Are All Particles Real?

Abstract

In Bohmian mechanics elementary particles exist objectively, as point particles moving according to a law determined by a wavefunction. In this context, questions as to whether the particles of a certain species are real--questions such as, Do photons exist? Electrons? Or just the quarks?--have a clear meaning. We explain that, whatever the answer, there is a corresponding Bohm-type theory, and no experiment can ever decide between these theories. Another question that has a clear meaning is whether particles are intrinsically distinguishable, i.e., whether particle world lines have labels indicating the species. We discuss the intriguing possibility that the answer is no, and particles are points--just points.

11 pages LaTeX, no figures; v2 minor changes

References in corpus (6)

• Quantum Equilibrium and the Origin of Absolute Uncertainty
• Bohmian Mechanics Revisited
• Subquantum Information and Computation
• A generalization of the Fenyes-Nelson stochastic model of quantum mechanics
• Remarks on identical particles in de Broglie-Bohm theory
• Quantum Hamiltonians and Stochastic Jumps

Cited by in corpus (10)

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• The Quantum Formalism and the GRW Formalism
• Quantum Mechanics in Multiply-Connected Spaces
• Epistemology of Wave Function Collapse in Quantum Physics
• Leibnizian relationalism for general relativistic physics
• Lorentz-invariant, retrocausal, and deterministic hidden variables
• Stochastic mechanics, trace dynamics, and differential space - a synthesis