The world is not real: quantum mechanics needs imaginary numbers | Armin Tavakoli | TEDxTUWien

Armin discusses the intertwined relationship between mathematics and physics. At TEDxTUWien 2022, he will tell the story of how the imaginary number, originally a controversial mathematical innovation, has now found its way into the foundations of quantum mechanics, our leading physics theory of the smallest things in nature.

Video produced by: Apehouse

[remomagalhaes]

Thanks for this important and revealing lecture

[yanntal]

You can still use 2 by 2 real rotation matrices instead of complex numbers. I don't understand why this is remarkable at all of course rotations describes real things... namely rotations

[TNYDCK]

Descartes said: "I think, therefore i is!"

[skistorm]

Questions how honkai starrail use this or brawl stars lore theories like from subzero turnip?

[clmasse]

What is mathematics in the first place? If you don't know, you can't understand why it is used in physics, even if you are a physicist. First thing.
Second, quantum mechanics doesn't need complex numbers more than classical mechanics. What makes it special is the projection postulate, not mathematics. It is a widespread misconception, but if you don't know, simply say "I don't know." Don't parrot and confuse people.

[TNYDCK]

If the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.

[madgepickles]

Math is not a human invention. Math is a description of the real world, in that way it is a science

[clmasse]

If maths is in physics, that doesn't entails it is in Nature, the map is not the territory. Quantum mechanics says nothing about the "reality" of Nature, it only describes what we observe. That's the drama with today's scientists who only know to calculate and absolutely nothing in philosophy or else. Whatever, they should stay in their specialty and compute, not rant and make fools of themselves

[Iamjamessmith]

If the world is not real, this speaker is not real either.

[I-M-.]

Just replace imaginary 'i' with the real matrix [0, 1; -1, 0] and double the number of equations you have.

Your welcome.

[QuicksilverSG]

The title of this video, "The world is not real", is highly misleading. The quantum wave-function, which describes the quantum state of a system under observaton, is a complex-valued function defined in Configuration Space rather than in the physical 3D universe we inhabit. However, physical measurements of a quantum system always produce solutions of the quantum wave-function that are real-valued. Thus the physical 3D universe is real, both in tangible and mathematical senses, while the quantum world of Configuration Space is complex-valued.