“The actual heart of quantum mechanics is that the objects in its equations are connected to the observations very differently than the classical counterparts have been.”

— Luboš Motl

https://motls.blogspot.com/2018/09/why-string-theory-is-quantum-mechanics.html <br class="br"> The Reference Frame http://motls.blogspot.com/

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Luboš Motl13

Czech physicist and translator 1973

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“Certainly we do not need quantum mechanics for macroscopic objects, which are well described by classical physics – this is the reason why quantum mechanics seems so foreign to our everyday existence.”

Alain Aspect (1947) French physicist

"Introduction: John Bell and the second quantum revolution" (2004)

“Considering the pervasive importance of quantum mechanics in modern physics, it is odd how rarely one hears of efforts to test quantum mechanics experimentally with high precision.…The trouble is that it is very difficult to find any logically consistent generalization of quantum mechanics. One obvious target for generalization is the linearity of quantum mechanics, but if we arbitrarily add nonlinear terms to the Schrodinger equation, how do we know that the theory we obtain will have a sensible physical interpretation? At least in part, it is the dearth of generalized versions of quantum mechanics that has made it so hard to plan experimental tests of quantum mechanics.”

Steven Weinberg (1933) American theoretical physicist

"Testing Quantum Mechanics" http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0003491689902765, Annals of Physics (1989)

“It's kind of interesting to show that the strange features of quantum mechanics are actually observed. We still don't totally understand what it means.”

Leonard Mandel (1927–2001) German physicist

as quoted by James Glanz, in Leonard Mandel, 73, Revealer Of Light's Weirdness, Is Dead http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/13/nyregion/leonard-mandel-73-revealer-of-light-s-weirdness-is-dead.html?sec=&spon=, New York Times (Tuesday, February 13, 2001)

“People get a lot of confusion, because they keep trying to think of quantum mechanics as classical mechanics”

Sidney Coleman (1937–2007) American physicist

Quantum Mechanics in Your Face http://www.physics.harvard.edu/about/video.html, a lecture given by Sidney Coleman at the New England sectional meeting of the American Physical Society (Apr. 9, 1994)

“Causality applies only to a system which is left undisturbed. If a system is small, we cannot observe it without producing a serious disturbance and hence we cannot expect to find any causal connexion between the results of our observations. Causality will still be assumed to apply to undisturbed systems and the equations which will be set up to describe an undisturbed system will be differential equations expressing a causal connexion between conditions at one time and conditions at a later time. These equations will be in close correspondence with the equations of classical mechanics, but they will be connected only indirectly with the results of observations.”

Paul Dirac book Principles of Quantum Mechanics

I. The Principle of Superposition - 1. The Need for a Quantum Theory
The Principles of Quantum Mechanics (4th ed. 1958)

“To know the quantum mechanical state of a system implies, in general, only statistical restrictions on the results of measurements. It seems interesting to ask if this statistical element be thought of as arising, as in classical statistical mechanics, because the states in question are averages over better defined states for which individually the results would be quite determined. These hypothetical 'dispersion free' states would be specified not only by the quantum mechanical state vector but also by additional 'hidden variables' - 'hidden' because if states with prescribed values of these variables could actually be prepared, quantum mechanics would be observably inadequate.”

John S. Bell (1928–1990) Northern Irish physicist

On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics (1966)

“The quantum dualities, which are known as S-duality or U-duality, extend the classical T-duality and lead to a beautiful and coherent picture of stringy dualities. These exchange highly quantum situations with semiclassical backgrounds, exchange different branes, etc. As in the classical dualities, among all dual descriptions there is at most one description which is natural because it is semiclassical. All other dual descriptions are very quantum mechanical.”

Nathan Seiberg (1956) American physicist

[Emergent spacetime, arXiv preprint hep-th/0601234, 2006, 6, https://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0601234]

“I would not call [entanglement] one but rather the characteristic trait of quantum mechanics, the one that enforces its entire departure from classical lines of thought.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

italics in the original

DISCUSSION OF PROBABILITY RELATIONS BETWEEN SEPARATED SYSTEMS (1935)

“Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such as electrons.”

Roger Ebert (1942–2013) American film critic, author, journalist, and TV presenter

Source: Life Itself : A Memoir (2011), Ch. 54 : How I Believe In God
Context: Quantum theory is now discussing instantaneous connections between two entangled quantum objects such as electrons. This phenomenon has been observed in laboratory experiments and scientists believe they have proven it takes place. They’re not talking about faster than the speed of light. Speed has nothing to do with it. The entangled objects somehow communicate instantaneously at a distance. If that is true, distance has no meaning. Light-years have no meaning. Space has no meaning. In a sense, the entangled objects are not even communicating. They are the same thing. At the “quantum level” (and I don’t know what that means), everything may be actually or theoretically linked. All is one. Sun, moon, stars, rain, you, me, everything. All one. If this is so, then Buddhism must have been a quantum theory all along. No, I am not a Buddhist. I am not a believer, not an atheist, not an agnostic. I am more content with questions than answers.

“The solution of the measurement problem is twofold. First, any observation or measurement requires a macroscopic measuring apparatus. A macroscopic object is also governed by quantum mechanics, but has a large number of constituents, so that each macroscopic state is a combination of an enormous number of quantum mechanical eigenstates. As a consequence the quantum mechanical interference terms between two macroscopic states virtually cancel and only probabilities survive. That is the explanation why our familiar macroscopic physics, concerned with billiard balls, deals with probabilities rather than probability amplitudes.”

Nico van Kampen (1921–2013) Dutch theoretical physicist

The Scandal of Quantum Mechanics (2008)

“The actual heart of quantum mechanics is that the objects in its equations are connected to the observations very differently than the classical counterparts have been.”

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Luboš Motl13

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