Quantum Physics Can Explain Earth’s Weather

I found the following from Scientific American fascinating:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/quantum-physics-can-explain-earths-weather/

Unfortunately it may (or may not) be behind a paywall as I am a subscriber to Scientific American.

Let me know if you cant read it and I will post a precis.

Thanks
Bill

Readable, interesting and also posted here.
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-quantum-physics-describes-earths-weather-patterns-20230718/

Interesting!
And I also thought the animation at the top of the article was fascinating!

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but that's not really quantum physics. No ##\hbar##, no Born rule, no entanglement. Only a similar wave equation. Which is cool enough, but it's misleading to call it quantum.

Demystifier said:

Perhaps I'm stating the obvious, but that's not really quantum physics. No ##\hbar##, no Born rule, no entanglement. Only a similar wave equation. Which is cool enough, but it's misleading to call it quantum.

I think the article’s science is more “quantum” than some other articles in the Forum being claimed as “philosophical,” a word hugely overused and perhaps misused.

apostolosdt said:

I think the article’s science is more “quantum” than some other articles in the Forum being claimed as “philosophical,” a word hugely overused and perhaps misused.

What word is overused/misused, “quantum” or “philosophical”?

Nice and informative read. Came across many technical terms prio unknown to me.

Demystifier said:

What word is overused/misused, “quantum” or “philosophical”?

How come "quantum" can be misused in a physics forum? And by the way, I never understood in what context the adjective "philosophical" appears in physics discussions. That's definitively "overused".

apostolosdt said:

How come "quantum" can be misused in a physics forum? And by the way, I never understood in what context the adjective "philosophical" appears in physics discussions. That's definitively "overused".

In this thread it was you who first used that word. So if you want to understand why is this word overused in physics discussions, start with some introspection. Eventually you may discover that this word is mostly used not by those who like "philosophy" in physics, but by those who hate it. Those who like it usually use different words, like foundations of physics, conceptual problems in physics, etc. My own post, which apparently somehow provoked you even though I didn't use the p-word, was indeed written from a foundational-conceptual point of view. And yet, if you read it again, you will see that it was fully scientific and physical.

Demystifier said:

In this thread it was you who first used that word. So if you want to understand why is this word overused in physics discussions, start with some introspection. Eventually you may discover that this word is mostly used not by those who like "philosophy" in physics, but by those who hate it.

Now "philosophy" just means "love of wisdom," so how can you hate it? But it seems indeed badly overused and misused in general, not just on this forum. I wonder whether analytical philosophy is to blame for that. It is as if computer science would have taken over mathematics, disguised behind a name like "synthetic mathematics," and started to badmouth analysis, infinity and set theory as unprecise, ambiguous and generally misguided. My impression is that linguistic and metamathematics are a huge part of analytical philosophy, and perhaps most of the stuff called "philosophy" in this forum should also better be just called metamathematics.

gentzen said:

Now "philosophy" just means "love of wisdom," so how can you hate it? But it seems indeed badly overused and misused in general, not just on this forum. I wonder whether analytical philosophy is to blame for that. [...]

In this Forum, the ease with which proper physics issues are designated as "philosophical" and then that label being defended with gusto or passion reminiscent of football fans is, at least, strange.

Otherwise, I have no objection or remarks on what you're saying, for those topics--analytic philosophy and metamathematics---are not my field.

apostolosdt said:

In this Forum, the ease with which proper physics issues are designated as "philosophical" and then that label being defended with gusto or passion reminiscent of football fans is, at least, strange.

If you're going to make a claim like this, you need to back it up with some specific examples.

PeterDonis said:

If you're going to make a claim like this, you need to back it up with some specific examples.

I'm afraid I don't have the time to dig into older posts and I wouldn't like to start a discussion on that, but I may point out relevant passages in future posts. I'm sorry if that is not enough for you.

gentzen said:

I wonder whether analytical philosophy is to blame for that.

I would say that continental philosophy is the main culprit. Scientists generally don't know that there is a distinction between continental and analytic philosophy and think that all philosophy is like continental philosophy. They are not aware that philosophy in its analytic form can be quite rigorous.

That's true. The British philsophy of science has a much more "no-nonsense approach" than the continental tradition, which usually leads to confusion about science. Generally, I think it's much more worthwhile to read about the history of science than about the philosophy of science to understand, how our scientific knowledge came about.

vanhees71 said:

The British philsophy of science has a much more "no-nonsense approach"

Now I'm curious, is there an example of work in British philosophy of science that you appreciate?

Not a specific one, but usually when you read about philosophy of QT by British or American authors it's much less confusion than when you read "philosophers" like Bohr or Heisenberg ;-).

vanhees71 said:

Not a specific one, but usually when you read about philosophy of QT by British or American authors it's much less confusion than when you read "philosophers" like Bohr or Heisenberg ;-).

Maybe a good example is
https://www.amazon.com/dp/041512185X/?tag=pfamazon01-20
where Bohm is an American and Hiley a British.
(BTW, I was once sharing taxi with Hiley, he's a very witty guy.)

Well, ok. There are exceptions to the rule...

apostolosdt said:

I'm afraid I don't have the time to dig into older posts and I wouldn't like to start a discussion on that

Then please don't make claims like the one you made.

Demystifier said:

What word is overused/misused, “quantum” or “philosophical”?

Neither really. But they should NEVER occur in the same sentence :)