Title Author Date

Interpretation of quantum mechanics Rossow, Amiel Nov 18, 2002

First of all, I’d like to thank Dr. Peter Nave for his comments. I fully agree with his main thesis. Indeed, there are various interpretation of quantum mechanics and none is universally accepted by the scientific community. I would like though to point out one discrepancy in Dr. Nave’s letter. He reproaches me for not discussing in detail the quantum mechanical model (which he refers to as model O) that underlies Poltorak’s approach. In doing that, Dr. Nave, on the one hand, states that “It does not take a long treatise to mention the unresolved state of the validity of the various models and it would have taken only a sentence to explain that model C is not the only logical one, or at least that there exist different models that still compete for universal acceptance.” On the other hand, just a couple of lines further, Dr. Nave says, “I do not want to expand on this topic any further because that would take a lot of work to dig out the references and digest them all.” So, what is Dr. Nave’s actual view – does it “take just a sentence,” or it “would take a lot of work?” I believe the second alternative is closer to the actual situation. My task was not to discuss the complex and not yet universally resolved problem of a proper interpretation of quantum mechanics but only to critically review Dr. Poltorak’s attempt to reconcile the Genesis story with scientific data. I believe that Poltorak’s attempt was unsuccessful and his discourse is inconsistent from the standpoints both of science and of the Torah’s story. Dr. Nave does not seem to object to that conclusion. The main point of my critique was not so much in regard to the difference among various models, referred to by Nave as models C, O, etc, but mainly in regard to the specific inconsistencies in Poltorak’s interpretation of what Nave refers to as model O. Delving into the comprehensive discussion of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics would , in Dr. Nave’s own words, require “a lot of work to dig out the references and digest them all,” which would lead me far beyond the goal of my critique of Poltorak’s work, more so because my review was not limited to the article by Poltorak alone but covered a number of other articles as well.

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