Since the quantum world is counter-intuitive, wouldn't be better to educate some students directly on quantum mechanics after math, skipping standard physics to prevent their minds to get too biased/shaped around and used to Newtonian reasoning?- by Viktor T.Toth - Quora Quora Question Review

This document contains a review of the answer by Viktor T. Toth on the question in Quora: "Since the quantum world is counter-intuitive, wouldn't be better to educate some students directly on quantum mechanics after math, skipping standard physics to prevent their minds to get too biased/shaped around and used to Newtonian reasoning?"
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Contents

• 1. Answer Review by Viktor T.Toth

Reflection

• Reflection 1 - Question Review

1. Answer Review by Viktor T. Toth

Well, here is the problem. Two problems, in fact:

• Quantum physics does not invalidate classical physics. Many problems in everyday life are solved using classical physics, and quantum physics adds nothing useful, just makes things unnecessarily (and hopelessly) complicated;
• The concepts of classical physics (Lagrangian and Hamiltonian physics, in particular) are essential to quantum physics. So I’d argue that it’s not so much when quantum physics is taught (it has to be taught after classical physics because it builds upon its concepts) but how it is taught.

As in many other areas of physics, it would help if quantum physics were taught without going through unnecessary historical detours and dead ends. Sure, explain why quantum physics is needed. What those classic experiments are that just cannot be explained using classical physics.

But the teaching of quantum physics should clearly explain where we are deviating from classical physics and why. This, in my opinion, is done most clearly by demonstrating how the formal Schrödinger equation can be recovered purely from classical physics through formal algebraic steps; but then how it can be reinterpreted, with additional solutions (which are linear combinations of classical solutions) that make no sense whatsoever in the classical world.

Emphasize, then, that this purely mathematical abstraction (no room for intuition here!) actually, accurately describes our physical world. That Nature is under no obligation to appeal to our intuition, and that from this point onward, the math needs to be trusted (after it is validated by experiment, of course).

If, instead, the “old” quantum theory is taught first (that is to say, all those experiments and empirical relationships that constituted the quantum theory back in the early 1900s before Schrödinger and Heisenberg), if Schrödinger’s equation is presented as an ad hoc thing or an equation that is obtained through ill-defined formal “promote-to-operator” rules, if the student is then hopelessly confused by silly, and completely unnecessary “interpretations”… then that student will be like I was for many years, wondering in the dark, trying to make sense of a confusing, incomprehensible mess, until (if he is lucky) he happens upon a few good books (Kleinert’s book on path integrals was one of the eye-openers for me, especially the introductory chapters) that finally help untangle this mess.

3.

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