Do Bob and Alice have a future? by Peter Jackson

Dear Peter,

Well, you certainly got the physics part!

The idea of electrons actually having two components is interesting. My own thought is we're looking at a non-oriented manifold. For instance, a vector orthogonal to the surface of an ideal Mobius strip, takes twice around the strip (720 )to return to the same direction. And because of the twist, it actually takes up space, ah, is a Fermion. Can a classical mechanics be developed from this? If you take two Mobius strips, and attach their edges, and inflate it, you have a torus. And?

Is space really symmetric? In the large, yes. But if up and down were really the same, wouldn't they be indistinguishable? If indistinguishable, wouldn't they be identical. ie only one. Same for left and right? Front and back? Thus each direction must distinguishable from each other. This on the micro-level, but statistically mixed in the macro, so in the large the space dimensions are indistinguishable. The idea is that space has a 'Fermionic' structure, otherwise it would all be in the same place. (So the universe is seriously twisted, which explains a lot!) On the other hand, to say that 'space' has a micro structure seems perilously close to suggesting the existence of an ether. Argh!

Are QM and SR marriageable? This may be impossible to determine, like the Turing halting problem, or the "word problem for groups," (See Wikipedia) although it seems likely to show that one (SR) is an approximation in some limit of the other (QM), just as Galilean dynamics is shown to be an approximation of SR, in the limit of low velocity. I just don't know. It's starting to take on the dimensions of famous philosophical problems, like free will and determinism.

I had difficulty following your argument, but my physics is so rusty, (despite my being able to drop a few ideas,) I can only blame myself. I will not vote down anyone's essay based on my ignorance, but I'm afraid I must abstain on my vote here. (That may be a good thing for you, if others in my situation take the same action.)

I do believe society's problems are stopping us from solving real world problems. And I think it's getting kind of urgent.

I wish you the best of luck in the competition. And I thank you for your kind words and, I believe, strong vote.

Charles

PS I'm commenting on your comment at my essay, too.

Dear Peter,

thank you for your comments.

You wrote

"A timed pair experiment with rotating analysers will falsify the hypothesis."

Just to make it clear for myself - of what hypothesis do you speak here? I ask you for explaining the hypothesis to understand what you mean in this context. Please also explain how that hypothesis is falsified.

You wrote

"The classical experiment in the end notes has been reproduced and can be again, by anybody."

What does the mentioned experiment say about the ontological status of your main theme, namely entanglement in QM? How is this saying then justified in physical terms?

Best wishes,

Stefan

Hi Peter

Thanks for your reply. For a theoretical physicists this is the most difficult part: ...requesting testing and logical falsification of the hypothesis.

As for the purpose of your essay I understand that discovering the secrets of nature affects somehow the course of humanity, but in my opinion not merely steers humanity, because "steers" implies a plan or intention; this is why I define science just as the generation of knowledge and technology as the application of this knowledge for the convenience of humankind.

Good luck in the contest

Regards

Israel

Hi Peter,

I did think some more about your essay, but am not sure I fully got the point. This is not the fault of the essay but as I said I find Bell's theorem discussions very subtle and for me it takes time to digest. I had the same reaction the first time we covered Bell's theorem in grad school (we were using Sakaurai's non-relativistic QM text which has a good description of Bell's theorem). It took some late night discussions with some friends to get to the point where I *thought* I understood what was going on in Bell's original arguments.

Anyway let me ask some questions to see what I did and did not get from the essay. First it seems you are saying that there is a way for classical mechanics to give the same violations of Bell's inequalities as predicted by QM. I got this from the statement "Classical dynamics appeared to reproduce QM quantum correlations, which was not possible with the singlet

spin assumption John Bell inherited." Also you have some kit where one can verify this for oneself (this is the point of the technical end notes right?). There is a disk in figure 4 which then can be used to give reproduce the same (or similar?) correlations as in QM. Actually looking at the table it appears that the correlations you get are close but distinguishable (in principle) from QM. From table 1 I take the cloumn that says "Green Bias ^2" as your prediction while QM Cos^2 (theta)" is the standard QM prediction. They are close to one another but not exactly identical. For example for 45^o you have a Green Bias ^2 value of 0.54 versus the QM value of 0.5 (one technical question at this point -- it appears Green Bias ^2 column is gotten by squaring the "Green Bias column". If this is correct then I get 0.55 (after rounding) for the "Green Bias ^2" column for 45^o. All the other values seem to be rounded correctly. Anyway in principle there is a way to distinguish your model from teh QM case (I think if I have understood things correctly up to this point). If this is the case then it certainly would be very useful to do a refined version of the Aspect et al. experiments to see which is correct -- your model or QM. If I misunderstood some point let me know.

However, even if everyone in this forum agreed (and they probably would) that it would be good to re-run the Aspect experiment to to check this in some sense there is the problem that this is the wrong forum. You need to try and convince an experimentalist to do this and most of the audience here are theorists. And convincing experimentalists to invest time in doing any experiment is hard since they usually have their own ideas of what is interesting. For example, when I was in grad school and did figure out to some degree (at least this is what I told myself) that I knew what Bell's theorem was about I talked to some of the older grad students who were already doing their research in one of the many good atomic/molecular groups for which UVA is known. I asked them why they didn't work on this type of experiment (i.e. an experiment similar to Aspects) since this seemed very coll and foundational. The answer was "Well we don't set the research agenda for the group. We're grad students! And even if we did set the agenda we probably wouldn't switch from our present projects to Bell's theorem stuff. these are complex and messy experiments. The stuff we are working on (Rydberg-like atoms with super high n-quantum numbers so that the orbitals were really classical) is also very cool and the results are much cleaner and this is what our NSF grant says we are working on." The lesson I took away form this is that what and theorist thinks of as a good project and what an experimentalist views as a good project are often different things.

But I do agree (assuming I understood the general outline of you proposal) one should do such an experiment to distinguish your model from the QM model (again from the table it appears the results are close but not exactly the same).

I have some more comments that are not related to the main point of the essay which I will add later.

Best,

Doug

Hi again. The above was me. I guess you get logged out if the post is too long.

Best,

Doug

Hi Peter,

You take us, the readers, on a journey. We see reality from the point of view of characters (Alice and Bob) that seem to have real lives. I'm always amazed by the imaginative scenarios you use to frame your discussion of the physics!

Your main hypothesis, that "quantum spin includes OAM" and so "'non-local state reduction' is not required", seems feasible enough to me, but it would be great to get some experimental results to confirm it.

On the other hand, I wouldn't agree that all aspects of nature are necessarily entirely "logical". I would think that, in a non-platonic universe, logic is not the standard to measure nature - it's more a case that nature is the standard to measure logic. I think that logic (i.e. that which seems to us to be consistent and make sense) is the product of nature, not the other way round.

A very readable and interesting essay.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Hi Peter,

You write beautifully and the content is even better. The essay is packed with so much information. I read it once but I have to read carefully it again. I just give you my encouragement now because it is one of the best essay here. I will comment and rate it soon.

Best wishes,

Leo KoGuan

Hi Peter,

Good to see you in another contest. Finally got to your essay, which I always look forward to.

One thing I found of interest is the idea of electrons actually having two components. And these components are what creates the spin of the electron.

Please allow me to offer a somewhat similar idea that may integrate with yours. The two components of the electron are two wavelengths, a deBroglie wavelength and a Compton wavelength. The sequence of these wavelengths form what we call spin. See:

1. http://www.digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/33_A_Tale_of_Two_Wavelengths.html

2. http://www.digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/37_Visualizing_Spin.html

3. http://www.digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/41_Neutrinos_and_Light.html

4. http://www.digitalwavetheory.com/DWT/36_Derivation_of_the_Compton_Wavelength.html

To date, Bell's theorem is generally regarded as supported by a substantial body of evidence and there are few supporters of local hidden variables, though the theorem is continually subject of study, criticism, and refinement.

Please also allow me to put in my two cents, and argue that Bell's theorem is founded on a fundamental misconception. Bell assumed that local hidden variables were a possibility. He then showed that this is impossible. The logic is good so long as a local hidden variable is as conceived by Einstein. Both Bell and Einstein demanded that particles be "continuous in space-time". If particles are not continuous in space-time (Heisenberg's concept in matrix mechanics), the Bell theorem produces confusion because garbage in produces garbage out. We do not see the garbage in and try to find meaning in the garbage out. The fundamental reality of QM is discontinuous, it can be observed in experiments (Alain Aspect) but never proved, it is just a fact of nature (IMHO).

I believe you are pushing the boundaries of our concepts of reality.... a very practical way to steer the future.

Don Limuti

Dear Peter,

beautiful essay! I also liked the story around it. Although in trying to understand quantum physics for so many years I somehow took Bohr's side in the struggle for an interpretation of QM, I think your essay is a precious contribution to the debate and earns a hight rating.

Recently in trying to figure out how the information is transferred in a coin toss I had similar vision as Bob in space, as there is now up and down for a coin if not relative to gravitational field. I didn't come far with the informational part of my thinking. But I figured out, that the quantum mechanical probabilities could come out for the simple coin toss.

A similar realistic toy model was used by Diederik Aerts in this paper to show, that if the state is disturbed by the measurement apparatus Kolmogorovian probabilities do not hold any more and they have to be generalized.

In my essay I take a non realistic view of physics in the sense that objects get their properties by interaction with the measurement apparatus and don't have these properties per se. I hope you find the time to read, rate and comment it.

Regards,

Luca

Doug,

It took me a few years too. What Bell does is 'limit' the inequalities possible from random variables, so although the experimental results vary from QM (as they're subjective) they actually exceed the QM violations. The non subjective mechanism which the experiment models reproduces the QM (Cos^2) predictions precisely.

I think we've exposed the real problem which your proposals just stop short of addressing; If we're to try different viewpoints, so study 'outlying' propositions, then we can't judge them how we do now, which is against current doctrine. We must 'step back', disengage from our assumptions and return to fundamentals and 1st principles. So away from Bell/CHSH, right back to Bohr, Solvay and EPS.

Bohr said only 'what we can say' about particles; "superposed states collapse to singlet states on measurement". He never endowed that with any particular physical reality. Bell unknowingly did. My description agrees with Bohr and findings, but not what Bell assumed, i.e. If we can only measure the 'spin' direction of one hemisphere at a time we've satisfied Bohr, even if the other hemisphere spins the other way. Now add some modern joined-up-science; electron spin flip and angular momentum transfer and the jigsaw puzzle pieces simply all slot together; If we flip the DETECTOR electron spins round ('preparation') then the OPPOSITE photomultiplier will click!

The rest is simple geometry; The circumference at any hemisphere changes by the cosine of the angle with the equatorial plane (thus the 'cones' in the Bloch sphere). Entanglement is simply the fact that the equatorial planes are common, because they're orthogonal to the spin axis which is the propagation axis.

Now that answer is so beautifully simple (Occam) that it can't be even countenanced by those distracted By Bell and CHSH and using those to try to solve the puzzle. Though fully falsifiable, as you say, the experimenters are focussed elsewhere. I don't even get responses to Emails! Can you now help there?

So the EPR paradox is resolved without FTL or spookyness. And what's more, and even more shocking, the fundamental recognition of EM field electron absorption and re-emission allows SR to take an equal step towards QM with the simple definition that all re-emissions are at c in the rest frame of each electron. That is a eureka moment well beyond the brain of anybody stuck within present doctrinal 'brackets'.

The tests and proof are in my last 3 essays, but can we suspend reliance on current doctrine and beliefs long enough to study it? Not yet it seems. If your essay suggests we should work that way, and can implement that new view, then I suggest it's of inestimable value!

Peter

PS. I attach the 'classroom experiment' kit below, also a fig from a recent Planck Inst. finding agreeing the 'spin/orbit' - 'spin within spin' model.Attachment #1: Electron_Model_Max_Planck_inst..jpgAttachment #2: 7_Kit._FIG_5.jpg

Peter,

You are right: "no UP in space".

As I think you know from my essay, the "next Copernican step" can be very effectively catalyzed by sharing the science.

Furthermore, rather than focus on finding a way to change "who can't think beyond current doctrine", my way is to get those that can to self-identify themselves.

Thanks for your comments here and on my essay.

-- Ajay

Peter,

The fact is that humanity, as well as everything on this planet, are dynamic processes and as such nature's 'technology.' I'm certainly willing to give your paper a go, address is brodix at earthl!nk.net.

However, as you have well experienced, we all interface with our world on our own terms and your set of criteria are likely somewhat different from mine. Having been following the various debates over on Joy's thread at a distance, I can well understand there is a solution buried in all the assumptions. As I've been pointing out, even a moving car doesn't have an exact location, because it wouldn't be moving if it did and yet if we examine it in very precise moments, great detail does emerge. Much the same with the subatomic reality of which it is composed. If everything had a precise location, there would be no car. It is all that quantum fuzziness which makes up the fields that create the spatial and temporal illusion which is the car. This then goes to my observation about the dichotomy of energy and information, that while energy is inherently dynamic, information is necessarily static and since physics likes to think everything can be defined down to exact forms of information, all that fuzziness just comes up as noise in their search for the signal.

Now if you can either show me where this is wrong, or more that I'm not seeing, it would be helpful to the extent is makes better sense of the reality in which I exist. Similarly, if you want to move vast numbers of people to be on their better behavior, with regards to the future health of the planet, you need to show how your model affects them directly. Simply improving the technology doesn't necessarily slow the overall rate we burn through resources. As people have understood since the time of Adam, Eve, the apple and the serpent, knowledge can be a double edged sword.

"A billion bumper stickers or preachers won't change behaviour. However profound it mostly reduces to esoteric waffle. I'm a doer. Only the guy who turns the wheel can steer. Look back, it's always been technology ('tools') that's changed our path and opened new roads and ways of seeing ahead.'

Remember, the rudder is in the rear and steering requires taking more than just the path ahead into account. Sometimes the esoteric waffle can be just still air and sometimes it can be blowing gale force. Moving people is as much art as science.

Regards,

John

Peter,

I would also argue the proper measurement function of that collective fuzziness is thermal.

Regards,

John