Quantum physics and Indian philosophy: the honest version
The founders of quantum mechanics read the Upanishads. That's history, not proof. Here is the difference.
You may have heard that quantum physics proves astrology. It doesn't. What is true is more interesting: several of the physicists who built quantum mechanics read Indian philosophy, and said so.
The history
- 1929: two years after the uncertainty principle, Werner Heisenberg spent time with Rabindranath Tagore. He later told Fritjof Capra the conversations made quantum physics feel less strange.
- 1944: Erwin Schrödinger had studied the Upanishads for decades and wrote about Vedanta's idea of a single consciousness. His equation came from physics; his philosophy drew on India.
- 1954: J. Robert Oppenheimer, who read the Gita in Sanskrit, said the questions atomic physics raised had long held a central place in Hindu and Buddhist thought.
What quantum theory does say
- At the atomic scale, measuring a system changes what you can know about it.
- Particles that interacted keep correlated properties at any distance.
- Reality is probabilistic at its smallest scale.
What it does not say
- It offers no mechanism by which planets shape a person's life.
- Entanglement cannot carry intentions, healing or energy between people.
- It is not medicine. Quantum healing claims have no scientific support, and we don't make them.
Draft explainer, awaiting the author's review before publication.
