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Trick or Truth Essay Contest (2015)
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Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory by Alan M. Kadin
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Author Alan M. Kadin wrote on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 21:30 GMT
Essay AbstractIt is widely believed that mathematics provides the fundamental basis for physics. On the contrary, it is argued here that pictures of real objects moving in real space provide the proper basis for physics, and that mathematics merely provides quantitative models for calculating the dynamics of these objects. Such models may distort or even hinder the development of new physics, particularly if a consistent physical picture is lacking. This is discussed in connection with quantum mechanics, which discarded realism in favor of mathematical abstraction almost a century ago. A realistic, spin-quantized wave picture of quantum mechanics is presented that avoids the paradoxes and abstractions of the orthodox quantum theory. Quantum indeterminacy stems from an inappropriate application of a statistical point-particle model to extended soliton-like wave packets. Quantum transitions are continuous, rather than the abrupt transitions of the Hilbert space model. Quantum entanglement is an artifact of mathematical constructions incompatible with local realism. These are not merely matters of philosophical interpretation; several experimental implications are presented. It is time to remove the mathematical blinders that have prevented consideration of realistic quantum pictures.
Author BioAlan M. Kadin has been thinking about quantum foundations for 40 years, since his Princeton undergraduate thesis on hidden variables in quantum mechanics. His Ph.D. in Physics at Harvard was on superconducting devices, followed by postdocs at SUNY Stony Brook and University of Minnesota. Dr. Kadin pursued a research career in superconducting devices, in both industry and academia, at Energy Conversion Devices (Troy, MI), University of Rochester, and Hypres, Inc. (Elmsford, NY). He has been submitting FQXi essays since 2012.
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Koorosh Shahdaei wrote on Feb. 12, 2015 @ 23:24 GMT
Dear Alan,
Thank you for your pleasurable contribution, As you highlighted, I agree that: "It is time to remove the mathematical blinders that have prevented consideration of realistic quantum pictures".
"... admonition has become virtually religious dogma, and must change if physics is to advance".
What happned at the time when Galilei lived should not be repeated, and as i been reading the essays here; generally it is accepted by many that, it is time to start changing the attitude towards physics and begin with a new spirits. As I been addessing in my essay, math and physics only intersect in certain extent, and queries like emergence of consciousness in particles are hardly touched in physics among other discrepancies. To have a broader picture there is a need for suppliments and a convergence between physics, life science and our consciousness and also realising the fact that we live in a discontinuous world.
Warm regards
Koorosh
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 13, 2015 @ 12:48 GMT
Dear Koorosh,
Thank you for your comments. I will read your essay.
My key point is that the paradoxes of quantum mechanics are a clear indication that something is seriously wrong in the hybrid mathematical models used as the basis for quantum mechanics. The simple realistic model that I have presented makes predictions for experimental results that differ from conventional quantum theory, but apparently have never been tested.
The theoretical physics community is in denial about the shortcomings of quantum theory, believing that it must be correct because there is a mathematical formalism. I am reminded of the story of
"The Emperor’s New Clothes," in which the emperor’s new suit is in fact non-existent, but (almost) everyone claims to see it, because the authorities have convinced them that it is visible to anyone who is not stupid.
Well, Einstein never accepted the non-realistic aspects of quantum theory, and I think Einstein was right.
Alan
Jose P. Koshy wrote on Feb. 13, 2015 @ 16:46 GMT
Dear Alan,
The majority of the mainstream physicists view that we can explain the physical world using logic based on mathematical relations, rather than logic based on the physical properties. But you propose the alternate approach. From the essays that are posted here, it appears that so many people have the same idea as that of yours. I am also one among them; I will call this a 'physicalist' approach. My essay will be posted soon.
Jose P Koshy
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 18:55 GMT
Jose,
My view is that a mathematical model is essential to provide quantitative analysis, but a model may have embedded assumptions, and one should not accept such a model without questioning. Quantum theory provides a striking example where the established mathematical model (the Hilbert space approach) has become completely unconnected from the physical reality that it describes, leading to paradoxical and inconsistent results.
I look forward to your essay.
Alan
John C Hodge wrote on Feb. 13, 2015 @ 21:11 GMT
The ``pilot wave’’ model is silent on the source of the pilot wave. In your model, what is the source of the wave?
I by ``picture’’ you mean a conceptual model consistent with human scale experience, I agree.
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 18:57 GMT
John,
In my view, the universe was initially filled with primordial fields, immediately after some kind of Big Bang. At an early stage, these fields self-organized (condensed) into localized “particles” with quantized spin; this is the aspect of quantum theory that has been heretofore hidden. Then the particles condensed into atoms and molecules, which in turn formed gases and solids, leading to stars and planets, then to galaxies and clusters, in a hierarchical fashion.
Once the primordial fields were formed, everything followed via local deterministic dynamics. Humans came quite late and are completely incidental to the physical universe.
Alan
Edwin Eugene Klingman wrote on Feb. 13, 2015 @ 21:36 GMT
Dear Alan Kadin,
Thank you for entering your first-class essay in this is contest. I am in full agreement with almost everything you say. Most particularly with your emphasis on
nonlinearity, typically masked by Hilbert space linearity.
You focus on replacing the QM physically unreal linearly polarized (LP) superposition of R and L wave functions for a photon, with...
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Dear Alan Kadin,
Thank you for entering your first-class essay in this is contest. I am in full agreement with almost everything you say. Most particularly with your emphasis on
nonlinearity, typically masked by Hilbert space linearity.
You focus on replacing the QM physically unreal linearly polarized (LP) superposition of R and L wave functions for a photon, with physically real circularly polarized (CP) photons. The analog for particles is the superposition of 'spin up' and "spin down' states with striking formal resemblance to the QM LP model of the photon.
A nonlinear internal circulation of flow within the local field that is sustained and has the approximate behavior of a (non-point) local peak intensity can, FAPP, be conceived of as a 'particle' (or at least a dipole) in the localized wave. This intrinsic spin of the local particle then has more the character of the CP photon, and does not require a local B field for its definition, although a local B field will cause the spin to align or anti-align with the field, as per Stern-Gerlach, and as per your treatment in figure 7.
In my essay I begin by showing how counting-based measurement leads to Hilbert-space-like feature representation, and conservation of these features yield eigenvalue equations. This, as you note, has led to a fascination with the (admittedly fascinating!) math, at the expense of physical realism.
I then focus on Bell's theorem and a local physical model of magnetic dipoles that yields exactly the same results as quantum mechanics and as experiment. This, of course, is what Bell claims to be impossible. I suggest that Bell was confused and mis-identified Pauli's provisional precession eigenvalue equation with Dirac's fundamental helicity eigenvalue equation with the result that he (mis-)interpreted the SG scattering, an indirect measure of spin, as spin itself, thus requiring only two possible outcomes, an obvious conflict with the observed scattered distribution. Bell's constraint guarantees that no local model will work, but is a meaningless quantum mechanical artifact, as you say.
I hope you read my essay and I look forward to your comments. I find your essay a marvelous contribution to this contest.
In particular, in your figure 7 you state that "each spin will rotate into alignment with measurement field". This represents a decrease in precession-based energy and a corresponding increase in the deflectional energy. I've solved this energy problem and show that it yields measurements of deflection that violate Bell's theorem, supposedly impossible. Bell's imposition of constraints on these measurements, based on his oversimplification of the physics (he assumes precession remains unchanged) is
not a basic part of quantum mechanics, but has nevertheless been used to banish the most fundamental reality: local realism. As you note, this admonition has become virtually religious dogma, and must change if physics is to advance.
My very best regards,
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 19:03 GMT
Edwin,
Thank you for your very detailed comments with a number of excellent points. I will read your essay carefully.
With regard to the history of Bell’s Theorem and quantum entanglement, I would recommend reading the 2008 book by Louisa Gilder, entitled
“The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn” . As she describes, Bell was actually a quantum skeptic who wanted to believe in Hidden Variables, an unpopular viewpoint among theoretical physicists of his time.
But I pointed out in my essay something that was not evident either to Bell, or to Einstein in his EPR paradox. Namely, that quantum entanglement was an artifact of formal mathematical constructions used by Pauli to build the exclusion principle into the fabric of quantum theory. On the contrary, if the exclusion principle is instead a reflection of a real-space physical interaction, then this construction (and all of its non-realistic implications throughout quantum theory) are unnecessary and non-physical. Further, I show directly how the correlations in the EPR paradox may be understood in a simple realistic picture for electron spin, and how the interpretation of the single-photon experiments may be in error. This may yet be tested in new experiments.
You might also be interested in viewing the video by Teresa Mendes in last year’s FQXi contest, entitled
“Physics Needs a Paradigm Shift”.
Alan
Edwin Eugene Klingman replied on Feb. 15, 2015 @ 03:37 GMT
Alan,
I'm glad you will read my essay carefully, as I believe that it supports your essay very strongly. You and I have significant overlap in our interpretation of physical reality, including Pauli's exclusion principle. I did enjoy Louisa Gilder's work and I'm sure you are familiar with Baccigalluppi's "
Quantum Theory at the Crossroads", where so much of the early confusion arose.
I do suggest an experiment to confirm my model, which, if positive, would seem to prove quantum mechanics incomplete, which is necessary if, as you say to Ken below, there is "
no separation between quantum and classical dynamics". I'm happy that you too suggest new experiments. I will review the Theresa Mendes video.
I wish you the very best in this contest, and I'm happy to see José Koshy's comment above. It's very possible the dam is about to burst. Or we may represent just the first drops of rain.
Edwin Eugene Klingman
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Colin Walker wrote on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 03:24 GMT
Dear Alan,
I really enjoyed reading your essay which is a classical take on quantum mechanics. I particularly liked your discussion of matter as soliton waves - but waves of what.
The subject of my
essay is a quantum of energy discovered (some physicists might say invented or imagined) by Walther Nernst circa 1930. Hh (Hubble times Planck) is the amount of energy that would be lost from each photon per cycle as it is redshifted. Its equivalent mass is on the order Hh ~ 10^-68, small enough to be the "atoms of light" DeBroglie talks about in your first reference. By the way, nice job on the on-line references.
If I am interpreting Nernst's ideas correctly, the zero-point energy of the electromagnetic field forms a reservoir of potential energy in the form of very long waves. It occurs to me that these could be the source of both solitons and deBrogle's pilot waves.
Best regards,
Colin
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 19:10 GMT
Dear Colin,
Thanks for your comments. I will read your essay carefully.
Your summary of your essay sounds like it might relate to the
Stochastic Electrodynamics approach developed over many years by
Trevor Marshall,
Timothy Boyer, and
Emilio Santos.
You might also be interested in my recent preprint,
“Understanding Gravity on the Microscopic Level.” Alan
basudeba mishra wrote on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 13:00 GMT
Dear Sir,
Your essay was quite refreshing after a lot of dull essays. Your argument that quantum mechanics constitutes a mechanism for real continuous fields to behave as discrete particles is interesting and important. We can view it as micro manifestation of macro systems or particles within particles like the different internal systems including bacteria in our body or fish and other...
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Dear Sir,
Your essay was quite refreshing after a lot of dull essays. Your argument that quantum mechanics constitutes a mechanism for real continuous fields to behave as discrete particles is interesting and important. We can view it as micro manifestation of macro systems or particles within particles like the different internal systems including bacteria in our body or fish and other creatures in the sea or planets and asteroids in the solar system, extended to the universe. If we picture this way, all quantum systems including spin, superposition, entanglement, duality, tunneling, etc., have macro equivalents. Regarding complex numbers and extra-dimensions, kindly read our essay in support of your view.
For example, since measurement is a process of comparison between similars, a wave, which is perceived as a moving packet, cannot be measured by (compared with) any known unit. It is real, because, reality is whatever exists (has a limited structure that evolves in time and is perceptible), is intelligible (knowable) and communicable (describable using a language). A fish can also exist in the wave, which guides (pilots) the fish. If two opposing waves neutralize each other, there is no way of knowing their state thereafter - both are spread out everywhere. This is an example of superposition. Two ends of a robber band or a pair of socks are examples of entanglement, which, contrary to common belief, do not last over infinite distance. Movement of Mercury and Venus on their axis is macro examples of spin. The internal structure of Jupiter and proton are equivalent.
Regarding two-slit experiments, we have repeatedly wondered why no one has conducted the experiment with protons instead of electrons. That would show the fallacy. Though we know much about electrons, we still do not know what an electron is. This ignorance leads to fantasy. Energy always provides thrust. It pushes. There is nothing like pull – it is always push from the opposite direction. Then how can energy or particles (God particle!) ‘bind’ to provide mass? Did you ever wonder why strong and weak forces ‘bind’ and electromagnetic forces and beta decay move out from higher concentration? While other interactions are either intra-body or emanate from out of a body in a monogamous pattern, why gravity is inter-body treating them as point particles and behaving polygamous? With your bent of mind, we request you to think about these.
Regards,
basudeba
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 19:13 GMT
Dear Basudeba,
Thank you for reading my essay and for your comments. I will read your FQXi essay and will think further about your suggestions.
Regarding quantum interference and diffraction experiments, these have been done not only with electrons, but also with neutrons, atoms, and even
large molecules. These results are normally taken to prove that all objects are both small particles and extended de Broglie waves. However, as I point out in Note B at the end of my essay (and described in my earlier FQXi essay,
“The Rise and Fall of Wave-Particle Duality” ), an alternative explanation (due to Van Vliet) is available whereby the same results are obtained via quantized momentum transfer to a small particle, without any wave nature assumed. Thus, there is no reason to give up local realism.
Alan
basudeba mishra replied on Feb. 16, 2015 @ 04:32 GMT
Dear Sir,
We will critically go through your suggested paper. Incidentally, the null result of the M&M experiment, which is quoted to point absence of any background structure, is misleading, as the experiment was conducted with light, which is a transverse wave and by definition, all transverse waves are background invariant. The observation of galactic blue-shift and merger has conclusively proved that the universe is not expanding, but rotating on its axis. We hold the view that the so-called dark energy is a universal background structure. By definition, a background does not interact with the objects it projects. Viewed from this angle and the fact that there is no true vacuum, the result of diffraction experiments etc., can be easily explained. We often give the example of boats passing under multichannel bridges, which we had watched in our home town.
We are not against local realism, but pointing to the interconnectedness and interdependence of everything in the universe. Locally, there can be islands of relative stability.
Regards,
basudeba
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Ken Hon Seto wrote on Feb. 14, 2015 @ 23:05 GMT
Dear Alan,
I agree with your statement:
"it is argued here that pictures of real objects moving in real space provide the proper basis for physics, and that mathematics merely provides quantitative models for calculating the dynamics of these objects. Such models may distort or even hinder the development of new physics, particularly if a consistent physical picture is lacking".
My physical theory called Model Mechanics gives alternate physical explanations for all the abstract mathematical objects such as fields/virtual particle and curvature of space-time. In addition Model Mechanics gives rise to a new theory of gravity called DTG and a new theory of relativity called IRT. Model Mechanics is able to unify all the forces of nature (including gravity). Therefore Model mechanics is a good candidate for a Theory of Everything. I invite you to read my essay in the following link and give me your informed comments. Thank you.
http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2319
Regards,
Ken Seto
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 15, 2015 @ 00:17 GMT
Ken,
Thank you for reading the abstract of my essay, the source of the quotation above. I hope you will read the remainder of the essay as well.
A central result of my picture is that there is no fundamental difference between the microworld and the macroworld, no separation between quantum and classical dynamics. This is contrary to the orthodox viewpoint that the microworld is dominated by quantum uncertainty, superposition, and entanglement. In fact, in Note A at the end, I derive classical trajectories directly from the wave equations for real localized relativistic quantum fields.
After I read your essay, I may have additional comments on your web page.
Alan
Ken Hon Seto replied on Feb. 15, 2015 @ 14:40 GMT
Alan,
I read your essay and I will read it again more carefully.
You provided alternate physical interpretations to replace the mainstream abstract quantum processes. I agree with this approach completely. In fact that is the exact approach I used to formulate Model Mechanics.
Regards,
Ken Seto
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Bob Shour wrote on Feb. 15, 2015 @ 19:05 GMT
Dear Alan Kadin,
Does math hinder or help physics? The title of your essay says math hindered the development of QM, and is followed by an articulate express argument. (Some other essays seem to argue implicitly that math is a sub-optimal intermediary medium for physics.) I hope you will not mind some comments despite my knowing little about QM.
Math is helpful (and sometimes...
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Dear Alan Kadin,
Does math hinder or help physics? The title of your essay says math hindered the development of QM, and is followed by an articulate express argument. (Some other essays seem to argue implicitly that math is a sub-optimal intermediary medium for physics.) I hope you will not mind some comments despite my knowing little about QM.
Math is helpful (and sometimes indispensable) when it describes, explains, summarizes, condenses, provides insight, predicts, etc. Math is unhelpful when it obscures, is irrelevant, inapplicable, makes the conceptual thread hard to follow etc. An example would be 20 pages of equations of no discernible meaning, that no one will have the strength or interest to check. Another example would be A + L = P, meaning actors with lines create a play; plus and minus signs do not of themselves invest ordinary words with insight.
Let’s take your title now. Your diagnosis and cure may be right. I propose another possibility (which does not exclude your approach). The complexities and seeming incongruities of the mathematics of QM (such as the many worlds hypothesis, entanglement and the two slits experiment) might not be a failure of mathematics. Rather, apparent shortcomings might be a clue that a crucial postulate, assumption, theory, picture (as you say), conceptual reference frame or unknown unknown is missing. This suggests looking not outside mathematics but for better mathematics.
A paradigm example is Ptolemy’s Almagest, a stupendous mathematical and astronomical achievement. Ptolemy wrote summarily that obviously the earth does not rotate on its axis, as some other astronomers had suggested, because clouds would appear to move at high speeds in the sky in a direction opposite that of the spinning earth, and birds, unable to keep up, would fall out of the sky. If he had the concept of inertia he might have come to a different conclusion.
Perhaps a question raised by your interesting essay is: are we missing something?
Regards,
Bob Shour
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 17, 2015 @ 23:35 GMT
Bob,
Thank you for your comments.
I think we are in agreement about the significance and value of mathematics. My key point is that the premature adoption of an abstract mathematical formalism (without a clear physical representation) prevented discovery of a more correct mathematical model. Indeed, the way that QM is taught encourages the belief that the abstract formalism IS quantum theory, and there is no underlying physical reality.
The physical picture that I have proposed could have been proposed early in the historical development of QM, but there is no evidence in the literature. The early physicists could not conceive of a way for a distributed field to act like a single conserved particle. Once you can accept that, everything else falls into place. Ironically, in light of the focus in the conventional theory on the mathematics of LINEAR Superposition, only a NONLINEAR mathematical model can maintain the integrity of a distributed field. I am not sure of the precise form of such a model (I mention synchronization of nonlinear oscillators), but exploration of this question will bring physics back on a productive track.
Alan
Sujatha Jagannathan wrote on Feb. 16, 2015 @ 05:22 GMT
Your paper has supplemented a good combinations and dimensions of classical quantum and macro world. But the underlying fact remains subsistent that there's a Mother of these kin quantised world governing and guiding somewhere!!!!
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Nick Mann wrote on Feb. 17, 2015 @ 16:50 GMT
Dr. Kadin,
Bohr used to say that QM would have fewer public relations problems if only complex numbers weren't indispensable to it, or at least if complex models could be made genuinely pictorial and thereby subject to intuitive apprehension. He also noted that the issue arises in GR as well, maybe most vividly with the Friedmann universe models. A sphere with no interior, only a surface, seems as bizarre to the earthly mind as any phenomenon on the micro level. His point being: just possibly it's all in whose ox is gored.
You seem to suggest that complex numbers are inherently illogical and I for one don't disagree if by "logical" you mean devolving from fundamental classical logic, the logic of our daily lives (and incidentally of Bell's Theorem). John Venn has a neat riff on the general subject ("Symbolic Logic" First Edition, page 201) where he doubts that there could be any move in logic analogous to the square root of a negative number in mathematics. Boole wasn't so sure and of course his wife became a noted sqrt(-1) mystic. Anyway, be imaginary numbers logical or no, can we really do without the little buggers (if that's what you're edging toward)?
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 17, 2015 @ 23:52 GMT
Nick,
I’ve never said that complex numbers were illogical. In fact, complex numbers are widely used in classical physics and in engineering to simplify the mathematics. However, in these fields, the complex oscillation is a mathematical representation of a real sinusoidal oscillation.
In contrast, the general belief is that in quantum mechanics, the complex wavefunction ~ exp(i*phi ) IS the physical object. What I’ve shown is that a real coherent physical rotation that is phase-modulated can be modeled as a complex wave if you suppress the “carrier wave”. This is exactly what is done in classical radio receivers.
Alan
Nick Mann replied on Feb. 18, 2015 @ 18:04 GMT
Alan,
Thanks. Although I'm equally accustomed to the wavefunction being considered a physical object in approximately the same sense that the International Date Line is thought of as a physical demarcation. And I wish I'd originated that piece of cleverness.
Modulation and suppression of carrier frequencies is an artifice designed to transmit human information and hasn't been observed in nature as far as I'm aware. Doesn't that consideration make it less plausibly valid as an analogue, physical or mathematical, of an autonomous natural process whether in part or whole?
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Feb. 21, 2015 @ 23:01 GMT
Alan and Nick,
Well, "the general belief is that in quantum mechanics, the complex wavefunction ~ exp(i*phi ) IS the physical object". I am perhaps so far the first one who questions this mystification by Bohr, Pauli, and all the others, cf.
topic 2346 . Of course, the usual notion of block-time implies Hermitean symmetry and all that.
My alternative is restriction to (non-negative) already elapsed time, real-valued cosine transformation in IR+ instead of complex Fourier transformation in IR, and a matrix that only covers the upper triangle of the usual square matrix.
Eckard
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Eckard Blumschein replied on Feb. 23, 2015 @ 05:46 GMT
Correction:
My essay is now to be found at
topic 2342 not 2346.
Eckard
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Al Schneider wrote on Feb. 22, 2015 @ 01:56 GMT
Thank you for reviewing Modeling Reality with Mathematics by Al Schneider. Your comment to me is very rewarding. I am just a little guy that sees an error in physics that has existed for a long time. While reviewing the essays of others, the error is becoming known. My guess is that a shakeup is coming. Based on the size of the error, its effect will run wide and deep.
I reviewed your essay but will take time to digest it.
Thanks
Al Schneider
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 26, 2015 @ 21:40 GMT
Dear Al,
The theoretical physics community is in denial about the shortcomings of quantum theory, believing that it must be correct because there is a mathematical formalism. As I commented to someone else, I am reminded of the story of
"The Emperor’s New Clothes," in which the emperor’s new suit is in fact non-existent, but (almost) everyone claims to see it, because the authorities have convinced them that it is visible to anyone who is not stupid.
Alan
Efthimios Harokopos wrote on Feb. 26, 2015 @ 13:57 GMT
Hello,
"On the contrary, it is argued here that pictures of real objects moving in real space provide the proper basis for physics, and that mathematics merely provides quantitative models for calculating the dynamics of these objects."
I agree with the second part. I have no idea about the first, i.e., about "real objects moving in real space". For I have no idea what "real" means. Furthermore, I have no idea how objects can move in space because I have no idea what "space" means: Newton's space, Leibniz's space, Einstein's space, which space?. I understand the quantification based on the abstract ontology but I will not take the ontology for real. Even, consider that for things to move, there must be an innate impetus force that is absolute and not relative. Where is the impetus force? No one ever found one. Is motion real then? This is no nihilism but an argument that none of this notions should be taken for granted. One may resort to instrumentaism and forget about them but any claim of a specific ontology must be backed by solid evidence and unfortunately such evidence does not exit. Realism is framing hypotheses. Nothing bad about that but the hypotheses cannot be used as part of the conclusions. Thanks.
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Feb. 26, 2015 @ 21:42 GMT
Dear Dr. Harokopos,
Thank you for your comments on the 2nd line of my abstract. It seems that you object to standard terms of "real" and "space", and were unable to get any further. I take a more pragmatic approach, and pictures are an essential aspect of human imagination. I present a consistent realistic quantum picture, which is regarded as impossible in the orthodox theory. The quantum world need not be dramatically different from the classical world with which we are all familiar from direct observation.
Alan
max wallis replied on Feb. 27, 2015 @ 19:37 GMT
General discussion of Marshall & Santos SED theory (Stochastic Electrodynamics) is at
crisisinphysics website, particularly
the pdc page is helpful.
There are several anti-photon items on the blog
blog with validation of wave theory through optical experiments on the post can-we-celebrate-defeat-for-the-photon-by-maxwell-planck-the
ory-?
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max wallis wrote on Feb. 27, 2015 @ 19:55 GMT
The Marshall & Santos SED theory (Stochastic Electrodynamics) is available in articles which include their
The myth of the photon.
There are several anti-photon items on the associated blog including validation of wave theory through optical experiments on the
post
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:50 GMT
Max,
Thank you for your comment about the Stochastic Electrodynamics theory of Marshall and Santos. I followed some of that work some years back, and corresponded briefly with both Marshall and Santos.
Alan
Christophe Tournayre wrote on Feb. 27, 2015 @ 22:47 GMT
Dear Alan,
I do not understand most of your essay but it looks consistent.
None esoteric alternatives like yours seem rare.
Regards
Christophe
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:49 GMT
Dear Christophe,
My alternative picture of QM seems like something that could have been proposed back in the 1920s, but I have looked thoroughly in the old literature, and I can’t find any evidence that a consistent wave-based picture of this type was ever considered.
Alan
Gary D. Simpson wrote on Feb. 28, 2015 @ 03:42 GMT
Alan,
Many thanks for an excellent read. I have read your essays in the past and found them to be enlightening. You are fairly consistent in your choice of subject matter.
The part regarding solitons seems very plausible to me although one of the features of a soliton is the ability to be unchanged by interaction with other solitons. I have had an auto accident before, and I assure you that the soliton associated with my auto was very definitely altered by the interaction.
Is it possible that the non-linear wave equation that you seek is actually a vector or quaternion version of the existing equations?
If the emphasis in physics is to shut up and calculate as you say rather than understand then I think I am glad I went with engineering instead of math and physics. You conclude by urging the establishment to take off the blinders. I'm afraid that will be very difficult for many. It would be easier simply not to have the blinders to begin with. That is one of the good things about FQXI. Amateurs and professionals can interact. There is a muse here somewhere.
Best Regards and Good Luck,
Gary Simpson
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:47 GMT
Gary,
Thank you for your comments.
Regarding your question about the nonlinear wave equation responsible for soliton formation, I’m not sure. A few years ago I looked at relativistically covariant gauge-invariant potentials (something like the electromagnetic potentials), and did some Matlab simulations, but they didn’t seem to have the right properties, so I put this aside.
Regarding your comment about FQXI allowing amateurs and professional to interact, there actually seems to be rather little of that. It is mostly amateurs talking to amateurs, and professionals to professionals. I have been posting essays in FQXi since 2012, and have yet to get a serious question from a theoretical physicist.
Alan
Gary D. Simpson replied on Mar. 13, 2015 @ 01:36 GMT
Alan,
I am amused regarding your interpretation of amateur and professional. I guess everything is perspective. I was thinking of YOU as the pro and myself as the amateur. I also consider Dr. Gibbs and Dr. Klingman to be professionals. I suspect that I get more out of these interactions than you guys:-)
Best Regards and Good Luck,
Gary Simpson
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Sylvain Poirier replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 16:38 GMT
Dear Gary,
However amusing it may seem, I would rather agree with Alan on the idea that "It is mostly amateurs talking to amateurs, and professionals to professionals". As you seem to have difficulties to distinguish between amateurs and professionals, my (still incomplete)
work of classification of the essay authors of this contest may help you (though I did not care to distinguish between professionals and those amateurs whose views are not too far from them). Of course, "mostly" means that exceptions may happen too ;)
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Alex Newman wrote on Mar. 1, 2015 @ 08:18 GMT
Dear Sir,
With all respect due, have you send your paper to a journal for peer review? I think this contest was not for an essay on quantum mechanics but on math and physics and their relation. You have several references to your paper but none of them was published in a peer-reviewed journal bur instead are in the form of eprints. I suppose you have tried to publish but your peers found your ideas unacceptable and refused to do so. Thank you for your effort.
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:46 GMT
Dear Alex,
I sent some earlier versions to several journals. The papers were rejected without review, with a polite comment that this was not the correct journal. This is the standard "crackpot letter," even though I am a credentialed physicist (PhD from Harvard). I also presented posters at several meetings of the American Physical Society (which does not screen papers). I had a number of interesting discussions with experimental physicists, but unfortunately theoretical physicists uniformly refused to engage in discussion. It seems that experimentalists regard QM as a useful tool, while theorists view QM as religious doctrine which is not to be questioned.
Alan
Sylvain Poirier replied on Mar. 9, 2015 @ 10:49 GMT
Sorry but the fact you are "credentialed physicist" is no evidence that your ideas have any kind of validity, and actually they haven't. Bureaucracy turned out to be more often than not a good filter of competence in science, and, as I explained, scientific research cannot survive without any proper filter whenever a collective dimension of research and/or a discernment of useful public money...
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Sorry but the fact you are "credentialed physicist" is no evidence that your ideas have any kind of validity, and actually they haven't. Bureaucracy turned out to be more often than not a good filter of competence in science, and, as
I explained, scientific research cannot survive without any proper filter whenever a collective dimension of research and/or a discernment of useful public money spending are needed, but failures in the current bureaucratic system of credentials distribution may occur as well. I have extensively
studied another case of a highly "credentialed physicist" with nonsensical ideas that even became popular and the author mistaken as the genius of the century in the French public, due to the lack of understanding of physics from the part of editors of scientific popularization magazines.
Now the fact is, the wide acceptance of standard quantum theory is not the result of any dogmatism, even though I do observe that some dogmatic behaviors, an effect of inertia, also occur in the academic community, namely as concerns
the details of undergraduate curriculum, the precise way in which fundamental theories are introduced, and due to which I found the necessity to leave the system and thus virtually throw my painfully acquired math PhD to the toilet in order to develop my work in this field. Nor is it due to any kind of social acceptability of the "shut up and calculate" attitude and the current formulation of physics by Hilbert spaces, or any comfort with the lack of classical realism, which are absolutely not the case, as we do find lots of high level physicists with the very same loud discontent which you express about this current state of science, and thus dedicating their research to their dream of restoring such a classical realism, especially in the form of
Bohmian mechanics.
No. As incredible as it may sound, the rude fact is that the acceptation of quantum physics with all its non-realistic abstraction was forced by the physical reality itself upon our rebel community of usually classical realist physicists, most of whom remain desperate about this discrepancy of Nature's verdict with their deeply rooted philosophical expectations. And notwithstanding this body of knowledge, many of them are still pushed by their philosophical prejudices to keep dreaming that this verdict of Nature may be not final and that an opposite one should be expected for some utopian future. The real situation is that they found themselves obliged to accept quantum theory by its incredibly amazing success in correctly predicting the results of about any physical experiment that may be thought of, and by the evidence they do have of how desperate is any try to explain these experimental results in "realistic" manners.
In this circumstance, any idea, as what you suggest, that the true laws of physics would be so totally different from accepted quantum physics that local realism would be true (so that, for example, quantum computers would be fundamentally impossible), is absolutely ridiculous, because, logically, it is just absolutely impossible for any 2 so widely different theories to have any sort of accurate agreement on any significant range of predictions. Such widely different theories might accidentally coincide on 2 or 3 cases of experimental results ; however such agreement would quickly fail as soon as things are checked in significant accuracy and other experimental conditions are considered, and this idea of accidental coincidence of some range of predictions between widely different theories is obviously unable to account for the amazing systematic accuracy of the verifications of quantum physics in millions of widely different experiments that have already been made until now.
Now what I just explained here, and this unfortunate phenomenon of abundance of so many people who cannot admit scientific results but wrongly and confidently accuse the physics community of dogmatism and so on due to their ignorance of the current state of science, is things well-known by the physics community. That is the phenomenon of crackpot. Please document yourself (my text first linked above is just an example, many other scientists such as John Baez wrote about it as well) on what "crackpot" means and how scientists have very legitimate reasons to be upset and just reject without further discussion these popular expressions of proud ignorance, this popular cult of stupidity, this mental pollution that is the worst enemy of the progress of science. (On a related aspects of things,
that article is also interesting).
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 21:33 GMT
Dear Dr. Poirier:
I just came across your comment, which I missed because it was buried in someone else’s comment.
You have a rather long comment (almost a rant), which basically asserts that I am a “crackpot”.
You must find it quite confounding then, that my essay seems to have risen near the top of the Community Ratings.
If you had taken the time to read my essay more carefully without prejudice, you might have a different understanding.
I present a consistent realistic picture, which makes predictions that differ from standard QM in testable ways. For example, the two-stage Stern-Gerlach experiment is presented in standard quantum textbooks as if the experiment was done many years ago, but it has never been done. Feynman in his
Lectures on Physics (1963) admitted as much:
“Incidentally, no one has ever done all of the experiments we will describe in just this way, but we know what would happen from the laws of quantum mechanics, which are, of course, based on other similar experiments. ”
It is not that these experiments are particularly difficult or expensive; rather, it is viewed as disreputable to question accepted wisdom, so no one even wants to try.
Alan Kadin
susanne kayser-schillegger wrote on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 00:15 GMT
Dear Alan,
Very impressed by your insights I commend you. You are one of the few physicists daring to question the purely mathematical foundation of quantum mechanics and merit high ratings in this FQXI contest.
Especially enlightening is your attacking of non-locality, immediate action at a distance and entanglement. I cite your example of math constructs leading physics into a trap, a mathematical prison not easy to escape from. “However, it was not initially realized that these abstract Hilbert-space constructions are incompatible with local realism, and should have been questioned on that basis. By the time this was realized, it was too late – these entangled constructions (linear combinations of product states) had been fully accepted into the foundations of quantum mechanics, and were no longer considered open to question by the theoretical physics community”
It was not Hilbert’s fault. But, who will lead us out of this trap cemented in all mayor physics textbooks and making QM non-understandable?
Another eye-opener is your dismissal of quantum computers for the same “No entanglement” reason: “For many years, the foundations of quantum mechanics were viewed as an obscure field with no realworld applications. However, in recent years, there have been major theoretical and experimental efforts to design a quantum computer that could solve problems that are virtually impossible using conventional computers, such as factoring large integers, enabling one to break standard unbreakable codes [DiVincenzo 1995]. These quantum algorithms depend on quantum entanglement of N qubits, which yields an exponential parallelism as 2
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:44 GMT
Dear Susanne,
Thank you for your careful reading of my paper and your kind comments.
The theoretical physics community is in denial about the shortcomings of quantum theory, believing that it must be correct because there is a mathematical formalism. I am reminded of the story of
"The Emperor’s New Clothes," in which the emperor’s new suit is in fact non-existent, but (almost) everyone claims to see it, because the authorities have convinced them that it is visible to anyone who is not stupid. The power of intimidation by authorities should not be minimized.
Alan
Roger Schlafly wrote on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 03:37 GMT
You are arguing that quantum mechanics is all wrong, and you are wroking on a theory to replace it. Is that right?
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:42 GMT
Roger,
Yes, that is what I am arguing. But the essence of the argument is that there are no separate microscopic and macroscopic realms with sharply different organizing principles. Such a separation in the conventional theory creates a major boundary problem, for which conventional theory does not have a clear and consistent explanation.
In contrast, in my picture, deterministic causal equations apply at all levels – no boundary is present, and therefore no boundary problem. The only thing that is required for a complete theory are the equations governing self-organization of microscopic fields into solitons or domains with quantized spin (in units of h-bar), which act in certain respects as particles. Everything else follows from that. There are no quantum paradoxes required.
I hope you will read my essay in more detail. I have also proposed straightforward experiments that should clearly distinguish my picture from conventional theory. For example, the 2-stage Stern-Gerlach experiment is presented in many quantum textbooks (including Feynman’s Lectures on Physics) as a model of quantum measurement, and generations of students believe that this experiment was done early on. However, I can’t find any evidence that it was ever done; only Feynman admitted that it had not been done, at least by 1964.
I noticed that your essay talks about randomness and causality, and I may have comments after a more careful reading.
Alan
George Rajna wrote on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 08:47 GMT
Congratulation for such a brilliant essay. You deserve the best.
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 2, 2015 @ 14:53 GMT
Thank you for your comment.
Alan
Ed Unverricht wrote on Mar. 8, 2015 @ 19:14 GMT
Dear Alan Kadin,
Great essay, it starts with a clear and concise idea "it is argued here that pictures of real objects moving in real space provide the proper basis for physics, and that mathematics merely provides quantitative models for calculating the dynamics of these objects."
Your conclusion that "pictures should guide physics" and more detailed comment "As a consequence of elevating abstract mathematics and denigrating realistic pictures, exploratory theoretical physics has wasted decades wandering in the desert, caught up in a tangled web of selfdeception. By removing the blinders and allowing ourselves to be guided by realistic pictures, we may find a path toward the promised land of understanding physical reality."
Your approach to the essay contest is very close to my own. Although some of the structures I use do not quite match yours, I agree completely with your comment "A model that yields a valid result may be assumed to be correct, even if other explanations may also be valid."
I hope you get a chance to have a look at the models in my essay as your comments would be very interesting.
Your essay deserves a high rating and I wish you the best of luck.
Regards, Ed Unverricht
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 8, 2015 @ 21:33 GMT
Dear Mr. Unverricht:
Thank you for your encouraging comments. I have not yet had a chance to read your essay carefully, but I glanced at it quickly. I noticed that you address the Standard Model of Particle Physics. One of the things that I did not have space to address in my essay (although I have previously) is that all of the fundamental "particles" in the Standard Model can be represented as rotating vector fields carrying spin, except for the Higgs Boson, which alone is supposed to be spin zero. Within my picture, all spin-zero particles must be composites of two particles with opposite spin, similar to a meson which is a quark-antiquark pair. That would suggest that what has been detected experimentally may not be the desired Higgs Boson. So experiments are essential in physics, but the interpretations of the experiments are equally important. Simply obtaining agreement with the standard theory is not a proof that the theory is correct.
When I have time, I will read your essay more carefully, and I will post a comment if I have any questions.
Thank you again, and good luck with the competition.
Alan Kadin
Ed Unverricht replied on Mar. 18, 2015 @ 17:26 GMT
Dear Alan,
For the modelling of a spin-zero particles, your idea of combining 2 spin 1/2 particles is certainly valid. I took a slightly different approach after spending considerable time looking at the ideas of physicists Helmholtz, Larmor and Rabi in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Although Larmor's ideas were dis-proven for massless particles (ie. photons) by the famous Michelson-Morley experiment to discover the ether, his ideas on massive particles (protons and neutrons) went on to form the basis for the mathematics behind Rabi FID decay times in modern medical MRI equipment.
The approach I advocate for modelling spin-zero particles starts with the Helmholtz decomposition of vortex spin, breaking it into its longitudinal and transverse components. The vortex with only transverse components of spin, ends up being the natural candidate for the Higgs Boson.
I have read your essay again and enjoyed it just as much, maybe someday we will have a chance to discuss pros and cons of the different models.
Best Regards, Ed
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Peter Jackson wrote on Mar. 13, 2015 @ 14:22 GMT
Alan,
A brilliant analysis, well presented. I see it's flushed out some Lord Kelvin believers; "physics is all sorted so we can stop thinking." They clearly have. I still see the problem as how to speed intellectual evolution. Certainly pictures not just numbers should resonate.
To that end I've built dynamic physical models, very much on our common these, and just posted a short video; http://youtu.be/KPsCp_S4cUs
I suspect if the
complete solution is presented well in the right medium we may succeed. Shifting the paradigm may be impossible, but I conceived a plan 40 years ago to place everything
around the paradigm in a new inertial rest frame which evolves (sneaks) away from the old beliefs leaving them behind! It will take a team, and it seems you're key (planned departure 2020). I suggest that may finally be just 'crazy enough' for Neils Bohr!
I have no compunction applying top marks to your essay but do suggest neither of our pictures is yet quite complete. I hope you may find additional value and insight in some aspects of a recent co-authored paper recently rejected which reproduces QM's predictions in full with a quasi-classical model, identifying the specific false assumptions.
https://www.academia.edu/9216615/Quasi-classical_Entanglemen
t_Superposition_and_Bell_Inequalities._v2
Please do also comment on the video and paper.
Excellent job, and hope your essay hits the top.
Peter
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 20:44 GMT
Peter,
Thanks for your encouraging comments.
Your video and paper bring up interesting but unfamiliar material, so that I will have to study them more carefully before I can comment.
Alan
En Passant wrote on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 15:43 GMT
Alan, (I am really sorry about the length of this, but give it a chance)
I just opened your essay page this morning and it said different things from what I had expected.
(Not being a Physicist) It would be remiss of me to say technical things about your model. But perhaps I can comment on a theme that motivates (you can correct me here, if you wish) your essay. It is your claim...
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Alan, (I am really sorry about the length of this, but give it a chance)
I just opened your essay page this morning and it said different things from what I had expected.
(Not being a Physicist) It would be remiss of me to say technical things about your model. But perhaps I can comment on a theme that motivates (you can correct me here, if you wish) your essay. It is your claim that…”On the contrary, it is argued here that pictures of real objects moving in real space provide the proper basis for physics, and that mathematics merely provides quantitative models for calculating the dynamics of these objects...” (Btw, I did read the whole thing.)
As I went through various observations I could make regarding your main thesis, it became evident that those would be the same that I made yesterday on Ken Wharton’s essay page. Being the author of it, I felt sanctioned to copy certain parts of it here.
“…perhaps physicists’ intuition ought to be given greater weight… The reason for that is that in the absence of patterns, paradigms, structures, etc. that make sense to us and which we can manipulate in our minds, physics may become a (proverbial) victim of its own success.
Here is how it would work. Say that things get so esoteric that only computers can generate theories and proofs (by now you know where this is heading), and humans can no longer see why any of it makes sense, nor can they follow the proofs. Computers may propose new theories, but those will still have to be tested against the real world. Given that there can be a myriad of computer-generated theories, and that we will not know which ones to follow up on first, it will present us with various quandaries. Experiments take time, and may only get more expensive in the future. We will not be able to afford to test all of the new theories, nor be able to pick only viable ones for experimental confirmation.
Unless we come up with a ToE to program the computer with before switching to autopilot, we will become dependent on the computer to divine the correct theory solely from mathematics. I am extremely skeptical about any claims that “mathematics alone” can figure out the universe without checking with it (the universe), and I am not getting on an airplane without a human pilot sitting somewhere near the front.
I would also like to draw your attention to a part of Sophia Magnusdottir’s essay. You may have already seen it. She proposes that an “analog” method might obviate the need for mathematics in at least parts of physics, perhaps even those not well matched to known mathematics. An example might be adiabatic “computing” already in use. This could certainly work in principle, but since you will still have to measure at least the relative “scale” between the two systems (one being the subject, and the second being the solver) to get the result or prediction you are after, it may not provide all the tools to do physics.
Your central point appears to be unassailable. For at least any foreseeable time horizon, mathematics will be indispensable for physics.”
I think all readers would benefit from going to Ken Wharton’s essay page (and, for that matter, to Sophia Magnusdottir’s).
This next part is solely to follow up on your response to Ed Unverricht:
Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 8, 2015 @ 21:33 GMT: “…Within my picture, all spin-zero particles must be composites of two particles with opposite spin, similar to a meson which is a quark-antiquark pair. That would suggest that what has been detected experimentally may not be the desired Higgs Boson…”
Alan, you have some company in your contention that the putative Higgs Boson might not be what it is purported to be. Now, you may not want to be associated with some of them, but they deserve a second look. Already, on Wednesday, 04 July 2012 13:41 (European time), almost immediately after the big Higgs announcement, Peter J. Carroll (on www.specularium.org/component/k2/item/58-higgs-or-not) made this statement (among others): “This particle could well consist of a composite entity like a top-antitop meson rather than a truly new fundamental particle.”
Now, I have to warn you, you will be turned off by Carroll’s other interests – but you ought to look for the “diamond.” Carroll has some interesting physics, and less interesting “magic.”
Now, for a more comprehensive argument “against the Higgs” you ought to look up Eli Comay’s webpage(s). At the very least, you might discover that he is really smart.
It is easy to label those with whom you disagree “cranks.” Yes, some people’s systems are internally inconsistent, and/or not based on reasonably established facts about the world. But if a model or theory is internally consistent and not convincingly contradicted by “facts” (which can keep changing), the most one could say is that he/she was wrong.
Calling proponents of coherent and consistent ideas cranks would be like calling Bohr a crank should his ideas be disproved or simply superseded in the future. Bohr was a serious scientist, and I am quite sure he was sincere in his quest to find the “truth” about our universe.
En
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 18:46 GMT
Dear En:
Thank you for your careful reading of my essay and your very extensive comments. I will read them more carefully and respond later. And thank you for the various pointers to related work.
I also noticed, perhaps coincidentally, that my Community Rating jumped up. Thank you, again.
One interesting aspect of physics is that “facts” as observed in experiments are actually strongly filtered through theories, something that most physicists do not really appreciate. For example, it is universally believed that diffraction experiments prove that neutrons and atoms are waves. But I’ve presented an alternative explanation compatible with particles. It is also widely believed that non-local quantum entanglement is an experimental fact, but all such observations are based on measurements of linearly polarized single photons, using detectors that cannot distinguish one from two simultaneous photons. The proper experiments could be done, but have not yet been reported.
I also proposed a 2-stage Stern-Gerlach measurement. This is presented in standard quantum textbooks as if the experiment was done many years ago, but it has never been done. Feynman in his
Lectures on Physics (1963) admitted as much:
“Incidentally, no one has ever done all of the experiments we will describe in just this way, but we know what would happen from the laws of quantum mechanics, which are, of course, based on other similar experiments. ”
It is not that these experiments are particularly difficult or expensive; rather, it is viewed as disreputable to question accepted wisdom, so no one even wants to try.
Finally, I note that virtually all of the interest and comments on my essay come from amateurs. As a rule, theoretical physicists refuse to engage in any way. I feel like I’m being shunned.
Alan
En Passant replied on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 22:26 GMT
Alan,
Thank you for your reply.
In your comment (Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 18:46 GMT), you mention that “…It is also widely believed that non-local quantum entanglement is an experimental fact,…”
In response to the above quoted comment, I am going to say something that is either ignored or “underappreciated” generally. Even if we were to assume that...
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Alan,
Thank you for your reply.
In your comment (Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 18:46 GMT), you mention that “…It is also widely believed that non-local quantum entanglement is an experimental fact,…”
In response to the above quoted comment, I am going to say something that is either ignored or “underappreciated” generally. Even if we were to assume that the Bell-EPR experiments found what the QM community says they found, nothing can get around the following: All that was ever observed experimentally were correlations. “Entanglement” was never observed and never will. Its “extrapolation” requires the a priori acceptance of the thing “they” are trying to prove in the first place (non-locality/non-realism of QM). Only if you already believe and take a priori as axiomatic that particles and photons have no attributes until being measured/detected could you come to the conclusion (as a consequence of said experiments) that the detection of one “branch” of a singlet pair determines the state of its other “branch.”
There cannot (in principle) be experimental “proof” of entanglement (since no one knows what that even is, and if they think they do, let them propose the mechanism) unless we assume ahead of time that particles have no attributes while not being observed (and even then there is never an actual observation of entanglement, only inference). The claim “they” could be entitled to is that they are observing unexplained correlations, and “they are working on it.”
I am not surprised that you are being shunned by your colleagues. One of the Directors of the NSF told me that every time he proposes funding for research that might “put in question” prevailing views, the Bell Mafia (his words) descends upon him, and he is discouraged (via moral suasion) from pursuing it. Due to a combination of historical and scientific evolution (meaning, its various developments, social or otherwise) over the last 90 years, the QM movement has built up such an imposing “edifice” that it is virtually impossible to dislodge it from its pre-eminent position. It is a historical anomaly.
Like it or not, this is a long-term project (but it is extremely important).
However, in the interim, regardless of the status of QM, there will still be the issue I raise in my comment. It has to do with the progress toward ever-more esoteric physics, and our inability to keep going in that direction. I wonder if you could put your mind on that as a subject in itself.
But if you would be so kind as to address the other parts of my comment (En Passant wrote on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 15:43 GMT) to the extent you deem appropriate, that too will be appreciated.
En
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John R. Cox replied on Mar. 18, 2015 @ 16:20 GMT
Dr. Kadin,
I wouldn't worry about being shunned if I were you. I'd worry about the think tank types patenting your work. Seriously, get some tech money in your corner, wave-particle duality is a glorified admission of failure. A friend of mine on a construction crew once (damn good crew) had grown up in a family of con artists, and one time we were talking and he said that "if you walk into a room and can't spot the mark, you are". And you're right, the Bell-Aspect experiments with the polarized sunglasses type filters and the trick bulb (?), yep, it's a trick bulb. Best of luck, jrc
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Jacek Safuta wrote on Mar. 18, 2015 @ 11:16 GMT
Dear Alan,
Thank you for very good essay. Reading was a pleasure as I agree practically with all your conclusions. Moreover I have proposals how to add details you expect in future.
The major part of mathematics is completely abstract in the sense that have nothing to do with physical reality. But I cite you: pictures should guide physics. Pictures are geometry, that is part of mathematics. The same here - not the entire geometry can be isomorphic to the reality like e.g. highly speculative 11-dimensional M-theories. So the question is what geometrical structures fit to the reality? As you point out, mathematical models were adopted prematurely in the development of quantum theory. That time there were no Thurston geometries. This is the geometrization conjecture, proved by Perelman in 2003. Having that, we need only an universal correspondence rule which links the geometrical structures with the empirical domain. That rule have to be a new paradigm. Then we are able to assign proper Thurston geometries to all fundamental interactions and matter. We can treat them as a space-like, totally geodesic submanifolds of our familiar 3+1 dimensional spacetime. To make the picture of submanifolds (3) alive we need time (+1). With time included we have got quantized wave packets.
This is my proposal on the basis for the quantization. I have called this concept Geometrical Universe Hypothesis referring to Tegmark’s MUH. In this picture there is no indeterminacy, entanglement or decoherence. No Copenhagen interpretation. Apparently what I have described here is oversimplified, but you can find details in my
essay.
I would appreciate your comments. Thank you.
You deserve the highest rating that you will see in a while.
Jacek
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 20:24 GMT
Jacek,
Thank you for your interest and your comments, and I will read your essay carefully.
Alan
Branko L Zivlak wrote on Mar. 18, 2015 @ 22:41 GMT
Dear Alan Kadin,
I have no interest related to Quantum Theory, but I see that you are in a serious way to approach this problem.
Your words are:
"In contrast, in my picture, deterministic causal equations apply at all levels – no boundary is present, and therefore no boundary problem".
The original table with concrete relationships at all levels (no boundary is present) is in my essay. Perhaps you could expand it to Quantum Theory. Critique of my concept is appreciated.
Regards,
Branko Zivlak
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Michel Planat wrote on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 15:14 GMT
Dear Alan and readers of this post,
If you do not believe in quantum mechanics (and qubits), you will be alone soon
http://www.livescience.com/23820-nobel-prize-physics-har
oche-wineland.html
For quantum information theory (information is physical) I recommend
"Quantum computation and quantum information' by M. Nielsen and I. Chuang (Cambridge Press, 2000): the so-called QIP "bible"
More on the foundations of QM in Peres' book:
Quantum theory: concepts and methods, Kluwer 1995
Also Bohr:
"If quantum mechanics hasn't shocked you, you haven't understood it yet"
Michel
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 16:55 GMT
Dear Michel,
Please read my essay carefully before making statements like:
“If you do not believe in quantum mechanics (and qubits), you will be alone soon”
I am familiar with all of the works that you indicate, and yet I and a large number of physicists continue to question the foundations of quantum mechanics. Clearly, there is something seriously wrong with quantum mechanics, going back to its origins.
Your attitude is an indication of the quasi-religious nature of quantum belief. No questioning is allowed, and skeptics are to be shunned.
This is not science, which should by its nature be skeptical. If you read my paper, you would see that I am proposing specific experiments that should clearly distinguish orthodox QM from my alternative realistic picture. Furthermore, I identify specific aspects in the mathematical Hilbert space formalism that may be in error.
I would like to receive serious comments and criticism about my essay, but sarcasm is not the same as a serious comment.
Alan
Michel Planat wrote on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 18:04 GMT
Dear Allan,
You can forget "believe" and replace by "accept". I don't understand what you are writing in your essay. About Bohmian mechanics, there are many well written criticisms, one of them here
http://motls.blogspot.fr/2013/07/bohmian-mechanics-ludic
rous-caricature.html
We are in the quantum information age, with quantum cryptography already working, many quantum algorithms already experimentally proved, may be soon using teleportation in a quantum internet, NSA is involved in the building of a quantum computer.
It may be that QM may some day appear as a limiting case of a more general viewpoint but I would be surprised to learn that is wrong.
Best regards,
Michel
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En Passant replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 18:16 GMT
Michel,
I will keep this brief so as not to co-opt Alan’s page for a slightly off-topic discussion.
Your comment betrays the sentiment (shared by a self-appointed cadre of “Illuminati” within FQXi) that people who question QM (or at least aspects of Quantum Theory) are somehow deluded. You should note that hardly anyone within FQXi questions Relativity (so it’s not as if the...
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Michel,
I will keep this brief so as not to co-opt Alan’s page for a slightly off-topic discussion.
Your comment betrays the sentiment (shared by a self-appointed cadre of “Illuminati” within FQXi) that people who question QM (or at least aspects of Quantum Theory) are somehow deluded. You should note that hardly anyone within FQXi questions Relativity (so it’s not as if the skeptics were opposed to mainstream physics). And it’s not that QM is counterintuitive (although that is another favorite distraction employed by the apologists).
Michel, I think you should accept that you are dealing with a sophisticated audience not composed of demagogues (they are willing to accept evidence, but are skeptical about at least some parts of QT). Telling a scientist that s/he will soon be “alone” in whatever pursuit they are engaged in is not the right way to go about things.
Look, you may well be right, and everything is just fine with QT (QM). But I, for one, think that this discussion is far from settled. Only the future will tell (god, I hate clichés).
But I know you are pretty open minded, and when I email you later to ask you some questions about math (to which you agreed on another essay page), I will explore your belief that information is physical.
Anyway, I was pleased (to see, as I read various essays and the comments that followed) that the FQXi community appreciates your ability to see the connections between various branches of math (with perhaps corresponding connections in Physics).
En.
P.S. I was actually replying to your first comment, but it applies here too. So I will just add a few lines to answer your current comment.
I think pointing at Motl's comments will not win you any favors here. He talks about Mr. Smolin's, Mr. Woit's and Mr. Sean Carroll's brains as cesspools (two of them are participants in this essay contest). I think you are misinformed about things in your 3rd paragraph, including the NSA. But I will take even that up via email if you wish.
In any case, none of these things matter. Only the right theory, backed by the right experiments.
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 19, 2015 @ 19:55 GMT
To En Passant and Michel Planat:
Dear En,
Thank you for coming to my defense. I can see clearly that I am not alone.
Dear Michel,
First, what I have proposed is not Bohmian mechanics, as I state directly on the top of page 3 (but maybe you didn’t get that far). So I don’t think that Motl’s ad hominem attacks on David Bohm (who is not around to defend himself) are relevant. My picture has NO POINT PARTICLES, only spin-quantized soliton-like waves which act in certain respects as particles.
Second, Bohm proposed his mechanics to show that a hidden-variables theory was possible, completely consistent with the results of standard QM, notwithstanding Von Neumann’s proof that this was impossible. In contrast, I specifically state that my picture makes predictions that are different from those of standard QM, and I propose experiments that can distinguish them.
Third, you brought up the NSA, i.e., the US National Security Agency funding of research into quantum computing. In fact, the NSA in the past decade has been funneling enormous sums of money (probably totaling 10 figures) into QC on both the theoretical and experimental levels, and is responsible for most of the research funding in many laboratories. I am less familiar with the funding situation in the EU, but I would expect that it is similar with respect to the corresponding EU or national agency. In my essay, I question the entire basis for quantum computing. I have never received NSA-related research funding.
A general remark is that one can never prove a physical theory to be correct by any number of measurements, but one can prove it to be incorrect by a single verifiable measurement. So we should never stop doing experiments on QM, just because we have all been taught it is correct. And we should not believe in QM just because it is expressed in an abstract mathematical formalism – that too can be incorrect.
Alan
Anonymous wrote on Mar. 20, 2015 @ 06:37 GMT
Alan,
Your essay is at or near the top, in my opinion. (I have a few more to consider.)
I do have questions and a suggestion. I question why and how firmly you picture “some kind of big bang”? There may have been a big bang but I do not find any compelling evidence of such. And feel that efforts to support a big bang story are part of the distraction that yields the present patch work which is the standard theory of today. Also a suggestion as to the universal locked-in, self-organized, h-bar scale fields that are the essence of the vacuum; I will post a “picture” after your comment on my present essay entry
here or you can see similar at
my entry to the first FQXI Essay Contest on The Nature of Time.
Sherman Jenkins
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Pankaj Mani wrote on Mar. 24, 2015 @ 15:30 GMT
Dear Alan,
There is indeed no indeterminacy in the motion of wave packet. As you mentioned The motion of a wave packet is completely deterministic, with both position and momentum being arbitrarily defined (no uncertainty principle!).A wave packet must be spread over at least about a wavelength, but the center of energy follows a definite trajectory. The standard textbook proof of the...
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Dear Alan,
There is indeed no indeterminacy in the motion of wave packet. As you mentioned The motion of a wave packet is completely deterministic, with both position and momentum being arbitrarily defined (no uncertainty principle!).A wave packet must be spread over at least about a wavelength, but the center of energy follows a definite trajectory. The standard textbook proof of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a mathematical identity about waves, and provides for uncertainty only if one assumes the orthodox statistical interpretation.
As you metioned : In the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation, the wave represents a statistical distribution of the locations of a point particle that is associated with the mass. In an alternative “pilot-wave” interpretation (suggested by de Broglie and refined by David Bohm), both particle and wave are real, and the wave guides the trajectory of the particle.
I have mentioned that even in Copenhagen's interpretation,statistical probability is nothing but the measure of observer's ignorance. The Indeterminacy,Uncertainty also stem from the same. Heisenberg Uncertainty principle inequality was derived directly from the mathematical framework itself.Schrodingers differential euqation describing the trajectory of so-called probabilistic wave functions is itself fundamentally deterministic! mathematics is indeed responsible for this quantum mechanics. The fact is the incompatible blind application of mathematical structures in the physical scenarios. There are certain laws of invariance behind mathematical and physical structures both. There should be match between their intrinsic characetristic otherwise it leads to wrong applications and result.Thats the case of orthodox Quantum mechanics.
Thats what my Mathematical Structure Hypothesis sates that mathematical structures and physical world both are creations of Vibrations.
Probability, Randomness, Complexity are the measure of human/observer's ignorance.
As you have written : If quantum mechanics provides the microscopic foundation for matter, where does classical mechanics come from? In the orthodox theory, the microscopic world is comprised of indeterminate, entangled superpositions, associated with quantum coherent states. The macroscopic classical world consists of realistic, deterministic trajectories without superposition or entanglement. The interface between these two domains is rather fuzzy. Classical physics is believed to come about via interaction of a given quantum system with a classical measurement apparatus, causing decoherence, i.e., loss of microscopic coherent degrees of freedom. Exactly how this occurs has never been made clear, and the logic seems rather circular; if everything is ultimately quantum, how is this classical apparatus initiated?
In contrast, in the realistic theory described here, there is no quantum-classical separation.
The big question before dealing with our above classical trajectoties on microscopic level is -what is Matter & how it is linked with observer's(human) Mind. What are micro and macro? They all are fundamentally linked with Russells' paradox geometry where A larger set can exist within smaller set B and vice versa. This is possible in a peculiar geometry where internal and external,micro ¯o are merely the geometrical effects. Mind and Matter are simple question of Vibrations. Mind at very low rate is Matter and Matter at high rate of Vibration is Mind.Please see my essay or the links attached here.
Anyway, what's take on what governs the structure of mathematical equations itself which are used in Quantum mechanics/physics,which causes these fundamental paradoxes issues.Richard Feynman once said that -The next great era of human awakening would come ,today we don't see the content of euqations.
Whats your take on the geometry of consciousness(paradox of self-consciousness) as David Bohm said that without peeping into this we can't understand quantum aspects e.g.bell's locality-at-distance?
Anyway you have written great essay.
Regards,
Pankaj Mani
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attachments:
MindBrain_MatterConsciousness.pdf,
Swami_Vivekananda_on_universe_space_time.pdf
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En Passant wrote on Mar. 25, 2015 @ 21:24 GMT
Dear Alan/Edwin,
I am sorry to “borrow” your respective essay pages to make the following points (and I sincerely hope it does not affect your ratings adversely).
Mathematics is our investigation into our own brains (codified in the language of mathematics). It requires great creativity for it to be fruitful. Physics, then, would be the attempt to express (explain) in a “language” (usually mathematics) how things behave in the universe.
Let’s not forget that the referents of “mathematics” and “physics” did not exist prior to human existence. We get to define what those terms mean.
Much is being made of the success of mathematics (being taken to its logical conclusions) in “predicting” certain results that are later confirmed by experiments (or aligned with physics theory). This should not be a surprise. It is not mathematics alone that derived the said conclusions. The terms (i.e. qualities) at first established to have mathematically valid relationships are just “rehashed” (using mathematics) into new physical relationships. Those physical relationships existed prior to that, and the mathematical “machinations” simply converted the already known relationships into ones that existed in physics, but had not yet been expressed in their new form.
I am only writing this for those who can understand it. Please don’t ask me to explain it.
You cannot have a scientific theory that is based on probability, and expect to derive new physical relationships from there indefinitely. Only deterministic physical theories (i.e. ones that can be taken to logical conclusions without “end”) will work in the long run.
Soon, our garden will melt, and I will be busy interacting with the universe “first hand.”
En
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 25, 2015 @ 22:55 GMT
Dear En,
Albert Einstein once said, indicating his dissatisfaction with orthodox quantum theory, “God does not play dice with the universe.”
I tend to agree. Of course, many physical phenomena appear random, but that does not prove that they are intrinsically random; it just means that we do not have control (or knowledge) of all of the underlying parameters. In classical physics, random motion of atoms in a gas is consistent with a deterministic theory. But the quantum decay of a radioactive nucleus is believed to be intrinsically random, characterized only by a statistical half-life. That very assertion acts to discourage physicists from looking further to identify an underlying mechanism.
Alan
En Passant wrote on Mar. 26, 2015 @ 16:55 GMT
Dear Alan,
I am glad you posted the following:
“But the quantum decay of a radioactive nucleus is believed to be intrinsically random, characterized only by a statistical half-life. That very assertion acts to discourage physicists from looking further to identify an underlying mechanism.”
Doesn’t it occur to those same physicists that if things were “intrinsically random,” then there would not be a precise half-life? The half-life (if random) would vary (sometimes this, and sometimes that).
The very fact that there is a specific half-life indicates a very precise mathematical relationship between the state of a given population of atoms and their resultant new state measured by time.
I feel regret (even contrite) that I cannot help you guys any further. It is your job to figure out the exact mathematically expressible dynamic between a bunch of atoms in one state, and their eventual state given a time-frame later. Of course the same ideas occur to me as they do to others. There must be something in the constituents of said atoms to react in such a way.
Also, is there a short enough time during which no atoms decay? This might be another line of thought to examine.
I will keep thinking about this, but only you (the “greater you” out there) will solve it.
En
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 27, 2015 @ 14:00 GMT
Dear En,
Your comment about random events reminds me of the book
“The Black Swan” by Nassim Taleb, in which he argues against the prevailing belief (in economic and other fields) that all random processes are defined mathematically by Gaussian distributions. Even when evidence shows that the model is not correct, this evidence and its important implications are ignored by the community of experts.
The problem is not in the mathematics per se, but rather in the social nature of human belief structures. We want to believe that we have a rationally-based shared understanding of the world, even when it may not be valid.
Alan
En Passant replied on Mar. 27, 2015 @ 22:07 GMT
Dear Alan,
I can see that you are not going to (publicly) commit to a firm stance on this thing.
But I liked the writing. It reminded me of Franz Kafka, whom I greatly admire.
En
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Thomas Howard Ray wrote on Mar. 31, 2015 @ 12:55 GMT
Alan,
Your title kept me from reading until now. To my delight, I found a well reasoned and mathematically sound description of a continuous measurement function independent of the assumptions of conventional quantum theory. Cognitive dissonance, indeed.
I will surely read your 2006 preprint now.
Though we have different approaches, our conclusions about
what is wrong with conventional quantum theory are the same.
Highest marks from me, and best wishes in the essay contest.
Tom
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Richard Lewis wrote on Mar. 31, 2015 @ 13:22 GMT
I totally support your views expressed in the title of your essay and I also feel strongly that there is a need for an agreed physical interpretation of quantum theory.
My own thinking in this area has some similarity to yours (see my essay Solving the Mystery) but I have made the further conjecture that the waves that comprise the photon, electron, proton etc are wave disturbances of spacetime itself (The Spacetime Wave theory).
This has resulted in the ability to provide a complete explanation of the properties of mass and charge and also a means of unification of the fundamental forces.
I hope you have the time to take a look and give me your comments on that thread.
Richard Lewis
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James Lee Hoover wrote on Mar. 31, 2015 @ 18:42 GMT
Alan,
I can't pretend to have a high level of understanding of your thesis of quantized wave packets and the efficacy of art in understanding physics, but my essay's reference to studies that connect the quantum with the classical in the new field of quantum biology render a connection with your intriguing concepts.
I do wonder about a new understanding of coherent domains, considering that a theoretical physicist looking at navigation of European robins, cited quantum coherence and entanglement in considering interactions of the Earth's magnetic field and chemical changes in the bird's body.
I wonder if studies drawn from observation at the classical level (the bird's navigational capabilities) can uncover quantum secrets w/o reliance on orthodox quantum (abstract) math models. The British scientist's focus was solving a mystery w/o starting with abstract math models.
Thanks for the opportunity to share your concepts.
Jim
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James Lee Hoover replied on Apr. 11, 2015 @ 21:58 GMT
Alan,
Time grows short, so I am revisited those I've read to assure I've rated them. I find that I rated yours on 3/31. Hope you have time to check mine out.
Good luck.
Jim
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Neal Graneau wrote on Apr. 12, 2015 @ 14:32 GMT
Hello Alan,
I enjoyed skimming through your essay and hope to go back and give it a thorough reading as soon as possible. In the meantime, I have great empathy with your stance that mathematics far too quickly overtook the experimental development of quantum mechanics and the subject seems littered with clues to this process. I am always particularly aggrieved by the mathematical arbitrariness of the renormalisation process and unflinching acceptance of Dirac's negative energy interpretation. Your wave free interpretation seems to have strong link with non-locality and the non-field theory approach I have taken to understanding the body of physics experiments.
Perhaps you would be interested in looking at my essay, but in the meantime thank you for bringing a bit of common sense into the interpretation of quantum effects.
Regards
Neal
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Gordon Watson wrote on Apr. 20, 2015 @ 00:48 GMT
Dear Alan,
As a fellow conscientious local realist I very much enjoyed reading your essay. In many ways I thought it might serve as a nice prelude to my own.
However we differ seriously on at least one important point, which unfortunately suggests that we differ on crucial details:
For I am certain that the view expressed in your Figure 4 is false.Certainly the related...
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Dear Alan,
As a fellow conscientious local realist I very much enjoyed reading your essay. In many ways I thought it might serve as a nice prelude to my own.
However we differ seriously on at least one important point, which unfortunately suggests that we differ on crucial details:
For I am certain that the view expressed in your Figure 4 is false.Certainly the related text has two related typos: in the second paragraph, p.6 of your essay, cos
2θ should read cos
2(θ/2); sin
2θ should read sin
2(θ/2); for we need to take into account the spin s= 1/2 of the subject spin-half particles. Otherwise you are discussing the isomorphic photon experiment (spin s = 1); see next para.
Let us agree that the proposed experiment has not yet been conducted. Nevertheless the proposed experiment is isomorphic with one that E-L Malus conducted with beams of photons circa 1812; whence Malus' Law for light. Further, the proposed experiment is equivalent to one-half of the experiment C
1/2 in my own essay.
In my essay you will see that the proposed experiment can be expressed and addressed in wholly classical terms, devoid of any reference to excited or ground states: ie, in your proposed experiment, the spin-half particles leaving SG1, en route to SG2, are all polarised spin-up. It is therefore certain that the outcomes will be distributed as follows: Detector 1 will record cos
2(θ/2) and Detector 2 will record sin
2(θ/2) of the outcomes; spin-up and spin-down respectively.
Note that my "certainty" is not based on dogma; rather it is based on (i) the unified boson/fermion experiment Ω considered in my essay, (ii) classical considerations alone (since the SG1 outputs are accepted as given), (iii) local-realism alone!
Hoping these remarks might lead you to reconsider your position in the "local realistic" spectrum, I really would welcome your critical comments on my own essay; especially as many find it difficult to understand -- (eg, see recent valid comments by Richard Gill and Peter Jackson; following an earlier one by Akinbo Ojo) -- and I'm working on improvements.
With best regards;
Gordon Watson: Essay Forum.
Essay Only.
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Armin Nikkhah Shirazi wrote on Apr. 21, 2015 @ 21:32 GMT
Dear Alan,
As you may know, I am rather skeptical of your theory. However, I do laud your effort to formulate a testable prediction and sincerely hope that someone will take up the opportunity to try to test it.
In case you have not already thought of it yourself, may I suggest the possibility of crowdfunding an experiment that would be carried out by a disinterested third party, preferably an experienced and well-respected experimental physicist in this area. This is one of the most certain areas to help attract attention if you do turn out to be right.
Best wishes,
Armin
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Author Alan M. Kadin replied on Apr. 23, 2015 @ 13:35 GMT
Dear Armin,
I expect skepticism to my theory, but you focus quite correctly on the issue of experimental tests. Indeed, as the philosopher of science Karl Popper argued, only a theory that can be disproven experimentally (falsifiable) is truly scientific. Your idea of trying to crowdfund an experimental test is interesting.
On another subject, I noticed that there seemed to be a large number of strategic downratings on the last day of Community voting. For my own essay, there were a series of 3 ‘1’s given on the last day, one of these in the last hour. I wonder whether these voters really read the essay at all.
But I hope that despite these last-minute changes, both of us will make it into the finals.
Alan
Armin Nikkhah Shirazi replied on Apr. 23, 2015 @ 15:06 GMT
Dear Alan,
On your last point, yes, the incentives are set up so that voting reflects game theoretic patterns instead of merits of content. The same happened to me as well, but what I find much more disturbing is that the pattern of telling people how one has rated their essays has become much more prevalent among the participants than in previous contests and now also infected comments by serious scientists. And then there is all the stuff going on behind the scenes, in which participants send each other emails and agree to collude. I did not believe this was happening until I received some unwelcome solicitations myself.
It is really too bad that a wonderful idea like having a series of essay contests on the foundations of physics is marred by such idiotic execution.
Armin
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William H. F. Christie wrote on Jul. 24, 2015 @ 20:03 GMT
“Not A Pilot-wave”
Hi Alan,
I support you in the argument to take off the blinders. Although I was never told to shut up and just accept the math, I was told that maybe I couldn’t understand it. Fair enough, but I remember staying up all night throwing forks and spoons up in the air and pretending I was in an elevator so that I could understand the equation that I knew would be...
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“Not A Pilot-wave”
Hi Alan,
I support you in the argument to take off the blinders. Although I was never told to shut up and just accept the math, I was told that maybe I couldn’t understand it. Fair enough, but I remember staying up all night throwing forks and spoons up in the air and pretending I was in an elevator so that I could understand the equation that I knew would be on the exam next day. I passed and Jimmy Haight my best physics teacher allowed me on the ski team where I learned more about gravity.
I agree that as you say “a more natural way out of this dilemma is to dispense with the point particle entirely, and obtain the discrete particle nature from purely wave phenomena”.
That is what I did when I considered there might be a model of matter that explains both relativity and quantum mechanics. It is a rotating wave similar to your “helically rotating electric field vector corresponding to a circularly polarized (CP) electromagnetic wave”. I have attached the general picture with the planar wave fronts arrayed around the axis of rotation which is in the forward (translational) motion of the rotating wave.
Note how the planar wave fronts incline in accordance with EM (wave front and electric + magnetic fields must be perpendicular to motion of wave). That exhibits phenomenae described in the Special Theory of Relativity (Lorentz invariance) and furthermore when accelerated exhibits phenomenae described in the General Theory of Relativity.
Of course when one considers the rotating wave (or field), then it logically explains gravity with required binding energy plus expansion of the universe and slowing of time. There is no need for the cosmological constant. I’m pretty sure I got the math right now on the Gkl derivation from the rotating wave.
The inclined planar wave fronts of the rotating wave (or field) look similar to a propeller (or vanes of a jet engine). If you fly a plane in a tight circle and the propeller spins only ½ the way, then it looks upside down. It will take the plane two trips around to get the spinor propeller back into the original state. I suspect that is a valid reinterpretation of the “Balinese Dance” or “Feynman Plate Trick” and the helical rotation would thus be an inherent requirement.
Good math makes good physics. I get a thrill of ah ha when the equation suggests a physical model and the physical models speaks back. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. If one can dream up many dimensions, then one can look at alternative models, but certainly through the eyes of trained physics and math. My suggestion is to develop a special forum on the classically rotating wave (or field). It would be a work in progress with various specialists examining various attributes. There is also the technical application as well. I think there is already a patent application on the EM Propellor.
I got to go for my jog and think. That “mysterious angular momentum of spin” and “dark energy / dark matter” are beckoning. I’d love to one day run past Einstein’s house in Princeton and then maybe go on to Greece. I bet Dirac would enjoy your article.
Bill Christie
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attachments:
Rotating_Wave_picture_close_up.pdf
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