>On Mar 23, 10:25 am, Sir Frederick fuzzysys.com> wrote:

>> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726485.700
>> Quantum randomness may not be random
>> 22 March 2008
>> From New Scientist Print Edition. Subscribe and get 4 free issues.
>> Mark Buchanan
>>

>
>********************
>Even so, most physicists are not yet ready to embrace the new models,
>because one crucial problem remains: Bohmian theory, critics
>point out, doesn't make any predictions that differ from those of
>ordinary quantum mechanics. "The theory is successful only because
>it keeps standard wave mechanics unchanged," says Dieter Zeh of the
>University of Heidelberg in Germany. He adds that the rest of
>the theory is biased towards the ideas of classical physics and is
>"observationally meaningless".
>
>That objection isn't really fair, say Bohmian supporters. After all,
>one might equally argue that the standard theory doesn't go
>beyond Bohm's theory. "If some historical circumstances had been only
>slightly different," says physicist Hrvoje Nikolic of the
>Rudjer Boskovic Institute in Zagreb, Croatia, "then it would have been
>very likely that Bohm's deterministic interpretation would
>have been proposed and accepted first, and would be dominating
>today."
>
>"If historical circumstances had been slightly different, then the
>deterministic view of the universe would be dominating
>today"Philosopher of science Arthur Fine of the University of
>Washington in Seattle says that ideological objections, not technical
>ones, have been the main factor in the reluctance to accept Bohmian
>models. "There are some real criticisms one could raise," he
>says, "but these aren't the ones you find in the physics literature
>over the past 80 years." That's why he doubts further
>theoretical development of Bohmian mechanics will change physicists'
>minds. "Only new experimental results will do that," he says.
>
>Such experiments might seem impossible, as Bohmian models are supposed
>to make all the same predictions as ordinary quantum theory.
>Yet some physicists, such as Antony Valentini of the Perimeter
>Institute, are now suggesting that the form of Bohmian models
>naturally points to ways in which the universe might depart from the
>standard predictions - with experimentally observable
>consequences.
>*************************
>
>
>This is really what it comes down to. Either a model has some value in
>enabling us to make better predictions, or it doesn't. If the efforts
>to achieve an empirical distinction are fruitless, what then? Doesn't
>it tell us that we are creating an artificial distinction---that just
>like the cat, both dead and alive, the universe is both random and
>deterministic, and we can't open the box?
>
>-tg
>
>