Always believe someone who tells you that they don’t know what’s going on. Especially when that someone is one of the best trained and most intelligent people in the world. That’s why this story from Nature Briefing caught our attention as the week-ender for this session of blogs: What Does quantum Physics Mean anyway?

First sketched out a century ago, the equations at the heart of quantum mechanics underpin technologies from computer chips to medical-imaging machines. But no one seems to agree on how best to describe the physical reality that lies behind the maths. A Nature survey of more than 1,100 researchers — the largest ever on the subject — has revealed just how widely researchers vary in their interpretations of the most fundamental features of quantum experiments, and their confidence in their answers. [1]

The survey asked questions like “is there a real quantum world behind – or does all this work we’ve done only represent what’s inside our heads? What are the most favoured explanations for quantum theory? What is a wavefunction anyway? Is there a boundary between classical objects and quantum objects (i.e ,between the table you’re sitting at and the atoms it’s made from) And the answers that came back-and remember who gave them-read more like the responses to political opinion polls or market surveys about the best brands of instant custard.

From all of which we concluded the following.

1 If the brightest and the best think like this about something they have studied for decades, it suggests the rest of us might do well to be a little less opinionated on many things

2 Above all this includes certain journalists who think they know it all on things like climate change, vaccines and global warming

3 Watch the last episode of Jacob Bronowski‘s TV spectacular The Ascent of Man on You Tube. or one of the other streamers. It’s still good after 52 years [2]

4 There is still much out there to discover-as we tried to hint with our little blogs on Euler’s number and π(LSS 14 3 22; 16 4 24)

5 All knowledge exists within certain limits, and is probable. Of this last point, you may be certain

[1]https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02342-y?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=a8d315930b-nature-briefing-daily-20250730&utm_medium=email&utm_term=

[2]https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20p9h4

#quantum physics #uncertainty principle #knowledge #reason #science #nature