this post was submitted on 12 Dec 2023
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Science Memes

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I think a degree of shut up and calculate is needed, at least in the beginning. Without a solid math based understanding of the fundamentals, trying to prognosticate on the ‘meaning’ of it is inevitably going to fall into pop-sci style stuff. You’ve gotta know what you’re dealing with a little.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

I'm not so sure. I think a degree of shut up and calculate if you actually want to get a physicists level understanding, a large degree. But I strongly believe that it's no harder to give a clever layman a working understanding of the underlying concepts, in purely conceptual terms. Honestly, I think the reason the quantum mechanics has been so prone to pop-sci charlatans is that legitimate science communicators keep trying to explain it in interpretation-agnostic terms, which makes it sound far more mystical and paradoxical than it is.