Why Quantum?

Forgot the picture... Well, here is the figure!Attachment #1: DoubleSpin.gif

"If you watch Laithwaite's video's of gyroscopics etc, all on Utube, I think you'll gain a clearer understanding of his view."

I did watch, Peter. In fact, I think I even linked one of those videos here. More than that, though -- it was years ago that I investigated claims of reactionless propulsion (of which this a case) and found the same thing I've spoken of here: Newtonian mechanics explains why the program is nothing new, and certainly not reactionless.

If that makes me a troglodyte, so be it.

"Some of his ground breaking work including on Maglev etc. was contrary to 'theory'."

Again I ask -- what theory? Where does he differ from known physics?

Georgina, Tom,

I agree that "The behaviour can then be put into a representation of space and time that illustrates what is happening." But any representation is just a shorthand that can seemingly never model every characteristic of the reality it purports to represent. So I would contend e.g. that the concept of "spacetime" is an inadequate representation of the nature of reality (see below).

Also, surely it is incorrect to say that "the particle is exhibiting a continuous function"? We don't know the particle itself, we only know particle INFORMATION; and particle information does not exhibit a continuous function, but it can be REPRESENTED by a continuous function.

Re Time:

Time is not derived from any set of information; the time "Now" is not derived from the information content of the present moment. The time "Now" is the natural absolute reference point for the apprehension of information, relationship and change. As such, the time "Now" is a fundamental aspect of reality.

The above-mentioned "change" is perhaps not so much the apprehension of continuous/consequential change (of numbers), which is in fact summarizable/representable as STATIC law-of-nature relationships. I would contend that change is abrupt - the type of thing that is representable as NEW relationship (i.e. new law-of-nature relationships, new categories of information, new non-consequential numbers).

Individual subjects (i.e. particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and other living things) are the carriers of all information and relationship in the universe. I would contend that every subject always apprehends a single point "Now", a single point of change: as such, all "Nows" are coordinated.

But there is no blocktime/spacetime: the determined course of reality is always being creatively adjusted and tweaked by subjects. Subjects are the creators of abrupt change.

Cheers,

Lorraine

Re the photon. The emitter is imparting pitch, the greater the energy the shorter the wavelength and the greater the frequency. Roll and pitch is creating a moving magnetic field that induces an electric field and resultant propagation direction. That would explain the constant speed of light in a vacuum because it isn't the energy from the emitter that is giving it its velocity but an electromagnetic effect. The pitching is in one direction but imagine it pitching along the ground from the ground perspective the magnetic field is oscillating clockwise then anticlockwise and clockwise and so on along the line of propagation.Peak magnetic field when a pole is at the detector(imagine it rolling along the floor and the floor is detecting magnetic field)the minima are when the equator is at the detector and the parts in between when it has one pole closer to the detector than the other. Fitting with Maxwell's description.

The polarisation of the photon has to do with the phase of magnetic and electric field components.A plane electromagnetic wave is said to be linearly polarized if the transverse electric field wave is accompanied by a magnetic field wave that is in phase. Two polarisations; Polarisation 1. N and S poles imagine it vertical undergoing pitch rotation frontflip, or Polarisation 2. particle yaw inverted 90 degrees perpendicular to line of propagation. Magnetic and electric fields rotated 90 degrees but line of propagation unchanged.

If light is composed of two plane waves of equal amplitude but differing in phase by 90°, then the light is said to be circularly polarized.Rare in nature.Can be right hand (anticlockwise) or left hand (clockwise)polarization.The wave appearing to move around the axis of propagation in one of those two ways. That relative to the roll and pitch seems to me to be yaw with the wave spiralling at an angle to the direction of propagation.Elliptically polarized light consists of two perpendicular waves of unequal amplitude which differ in phase by 90°. How do different amplitudes occur for the different wave components?

Not yet sure how phase fits with the description of the particle could just be due to the effect of the environment on the different field components but highly relevant to the double slit experiment because the electromagnetic wave passing through the apparatus will be phase shifted compared to the portion going through the slit and hence interference. Could this be demonstrated by having the slit apparatus made of different materials, causing different amounts of phase shift and so giving maybe a different interference pattern or if impervious to em no interference pattern because there are no phase shifted waves to interfere.If the material highly transparent,translucent, opaque and impervious makes no difference then the phase shift model is wrong.

" ... there is no blocktime/spacetime: the determined course of reality is always being creatively adjusted and tweaked by subjects."

That was Ernst Mach's view, as well, that the motion of a body in one frame influences the inertia of all other bodies in every frame. It might be said that he believed "all physics is nonlocal" in contrast to Einstein's discovery that all physics is local.

In any case, Mach's philosophy led him to reject atomic theory, in which atoms are overwhelmingly composed of empty space.

Lorraine, do you believe that atomic behavior is explained by atomic particles creatively adjusting and tweaking their positions in empty space?

Thinking about it some more it can't be phase shift of the magnetic and electric fields passing through the apparatus because if it was then there should be interference with just a single slit. That's good because it eliminates that possibility.

So I think it must be a disturbance of something in the environment incapable of passing through the solid apparatus. Since it still works in a vacuum it makes me think it must be the ubiquitous resistance in the case of the photon. Could it be the particle's bow wave? Bow wave of ship image Arriving at the slitted barrier ahead of the particle and passing through both slits and being refracted. That would make sense because the diffracted waves will be ahead of the particle and can act as the "pilot wave". All it requires is that there is something present even in a vacuum that acts as the medium of transmission of waves and is capable of forming a bow wave, passing through the slits but reflected or absorbed by the barrier. The bow wave hypothesis would work for other kinds of particles for which the interference pattern has been found including Buckyballs.

What is happening on the side of the experiment before the barrier after the particle/ wave has passed through? Are there waves reflected from the barrier either side of the slit or slits on the before side that can be reflected by angled mirrors to interfere with themselves and produce an interference pattern of their own on a screen close to the photon source? That would be supportive of the bow wave hypothesis.Should also be possible to make a macroscopic model of that bow wave behavior to compare.It is now my preferred hypothesis.

Alternatively it is the electric and magnetic field of the photon particle that is causing a disturbance that is halted or reflected by the non slit parts of the barrier. Its a more interesting possibility but I think also less likely. The waves associated with the particle are transverse electromagnetic waves, not leading ahead of the particle and unlikely to cause a disturbance that leads the particle. The phenomenon has been found for other particles that don't have electromagnetic fields but do have other kinds of oscillation. Can traces of that disturbance be found reflected from the barrier? can the disturbance be made to interfere on the before side, method as before?

Re. the link just scroll down to see the ship image.

Stefan,

Always pleased to test falsifications, that's the heart of science. I'm sure I've seen that Fig before, or one very similar, after Brukner & Zeilinger, which has a classical solution (which may or may not be correct) as attachment 1 below. The scenario was raised some time ago and analysed in detail, indeed helping to 'steer' the n model. I have to dash off to play boats, but I'll try to initially recall the outcome.

Certainly the 'particle' case varies from the invoked plane wave, and that the simple diagrammatic spin 'direction' shown is different to the case I described. I'll give you as good a description I can quickly without digging out the previous analysis;

Remember our ring of 'analysers' on the floor, each containg a sphere spinning the 'same way', from which we used two adjacent ones. Looking through the glass panels on the side to the side of the sphere we see both are spinning say; 'up'.

(see Garrett Lisi's blue sphere in his video contest entry with the little (symmetry breaking) arrow remarkably as my own little spheres in my final Figure! Those are the at arrows we see, facing the same way.

Now do what I described above; Go to the rear port of each and look at the Chirality. It's OPPOSITE! That's the nature of spin. There are two entirely inverse conditions. Changing the 'direction' by 90 degrees on the plane shown has the very significant effect of changing a 100% result to a 50:50 result. It is then effectively a 90 degree 'measurement' so is then 'undecidable', as predicted.

I'm sorry that's very basic. It may not fully address the scenario and is certainly tricky to get your head round (it took me some time). I have some Fig's nearly done which will help a lot, but I'm off for a week. I may get a chance to look in, or I'll catch up then.

Thanks, and do keep hitting it with everything you can.

Best wishes

PeterAttachment #1: 2_3_Filters.jpg

Dear Peter,

I think you must explain your vision in terms of forces and physical processes instead with diagramms. My picture was only for helping to visualize the experiment i described in the text and its result. You now come up with a new picture from an entirely different experimental setup, take the similarities and correlate them to other experiments with twin particles.

This strategy of explanation is very confusing. I assume it due to having correlated the similarities between different experimental setups, and after that convinced yourself that those correlations belong to the same category of experiments, means, have explanatory power in the sense of physical forces.

But anyways, what has to be analysed by your model is not the picture you attached, but the picture i attached in my previous post. You must analyse it such, that one can see which *physical mechanism* leads to the measured outcome of the experiment i describe (let the initial conditions be north/south for both particles and both spinning in the direction of sketch 1a of your essay, and the magnets field direction *up*, relative angle between the magnets 90°).

That's for now. I wish you a nice vacation and tell me when you are ready to continue our discussion by sending me a post to my essay contest page (i am not continously in the blogs at fqxi, but only when i have time and are interested).

Best wishes,

Stefan

Found this explanation of particles which I think is very good, easy to understand. Virtual particles what are they.

Naive bow wave model can be excluded by trying to reproduce effect macroscopically. Either can or can't be done. Electric and magnetic fields passing through the solid barrier and setting up interference with parts passing through slits can be eliminated because there is no interference pattern with a single slit.

Lets assume the barrier either absorbs or reflects the electromagnetic wave hitting it. Which could be found by looking for reflection on the side before the barrier. Deflect them so they interfere, look for pattern. They are either there or not. Has that been done?

Now passing through the slit is going to have an effect on the magnetic and electric field disturbing it. Not chopping it into different phases of that passing through barrier and that passing through slits but stopping progression at the barrier. Allowing through a disrupted wave pattern at each slit making two virtual photons using the description given in the link , which can then interfere. The resultant "choppiness" will affect where the particle hits the screen.

I keep wondering why the wave front is depicted as being a plane wave hitting the barrier when it seems something far more dynamic is happening around the photon particle. The plane waves doesn't seem the ideal description but an oversimplification. I would like to see what is happening to the magnetic and electric fields at the slits, surely that can be modeled. There is also what happens to the forces to be considered.

John thank you very much indeed for your many thoughts and encouragement. They are really appreciated.

I've been watching quite a few aerobatics videos trying to identify the different combinations of motion. Including slalom around huge inflatable cones floating on water. (And incidentally learning things, such as the necessity to pitch nose up before a roll to compensate for complete loss of lift when the wings are vertical.)

This is a wacky idea, but doable. Wouldn't it be amazing to set up a huge double slit experiment over the calm sea or very large lake, with several inflatable slitted barriers? Several in case one or more are broken in use. Get together a group of professional stunt plane pilots to pitch and roll through one or other of the slits. They could have smoke outlets of different colours on each wingtip and nose and tail which will show wave motion. Don't know if any new physics would be learned from it but it would be a great PR event for science,a great opportunity to describe the experiment and its conundrums and great fun to watch.It could be an anniversary event (Young presented his paper, "On the theory of light and color" to the Royal Society in November 1801. In that lecture, he described interference of light waves and the slit experiment. I'm pretty sure there would be willing commercial sponsors.

Lorraine, has come out strongly, saying "Individual subjects (i.e. particles, atoms, molecules, cells, and other living things) are the carriers of all information and relationship in the universe", "Space merely exists as a relationship between other information; it has no existence of its own", "Space is not a fundamental entity that carries information and relationships. Space SEEMS to have geometric properties because space is DERIVED FROM properties and relationships". Georgina, is a bit more circumspect, saying, "All it requires is that there is something present even in a vacuum that acts as the medium of transmission of waves...". Tom, is difficult to place either for or against, but whosoever is not for us is against us :), "...space has no physical existence independent of spacetime.". If I interpret him correctly, space has no physical existence, but spacetime does physically exist. This modern resurrection or justification of Newton is called 'substantivalism' and the web is full of information about this. You can google and see the various views. My contention is whether it is fair to wrongly crucify Newton earlier only to appeal to such a concept today thereby resurrecting him without apologizing to his family :).

The view that space and time are actual entities generally represents the Newtonian position, while the view that they are determinations or relations of things, the Leibnizian position.

Now, while Lorraine is entitled to her opinion, before they become hardened views, perhaps she would care to take a look at Newton's Arguments from Causes, Properties and Effects and his Scholium that space exists independent of body. In this my post I would want to make Argument from cosmology, i.e. if there was a beginning from nothing, a current expansion of the universe and a possible collapse back to nothing. As the universe is expanding, it is not expanding into a pre-existing space but rather more space is being created between galactic clusters (the 'markers' of the expansion). From Lorraine's position it is the motion of the markers that gives rise to the increased space between them, likewise when there is collapse, the motion of the markers cause reduced space between them. Now, it is a principle of physics, the action-reaction principle, that anything that can be affected must also be capable of affecting others. That is anything that can be acted upon must also be capable of acting (or reacting).

So arguing from Cosmology, can the mere motion of matter bring universal space into existence, expand and collapse it? Can matter move where there is no space? If this cannot be possible and there is no previously existing empty space into which galaxies are moving and expanding into, then the universal expansion we are seeing means space is being created independent of the marker's motion, rather it is the space expansion that the markers are tracing as depicted by Hubble's expansion. It therefore appears that while Space can convey the relationship between the markers, it is more than just that a 'relational' thing but something more. In a Crunch, if the space between the markers of expansion can be acted upon and caused to reduce then again it must be something more than relational according to the action-reaction principle. Newton as I quoted in my 2013 Essay stresses the importance of this action-reaction principle in deciding whether something is substantial or merely relational, viz. "...it is clear that they (philosophers) would cheerfully allow extension (space) to be substance, just as body is, if only extension could move and act as body can", "...space is capable of having some substantial reality. Indeed, if its parts could move..., and this mobility was an ingredient in the idea of vacuum, then there would be no question about it - parts of space would be corporeal substance". So, dear Lorraine, in addition to other arguments put forward by Newton, when you say, "Space can have no influence whatsoever on the things it seems to contain", cosmologically speaking this may not be correct, space created between galactic clusters makes them move apart. Therefore, it can act and can be acted upon. Space is substance.

Regards,

Akinbo

Akinbo,

"Space is substance."

I have to agree with Tom that space has no physical existence independent of spacetime. Not that such a statement is a simple one, rather there is much nuance in its complexion. Taken in its parts, space by itself can be considered as existential but without any physical manifestation. In a sense, it exists in our contemplation which is what is implied by Lorraine's line of reason. The same might be said of time. And from a protracted personal experience, I view the perennial debate from a familiarity with the limits of human psychology. I think your own life experience probably equips you with a comprehension of the immediacy of the 'fight or flight' reaction of the survival instinct, so it may be lost on others to say that it would not be a very successful species that had a survival instinct which was not hard-wired to absolutely disregard any notion of non-existence. We humans debate existentialism only abstractly. What is nothingness? We can't really know, the closest we might come is abject terror. Like a bird in the mouth of a cat. We don't have very beautiful minds.

Spacetime is then an abstraction, but a rational one. And geometrically it can be said that one requires the other, simply due to the irrationality of 'pi'. And that is not a concept expressed in Newtonian or nonrelativistic physics. I would not call spacetime 'substance', but do see it as a physical manifestation. Energy is the third leg of a stool which is both physical and material. jrc

Now come on, Akinbo, I'm not for anything except objective science, and I am certainly not against anyone here.

Because we are discussing foundational issues, it's worth noting that Newtonian absolute space and time are in the category of those cosmological theories that admit a background space over which "time flows equably" as Newton averred, without regard for locality, i.e., without regard for observer position in space and time.

Einstein's classical extension of Newtonian mechanics into special relativity allows an absolute limit on the exchange of influences among bodies, such that all physics -- i.e., the physical phenomena we can measure -- is local. Special relativity is not controversial in either classical or quantum physics; we can very well determine theoretically and experimentally that there is no causal connection between spacelike separated distant events (v > c) recorded by observers regardless of their local states of motion. In other words, timelike separated events (v < c) can be causally connected; two observers (call them O and O') can agree that events (call them A and B) are ordered, i.e., A occurred before B or vice versa, such that there is a cause-effect relation, which is not true for spacelike separated events. The only way known to formally resolve these empirically-based results into a single theory, is to apply the mathematics of Minkowski space-time, such that neither time nor space independently are physically real -- meaning that neither quantity can be measured independent of the other.

Lorraine's relational view, as I noted, predates Einstein. When Einstein generalized the special case of uniform motion to accelerated motion, he took what he named "Mach's principle" into account, to include relative motion in accelerated frames of reference. Remember, though, that Einstein himself opened the door to quantum theory, with his quantized photoelectric effect; this -- along with atomic theory -- explains why quantum gravity does not fit into the classical gravity that general relativity describes.

So far as background dependence in foundational theories go, eminent physicists disagree:

While Lee Smolin, e.g., calls foundational theories based on the classical field (such as quantum field theory) background-dependent, my own opinion is with string theorist Joe Polchinski and others who say not. Each has strong physical and mathematical reasons for their side. It all boils down to what is primary to creation -- the continuous field, or discrete particles of energy or information.

Best,

Tom

To follow up on this issue of background independence, FQXi's Sean Carroll posted an expanded version of Joe Polchinksi's review of Lee Smolin's 2006 book The Trouble with Physics ] which details the issue. An excerpt:

"A crucial principle, according to Smolin, is background independence -- roughly speaking, consistency with Einstein's insight that the shape of spacetime is dynamical -- and Smolin repeatedly criticizes string theory for not having this property. Here he is mistaking an aspect of the mathematical language being used for one of the physics being described. New physical theories are often discovered using a mathematical language that is not the most suitable for them. This mismatch is not surprising, because one is trying to describe something that is different from anything in previous experience. For example, Einstein originally formulated special relativity in language that now seems clumsy, and it was mathematician Hermann Minkowski's introduction of four-vectors and spacetime that made further progress possible."

I am with you up until you get to Minkowski spacetime. The space time of general relativity is a very useful tool and explains many observations, but physics has demonstrably turned into a blind alley with space time.

It really comes down to what you imagine causes what. Does gravity cause spatial dilation or does matter exchange between objects cause changes in acceleration that we call gravity?

Since time and space are just linearly dependent versions of the same dimensional nature of matter and action and so it is not really necessary to combine time and space into spacetime in order to maintain Lorentz invariance. You can instead simply presume that changes in inertial mass by the equivalence principle of special relativity are what cause velocity and acceleration in space, not the other way around.

Gravity as an exchange force that scales with charge is not the cause of spatial dilation, gravity action is simply a matter exchange that spacetime observes as spatial dilation.

Of course, there are many ramifications to such an approach...

Tom,

"The only known way to formally resolve these empirically-based results into a single theory, is to apply the mathematics of Minkowski spacetime, such that neither time nor space independently are real -- meaning neither quantity can be measured independent of the other."

Again, your own struggle with mathematics pays dividends. Yes, formally -- meaning to be made in mathematical formulization; via Minkowski's 4X4 matrix. I dare say it took a great while for me to recognize how carefully you differentiate the terms you use which assign strict limits to definition, ie: 'this' is math, 'this' is the reality it describes. It is perhaps not that apparent to many that when you say 'the only known way', really means Minkowski's math is the only math that makes spacetime resolve from measuring space and time against each other.

By comparison, my appeal to intuition by stating the irrationality of 'pi' is overly simplified, it is not subject to mathematical proof. It simply says that if we can compute indefinitely and not obtain a finite value for 'pi', there must be a requirement of time. Quite 'informally'.

As to what is primary to creation, the continuous field -- or discrete particles of energy or information; I have been pondering a possibility that may be formalized wherein there could be a discrete region at the core of a continuous field that would translate response at v>c, yet simultaneously would be part in parcel of the c^2 mass-energy equivalence within a zero boundary field. I don't have the bugs worked out yet, probably won't until I go away someplace and plug in my 9v adaptor snapped to my old palm sized TI-30. It goes to the exponential rate of decay of intensity of evanescent waves interior of a energy field boundary being indicative of the rate of increase of energy quantity distribution within a rest mass, with the hypothetical abrupt result that the core density would translate response at an exponential rate of light velocity. There, would be a physical representation that there is no boundary between the discrete entity and the continuous field.

Also I feel 'information' is being used rather loosely. It can only be information if it is knowledge that is effectively communicated. jrc

Lorraine, Tom, John, Steve & Georgina,

To put the discussion on an unequivocal footing definition-wise to avoid using words loosely as John cautions, first, would you all agree that anything, whatever it is and by whatever name called, that can act or can be acted upon exists? Second, if that condition is satisfied by that thing and it also has the property of 'extension', i.e. being extended or having some dimension, that that thing can be said to have some claim to be called a substance, even if it has no mass?

If we all agreed that these are the pre-conditions to claim that 'something' exists or does not exist, then we can proceed. Or what do you think?

Regards,

Akinbo

"There, would be a physical representation that there is no boundary between the discrete entity and the continuous field."

Yes, we know that, John R* -- it's what Wheeler means by 'the boundary of a boundary is zero'. In Joy Christian's framework, it denotes the continuous correspondence of discrete points of the Hopf fibration.

(*Being a Midwesterner, you probably know that John R is the name of a major thoroughfare in Detroit. Just to note for the others why I chose that moniker. :-) )