>>13658680You're looking at quantum physics entirely backwards. The fact that SOME quantities predicted by quantum theory come in discrete chunks is a RESULT of the theory, not a presupposition.
There is nothing in the axioms of quantum mechanics that mandates anything be discrete. Even if you take the Copenhagen interpretation of measurement, measurement outcomes aren't even defined to be discrete -- they are defined by a POVM which is generically a continuous object. It just so happens that, under certain conditions (some of which are particularly "common" in nature or otherwise "simple"), when you put all the pieces of this CONTINUOUS theory together and solve for observable outcomes, you SOMETIMES arrive at discrete quantities.
I'm being annoying with the all-caps here but they're important to stress. There are PLENTY of other common systems in which the outcomes are continuous. The term "quantum" is an outdated holdover that originated over a century ago, back before physicists had the sophisticated, modern understanding of QM that we do now. There is nothing fundamentally quantized in quantum mechanics, neither in the theory nor the results.
