Is Planck\'s Constant h a "Quantum" Constant? An Alternative Classical Interpretation by Timothy Boyer

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

It was me the spherical Jedi waiting Yoda.

Dear Timothy

Ok thanks for that, I'd missed this divergence in your discussion. It seems quite problematic: it seems to mean inter alia that this radiation does not have a well defined stress energy tensor, so its interaction with any other matter or radiation will be ill defined.

So here's a question: does this radiation gravitate? If not why not?

It seems to me you run into the vacuum energy problem that is such a major issue in the standard view (see Weinberg's review paper in Rev Mod Phys 1989 for example), only maybe in a worse form because you are claiming there is an actual divergence.

George Ellis

Hello Timothy Boyer,

Thank you for your essay and for your work over many years on classical zero-point radiation. Your interpretation of Planck's constant as a "scale factor for classical zero-point radiation" provides new insights into this mystery. But Planck's constant h can also be thought as the 'minimal accumulation of energy' in an interaction before absorption / emission.

Using this interpretation I was able to mathematically derive Planck's Formula for blackbody radiation. Using continuous processes and not needing 'energy quanta' or discrete statistics. You can find a simple and elegant proof of this (one of several!) in End Note I) of my essay, "The Metaphysics of Physics". I would be very interested in your thoughts and comments on this result. Which shows Planck's Formula is a mathematical tautology. And not a physical law needing the existence of 'energy quanta'.

Best wishes in this contest,

Constantinos

P.S. Eric Reiter's essay, "A Challenge to Quantized Absorption by Experiment and Theory", reporting on his experimental findings is in complete agreement with this interpretation of h as 'accumulation of energy'. Or Loading Theory as he calls it.

Do you familiar with Wilczek articles concerning units?

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits388.pdf

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits393.pdf

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits400.pdf

Is trinity sacred?

Do you familiar with Wilczek articles concerning units?

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits388.pdf

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits393.pdf

http://ctpweb.lns.mit.edu/physics_today/phystoday/Abs_limits400.pdf

Is trinity sacred?

Prof. Boyer,

I enjoyed reading your essay, which summarizes the key points that you have made over several decades regarding classical treatment of zero point quantum fluctuations. But something needs to be quantized for this to be consistent. This reminds me that "quantization noise" in digital systems theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantization_error) derives directly from classical discretization of continuous variables. I would go further and suggest that quantum mechanics has been profoundly misunderstood since the beginning. Rather than a universal theory of all matter, QM should be viewed as a mechanism to bundle a fundamental classical field into coherent units that act in certain respects as classical particles (but NOT point particles). In fact, as I have shown in my essay (http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1296), one can easily derive classical Hamiltonian trajectories from the behavior of a confined coherent relativistic field. This simple change in paradigm eliminates quantum paradoxes, including wave-particle duality and quantum entanglement. Remarkably, this seems never to have been considered before. Equally remarkably, this is being mostly ignored in a contest dedicated to the proposition that some of our fundamental physical assumptions may be wrong. I would appreciate your thoughts in this matter.

Thank you.

Alan M. Kadin, Ph.D.

See also Wilczek

http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.4361

personally no. Could you tell me more about these units.

Regarsd

Dear Timothy

Your essay is very readable and develops very important arguments. I am sure you will do well in the competition! I think there is much room in physics for progress based on close reasoning from classical foundations, and your work here is a nice example of that. In our essay Julie and I defend the viability of finding explanations for all phenomena, and for the value of classical intuitions in making sense of the world. I enjoyed your essay, and hope you will find ours interesting too.

Best wishes,

David

Dear Timothy,

I enjoyed reading your essay. A couple of questions come to mind:

1. How does this idea relate to the cosmological constant/dark energy?

2. I am wondering if you would be willing to venture a little into the realm of speculation and give an opinion on exactly what this approach implies about the status of quantum theory. On page 4, you mention disagreements between the two theories involving "nonlinear nonrelativistic classical mechanical systems," and on page 8 you state that the scope of explanation of electromagnetic zero-point radiation remains an "open question." Do you have any intuition or conjecture about the general answer to this question? In particular, do you doubt standard quantum theory in its entirety?

Thanks for the interesting read! Take care,

Ben Dribus

Hi Benjamin,

1. Unfortunately, I have no idea how the idea of a classical zero-point energy would be connected to the cosmological constant or dark energy.

2. My guess is that the mathematics of quantum theory works for parts of Nature because it represents an approximation to the mathematics of classical zero-point energy. I strongly suspect that quantum field theory in non-inertial frames is probably incorrect as currently presented. Of course, such conjectures are very heretical at the present time.

Thanks for your comments.

Tim Boyer

Dear Timothy,

If there is any context in which "heresy" is appropriate, or even desirable, it is a forum like this essay contest. The whole objective, in my view, is to present ideas which, while informed, are sufficiently out of the mainstream to induce progress. After all, we all know that there are plenty of journals that publish only conventional, "respectable" physics! Take care,

Ben

If you do not understand why your rating dropped down. As I found ratings in the contest are calculated in the next way. Suppose your rating is [math]R_1 [/math] and [math]N_1 [/math] was the quantity of people which gave you ratings. Then you have [math]S_1=R_1 N_1 [/math] of points. After it anyone give you [math]dS [/math] of points so you have [math]S_2=S_1+ dS [/math] of points and [math]N_2=N_1+1 [/math] is the common quantity of the people which gave you ratings. At the same time you will have [math]S_2=R_2 N_2 [/math] of points. From here, if you want to be R2 > R1 there must be: [math]S_2/ N_2>S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] (S_1+ dS) / (N_1+1) >S_1/ N_1 [/math] or [math] dS >S_1/ N_1 =R_1[/math] In other words if you want to increase rating of anyone you must give him more points [math]dS [/math] then the participant`s rating [math]R_1 [/math] was at the moment you rated him. From here it is seen that in the contest are special rules for ratings. And from here there are misunderstanding of some participants what is happened with their ratings. Moreover since community ratings are hided some participants do not sure how increase ratings of others and gives them maximum 10 points. But in the case the scale from 1 to 10 of points do not work, and some essays are overestimated and some essays are drop down. In my opinion it is a bad problem with this Contest rating process. I hope the FQXI community will change the rating process.

Sergey Fedosin

You mainstreamsians controle science for over 50 years. You mainstream and Hawking failed. The bad science is because of the Top-Down controle of the people like you. Why do you need money and fame from FQXI where the authors are mostly jobless, are mostly independent researchers, are mostly viXra.org authers? Do you need money and fame by controling jobless???

I want to rate you 0!

Hi Tim,

Please check this link and find how five essays, including yours, were removed from the 35 finalists. I posted some messages with attachments containing the page and screenshots at 0:01.

Good luck,

Cristi Stoica