Quantum theory was first devised more than a hundred years ago, but even experts still have little idea what it means, according to a poll reported in a recent, and unusually entertaining, preprint on the physics arXiv server1.
The tongue-in-cheek poll of 33 key thinkers on the fundamentals of quantum theory shows that opinions on some of the most profound questions in the field are fairly evenly split over several quite different answers.
For example, votes were roughly evenly split between those who believe that, in some cases, “physical objects have their properties well defined prior to and independent of measurement” and those who believe that they never do. And despite the famous idea that observation of quantum systems plays a key role in determining their behaviour, 21% felt that “the observer should play no fundamental role whatsoever”.
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