What: Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (PHYS 490 / PHYS 773)
Where: Perimeter Institute
When: Winter 2005
Who:
Joseph Emerson, Raymond Laflamme (chief instructors)
David Wallace (The many-worlds interpretation)
Sheldon Goldstein (The de Broglie-Bohm interpretation)
Leslie Ballentine (The Statistical Interpretation)
Philip Pearle (Spontaneous Collapse Models)
Anton Zeilinger (Experimental Interlude I)
Robert Griffiths (The Consistent Histories Interpretation)
Alain Aspect (Experimental Interlude)
Lucien Hardy, Matthew Leifer (Axioms and Logic)
Antony Valentini (Advanced Topics in Hidden Variables)
At the end of the course, a survey was taken of the beliefs of the course participants (both students and researchers). Each person was allowed to submit one vote for their “favourite” interpretation (i.e., “the most likely interpretation to really explain what’s going on”) and one vote against their “least favourite” interpretation (i.e., “a waste of time and shouldn’t be supported”). Votes against were then subtracted from votes in favour.
The class was not large enough to be statistically significant, but the results are interesting nonetheless. Among the students, the “Agnostic” interpretation was the most popular (3 in favour, 0 against), while the “Many Worlds” interpretation was by far the least popular (0 in favour, 6 against). Among the professors and researchers, the “Operational Aproach” was the most popular (3 in favour, 0 against) and “Many Worlds” was again the most disliked (1 in favour, 3 against).
