Quantum Physics Is An Unnecessary Complication, Physicists Say

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]No one really understands quantum physics, they say. Well, two physicists from MIT have finally made sense of it, or so they claim. Quantum mechanics may be unnecessary because it can be obtained from non-quantum classical physics. Classical physics can explain quantum weirdness, study shows, is how the press release put it. Then again, press releases are written to make everything sound revolutionary.

[00:00:26]Somewhere there's probably a press release saying new stapler changes our understanding of office supplies. Still, I did have a look at the paper and it does look interesting indeed. They did it by improving on fineman's path integral which is a big deal already.

[00:00:42]But any such bridge between quantum and non-quantum physics could also help with quantum gravity. So here is a brief summary. Quantum physics has some peculiar features that we don't observe in everyday life. Notably, objects can do multiple things at the same time, such as going both left and right, which is called a superposition. They must also obey the uncertainty principle, which means that you can't both know where an object is and where it's going.

[00:01:10]This is also true for my hair in humid weather. But what I think is by far the weirdest part of quantum physics is that the act of observation changes what a quantum object does faster than light.

[00:01:23]Fineman had a clever idea for how to make quantum physics more intuitive, which was by using path integrals. For a path integral, you deal with pointlike particles that have a definite position and velocity or momentum respectively.

[00:01:38]The price you have to pay for this is that these particles don't move like we're used to objects moving. When we say throw a ball, then the ball takes one particular path that's determined by its initial position and velocity. In the fineman path integral, the particles can take any path. For each path, one calculates a complex number called a phase and then one sums up all the phases. From this, one gets the probability of observing the particle in any one particular place. Okay, I admit that this doesn't sound any more understandable than just saying here's the wave function and here is the shredding equation. Now deal with it.

[00:02:16]But fineman integrals have the advantage of starting with particles that have position and momentum. The authors of the new paper now say actually we can make the path integral even less quantum and still get the same result. They say we don't need all possible paths. We can take only the standard non-quantum paths. All we need to do is assign each path a probability. Then we add all the paths together in a different way than Fineman did it to get the right result.

[00:02:48]So we still have multiple paths, but this is because we have a probability for each path and don't know exactly where the particle goes. And the particles on each path behave in a non-quantum way. In the paper, they work through some famous examples. The double slit experiment, atomic energy spectra, even Bell inequality. It all works out.

[00:03:09]If this was true, this would be a big deal. Not just because it would mean that quantum physics is an unnecessary complication, which would be awkward because we'd have spent a century arguing over nothing, but also on a practical level because it would hugely simplify the calculation of path integrals. I'd go so far as to say this would be the biggest advancement in quantum physics in decades. This is a peer-reviewed paper in a decent journal.

[00:03:37]The problem is I think their maths is just wrong. This procedure only happens to work in the examples that they look at because they basically put in the solution by hand. I'm afraid I have to give this paper a 10 out of 10 on the meter. So why am I telling you about this is because after scratching my head over this for an hour or so and finally hitting on the major problem, I piped the paper into chat GPT which immediately flagged the same problem.

[00:04:08]Claude arrived at the same conclusion pretty much instantaneously and so did Grock. Not only did they all agree with each other and with me that the paper's wrong, we all agreed on exactly where it goes wrong and why. Does this prove that it's indeed wrong? No. But you'd think that this is a rather basic test that at this point any journal should be doing.

[00:04:33]Also, in all honesty, it makes me question my own relevance. I mean, I read the paper because it's closely related to my own research and still Claude Grock and Chad GPT figured out in seconds what took me an hour. They still suck at writing, though, which is why I've decided to write another book before it's too late. I'll tell you more about this some other time. My message for today is that it's easier to get rid of quantum physicists than of quantum physics. Science needs problem solvers, people like you. If you want to turn your talent into hands-on practical knowledge, I recommend that you check out Brilliant. Brilliant offers interactive courses on topics in science, computer science, and mathematics. Let you build up your knowledge systematically to true mastery. The courses adapt to each learner's background, skill level, and pace, and they constantly add new content, like this course about digital circuits that explains how computers really work. They also have super useful courses on artificial intelligence and probability and chance. The courses on Brilliant are so well done. They really click into my brain. Sounds good. I hope it does. You can try Brilliant for free for a full 30 days. And if you use my link, brilliant.org/sabena or scan the QR code, you'll get 20% off the annual premium subscription with unlimited access. Thanks for watching.

[00:06:04]See you tomorrow.