| Date: | Wed, 20 Apr 2011 |
| From: | Jennifer Park |
| Subject: | Anand Oza @ SPAMS Tomorrow, 4-231, **5:45PM** |
Hi all,
This week in SPAMS we have Anand Oza, who will be talking about Quantum
Mechanics vs Stochastic Mechanics. We will all take votes on which is better
at the end.
Note: Because of the Simons Lecture, we will be starting the talk at **5:45pm**
this week only, same room (4-231).
See you there!
-Elette & Jenn
----------------------------
Quantum Mechanics vs. Stochastic Mechanics
The Schrodinger equation is a PDE that describes the evolution of a wave
function \psi(x,t) in quantum mechanics. We're all comfortable with PDEs, but
the strange thing is that \psi has a probabilistic interpretation. In fact, one
of the postulates of quantum mechanics is that |\psi|^2 is the probability
density function of the particle! This makes many people uncomfortable, and
people have been searching for alternate theories for over 80 years.
One of these theories is stochastic mechanics, pioneered by
mathematician/physicist Ed Nelson. In this talk, I will give a brief
description of stochastic mechanics, and perhaps I will say something about its
various drawbacks. *Please note:* No background in quantum mechanics or
stochastic mechanics is assumed, necessary, or desired; I will develop
everything we need in the talk.
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