is somehow contingent on us looking at it?

I believe it is now time to move on from this metaphysical mess. I have thought about quantum theory for much of my career and I have come to believe we don’t need observers – it makes no sense to talk about them. There is a much more consistent and reasonable way to describe the quantum world that I would like to share with you now, together with the three clinching experiments that can prove my case.

While this framework, in my opinion, makes a lot of logical sense, it takes us into unfamiliar territory. It’s not just observers that don’t exist – there are no particles either. And space and time? Well, we will get to them. These are deep waters, to be sure, but it is worth wading in because, as we do so, we find clues to what might lie beyond quantum theory as we know it.

Read the full article in New Scientist (subscriber access required).