A Defense of Bohmian Pilot Wave Theory

Lubos has posted a guest post making a vigorous defense of the Bohmian Pilot Wave Theory interpretation of quantum mechanics in response to his recent post arguing that the theory was fundamentally flawed.  The other main interpretations of quantum mechanics are the Copenhagen interpretation (which is the mainstream version) and the many worlds interpretation (aka inconsistent histories).

Lubos argued that the Bohmian interpretation does not produce the same results as other interpretation.  This criticism is taken to task and the main benefit of the Bohmian interpretation, which is that it dispenses with the need for a meta-theory about the "collapse of the wave function" is dispensed with in Bohmian interpretations with an additional equation.  Bohmian interpretations also try to give quantum mechanics a less "magical" PR spin via resort to hidden variables and in particular the "pilot wave".

But, Bohmian quantum mechanics, like the other kinds, involves subtle points that are easy to get wrong which is was the defense argues that Lubos has done - in effect arguing against a straw man flawed version of the theory when better versions exist.

In another forum the same author discusses why Lorentz invariance might plausible break down at small scales without breaking down at long distance sccales.