{"id":244101,"date":"2026-09-16T09:03:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/schrodingers-blunder-created-the-quantum-measurement-problem"},"modified":"2026-09-16T09:03:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T14:03:13","slug":"schrodingers-blunder-created-the-quantum-measurement-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/09\/schrodingers-blunder-created-the-quantum-measurement-problem","title":{"rendered":"Schr\u00f6dinger\u2019s blunder created the quantum measurement problem"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/schrodingers-blunder-created-the-quantum-measurement-problem.webp\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Quantum mechanics is seen as challenging the idea that science provides objective descriptions of reality outside of our minds. The \u201cmeasurement problem\u201d seems to suggest that the act of observation creates the outcome that is observed. But physicist Antony Valentini, whose Beyond the Quantum was hailed by Lee Smolin as \u201cthe best book written this century\u201d on quantum mechanics, argues that this picture rests on an enormous blunder by Erwin Schr\u00f6dinger. After Louis de Broglie predicted the wave-like trajectories of particles, Schr\u00f6dinger found the equation describing this. But whereas de Broglie envisaged particles riding on waves, Schr\u00f6dinger kept the waves and threw away the particles. That single decision birthed the measurement problem\u2014and it was completely unnecessary. Resurrect de Broglie\u2019s original particle-based theory, Valentini argues, and we can dispel quantum mystery.<\/p>\n<p>Antony Valentini will debate Sabine Hossenfelder and Philip Ball live at HowTheLightGetsIn Festival on September 19th, alongside hundreds of other debates, talks, music and comedy. Book your place <a href=\"https:\/\/howthelightgetsin.org\/festivals\/london\/events\/lost-in-the-quantum-world-50005\" target=\"\u201c_blank\u201d\">now<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Reality and the quantum.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Quantum mechanics is seen as challenging the idea that science provides objective descriptions of reality outside of our minds. The \u201cmeasurement problem\u201d seems to suggest that the act of observation creates the outcome that is observed. But physicist Antony Valentini, whose Beyond the Quantum was hailed by Lee Smolin as \u201cthe best book written this [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,42,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-information-science","category-media-arts","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}