Why Quantum?

Florin,

It is nice to hear from you. It has unfortunately been a while since I went to your website. I had to reinstall browser and lost the bookmark.

The example with quaternionic QM is interesting. This is the quaternion Dirac equation and the model of the H-atom is a Euclidean form of gravitation. The complex wave function for a system is equivalent up to a phase, and for quaternions they are equivalent up to multiplication by any quaternion, not just the unit quaternion --- at least as I recall. We could write the quaternion wave function as

Ψ = c_1i + c_2j + c_3k + c_41

Expanded in the quaternion basis i, j, k, 1. This is equivalent under multiplication by a quaternion, just as the wave function gives equivalent physics when multiplied by a c-number or phase. So for simplicity multiply this by the quaternion i to get

iΨ = c_1i*i + c_2i*j + c_3i*k + c_4i

= -c_11 + c_2k - c_3j + c_4i

which is just an SO(4) rotation in the basis of elements. Of course QM and physics is invariant under changes of coordinates.

In point of fact the Dirac operator and the quaternion function are both the same thing --- quaternions. The action of the Dirac operator on the quantum field quaternion is equivalent to the cohomology condition ψψ = 0. This is known as the Pauli exclusion principle.

The statement that the wave function is real does have this odd implication that all complex numbers are equal to a quaternion. Mathematically this is strange, and even without quaternions the wave function being real means complex numbers are all real. Physically the nonlocal properties of QM simply can't be reduced to a classical realization. We might even go so far as to say that classical physics is an illusion. We know it is an illusion because it is falsified outside of certain domains of applicability, such as atomic physics.

Cheers LC

Jason,

The Higgs field is a quantum field, and it fits very well within the quantum paradigm of physics. The Higgs field though has a quartic potential which makes it different from a scalar field with just quadratic potential. For the quadratic potential the potential function has a single minimum point, which means that to get a particle orbiting around it requires the input of energy. The quantization of the field means these orbits come in discrete steps. For the quartic function there is a circle as the minimum of the potential, what might be thought of as the trough of the Mexican hat. This means under tiny amounts of energy you can set up an orbit. There is then a vast degeneracy of quantum states here that fill up a condensate. This condensate can couple in with certain particles, such as the W and Z particles of the weak interactions. This coupling might be thought of as the Whiggs and the Zhiggs (sounds like the British party of old and the Zh has a Russian sound). This gives the Z and W its mass.

Something happens when this happens. Gauge fields with a massless gauge boson have transverse degrees of freedom, two degrees per particle. A massive particle has a longitudinal degree of freedom. The coupling with the Higgs field gives the W and Z particles this extra degree of freedom.

This was proposed because a quantum field with mass has this longitudinal degree of freeom, and at very high energy this field effect has anomalous propagations --- it propagates faster than light. So Higgs, Englert, Kibble and others proposed this mechanism so that massive bosons of the weak interaction could be massless at high energy. This prevents the quantum field theory from becoming sick.

Cheers LC

Jason,

I think to be honest the United State of America would not have become the dominant world power without World War II. I honestly think this country would have become a somewhat better off English speaking form of a nation similar to those seen in Latin America in the 20th century. WWII caused many scientists to leave Germany and Europe to the United States of America, and remember Enrico Fermi got the first sustained chain reaction. Also the war demolished the economies of every developed nation except the United States. Highly advanced nations, in particular Germany, but also France, Italy and others were economically ruined with the war. Even Britain remained on war rations for almost 10 years after the war. The Soviet Union was brutally ruined, and barely made it through the midpoint of the war. The US economy surged forwards with no competition.

Since the reconstruction of Europe and East Asia, ending around 1970 or so, the US has been declining consistently, and with virtually all metrics from educational levels, to productivity per capita to internet connectivity relative to the rest of the world. The following little clip from the program "The Newsroom" sort of captures the nature of the problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zqOYBabXmA

Americans are behind on metrics such as education and we are a people that have traditionally been low on the educational and intellectual scale. There is a long tradition of know-nothingness in this nation, and this has been hobbling the country. Of late this stuff has been politically popular. We also have trends of xenophobia, and now the right winged panic-mongerers are screaming about a wave of immigrants --- who happen to be children. They are kids for ^&%*#$@ sake, not terrorists! There are these sick trends in this country, they have been with us for quite a while and are now very rampant, similar to the early 1950s with greater durability.

Are we really that great?

LC

jrc,

Robert is right: Application of FT requires an arbitrarily chosen "starting" point t=0 of reference to which phase refers too. This is the primary deviation from reality. While time spans between two points, between an event-related starting point (1), and an observer-related current endpoint (2), the direction of view for FT is opposite to that for an observer. FT refers to (1) and looks from there ahead toward (2). The ear is the observer and obeys causality. Therefore it refers to point (2) of observation and looks from this current moment, the now, backward to what already happened, i.e. to point (1).

This logically compelling in common sense physiology is not agreeable with the idea that all time, i.e. the entity of all events, a priori exists and extends bilaterally between infinitely far past and infinitely far future.

In order to restrict the analysis to already existing data, avoid the necessity to arbitrarily choose a reference point, and therewith create unnecessary redundancy, FT can equivalently be replaced by the CT, which unilaterally extends to the endpoint (2), the now. Robert might not yet trust in this implication because it is not yet generally accepted, not even among the experts of signal processing. Of course, CT does not allow phase shift, and it fails in the unrealistic case of a sin function.

Eckard

Eckard

Yes, the start-point vs end-point measurement is what makes the seemingly paradoxical nature of SR so frustrating. My answer has been to postulate that energy density varies in direct proportion to true velocity across the wave length as an acceleration/deceleration event. I don't want to abuse the forum in self-promotion, but would argue that the constancy of light velocity is properly measured relative to the waveform itself rather that in relation only from the start or end point of observation. Then SR is both demystified and generally co-variant in terms of energy density. jrc

Lawrence,

I think that both our world views are pretty fixed. You're an atheist down the core who doesn't believe in an afterlife. I am a Spiritualist who believes in the existence of spirits, an afterlife, and God. Neither of our world views are going to change. For my part, one of the problems I have with atheism is that it is so entrenched in cynisism. I don't even think that atheists believe that there exists physics beyond GR and QM, other than some quantum gravity theory. Some of the things I liked about Spiritualism was their positivity, their sense of hope, as well as the countless uncanny evidences from psychic readings, and the entities that I've personally witnessed, and my fiance who was assaulted by a ghost (shoved down the stairs), and this nagging feeling that wave-functions mathematics is describing an all pervasive spirit.

Now, I agree with you that there are people who claim paranormal phenomena who are just painful to watch. They take pictures of dust particles and bugs and call them spaceships. So I totally agree with you that there is a lot of crap in the paranormal literature. But on the other hand, there are a few really good jewels in there as well. It warms my heart when a skeptic is confronted by a ghost, an entity, grey aliens, or some psychic who is so talented that they make it look like something impossible is going on. I've listened to cold readers and they sound like crap; they sound all intellectual, like their guessing, it sounds forced, it doesn't flow. My break is over, but I just wanted you to know that my philosophical beliefs are based in impressive evidence, not junk, not hooey.

I don't see any evidence that the physics community is able to detect ghosts. There could be shadow figures flying around people's living rooms or evil entities with glowing red eyes haunting families and physically attacking peopple, and the physics community would have no ability to confirm this. All these ghosts really need is some ability to manipulate virtual photons to create potential energies.

jcr,

If something happens at a moment (1) then a belonging signal arrives at an observer at a later moment (2). (1) and (2) are not points in space but points of time. Moment (2), the now, is the natural zero of always positive elapsed time. You wrote "true velocity across the wavelength". Perhaps you referred to the propagation of light in empty space. Michelson's 1881/87 experiments led to the unexpected result that light does not propagate like sound relative to the wavelength along a medium. In case point (P1) of emission is moving relative to point (P2) of arrival, (P2-P1 at 1) differs from (P2-P1 at 2). The velocity of light relates then to the distance (P2 at 2) - (P1 at 1). This easily explains Michelson's null result without invoking mystical length contraction and also without SR.

Please don't shy back from convincingly offering something else. Your hint to energy density worries me. Doesn't it decrease with growing radius in case of a radiating sphere? Also, I wonder if SR needs considering acceleration/deceleration.

The question "why quantum" sound to me a bit like an unnecessary attempt to resolve the discrepancy between Einstein's relativity and quantum theory by questioning the latter. That's why I dislike your just "seemingly paradoxical nature of SR".

Eckard

I did not indicate anything about what I believe with regards to metaphysical ideas and so forth. I do though think one needs to keep ideas about spiritualism independent of scientific thought. The idea that the Higgs field is somehow related to ghosts or spirits running around is pure buncomb.

LC

Jason, being so knowledgeable about ghosts, I would like to know:

1. Does time flow for ghosts OR do they have different ages?

2. Are there female and male ghosts, and if there are can they copulate to give birth to more ghosts?

Thanks,

Akinbo

Lawrence,

I think you're getting the idea of number confused with the idea of function. It cannot be true that "... the wave function being real means complex numbers are all real." Complex numbers have no preference for the real line; only when the imaginary part is zero, do complex numbers behave as real numbers. Therefore, it also does not follow that "Physically the nonlocal properties of QM simply can't be reduced to a classical realization."

Nonlocality is a necessary assumption of applying the n-dimension Hilbert space formalism to quantum mechanical phenomena; it is not a result.

Only were the wave function equal to zero, and therefore not continuous, would it be both necessary and sufficient to frame physics in a completely probabilistic measure schema. Every physical result would have a definite probability -- a quantum number -- on the closed interval [0,1]. However, because we know that the wave function evolves deterministically, we also know that this is not true. Numerical discreteness does not determine a continuous function; it's the other way around.

Attached is a piece I am working on at the moment, to help frame the problem of continuous functions vs. quantum numbers.

Best,

TomAttachment #1: The_CHSH_result_is_free_of_context.pdf

Eckard

Thank-you for your willingness to discuss alternative ideas. While I am in general agreement with you as to the time parameter, what I stress is that the single wavelength can be described as a closed system with a start point and end point in space. It creates a finite volume which is constant for any wavelength but which is protracted as a partition of the Planck Quantum between an electrodynamic charge coupled with an accelerating charge which propels the rest moment quantity to peak periodic velocity at mid point of wavelength. The model I developed needs further refinement but results in a spectrum of continuous transform from a prolate spheroid to oblate spheroid of energy volume. Where the Second Law is violated in this closed quantum system is in the collapse of the volume in the second half of the wavelength, recovering the accelerating charge at end point of wavelength. Again, I don't want to get on my own soapbox and shout, but the volumetric transformation is rigorously precise and the rationalization of the volume of the rest moment electrodynamic charge at peak velocity expands laterally and contracts longitudinally which together with a reduction of density in that peak velocity cylindrical disc by a value of 1 magnitude of light velocity is consistent with the difference of electric field strength and magnetic field strength. This computed out as consistent with the observed upper and lower bounds of the EM spectrum based on a qualitative property of density which assigns requisite densities to produce response as kinetic (inelastic), electrostatic (elastic), magnetic (fluid), and gravitational (ethereal) physical properties of energy.

This is admittedly a naïve model, but the point to be made is that ANY model that provides the mechanics which allows velocity to be measured from the waveform itself rather than an observer position can explain the constancy of light velocity and the null result of Michelson-Morely.

By the way, I'm from Ohio. The collaboration of Michelson and Morely led to the consoldation of Case University and Western Reserve into the esteemed Case Western Reserve University of today. The CRC Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms was originally a publication of the Cleveland Rubber Company. These days we have the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Not that in not an old Rolling Stones fan, it's just a bit of a come-down. jrc

Hi Lawrence,

Why would anomalous faster than light propagations make QM sick? Wouldn't FTL be a threat to GR? Not QM?

Jason, I asked you question about ghosts on Jun. 26, 2014 @ 13:33 GMT.

1. Does time flow for ghosts OR do they have different ages?

2. Are there female and male ghosts, and if there are can they copulate to give birth to more ghosts?

Thanks,

Akinbo

Hi Akinbo,

I extrapolated from the Higgs field that there is a range between particles and fields; I expect there to be more fields that we haven't discovered, with bosons that are even harder to detect (if not impossible). So in my view, reality is made out of particles and fields.

Now as far as ghosts are concerned, and the fact that nobody really knows for sure, I decided that the great cosmic answer should look like this. There is only one observer, one infinite observer, and that infinite observer is God. God creates universes and then wants to experience them by subdividing his consciousness into something that can incarnate (or reincarnate) into bodies, called souls. So you have a soul, you reincarnate, and you are part of this Infinite consciousness that we call God.

When a soul incarnates into a biological body, that soul takes on additional layers, like interfaces; think of a Russian doll. When we die, we're supposed to shed our astral body and go into the light. A ghost forgoes going into the light which results in not shedding the astral body (which experiences entropy). Ghosts will wander the lower astral plane in pursuit of whatever motivates that ghost. Sometimes they get stuck in old insane asylums, prisons, hospitals and often the residences where they lived when they were alive. Ghosts can sleep for decades until disturbed by the living. Ghosts can be male, female, human or other. Ghosts do not make babies because a ghost is just a soul that has not shed its astral body after death of the physical body. The soul evolves and grows by having experiences in the physical body; while biological evolution is driven by environmental pressures (survival, etc), the soul evolves by experiencing life.

The existence of a spirit world would suggest a second timeline. The first timeline is from the physical space-time continuum. When a soul passes into spirit, there would have to be another timeline for that, but details are sketchy at this time.

Thanks Jason for being forthright and honest in saying, "Now as far as ghosts are concerned, and the fact that nobody really knows for sure...". I believe in establishing truth with old method of reductio ad absurdum so I have more questions for you to enlighten my soul (I am happy to have one) and to prove and establish the existence of ghosts, spirits, etc.

"There is only one observer, one infinite observer, and that infinite observer is God. God creates universes and then wants to experience them"

What was God doing before creating the universe, and for how long was he doing that? Where was he living? Is there a place called heaven and is it in this universe or another one?

"Ghosts can sleep for decades until disturbed by the living. Ghosts can be male, female, human or other"

Do cockroaches, ants, bacteria have souls and ghosts? What of viruses and plants? I ask because I want to know whether they share in the sub-divisions of God's consciousness you mentioned since they are living things.

"and the entities that I've personally witnessed, and my fiance who was assaulted by a ghost (shoved down the stairs)"

Please convey my sympathy and hope no serious injuries? For a ghost to shove her, firstly it must be wicked and so capable of thinking and it must be able to exert force, and to do this from Newton's second and third laws, ghosts must have Mass. And what has mass must be matter. What sort of matter could this be, dark matter?

Regards,

Akinbo

One of the reasons why I like the ghost-spirit hypothesis is because it's the halfway point between "gross matter" and nothing at all. Spirit is like a nothingness that is too subtle to notice, yet it does something. An Infinite Consciousness might be able to imprint upon this nothingness a set of rules, release it, and watch what happens. As these creations become more complex, it might become harder to see what happens.

"What was God doing before creating the universe, and for how long was he doing that? Where was he living? Is there a place called heaven and is it in this universe or another one?"

I liked Dr Ebon Alexander's explanation (the neuroscientist who had the NDE experience), Dr. Ebon had experienced that God has created many universes, like grapes on a vine. I like that representation. If you were an Infinite Being, Creator of universes, wouldn't you create a heaven, a paradise for souls who love you and want to be with you? I think that God can manifest a heaven on earth, I think of legendary places like Shamballa and the book: Life and Teachings of the Masters of the Far East. It's very magical. Everlasting life is possible. As for time scales, I'm not sure how to estimate time beyond the space-time continuum.

"Do cockroaches, ants, bacteria have souls and ghosts? What of viruses and plants? I ask because I want to know whether they share in the sub-divisions of God's consciousness you mentioned since they are living things."

I've heard of the idea of a group soul where hives, ant hills, and other clusters of insects share a single soul; and that soul evolves over a long time, across many species and eventually incarnates as a human. But one must be careful about thinking about such things because you will have realizations that are troubling. I guess God wanted an adventure, and guess what! You're it. lol

"Please convey my sympathy and hope no serious injuries? For a ghost to shove her, firstly it must be wicked and so capable of thinking and it must be able to exert force, and to do this from Newton's second and third laws, ghosts must have Mass. And what has mass must be matter. What sort of matter could this be, dark matter?"

Apparently, she was able to made peace with this spirit until she eventually moved out. The way I understand it, a ghost can store energy in the energy eigenstates of a wave-function (created by the spirit). How much energy does it take to push someone off balance? 10 Newton-meters maybe? That energy can come from the victim, from cold spots, from batteries, from other sources. Just a passing thought, a ghost might be able to absorb a tiny amount of momentum from it's victim over a long time (a few hours maybe) and then give it back all at once. It's just an idea. Could dark matter be at play? I don't know. I had imagined a scenario where the grey aliens are dark matter lifeforms who are aware of us, but we're not aware of them. So they occasionally abduct us just to check us out, or perform bizarre science experiments on us. There are possibilities that are freakish that could actually be true. In fact, if they know about us, but we don't know about them (other than the crazies who say they've been abducted) that gives the grey aliens a significant advantage over us as play-things.

Akinbo,

By the way, given all of the unknowns that still cannot be resolved by physics/philosophy, I think that we should entertain ideas of God, ghosts and grey aliens because, first, it's fun. Second, there could be some truth to it, and third, it might lead to some interesting new ways of looking at the physics.

"Peter M, if a 'robust' reason for the belief that (conventional) quantum theory is 'inevitable' turns out to be an infinite dimension Hilbert space, it predicts its own death -- because then the problem will have reverted to an analytical solution." -Tom

I've said that I think that the best interpretation of quantum mechanics is that wave-functions really exist as a manifestation of spirit. If wave-functions can be higher dimensional objects inside of a Hilbert space than that means that wave-functions can be higher dimensional objects. That works for me. What's wrong with that?