Barry
I think that about a century of history stands against any argument that quantum mechanics is fundamentally flawed as a predictive/explanatory mechanism. QM was developed after classical approaches (partly based on Maxwell's equations) failed spectacularly in explaining blackbody radiation and atomic structure
https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0101077.pdf. Since then, QM has been very successful - even Einstein (who disliked it and thought it incomplete) described it in 1931 as
"The last and most successful creation of theoretical physics, namely quantum-mechanics".
https://www.informationphilosopher.c..._Influence.pdf
QM has been applied to a vast range problems - according to Max Tegmark and John Archibald Wheeler from 2001
https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0101077.pdf
"So rather than dwell on ontological implications of the equations, most workers forged ahead to work out their many exciting applications and to tackle pressing unsolved problems of nuclear physics.
That pragmatic approach proved stunningly successful. Quantum mechanics was instrumental in predicting antimatter, understanding radioactivity (leading to nuclear power), accounting for materials such as semiconductors, explaining superconductivity, and describing interactions such as those between light and matter (leading to the invention of the laser) and of radio waves and nuclei (leading to magnetic resonance imaging). Many successes of quantum mechanics involve its extension, quantum field theory, which forms the foundation of elementary particle physics all the way to the present-day experimental frontiers of neutrino oscillations and the search for the Higgs particle and supersymmetry.
...
In short, the experimental verdict is in: the weirdness of the quantum world is real, whether we like it or not. There are in fact good reasons to like it: this very weirdness may offer useful new technologies. According to a recent estimate, about 30% of the U.S. gross national product is now based on inventions made possible by quantum mechanics."
Many have tried to find an alternative formalism that could expose an underlying local reality and remove the "spooky" bits. However, John Bell showed that it is not possible to get away from all of the counter-intuitive aspects of QM. He said, while discussing his own inequality and Bohmian mechanics (a QM alternative that he favoured):
"The theorem says: "No! Even if you are smarter than Bohm, you will not get rid of non-locality," that any sharp mathematical formulation of what is going on will have that non-locality, the theory of quantum mechanics" . https://sites.math.rutgers.edu/~olds...ell-weber.html
If you are interested in a quantum explanation of polarisation, Dirac gives a clear summary in section 2 of
https://www.informationphilosopher.c...chapter_1.html . This chapter of his book also has a clear summary of the relationship between classical physics and quantum mechanics.
Anyway, thanks for the topic - I found it to be very interesting.
Cheers Ray