I've been thinking lately about how some popsci has promoted this harmful view that quantum mechanics (QM) is esoteric, mysterious, and fully understood only by a select few physicists. Let me explain a couple things about QM that I think don't get a lot of notice. Short thread!

So the thing about QM is that it's not mysterious. In fact, the math behind QM is *incredibly* well understood. It's linear algebra, functional analysis, and differential equations. These areas of math give us a very firm footing to understand the world of quantum mechanics.

At its heart, quantum mechanics is the physics of waves applied to matter. If you can accept that matter has the ability to exhibit wave-like behavior, all of QM makes sense. This is a deep idea, but it's far cry from "if you think you understand QM, you don't."

Furthermore, QM is a phenomenally successful model and framework. Almost a century of experiment has agreed with QM and demonstrated the validity of new predictions from QM, which is super cool!

I should also say, there's no disagreement between physicists or scientists on how to do QM. Everyone in the world agrees on how to do the calculations, which has given rise to the infamous phrase "shut up and calculate."

Where there is contention sometimes is how we interpret predictions. The mainstream interpretation is the Copenhagen interpretation, but you're free to pick others. A different interpretation changes your perspective of a calculation, but it does not fundamentally change it.

For instance, the many-world interpretation argues that every time a measurement of a quantum system is made, a new universe is created. Certainly this affects your view of the prediction, but it does not fundamentally change the value of said result, if that makes sense.

I'd love for any philosophers of science to chime in, as well as other physicists!