this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2024
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Say we have all the empirical evidence from 19th-century science prior to the observation of the wavelike diffraction of matter particles, plus 21st-century math and theory to construct an alternative explanation.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sure, if you're making up all the rules you can make up all the rules. Matter could be composed of the body of a dead god, for example.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Whatever rules you make up must be consistent with macroscopic observation, though. So if you postulate that matter is formed from the flesh of a dead god, you still need to prove that it doesn’t need to quiver.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] agamemnonymous 3 points 3 days ago

To contain the arrows of time and entropy, obviously.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

To explain any macroscopic effects that necessarily depend on matter waves. If there are any. Which is my question.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago

This is a pretty difficult question to answer since all phenomena are quantum. A star is powered by nuclear (quantum) fusion. Permanent magnets depend on the quantized angular momentum of electrons. Could these phenomena be allowed by something other than quantum mechanics? Maybe. But a constant goal of science is to find the simplest explanation for all we observe, meaning that whatever alternative explanations you come up with, should they be correct, then taking them all together will constitute a theory that at least looks an awful lot like matter waves (mathematically, at least).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Superconductors and Bose-Einstein condensates are both macroscopic phenomena that result from coherent matter waves.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Maybe there aren't any in our conceptual universe.