Testing quantum mechanics in space

It appears that these theories are not relativistic and claim that energy is not conserved. Therefore they will have significant trouble explaining almost all particle physics experiments.

From the perspective of a theoretical particle physicist these theories are also awkward because they try to fiddle with non-relativistic quantum mechanics like the Schrodinger equation. But that equation merely arises in the non-relativistic limit of the more fundamental relativistic quantum mechanics, more commonly known as quantum field theory. Therefore, if you want to probe the foundations of quantum theory then quantum field theory seems like a much better place to start.

As an analogy, these attempts sound like a nineteenth-century person trying to understand gravity starting from F = m g h rather than F = - G m1 m2 / r^2.

For these reasons I would not be supportive of significant funding for theoretical or experimental research in these collapse theories.

All the large objects are made up of smaller objects...

I often see the argument 'we should check because you never know' being used for supporting exotic science experiments. But I think it is too dogmatic.

Indeed, we have not tested experimentally whether launching andi999 into space will affect the muon g-2 anomalous magnetic moment. Although you might be very supportive of testing that hypothesis, I would sincerely doubt that it would lead to a discovery of new physics.

In the end this boils down to funding decisions for the sciences, which are invariably nuanced, difficult and political. Simply saying 'we should try because nobody else has' would convince only the most naive of funders.

> I think the big thing is many humans cant wrap their mind around qm.

Especially physicists. As the joke goes, people who think they understand QM, don't.

The fact "infinitely many universes spawned infinitely frequently" is a serious take on explaining QM suggests everyone who has a casual explanation about all of this has missed a few things.

The standard model of particle physics does predict the electron should have an EDM.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_electric_dipole_momen...

However, a nonzero electron EDM indicates P and CP breaking; in the standard model it’s generated through loop effects from the CP violation in the CKM matrix, making it very very small (1e-38 e•cm).

The experimental results are that it’s zero with a precision of ~1e-28 e•cm. So, there’s TEN orders of magnitude between experiment and theory—-that makes it not a particularly silly thing to measure, but a particularly appealing experimental target: lots of models of new physics predict something substantially larger than 1e-38, and the small value in the standard model makes a nonzero measurement an obvious signal.

Contrast the muon g-2 measurements, for example, where a new lattice QCD calculation of standard-model effects claims to adjust the prediction in the 10th decimal, reducing the tension to 1.5 sigma. If an electron EDM is found anywhere in the next… 8 or 9 orders of magnitude, it’d be an inarguable sign of new physics.

This is like spending $1B to pile up dirt to test the size of the biggest pile of dirt that can be piled with $1B. How can anyone know for sure that the laws of physics don't change when the expense of the pile crosses the $800M threshold?

Obviously, the laws of physics do not have a dirt pile expense parameter. Just because some non-absurd ideas have been called absurd does not mean that no ideas are absurd. The idea that quantum mechanics stops working when too many particles get together is likewise absurd, because just like there's no way for a particle of dirt to "tell" how much money was spent piling it up, an atom does not "know" how many other atoms are in the macroscopic crystal it lives in.

More experiments are always worthwhile, but from a practical perspective funding is a zero-sum game with a small number of finite pots. The question being raised isn't whether this proposal is worthwhile "in general", but instead whether it's a good use of finite finding vs other potential science.

Given the immense cost and the lack of serious reasons to expect otherwise, I think it's a pretty reasonable question to ask.