Book Review: The 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award, '100 Years of Quantum Mechanics' (by Humitaka Sato, Seidosha, 2024)
Professor Humitaka Sato's book, '100 Years of Quantum Mechanics' (Seidosha, 2024), has been awarded the 78th Mainichi Publishing Culture Award (Natural Sciences category).
This book delves deeply into the century-long progress of quantum mechanics and clearly depicts its essence. It is a volume packed with Professor Sato's extensive knowledge and insight, and its structure is appealing and accessible not only to experts but also to general readers. This award is a result of the widespread recognition of the professor's contributions, including his outreach in modern physics, and I offer my heartfelt congratulations.
Professor Sato is globally known as a theorist in astrophysics and has left behind numerous achievements, including the discovery of the exact solution to Einstein's equations in general relativity, known as the 'Tomimatsu-Sato solution,' and research on the period of 'recombination of the universe,' when the high-temperature plasma that blocked the path of light in the Big Bang universe disappeared. Furthermore, as an excellent educator, he has continued to pose questions that get to the core of physics to younger researchers, providing guidance that encourages deep contemplation and a spirit of inquiry.
I received a complimentary copy of the award-winning '100 Years of Quantum Mechanics' upon its publication. A chapter I found particularly noteworthy is the one focusing on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics. This chapter discusses in detail the historical transition of debates surrounding the essence of measurement in quantum mechanics. I am deeply honored that he introduced my book, 'Introduction to Modern Quantum Mechanics' (Kodansha Scientific), as a new style of textbook by a new generation of authors. I am deeply grateful that Professor Sato dedicated space in his own work to discuss a textbook by a younger researcher.
I would like to quote a relevant part from '100 Years of Quantum Mechanics.' First, as a proposal and message regarding the future of quantum mechanics education, there is the following description:
From Quantum Objects to Quantum Information
I believe that textbooks for learning quantum mechanics will change significantly within about ten years. I also believe that they must change.
On the other hand, to achieve this, we must overcome the enormous resistance in the consciousness of physicists to date, and it will likely only progress through a generational change.
In the future, as Popper says, 'physics may become a base for subjectivist philosophy.' How will the consciousness of most researchers change? The way textbooks are written will influence this.
Physics is a discipline that explores the 'principles' of 'things,' but in quantum mechanics, it is striking how the view of those 'things' has changed significantly over the last 100 years. Professor Humitaka Sato first takes up the work of Steven Weinberg, a giant of 20th-century theoretical physics, and introduces his perspective on the measurement problem in quantum mechanics at the time. At that time, the measurement problem in quantum mechanics was in the midst of great confusion. Weinberg also left comments bordering on anguish in his work regarding that chaotic situation. After that description, Professor Sato introduces my book, 'Introduction to Modern Quantum Mechanics,' as a textbook refreshed with a modern approach, as follows:
Though it may be a step down compared to the master Weinberg, let us look at 'Introduction to Modern Quantum Mechanics' by Masahiro Hotta, a textbook by a new generation. The treatment of the 'measurement problem' here, or 'collapse,' is surprisingly simple, almost to the point of being anticlimactic.
(After quoting Hotta's Quantum Mechanics) It is this simple if you do not view state vectors or density matrices as things that exist in the external world. While the probability distribution for each face of a die was one-sixth, if you roll it and the result is 3, the probability distribution 'collapses' to 1 for the state of 3 and 0 for the others.
It is difficult to explain why a ghost can float as a physical phenomenon, but if the ghost is something in your head, there is no need to worry about it.
In other words, as written in my book, not only are state vectors and wave functions not real, but the 'measurement problem' itself is nothing more than a ghost, and from the standpoint of empirical science, the problem did not even exist in the first place. For more details, please refer to my article below.
Regarding the situation of quantum mechanics at the time, Professor Sato cites philosophers such as Kitaro Nishida as examples, noting that while many so-called humanities intellectuals easily accepted quantum mechanics, most physicists 'offered repeated resistance and were only forced by various experimental results to swallow it at the end of the 20th century.' He also deeply examines the attitude of 'shy realists' held by these physicists of the previous century. If one accepts the experimental results of the violation of Bell's inequality at face value, it has been clear since that time that the concept of reality has already been denied. Nevertheless, it was a 'sad' situation where many physicists could not completely let go of that concept of reality. These physicists continued to hold a strong belief that the physical world 'exists,' while unable to wipe away their discomfort with the uncertainty and the role of observation indicated by quantum mechanics. This conflict of the 'shy realists' tells us how much the measurement problem in quantum mechanics influenced the depths of the physicists' minds.
However, now in the 21st century, quantum mechanics has been reconstructed and deeply understood from a new perspective called 'quantum information.' I will quote a few more passages from Professor Sato's latest work.
'Quantum mechanics is information theory'
The mystery raised by EPR has been deepened as a quantum 'theory of information' since the beginning of the 21st century, following its elucidation through experiments.
The 'theory of information' means that it has become clear that mathematical quantities such as state vectors and wave functions that appear in the mathematical theory of quantum mechanics are not expressions of reality, but a 'theory of information' about reality.
In other words, quantum information began after being granted a 'noren' (shop curtain) from the long-established physics firm. However, in the distant future when new quantum technology has become a commodity, a subversion might occur where quantum information sits in the chair of the physics firm, and particle theory and superstring theory are relegated to a minor branch of the quantum information firm.
It is now clear that to express this property, it is more appropriate to call it 'quantum information' rather than perceiving things in quantum mechanics as 'things'.
Also, at the end of 'The Century of Physics' (Kodansha Academic Library), which was recently supplemented and published as a paperback, Professor Sato mentions the possibility that 'Machism,' by Ernst Mach, who was criticized by Einstein and Planck in the previous century, will revive in future physics. In particular, he argues that future physics will ultimately close its circle through that Machism, and I personally deeply empathize with this point.
Machism is a position that attempts to understand physical phenomena based on observation and experience, and I also believe it is a philosophy that should be re-evaluated as we seek new positivist interpretations in quantum mechanics, where the concept of local reality has been denied. Professor Sato's insight provides a new perspective for the future based on the historical context of physics, and it is a very interesting consideration.
I would like to reiterate that Professor Humitaka Sato's book '100 Years of Quantum Mechanics,' which surveys and organizes the history of quantum mechanics to date and appeals to the importance of future developments in quantum mechanics, especially the need for a renewal of education and textbooks, is truly a work worthy of the Mainichi Publishing Culture Award. It is a very meaningful content for readers. I hope that Professor Sato's proposed perspective will influence new teaching methods and the nature of textbooks in quantum mechanics education as well. It is a great joy for the entire physics community that such an excellent cultural contribution by Professor Sato has been recognized with this award.
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