Quantum mechanics is really hard

[chickenfeet]

I'm not kidding! I'm rusty of course but I've studied most of the mathematical prerequisites for QM. As well as the core stuff like vector spaces, Lagrangians and Fourier transforms, I took whole courses in functional analysis and probability theory. And still I find this stuff is so weird that my brain explodes every couple of paragraphs. It's less the mathematical formalism, it's the underlying weirdness (In contrast with General Relativity where the ideas make sense but I don't have enough algebraic topology or differential geometry to fully follow the formal argument). I completely understand why people who work with this stuff every day just fall back on the formalism and refuse to get involved with 'meaning'. Trouble is, I'm an inveterate ontologist. I had the same sort of problems with the 'classical' (Fisherian) approach to probability though that's a lot easier to resolve.

Comments

[panjianlien.livejournal.com]

You have my sympathy. I quit trying that kind of stuff after one particularly nasty brain-melty course worth of thermogoddamics.