Dear Timothy Boyer
I have read your impressive essay. I'd like to bring up the following points for further discussion:
(1) We all know that Planck's constant is a bridge between 19th and 20th Century Physics. Planck not only introduced h as the fitting result from Blackbody radiation, but also saved the Boltzmann constant obtained from the gas constant and Avogadro's constant kB=R/NA, who ended his life before kB was recognized. If Boltzmann's constant, gas constant and Avogadro's constant are considered as classical, why isn't Planck's constant the same? There is only one Nature, the classical or quantum interpretation must deal with it all.
(2) The zero-point energy was first discussed by Einstein and Otto Stern in 1913, with a Planck term (not the Planck law), they gave
[math]E=\frac{h\nu}{e^{h\nu/kT}-1}\frac{h\nu}{2}[/math]
This was before the Casimir effect found in 1948, during the study of the van der Waals force. Planck's constant h has been widely used in the quantum effect as the unit of Angular momenta, but not the minimum value of the Angular momenta. Dirac's constant [math]\hbar=h/2\pi[/math] and [math]\mathbf{e}^{2}/c=\alpha\hbar\approx h/274\pi[/math] are all smaller than h.
(3) Blackbody radiation is still an active field needing work. We are both interested in the dimensionless Blackbody radiation constant [math]\alpha_{R}=1/157.555[/math]
and [math]\alpha=1/137.036[/math]
(see my paper on EJTP 2011: "Dimensionless Constant and Blackbody Radiation Laws" at [link:www.ejtp.com/articles/ejtpv8i25p379.pdf]).
(4) I am glad to see you have suggested to study the particle passed through the slits, which is discussed in my essay: "Rethinking the Double Slit Experiment" at http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1452.
(also see EJTP 2012 "The Fine Structure Constant and Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics" at [link:www.ejtp.com/articles/ejtpv9i26p135.pdf]). I will be glad to hear your critique and comment.
Yours,
Ke Xiao