Essay Abstract

Some puzzles or paradoxes are sometimes solved by returning to the original assumptions for re-examination. The 2 slit experiment can be understood as a quantum phenomenon instead of a classical wave phenomenon. For this, the measurement problem is first described as stemming from a temporary quantization due to the constraint applied by the measuring instrument, creating a boundary condition on the probability distribution of the parameter being measured. After suggesting a soliton model for light, this temporary quantization is then applied to the 2 slit experiment. A non-classical explanation is offered for the "interference" pattern resulting in the 2 slit experiments.

Author Bio

BSc Biology 1979, Three years in environment, 28 years in a forensic laboratory in counterfeits.

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ADDENDUM

There is only one REAL mystery in quantum mechanics... and it is the usual conclusion of the two slit experiment. Light is a wave and a particle. A mystery is often something simply wrong but that we cannot come to accept.

At the time, Quantum mechanics was full of surprises and we were so ready for the next one. The wave-particle duality of light was readily accepted as Weird instead of Wrong. Wavelets of Solitons (photons) marching in phase will look just like a wave. But it is very different from the usual water or sound waves. According to the Huygens' principle, we may consider a wave front as made of individual points. In a real wave (water, sound.etc.) each one of these points will assume a direction that depends on its other points on each side. It is like a line of people holding hands and marching as a single chain. With that line you may have diffraction. But solitons are each individual quantum of waves marching each on their own. Sure, if the solitons go through a slit they will come out in phase as a "wave front" but, not being tied to each other, no diffraction will be possible. As for interference, I admit that the 2 slit experiments are classically well described with the wave theory. A wave of solitons solves the wave-particle duality and, after all, (!) does not prevent interference. What is wrong, I believe, is to conclude from the two slit experiment that light IS (ontological) a standard (like sound & water) wave. It did not come out like that in my essay. Well groomed, the solitons can behave like a wave and yet may be caught looking like particles. But light cannot become a particle or a wave at our whim. They are only appearances.

Still, the problem of solitons diffraction.

Marcel,

    Marcel,

    You make some interesting points in your essay. In fact, I have also identified a quantum "particle" as a soliton in my own essay ( "Watching the Clock: Quantum Rotations and Relative Time" ), and I addressed wave-particle duality at length in my essay last year ( "The Rise and Fall of Wave-Particle Duality" ). With regard to quantum diffraction, I cited the published work of Van Vliet ( Linear Momentum Quantization in Periodic Structures ), who showed if one takes the screen with the slits as a quantum object, the standard diffraction results can be obtained regardless of the nature of the quantum particle. In my own analysis, primary quantum particles such as photons, electrons, and quarks are soliton-like rotating vector fields with quantized spin, with rotation rate f=E/h (where E is the total relativistic energy). These constitute local clocks, which slow down when E is reduced in a gravitational field, thus deriving general relativity in a simple intuitive way. This picture also avoids non-locality, indeterminacy and entanglement. Yes, this is all highly heretical, but is more logically consistent than the orthodox approaches.

    Alan

    Dear Marcel,

    So good to see you back. I've probably referred to your 2009 essay on logic more than to any other FQXi essay. Your logic was impeccable. In fact, your first five pages of that essay contain the most beautiful logic I've seen, leading to the idea of universe as 'one substance'. Beyond the fifth page I disagreed with some of your choices. So I'm glad to see that you have limited your current essay to five pages!

    You again begin with impeccable logic, addressing the assumption that two different experimental results imply that an entity is one OR the other. Dismissing this unjustified assumption, you discuss the BOTH case in which a 'particle' has wave-like properties or vice versa, in which case "the two appearances of wave or particle are not only possible that also expected."

    Your soliton model of light seems appropriate. In my previous essay, 'The Nature of the Wave Function' I develop a particle-based electron that induces a wave and the surrounding medium, to yield a particle-plus-wave model analogous to the deBroglie-Bohm model. In addition I agree that "each instrument detects or reveals the specific property it is intended to detect." You give an excellent example of the effect of choice of measurement, "measuring voltage with a voltmeter or a current with an ammeter from the same electric circuit."

    Without repeating your argument about the measurement problem, I will only say that your analysis of constraints is flawless.

    Your analysis of consequences, "accept only the quantized part", is very interesting, as is your polarization example. I need to give this more thought. It seems correct, as does your further analysis of the two slit experiment in terms of "temporary quantization of a continuous variable under the constraint of observation." I plan to keep this concept in mind when I think of the two slit experiment.

    I invite you to read my essay and apply your prodigious power of logic to it.

    Best regards,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Alan,

    I had already downloaded your essay from the "assumption contest". I thank you for the Van Vliet reference. Do you have the full article ???

    Eugene,

    The logic is the maths of the universe. Happy you can fathom this. But this one,the 2-slit experiment is said to be the last mystery of QM. For a good reason. There is something wrong in our conclusions. My essay was a last minute entry and I could not give more convincing illustrations and references. I scanned the Internet and there a lot going on with solitons and diffraction..

    In the end, It would be nice to take away the weird part of QM and just keep the rest. But there are thousands of variants of the 2-slit experiments out there..I am looking for those reporting anomalies... I will check your essays more in depth.

    All the bests, both of you.

    Marcel,

      Dear Marcel,

      Thank you for such a nice essay, using theory to explain experimental results. I also feel it is the experimental results that should be the basis, instead of just speculations....

      ....

      I am requesting you to go through my essay also. And I take this opportunity to say, to come to reality and base your arguments on experimental results.

      I failed mainly because I worked against the main stream. The main stream community people want magic from science instead of realty especially in the subject of cosmology. We all know well that cosmology is a subject where speculations rule.

      Hope to get your comments even directly to my mail ID also. . . .

      Best

      =snp

      snp.gupta@gmail.com

      http://vaksdynamicuniversemodel.blogspot.com/

      Pdf download:

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/essay-download/1607/__details/Gupta_Vak_FQXi_TABLE_REF_Fi.pdf

      Part of abstract:

      - -Material objects are more fundamental- - is being proposed in this paper; It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material. . . Similarly creation of matter from empty space as required in Steady State theory or in Bigbang is another such problem in the Cosmological counterpart. . . . In this paper we will see about CMB, how it is generated from stars and Galaxies around us. And here we show that NO Microwave background radiation was detected till now after excluding radiation from Stars and Galaxies. . . .

      Some complements from FQXi community. . . . .

      A

      Anton Lorenz Vrba wrote on May. 4, 2013 @ 13:43 GMT

      ....... I do love your last two sentences - that is why I am coming back.

      Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 6, 2013 @ 09:24 GMT

      . . . . We should use our minds to down to earth realistic thinking. There is no point in wasting our brains in total imagination which are never realities. It is something like showing, mixing of cartoon characters with normal people in movies or people entering into Game-space in virtual reality games or Firing antimatter into a black hole!!!. It is sheer a madness of such concepts going on in many fields like science, mathematics, computer IT etc. . . .

      B.

      Francis V wrote on May. 11, 2013 @ 02:05 GMT

      Well-presented argument about the absence of any explosion for a relic frequency to occur and the detail on collection of temperature data......

      C

      Robert Bennett wrote on May. 14, 2013 @ 18:26 GMT

      "Material objects are more fundamental"..... in other words "IT from Bit" is true.

      Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on May. 14, 2013 @ 22:53 GMT

      1. It is well known that there is no mental experiment, which produced material.

      2. John Wheeler did not produce material from information.

      3. Information describes material properties. But a mere description of material properties does not produce material.

      4. There are Gods, Wizards, and Magicians, allegedly produced material from nowhere. But will that be a scientific experiment?

      D

      Hoang cao Hai wrote on Jun. 16, 2013 @ 16:22 GMT

      It from bit - where are bit come from?

      Author Satyavarapu Naga Parameswara Gupta replied on Jun. 17, 2013 @ 06:10 GMT

      ....And your question is like asking, -- which is first? Egg or Hen?-- in other words Matter is first or Information is first? Is that so? In reality there is no way that Matter comes from information.

      Matter is another form of Energy. Matter cannot be created from nothing. Any type of vacuum cannot produce matter. Matter is another form of energy. Energy is having many forms: Mechanical, Electrical, Heat, Magnetic and so on..

      E

      Antony Ryan wrote on Jun. 23, 2013 @ 22:08 GMT

      .....Either way your abstract argument based empirical evidence is strong given that "a mere description of material properties does not produce material". While of course materials do give information.

      I think you deserve a place in the final based on this alone. Concise - simple - but undeniable.

      Marcel,

      If given the time and the wits to evaluate over 120 more entries, I have a month to try. My seemingly whimsical title, "It's good to be the king," is serious about our subject.

      Jim

      Jim,

      Colours and light are in our eyes. Sound is in our ears. Space is in our mind. Time, we feel by consciousness and memory. We create the images and experiences of the universe ourselves by the way we are built, and make it beautiful. Otherwise, it is but a big mush of quiet and dark dimensionless explosions of radiations and scattered particles...

      The experience of the universe is created by us, just as our reality is different from that of a bat or of a dolphin.

      Marcel,

      Marcel.

      I thought your essay was quite informative. As a decrepit old realist though, I hope you will not mind if I Wheeler at least one of the assumptions you have made in the addendum?

      Is real evident? Yes.

      Is real mysterious? No.

      Is abstract real evident? No.

      Is abstract real mysterious? Yes.

      Respectfully,

      Joe

      19 days later

      I like this idea Marcel-Marie.

      Simply seeing wave as a collection of solitons and particle as singular solitonic propagations could solve a lot of the mystery of QM. As you say above, there is the soliton diffraction problem, but perhaps this is not so big an issue as the questions people wrestle with, regarding this subject. In the August Scientific American, Meinard Kuhlmann states that the idea that 'wave' and 'particle' are distinct descriptions of the same thing (having the same basic definitions as in Classical Physics) could be the main problem, preventing the reconciliation of Quantum Mechanics with Relativity, and so on.

      This seems like a work in progress rather than a mature theory, but it is a promising approach, and I will give you a good rating.

      Regards,

      Jonathan

      Dear Marcel,

      A generally interesting work. I agree we have to revisit some assumptions before

      addressing the Wheeler's "it from bit..." gedanken as you rightly pointed out. Some of such assumptions is whether a line can exist with zero breadth or what do you think? I think this is not possible but it is part of our assumptions. See my essay. Thanks.

      Akinbo

      Hello Marcel-Marie

      I am about to read your essay, exactly because the title is about revisiting the assumptions. My own essay drops all assumptions (of which I hope you approve) and finds that the universe has a unique beginning. I wonder how your essay will align with this? Time to find out.

      Stephen Anastasi

      Hello Marcel-Marie

      So, I find that your essay is very far from mine in topic. But it was an interesting read. Thanks. And I think that your idea that the basis is just plain wrong is healthy (I don't much like it when compromise is accepted as truth).

      Because you are good at dealing with abstraction you might find my essay engaging. It provides a foundation for building the universe. If you agree with the foundation and construction, a 9 or 10 is a good option to put me in the top 40!

      Best wishes

      Stephen Anastasi.

      An open question is whether the Harmony Set implies quantum duality. In higher dimensionality, I think it does. Certainly it implies superposition, and would explain why two waves can pass through each other, cancel out, yet emerge later.

      6 days later

      Dear Marcel,

      I've lost a lot of comments and replies on my thread and many other threads I have commented on over the last few days. This has been a lot of work and I feel like it has been a waste of time and energy. Seems to have happened to others too - if not all.

      I WILL ATTEMPT to revisit all threads to check and re-post something. Your thread was one affected by this.

      I can't remember the full extent of what I said, but I have notes so know that I rated it very highly.

      Hopefully the posts will be able to be retrieved by FQXi.

      Best wishes,

      Antony

      Dear Marcel,

      I like Double slit experiment discussions. Think you've done a super job of this here! I have rated it highly. I like what you said about - "The newly formed box forces quantization within these walls, allowing only a limited set of values to appear. This quantization lasts only as long as the measurement constraint does. Any measurement produces such a constraint on a system. That is, I believe, the source of the measurement problem".

      This is exactly the sort of thinking that the contest is designed to encourage. I've spent many hours thinking about the delayed experiment. The results are spooky as Einstein might agree.

      What gets me is that there is always a way that nature stops us using this to our advantage. It's like we are being teased by the results.

      Anyway, I've approached the contest from a completely different angle, but would be honoured if you could take a look at it. Perhaps there is some overlap - maybe information exchange around a Black Hole may behave like the delayed choice experiment.

      Best wishes,

      Antony

      Having read so many insightful essays, I am probably not the only one to find that my views have crystallized, and that I can now move forward with growing confidence. I cannot exactly say who in the course of the competition was most inspiring - probably it was the continuous back and forth between so many of us. In this case, we should all be grateful to each other.

      If I may, I'd like to express some of my newer conclusions - by themselves, so to speak, and independently of the logic that justifies them; the logic is, of course, outlined in my essay.

      I now see the Cosmos as founded upon positive-negative charges: It is a binary structure and process that acquires its most elemental dimensional definition with the appearance of Hydrogen - one proton, one electron.

      There is no other interaction so fundamental and all-pervasive as this binary phenomenon: Its continuance produces our elements - which are the array of all possible inorganic variants.

      Once there exists a great enough correlation between protons and electrons - that is, once there are a great many Hydrogen atoms, and a great many other types of atoms as well - the continuing Cosmic binary process arranges them all into a new platform: Life.

      This phenomenon is quite simply inherent to a Cosmos that has reached a certain volume of particles; and like the Cosmos from which it evolves, life behaves as a binary process.

      Life therefore evolves not only by the chance events of natural selection, but also by the chance interactions of its underlying binary elements.

      This means that ultimately, DNA behaves as does the atom - each is a particle defined by, and interacting within, its distinct Vortex - or 'platform'.

      However, as the cosmic system expands, simple sensory activity is transformed into a third platform, one that is correlated with the Organic and Inorganic phenomena already in existence: This is the Sensory-Cognitive platform.

      Most significantly, the development of Sensory-Cognition into a distinct platform, or Vortex, is the event that is responsible for creating (on Earth) the Human Species - in whom the mind has acquired the dexterity to focus upon itself.

      Humans affect, and are affected by, the binary field of Sensory-Cognition: We can ask specific questions and enunciate specific answers - and we can also step back and contextualize our conclusions: That is to say, we can move beyond the specific, and create what might be termed 'Unified Binary Fields' - in the same way that the forces acting upon the Cosmos, and holding the whole structure together, simultaneously act upon its individual particles, giving them their motion and structure.

      The mind mimics the Cosmos - or more exactly, it is correlated with it.

      Thus, it transpires that the role of chance decreases with evolution, because this dual activity (by which we 'particularize' binary elements, while also unifying them into fields) clearly increases our control over the foundational binary process itself.

      This in turn signifies that we are evolving, as life in general has always done, towards a new interaction with the Cosmos.

      Clearly, the Cosmos is participatory to a far greater degree than Wheeler imagined - with the evolution of the observer continuously re-defining the system.

      You might recall the logic by which these conclusions were originally reached in my essay, and the more detailed structure that I also outline there. These elements still hold; the details stated here simply put the paradigm into a sharper focus, I believe.

      With many thanks and best wishes,

      John

      jselye@gmail.com

      Dear Marcel-Marie,

      We are at the end of this essay contest.

      In conclusion, at the question to know if Information is more fundamental than Matter, there is a good reason to answer that Matter is made of an amazing mixture of eInfo and eEnergy, at the same time.

      Matter is thus eInfo made with eEnergy rather than answer it is made with eEnergy and eInfo ; because eInfo is eEnergy, and the one does not go without the other one.

      eEnergy and eInfo are the two basic Principles of the eUniverse. Nothing can exist if it is not eEnergy, and any object is eInfo, and therefore eEnergy.

      And consequently our eReality is eInfo made with eEnergy. And the final verdict is : eReality is virtual, and virtuality is our fundamental eReality.

      Good luck to the winners,

      And see you soon, with good news on this topic, and the Theory of Everything.

      Amazigh H.

      I rated your essay.

      Please visit My essay.