Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified · HackerPapers discussions

Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — mentioned by the-last-user

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 11:10:08 GMT

Perhaps of your interest might be this work https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.10873v1 on why quantum physics needs complex numbers to work. Interesting noting though that as for solving polynomials, quantum physics might be also considered a “convenience” within the Copenhagen interpretation

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Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — mentioned by eigenket

Tue, 25 Apr 2023 10:24:20 GMT

This is your regularly scheduled reminder that the author of these papers (https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.10873, https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.15128), which this article is based on know very well that complex numbers have real matrix representations. What they add which your comment discounts is the locality structure of quantum mechanics, i.e. what happens when you combine multiple quantum systems. Specifically if the state of one system lives in A, and the state of another system lives in B then the state of a combined system lives in the tensor product A ⊗ B. If you do the trick where you…

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Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — mentioned by tsimionescu

Sun, 29 Aug 2021 16:04:28 GMT

Whole numbers can be defined and proven to be necessary to describe the world pretty easily. From there, rational numbers are trivial to define. Negative numbers are somewhat more abstract, but they have very intuitive definitions in many domains, such as accounting. It may be possible to avoid them in a theory of physics, though. The complex numbers (well, at least those with a rational imaginary part and a rational real part) have been recently proven to be necessary to describe the universe[0] (assuming quantum theory is correct). The irrational numbers are then are the only numbers that…

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Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — HN submission

Sat, 06 Mar 2021 21:18:55 GMT

Quantum physics needs complex numbers (2021)

1 point; 0 discussion replies on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.

Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — mentioned by eigenket

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 16:00:30 GMT

The paper is describing a test of a particular alternative to quantum mechanics called "real quantum mechanics", its rather more specific than you are suggesting https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.10873 I know a few of the people on that preprint, and I'm pretty certain they all know you can embed the complex numbers in the real 2x2 matrices ;) As an aside I'm pretty sure the matrix you need is [[0,-1],[1,0]], which squares to -I, unless you don't want to use matrix multiplication in your construction.

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Quantum theory based on real numbers can be experimentally falsified — HN submission

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 23:06:19 GMT

Quantum physics needs complex numbers

2 points; 1 discussion reply on HN. Paper and source history. A submission is not an endorsement.