[FOM] Quantum mechanics solved(?)

[Ryan Paul Nurmela]

There are all sorts of problems associated with the Bohmian version of 
QM.  It is really a step back from the developments of QFT.  It is 
non-relativistic, introduces spin in an ad-hoc manner, asks us to 
believe in yet another strange wave thing, and fails to predict or 
describe the symmetries of particles found in nature.  Additionally it 
offers no further insights onto the quantum world.  It is merely another 
way of looking at the world, which has failed to produce any 
considerable advances in QM since its inception.  Furthermore, it is a 
philosophically silly idea that some particles like to "cooperate" with 
some guiding wave. 

It is rather unsettling to me that the very "hidden" variables used by 
Bohm are those of position.  Yes the choice of position allows one to 
claim that QM is a lot like classical mechanics.  But due to the fact 
that the Bohmian world is only non-relativistic, the choice of the 
particles' positions as the hidden variables is a poor one.  Those 
variables are by fiat non-relativistic and even IF one devised a 
relativistic version of them, they would still be by definition 100% 
local variables in the context of general relativity, forcing any 
relationship over them to be time-like not space-like as required.  Now, 
it was Bell himself who explicitly showed that the proper choice of 
hidden variables must be non-local/space-like, which makes sense if one 
wants to allow the sort of predictions that QM is famous for.  As far as 
I know there hasn't been an offering of a more appropriate version of 
hidden variables that would keep the Bohm world alive. 

With all of the philosophical and mathematical problems associated with 
QFT considered, they still don't make a case for belief in Bohm's 
version of QM or in hidden variables. 

Ryan Nurmela