Thanks James,

You have picked out some key points. There are more. It's early in the contest, so there will probably be more discussion. I'm having trouble keeping up with the essays, and I'm sure others are too. Obviously one problem is that most experts who submit their own essays are pushing their own programs, and quantum theory as mystical and exotic is more alluring than local realism. But FQXi provides a wonderful platform to get the ideas out, and I do believe that there is a 'pentup demand' for quantum mechanics to make sense, as opposed to just 'work'.

Another problem, discussed some on Joy's threads, is that some argue (even today on another thread) that incompatibilities between QM and GR prevent such understanding. This is based on an unsubstantiated belief that the new theory will descend from QM and GR as opposed to the (seemingly obvious) fact that a new theory must arise outside of QM and GR and be compatible with both in key aspects. GR specialists and QM specialists resist this, as they are heavily invested in their specialities. A further problem is shown in an arXiv reference I followed in another essay--the reference noted that they were entering an essay on FQXi "for laymen". This might imply that establishment types do not take these efforts seriously, but would be perfectly willing to pick up a grant or win a prize.

So thanks for your support, and be patient (as if we have a choice.) There are some very nice essays here already (I very much like Norman Cook's) and I have not yet commented on one that addresses a very important assumption. Also, my essay is very complex, treating, in nine pages, the most confused topic of the last century, so I hope that some of those experts you invoke are trying to digest my arguments before responding. Finally, in a sense I come down in the middle of one of the hardest fought campaigns on FQXi and that may make neither side happy.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Eugene

I have read with great interest your learned essay about the wave function. As you say in the concluding remark it needs to be re-read to understand the many highly technical points and new mathematics you use or refer to.

I will simply respond to what I understood from it: Your stress on the reality of the quantum wave function is spot on. You back your belief by impressive mathematics and a solid historical knowledge of what various physicists from Schrodinger to Bell believed about this. As you know my approach to physics is almost purely geometrical and I liked how you illustrated various formulas with figures on the same line as if the illustration was a new type of algebraic notation. Perhaps you can develop your entire physics using such notation? Your photon of Eq. 2 is almost identical to a node element of my Beautiful Universe Theory, but the way it spreads thereafter may be different.

Incidentally in one of the physics forums in recent months I commented on the double-slit experiment illustrated on the first page of your paper. It shows a diffracting field with maxima and minima corresponding to a hydronomical flow that I illustrated in my study of diffraction as streamlined flow. Fig. 6 here

As Norman Cook commented about your Chomodynamics book - your approach may be 'highbrow', nevertheless you explain your ideas clearly enough by way of text and illustrations. I hope that one day soon our views on the reality of quantum waves should be part of standard physics texts!

With best wishes

Vladimir

    Dear Vladimir,

    Thanks for reading and commenting and thanks for the link to "THE CANCELLATION OF DIFFRACTION IN WAVE FIELDS" of which I was unaware. I am in awe of your artistic and high geometrical drawings, and look forward to rading that paper, which I have printed out. I have found that one very beneficial aspect of this essay contest is the references to other works, especially those of the author of the specific essay.

    As you mention, I use a smattering of geometric algebra, which I recently learned in order to understand Joy Christian's work (one of several things I am indebted to him for) and have found a number of other people in the same situation, ie, learned it for Joy, then fell in love with it for it's own sake. You of all people know how much physics depends on geometry, but in most cases the geometry is drawn on the blackboard and the blackboard is filled with algebraic equations, with nothing but handwaving linking the two. David Hestenes' treatment links the two such that every element in the algebra has both an algebraic and a geometric aspect, and this, to many of us, makes it the ideal tool for physics. The Doran book I reference is an ideal starting point, although one can learn a lot online for free.

    Today was a good day for FQXi with your essay and Daryl Janzen's essay being posted.

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    I posted the following on jcns's thread:

    Dear jcns,

    I would direct your attention to Daryl Janzen's essay. It is a fantastic essay and also provides a link to his recent PhD dissertation which is, believe it or not, a very exciting read. He arrives, I think it's safe to say, at much the same conclusion that you and I do, but in a much more scientific and professional manner. Perhaps the most important essay yet published in this contest.

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Thank you jason, not really, I am going to loose my house now.I must pay 65 000 quickly.I have lost all my flowers and plants due to bad people, the politic still.

    The human nature is very bizare.I fight but it is difficult.

    I have a bad health, and I have not a job furthermore.

    I am tired. But I am continuing even with people against me.I fight alone.

    Best to both of you .

    Hi jcns,

    I'm glad that you find Daryl's essay as interesting as I do. I have added a comment to the exchange that you and Daryl had on his thread. I reproduce that comment here in my own thread so that I can keep the idea 'close at hand':

    Dear Daryl and jcns,

    A very interesting exchange. JCN says, "humans have come to refer to the changing configurations of the universe as 'the flow of time.' It is ... crucial to recognize ... however, that the changes ... are *not caused by,* and are not in any way a consequence of, the flow of time. Rather, the changes ...*are* the flow of time."

    That has sort of been the way I have been thinking, but your very phraseology has caused me to see it in a different perspective. As you know energy and time are conjugate variables, and in the view you [jcns] just espoused, it would be *energy* (or more correctly, "the flow of energy") that is real and time that is emergent. But in the "present as real" perspective, obviously energy is everywhere local, whereas time is global and universal. Therefore there would seem to be a universal 'reality' to time as opposed to merely a handy way of tagging sequential events.

    Daryl, I too am working through your wonderfully written dissertation. Wow!

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Dear Edwin Eugene Klingman,

    Well done! This is an excellent essay. Your argument is clear and well-written, and you've given me much to think about. I too think there must be something classical happening at the heart of quantum mechanics, and I think your essay describes a logically consistent way of accounting for the wave equation in that respect, although I'm not an expert and my ability to judge your derivation critically is limited. However, I really do agree with your approach, which I think meets the purpose of this contest right on the mark, and I find your results very intriguing, so I'll definitely be following up on the advice you've given in the final paragraph.

    I was particularly interested in the way you've described superposition, although it's something that hasn't bothered me as much. In itself, I don't have an issue with the idea of a cat (one particle) that's both alive and dead while it's in the box. There is a problem, though, when it comes to looking in the box, because then the cat can only be alive or dead, and I'm not a fan of the act of measurement being something that causes the wave function to collapse. So, although I'm not immediately opposed to the idea of one particle that's also a superposition of multiple possibilities, I don't like the implication that the result of looking into the box should be probabilistic. This backs me into a small-ish corner, where I think my best option is along these lines: maybe the particle really is one such thing (the cat's either alive or dead), and the whether of that is the thing that's probabilistic, e.g. depending on a radioactive half-life; but more than that, the physical description of the thing that actually exists is also mathematically something like one root of a polynomial, although the root is more accurately a `superposition' of numbers. If that superposition is consistent with the probabilistic nature of what the particle actually is, then I think you'd have quantum mechanics. I think this is right in line with what you've written in `The Source of the Error', second paragraph, and therefore with your interesting result, that `Each possible solution has a probability yet only one physical solution occurs'.

    Anyway, I have a result written up which I think you'd find interesting, and it would explain (more concisely than it does in my dissertation) where I'm coming from in mentioning polynomials here. The result is a long, long way from quantum theory, but I'd be happy to email you the paper that's in review if you thought you'd have time to read it.

    Again, excellent work, and I truly wish you success in this contest!

    Sincerely,

    Daryl

    P.S. I only noticed the comment you left about my essay and dissertation on J. C. N. Smith's blog a couple of days ago, which I see you've reproduced above. I can't begin to express the profound gratitude I continue to feel for the enthusiasm and support you've shown for my work.

      Dear Daryl Janzen,

      Thank you for the above comments.

      You and I agree about "going to the source". In your thesis you, "...try to understand the assumptions and presumptions behind the reasonings of those who have played important roles in its philosophical development, with the idea that if we can truly understand what they were thinking and why, we might better understand where they went wrong." I've tried to do the same.

      I would be happy to read your paper on polynomial solutions. [My email address is in my essay.] Having finished reading your dissertation last night, I have a guess about what your approach is, and look forward to seeing if I'm right. You could have copied my last essay paragraph and ended your thesis with it. Far too much to fully absorb at one reading, and I hope to find time to make notes and summarize my main impressions and review it again. [I used up three yellow liners on your words.]

      This contest is shaping up well. I think some important essays have been submitted, and very likely more will be. I recommend Normal Cook's "Nucleodynamics" for more insight into particles, and I would be interested in your take on Ernst Fischer's essay.

      I have no problem with 'superposition' of numbers, either roots of polynomials or Fourier series, but I strongly believe that material particles are not 'super-imposable'. For reasons of lack of space, I simply assume the existence of the particles and deal only with the induced wave (function) in my essay. It is definitely not for lack of theory about particles. All of the known particles (except the Higgs) fall out of my theory, i.e., neutrinos, electrons, up and down quarks, and all three families (but no 'super-partners'). I suspect that an understanding of the material particles (and why they are NOT super-imposable) makes my wave function more credible, but such was far outside the 9 page contraints.

      Thanks again for your comments, but mostly I thank you for your essay and your thesis.

      Edwin Eugene Klingman

      Dear Edwin

      Great essay, thank you. You make a good point about physics confounding physical waves and probability waves. That is a long-standing area where science has been unable to come up with physical explanations. It's a worthwhile premise to question.

      Good luck with the competition.

      Dirk

        Dear Dirk Pons,

        Thanks for the above observation. In nine pages packed with information about one of the most complicated and contentious fields of physics, you clearly and succinctly extracted one of the key points in the essay in just seven words, "physics confounding physical waves and probability waves". Congratulations.

        I also admire both your imagination in the design approach laid out in your essay and the fact that you managed it as a family project. Congratulations again.

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Edwin

        There are so many important truisms in your essay and so densely packed it's hard to pick one out. Waves certainly real fluctuations not metaphysical. Particles key actors in propagation, QM real and local (and deriving relativity). The list goes on.

        Do you think 'probability' may just be the incomputability of complex interactions between real waves beyond our comprehension? If Heisenberg considered diffraction related to uncertainty it may be so, and again be just interpretation that's nonsense. If you consider a dozen particles driving along a motorway at different speeds emitting different real waves, could we compute how they interact at any point? But given certain information we can at least arrive at a most 'likely' value at any point and moment. For 'likely' then perhaps read 'probable.' This would fit with my derivation of observed SR effects from a QM. How else would the waves interact in a complex scenario?

        Best wishes

        Peter

          Hi Peter,

          Thanks for the comment and questions. You're right-- the essay is packed with info (some are truisms, but in QM even that is debatable.) To deal with a century of confusion requires covering a lot of ground in 9 pages. You ask whether I think 'probability' may be just the incomputability of complex interactions beyond our capabilities. In the essay, I use the 'partition function' of statistical mechanics as the basis of probability for energy states and then show how this links to the physical wave (length) to allow the calculation of probability amplitudes. The partition function, which is typically based on huge numbers of combinatorial events, probably meets your specification as to the nature of probability. What I focus on is the generally-not-understood connection of the physical wave to probability wave (as Dirk Pons noted above).

          I have not focused on Heisenberg and diffraction (I count on you for that!) but I generally view Heisenberg in two compatible ways. The finite wavelength lends itself a certain Fourier-based limitation that can be considered 'uncertainty'. Also, in previous essays, I have derived a quantum flow condition that generalizes his relations. In any case, the existence of a quantum of action strongly limits what can be measured without disturbing the system. I reference recent Aharonov-based 'weak measurements' that get around this limitation, but only statistically.

          Your question about a dozen particles on a motorway is good. In my opinion the wave 'phase' associated with each particle is inherently unknown (unmeasurable) so exact calculations are impossible, leaving us with a distribution of 'most likely' values as you desire for your "derivation of SR from a QM."

          My essay shows how one can understand quantum mechanical probability amplitudes from physical waves. Lack of information on individual phases means that probability is the best we can hope for, but this does not imply the mystical consequences that follow from belief in the pure 'probability wave' that has characterized most quantum interpretations for a century.

          Thanks as always for your insightful questions.

          Edwin Eugene Klingman

          5 days later

          Dear Edwin,

          You do seem to have given a clear and well presented argument, though I lack the expertise to comment on its validity. It is relevant as you clearly point out an error in understanding of a physical phenomenon. Your diagrams are nice too.

          I found the beginning bit about the evidence for a real wave rather than wave packet very interesting. Also the part about vortices and the aircraft.

          I have appreciated your feedback on my various ideas and essay in this contest. I hope you get lots of readers who are able to appreciate what you have written and give it the score it deserves. Good luck in the competition.

            Dear Edwin,

            you are kind to me. I wish I had the ability to really appreciate what you have written and say something so nice in return. I have read some of the other very complementary comments on this thread, which show that it is my shortcoming and not your essay that is at fault. Good luck.

            Hi Edwin,

            I really enjoyed this paper -- I could overlook every nit which I question, and come away only with the argument that the wave function is not probabilistic -- and still be satisified.

            So I offer the following as commentary, not criticism.

            You write: "We can safely ignore wave functions of infinite extent, but all treatments of atomic orbits are based upon the assumption of an integral number of wavelengths--the link that connects wavefunction to both energy and probability."

            Measured experimental outcomes are always integral (no such thing as half an event). I was both puzzled and impressed in first being exposed to Joy's framework, that he was addressing a quantum experiment and there was no probability function in it. None at all. It was only after some time that I was able to work out that the absence of a probability function implies absence of boundary conditions at every scale, which implies absence of reference coordinate frame, which can be explained only by a continuous function in a topological model. Eureka, as our friend from Belgium would say.

            We also reach Joy's derivation of -a.b by different paths. To me, it's clear in his one-page paper that the result is the reduction to an input argument for a function continuous from a topological initial condition. That's not saying that it can't be derived another way.

            Just one more comment, concerning dialogue here with Daryl, and the characterization of solutions to polynomial equations as analagous to superposition -- just shows how differently physicists and mathematicians think. The number of solutions corresponding to polynomial degree are *all* real solutions, not in superposition. That's the fundamental theorem of algebra! LOL!

            Anyway -- thanks for a good read, and best wishes in the competition.

            Tom

              Hi Tom,

              Thanks for reading my essay and for your gracious comments. I read your essay and plan to comment. All I remember at the moment is that I very much liked your last paragraph.

              Based on all of the "Disproof" blogs, I knew that you would have some trouble with this paper, but I'm glad you worked through it and found it interesting. From our many previous exchanges we both know that our views are quite different despite our mutual desire for an essentially classical (i.e., continuum-based) approach to reality. As the Zen Buddhists say, once you go too far down the path, you have trouble getting off. This applies to us as well -- once we have made things fit together in our minds such that we think we have the truth, it is very hard to see other's truths. I think you and I have things that fit together very well in our own minds but do not overlap to a great extent. I'm sure we share some truth.

              I meet with a local group and one of the group has pushed me on how my theory relates to Joy (which he has studied) and I have recently understood both what Joy has done and what I have done in his framework much better than I express it in my essay. I'm writing up the overview now. I think you would enjoy it.

              As you remark about Daryl, and about your understanding of Joy's results, physicists and mathematicians do see things quite differently.

              Anyway, thanks again Tom.

              Edwin Eugene Klingman

              Yo, E.E.K., you asked me, back on the thread of G.F.R. Ellis, F.R.S., to say something here.

              I'm afraid I'm far from sure that the mathematics of the QM formalism refers to anything apart from the probability of observing certain quantum events under defined experimental conditions. "Wave function" may be simply an attempt (of precisely the kind Bohr -- yes, I know: hiss the villain -- warned against) to picture that which cannot meaningfully be pictured or diagrammed. Bohr blamed complex numbers and noted that the trend had already surfaced in relativity ... first Minkowski's imaginary time axis, then later the Friedmann universe model adopted by Einstein. QM soon picked up the ball and ran with it.

              Micro-wise you first diverge from classical physics with half-integer spin and right off the bat there's a choice: you either accept that a realm of reality exists in which a sphere has the properties of a Moebius strip or else face the possibility that the math you're employing so productively doesn't refer to anything you can concretely envision: its terms are purely symbolic. (Feynman never claimed his diagrams were literal pictures of reality either: they're high-class equivalents of the cheat-notes Sarah Palin jots on her left palm.) Ditto the thing we call Wave Function, this Cosa Nostra.

              (Exits hurriedly)

                Oh, Bell ...

                I know for a fact that BT is NOT violated in macroworld experiments using sets of separable physical objects. It's solid classical mathematical logic, as Venn-diagramming it conclusively proves. So it's sound stuff.

                Since it's obviously violated in quantum experiments I accept that quantum ontology is significantly different from classical ontology. I also buy into the idea that we're coarse-grained measuring instruments up here and that's probably why we don't perceive violations.