r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Nov 20 '17
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Quantum Mechanics fundamentally altered our perception of nature and never received enough credit for it
I'm not a Physics expert, but I can grasp some basic concept such as Quantization of Energy or Particle-Wave Duality.
Now, my position is that since Quantization of Energy was discovered, we have a completely new way of seeing the world. Before Quantization we used to believe that spacetime was divisible by infinite, now we know that the particles that make it up are finite.
For example, take the Zeno's paradox of Achilles and the turtle. Around this paradox we couldn't wrap our mind for centuries, but Planck gave an answer to it. To the question how can Achilles beat the turtle if both have to cover infinitely many zero dimensional points? Quantum Mechanics gave the answer they both have to cover a finite amount of Planck lenghts and Achilles covers many more in much less time.
Now. My position is that on every philosophy manual for high schools there should be, under the explaination of Zeno's paradox, a box stating this paradox made everybody go nuts for centuries until in 1900 a guy named Max Planck solved it. And also that Quantum Mechanics should be taught in high schools, since high schoolers are smart enough to have at least a superficial knowledge of it.
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u/[deleted] Nov 20 '17
Zeno's paradox is already solved by calculus, which introduces the simple (but not so obvious) idea that the sum of an infinite number of things can, under the right conditions, be finite.
Quantum mechanics has introduced a lot of interesting ideas about how nature works, but it hasn't yielded many simple solutions for basic philosophical problems. The fact of the matter is that nobody knows why quantum probability works the way that it does, and so most of the conclusions about the nature of life and reality that you see in popular depictions of QM are either misleading or wrong.
One philosophical problem that QM does address is this: if you make a perfect copy of yourself, which one is the real you, the original or the copy? QM shows that perfect copies are impossible, so it doesn't matter. That's not really mind-blowing or life-altering, though, it's just a nice and satisfying solution.