Why Quantum?

Jason,

You managed to distract from what Peter and I are claiming: QM is based on a seemingly natural assumption which might be responsible for absurd interpretations.

Being not interested in quarreling with you about ghosts I clarify instead:

You wrote: "You have to believe in a mistake made by Michelson-Morley in order to ignore the existence of an aether."

Michelson 1881/87 didn't make a mistake. He failed to confirm Maxwell's guess, and concluded correctly that there is no motion between earth and Maxwell's aether. Neither Michelson, who by the way was an agnostic, nor I have anything to believe.

What about the notions infinite and infinity, I criticize mystifying them too.

Being infinite is simply the ideal property of having no end. Expressions like "go to infinity" or "at infinity" are somewhat misleading shortcuts that combine quite different points of view, the mentioned property on one hand and the logical opposite of it on the other hand.

jrc did not just misspell Leibniz as Liebnitz, he did certainly not understand his three degrees of infinity.

You wrote: "Because of the mysterious nature of QM, it would be hard to justify an absolute rule of causality."

Nobody needs to immediately understand everything in detail. Let's nonetheless always trust in causality and declare mysteries perhaps irrelevant. Peter and I are trying to reveal hidden wrong assumptions behind mysteries. Factual criticism would be welcome.

Eckard

Eckard,

"Peter and I are trying to reveal hidden wrong assumptions behind mysteries. Factual criticism would be welcome. " - Eckard.

The big wrong assumption is that the universe is deterministic. Calculations of wave-functions might be deterministic, but the availability of all of those eigenstates is equivalent to attaching a die roll (as in dice) to every quantum system. The next time anybody says that the universe is deterministic, we should all laugh loudly at them.

You may not agree with me, that is fine. But I believe that consciousness itself can be tracked back to ghosts, spirits and souls. Such entities can "feel" the eigenstates and then exert their will upon them. Very strong spirits can force quantum systems into a particular state or states, which looks like poltergeist activity. At least that is my opinion. My point is that the spirits ability to choose a particular set of eigenstates is equivalent to free will.

Why quantum is indeed as Lawrence pointed out a metaphysical question and there is no "procedure system for metaphysics." Barrett and Leifer avoid the metaphysical part of the question demanding consistency with the second law of thermodynamics. This is interesting insofar the whole quantum journey started with Planck's equation of the black body radiation. This suggest that the key for the need of quantum mechanics might in fact lie in the second law of quantum mechanics.

In my current contest essay I tried to show, that in order to make reversible microscopic dynamic compatible with the second law of thermodynamics one has to put in the asymmetry of time from additional arguments. I take the asymmetry as a priori condition for scientific experience. A metaphysical argument!

Until now there has been no convincing argument of why quantum should be preferred to classical mechanics. Florin was able to give 4 "natural physical principles" and one "experimentally justified postulate" to derive quantum mechanics. (@Florin: what is the difference? And please keep us updated when the paper is available.)

My guess at the moment is that maybe quantum mechanics could be derived from the fact, that a measurement system cannot know all his own states (Thomas Breuer) and that undecidable propositions can be codified as a quantum state (Caslav Brukner. Quantum theory would then be the minimal complete theory that describes the incomplete knowledge inherent in the measurement process. But I was not yet able to give a precise mathematical description to these statements.

Ironically it would be the reflection on the measurement process that would give the answer to the question: "Why Quantum?". Could that help to resolve the measurement problem?

Luca

Peter Jackson replied on Jul. 8, 2014 @ 15:44 GMT.

Peter,

"(NO quantum Physicist will accept that invalidity as they're all stuck inside that box. - you should see some of the names I've been called!)"

I can imagine, but forge ahead but be willing to reverse yourself when there is need to no matter how far down the road you have gone.

"But THEN they found that if one detector field was reversed, the FINDING reversed!! (so naturally the other finding a light year away must also instantly reverse!)"

- Says who? Firstly, who are the they, and how trustworthy?

- if one detector field was reversed (say at A), the finding reversed, OKAY... so naturally the other finding a light year away (say at B) must also instantly reverse, NO IT WONT REVERSE unless the detector field measuring it is also reversed at its location B.

"Anything missing?"

A whole lot is missing. To avoid distracting from the conversation, I will open another thread for what I ignorantly think is missing.

Regards,

Akinbo

*To avoid arguments about where 'up' and 'down' point to, the two Stern-Gerlach magnets can be in the same room.

Jason,

Let me just smile if someone says the universe is or isn't deterministic or he says there is free will or is no free will. I am trying to reveal hidden wrong assumptions behind mysteries. Sorry, I don't see your statement "The big wrong assumption is that the universe is deterministic" a hidden key that can explain why QM is weird.

With factual contribution I meant in particular hints that may shed light into possibly unfounded assumptions by virtually all physicists of the 1920 decade when the mathematics of QM was formed. I already mentioned Gerlach and Stern, Heisenberg and Born, Schroedinger and Dirac. I should add Hilbert, von Neumann, Kramers, Weyl, Sommerfeld, Pauli, Uhlenbeck, Goudsmit, Rabi, and others.

Even if the suspicion by Peter and me may be wrong, I see any honest effort justified to find plausible explanations to the absurdities around QM and SR.

Eckard

May I clarify my conclusions using the only logic NOT ending in paradox; hierarchical 'truth function logic' (TFL). Lets a start assuming we're all a bit dim. I find that always works. Truth is just a little beyond our brains, so let's try looking there.

Consider each hierarchy is a different 'fractal' scale or 'layer' of reality. The universe is too BIG to understand. Particles are too SMALL. We see a few layers between but muddle them up so get confused. Causality must then be considered separately at each scale. I've shown how 'non-locality' can be causally derived with geometry at ONE (EPR case) scale, but that is NOT valid at smaller scales. 'Free will' needs better defining, but ultimately emerges from the smallest incalculable scale, so we can't know. Even randomness obeys SOME rules! What I see as important is logical resolution at the scales we have EVIDENCE for. (Jason; Please do read my summary to make sense of QM).

I agree with Eckard on hidden assumptions, but go much deeper (2012 essay) following Popper. Rebuilding carefully from more solid foundations exposed others, like the very adequacy of Cartesian systems for modelling motion! The very way that the ontological model fits coherently together without paradox or anomaly is a proof if it's veracity. I've had to drop many of my own beliefs/assumptions as different ones are a far better fit. All mankind would need to do the same! SR and QM, re-interpreted are a perfect fit. But not familiar! An example of the hierarchy; An electron re-emits at c (= "emission theory"!), but as electrons are everywhere it's NOT emission theory when viewed from the classical scale! (and electron clouds MOVE with respect to the electron clouds of 'future observers'), EM propagation speed is then only c locally. It all works, but isn't at first familiar must be studied to understand.

'EMPTY SPACE'. If we can only think of 'matter', then yes of course there may be spaces without quanta. But thinking 'that's it' seems a bit dim witted again. For those without heads in the sand there is clearly more to the universe (80% in fact) than just condensed matter. All we can do is consider what it 'DOES' which is mainly just 'condense matter' when disturbed! (conjugate fermion pair production - or more lately, the Unruh effect and Higgs process). It is NOT the old 'ether', which "modulated speed" as well as just fluctuated. The fermions do the modulating as we well know experimentally. So THAT Eckard needs to extend your 'ideal empty space' to make it consistent. It then doesn't NEED to be 'more' empty as ALL the paradoxes are resolved!! (c is constantly localised, the evidence being the wavelength Doppler shift). Distance is real and absolute, time is just some 'rate' but also absolute. What we call time 'signals' can be Doppler shifted after emission so it looks to us dimwits like 'time' itself changes!, until we think more carefully.

M&M. I'm sorry it doesn't fit you purposes Eckard but we must face reality; M&M's result was not quite 'null'. Michelson's bigger better experiment (MGP 1926) concluded 'ether', and Millers even better ones found the altitude variations. I disagree the old 'ether' assumption as what they found was the birefringence from progressive atmospheric refraction which we now understand and quantify precisely in the field of Stellar Aberration predictions, and is BIG at

WHY QUANTUM? Here is why...

The photon no matter its frequency is an indivisible particle. This is a postulate of Quantum Mechanics, which if untrue, we must ask Why Quantum? In order to defend this postulate against logical and experimental assaults, and to prevent us asking the question, 'Why Quantum?', a number of mathematical escape routes have been invented.

Experiment already shows that light can be blocked or partially transmitted through a polarization filter. Transverse waves fit this bill easily as they can be partially transmitted through a polarization filter. Light as a particle however faces a dilemma because a single photon cannot be partially transmitted like a wave, since according to the quantum mechanical postulate a photon is not divisible. It either goes through a polarization filter as a whole or it does not.

To now fit the above experimental reality into the quantum particle jacket, rather than query the particle view further, it is decided to overcome the dilemma by using mathematics to reconcile the observed partial transmission through a polarization filter on the one hand, with the postulate of photon indivisibility on the other. When a polarization filter is suitably adjusted so that light is half transmitted, it is thus invented to interpret the scenario that half the time the photon passes as a whole through the filter and half the time it does not pass at all, rather than accepting that as a transverse wave, half the wave can pass through a 450 inclination. The overall mathematical objective is to achieve at any cost the experimentally observed reality that half transmission of incident light is physically possible by polarization. The cost is high. "Probability" is introduced as a price into physics because of this desire to make the particle picture fit the experimental reality that is observed and simply explained by the wave-picture.

Further, it is known that the polarization properties of the transmitted light in a wave picture is unaffected by the encounter with the filter. This agrees with experiment. However, there is another dilemma as this can not hold for the particle picture. Since a second trap (or filter) can be set to determine the light's properties, it is invented that in the particle picture, each transmitted photon can have its polarization state changed instantaneously to suit what the polarization filter or experiment predicts for the wave-picture, so both particle and wave results turn out the same.

In order that the photon can wear the garment of ability to be polarized which is logically worn by transverse waves, "Spin" is invented as a property for Quantum particles.

To next remove the logical need that a particle must at least be in some state at a given time in order to have classically resulted in some determined outcome that is observed, which logic may spell doom for the probability alibi used above to explain the overall observed outcome for polarized light, it is further decreed that it is impossible to know the initial state. Therefore, even though from an outcome, you can infer the initial state, to plug further loop holes in the particle picture plan to be foisted on physics, "Superposition" is invented, so that a particle cannot on its own even have a particular state, but possesses all the possible states at the same time so that probability can work.

Attempt to determine the falsity or truth of this alibi that the particle is in a superposition of states by measurement, always finds that the particle is not in such a state of superposition but rather can always be found in a particular state. Again to escape this dilemma, another alibi is invented. That the act of measurement is what makes the wave function to collapse (i.e. the act of measurement is what caused the previously co-existing different superposed states to collapse into that which is observed and measured).

There is no end. As more paradoxes and illogicalities are discovered, more alibi will be mathematically manufactured. Some enjoy this exercise. It is not a topic I like spending precious time on because the silliness of the whole endeavor is obvious to most except mathematicians. As Eckard would say Quantum nonsense!

Akinbo

*To distil some of what is written above I have had to browse through my copy of The Quantum World by J.C. Polkinghorne.

Akinbo,

"But THEN they found that if one detector field was reversed, the FINDING reversed!! (so naturally the other finding a light year away must also instantly reverse!)"

"- Says who? Firstly, who are the they, and how trustworthy?"

Compton, Thompson, Bohr, Heisenberg Born etc, Shimony, Zeilinger, Aspect, even Bell. As trustworthy as any. Finding 'A' DID reverse, and as the TOTAL findings were still 50:50 'B' MUST have also done so! Mustn't it?... Aspect and other experiments then 'proved' the prediction with 'time resolved pair experiments.

What went wrong was not the finding but, as usual, the 'interpretation'. Then there was also the unique cosine curve 'probability distribution'. Bell proved conclusively that on the basis set out it could NOT be produced with any 'hidden variables' or stochastic randomness without 'non-locality' (entanglement, FTL communication etc.) Einstein Podolski and Rosen objected but even they couldn't find a causal explanation!

A whole lot IS missing! Many thousands of books written!! What I've now done is unearth the wrong assumption Bell inherited, correct it (spin axis is on the propagation axis) and show how the cosine distribution then emerges from dynamic geometry.

The 'same room' is a problem due to small range harmonic resonance 'wave lock' effects well known in tomography etc. and propagated at

For there to be no boundary between the probabilities of the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, and the hidden variables in classical causality, there must be some invariable condition for which there is zero probability by either method to predict what, where, when or why.

More...

A DEMAND FOR AUTOPSY ON SCHRODINGER'S CAT

Niels Bohr and partners of the Copenhagen School will have us believe that all possible states co-exist before the act of measurement in order to maintain the position in which they have been boxed by holding on to their postulate. T o counter this Schrodinger formulated his famous paradox to show the absurdity. By the way Schrodinger and Einstein are said to believe in the same school that God does not play dice. To which Bohr stubbornly replied that we should not tell God what to do.

To Schrodinger's paradox, the Copenhagen partners reply that Schrodinger's cat exists in a superposition of dead and alive states and it is only when the experimenter opens the box that the cat's wave function collapses and the cat may then be found in a dead state.

To settle the argument, since modern science is now capable of using autopsy to determine the time of death, this should be tabled before the believers in the Copenhagen doctrine for resolution of this long standing dispute.

Note that autopsy may not even be required, but just to fulfill all righteousness. Leaving the cat in the box for weeks after the triggering event, may show a recently dead cat whose wave function has just collapsed or the skeleton of a long dead cat.

Am I missing something?

Akinbo

*Peter J, I will reply you tomorrow. Laptop battery dying and no electricity.

Yes Akinbo,

I think so. The cat might be a symptom. I prefer looking for Gleason in hidden assumptions that were made much earlier. The experiment by Franck and Hertz did already provide what made QM so successful: quantum energy levels. Bohr's model of the atom was also appealing. However, it was perhaps premature to take it as a fact and interpret the experiment by Stern and Gerlach accordingly.

Eckard

Peter,

What Thompson do you refer to?

Eckard

The fact that an electron can pass through both slits should tell you something. In the two slit experiment, if it is indeed impossible to tell which slit the electron when through, then it seems very likely that the electron is not a solid object like a marble. It seems more likely that the electron is wave-dependent phenomena.

The electron is not a hard marble, otherwise you would know which slit it went threw. If anything, it is a projection from the quantum wave. It is a non-solid phenomena. Maybe the electron is ethereral and ghostly?

Eckard.

J.J. Discoverer of electrons and their deflection including as 'cathode rays' (and the first mass spectroscopy) Not culpable for QM as such, but his analysis was also flawed (unless you like plum pudding).

Bohr's view was mainly responsible, though somewhat reasonable at the time in accepting our ignorance, it was misapplied and misinterpreted as the most brilliant viewpoint possible! (Bell strongly disagreed by the way).

Peter

Peter J and Eckard, (and Tom, the mathematician if you are listening)

Do you have objection to conducting autopsy on Schrodinger's cat to determine the time of death and collapse of its wave-function?

Do you believe in the quantum postulate of photon indivisibility? If so, do you agree on how a single photon is said to pass through a half-silvered mirror in quantum mechanics?

Peter,

Thanks. I advise you not to trust the Copenhagen proponents by claiming they are 'as trustworthy as any'. I am therefore happy you asked 'Mustn't it?' and put Aspect's claim of 'proof' in inverted commas. The devil will be in the detail of those experiments which is not within my reach. But I recall you once sent me a link to a C. Thompson paper which disagreed with Aspect's claimed experimental proof.

"The 'same room' is a problem due to small range harmonic resonance 'wave lock' effects well known in tomography etc...."

Why should the same room be such a problem for a quantum investigation? Why should A and B be light years apart? Is it easier to be entangled when light years apart or when in the same room? The logic does not sound right as with all propositions from Copenhagen. Again, why inventing all kinds of new ad hoc effects, like 'wave lock', etc when confronted with absurdity?

Akinbo

Peter,

I just googled and saw links to Caroline Thompson's works who is now late (died of cancer 2006). I think they will make an interesting read.

http://freespace.virgin.net/ch.thompson1/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Caroline_Thompson

Akinbo

I tell you practitioners of physics that the Two Slit Diffraction experiment for electrons tells us that electrons cannot be hard spheres, and there is silence. I can hear the crickets chirping. What gives?

Akinbo,

Interesting that you would ask..."Why should the same room be such a problem for a quantum investigation. (and) Why should A and B be light years apart?"

Firstly I am in agreement on the divisibility of the Quantum, but completely aside from that your questions are pertinent to the topical theme of entropy as a variable of constant influence (a parameter) in physical processes treated as probabilities in both classical and quantum mechanics. Loschmidt argued that an army of Maxwell's Demons would eventually overcome the thermodynamic barrier against reversal of entropy without time reversal. But the 'marching column' turns out to be extraordinarily long. This is just a suggestion in your own ongoing inquiries, thanks again for the BIPM link. jrc

Jason,

Briefly, the 'wavicle' is enjoying something of a comeback, which is similar to the early atomic picture from Rutherford onward of a tiny, massive nuclear core in a much larger 'cloud' of electrons, or in 'wavicle' speak, energy. So there's one cricket. Another would be the Pilot Wave theory which of I think you are aware. Wave function mechanics ( the mathematic machinery) can be the same for a material wave as for the same shape of 'potential' in a purely mathematical abstract represented by a graphical curve. But the math is not any form of energy to be capable of becoming manifest in any material form. I've got both chores and the weather at the same time, so I'd best get cutting the mustard. jrc