Quantum Mechanics has been likened to a giant on earthen feet: extraordinarily successful in many domains of physics, the most precise theory of Mankind, but with unsolved fundamental questions. People are still discussing:
- what is the meaning of the wave function?
- does a state describe a system by itself or our knowledge of it?
- do measurements happen without conscious observers?
- can quantum correlations transmit information (or something else) faster than light?
During the winter term 2016/17, a course at University of Potsdam has presented a few interpretations that have been developed over the years and that have lead, in some cases, to theories that can be experimentally checked. The course tried to provide a critical survey of
- the wave-particle dualism
- the collapse of the wave function
- the randomness of measured values
- experiments with single quantum systems