Hi Ed,

I am re-posting this entry from the general contest forum here, because my reply to Sylvain Poirier relates directly to your essay, and I speak in defense of your ideas. More broadly speaking; this also offers support to Michael Goodband's contest essay and some of the ideas expressed by J. Christian, but I felt the comment I'm replying to was overly dismissive. Briefly; he claimed that both you and Kadin are in denial because "local deterministic realism has been refuted."

Regards,

Jonathan

Jonathan J. Dickau said:

There is a sensitive dependence..

Precise definitions of 'local' and 'realistic' are required, and must be applied consistently throughout, because points that are close initially or appear identical, diverge later as any line of reasoning is followed. This could allow two different conclusions, with no logical missteps, because the bounding surface is a chaotic attractor.

Did you grasp that Ed Klingman is using Dirac's criterion Sylvain, instead of Pauli's? If you accept Dirac's formula, it naturally follows that Pauli's criterion in QM has a restricted codomain - which is only reasonable if the Physics of the experimental setup demand it. This is what Edwin Klingman calls into question, and changes the outcome if all other logical steps are the same.

So while, in some limited sense, local deterministic realism has been refuted, this does not speak to all of the subtle questions raised by EPR, and only applies if we use precisely the same definition used by Bell. I do not question that you may be correct; but I am universally skeptical of claims that various principles are decisively proved or refuted, and I look for further evidence that affirms or calls these claims into question.

Regards,

Jonathan

    Hi Edwin,

    I'm a little jealous that you haven't made it around to my Digital Physics movie essay yet. Don't you have the time to thoughtfully comment on every essay? :)

    Also, all this talk of Bell's Inequality without mentioning Leggett's? Are you familiar with that experiment? Any thoughts on that?

    Jon

      Mr Klingman:

      You have a very impressive resume - your understanding of physics is quantum levels above mine (pun intended). But let me take the role of Simplico to your Galileo and make a few notes and ask a few questions about your essay.

      We're on the same path when you say that "math is the map and the physical world is the territory." And there are many maps, some of which describe the territory very well and some (to jump to your conclusion) apply the wrong map to the territory.

      I did notice your thought that "Multiverse maps point to no observed territory. Nor do string maps." I have thought this to myself as well, but these theories seem like sacred cows and that to suggest they might be incorrect seems akin to blasphemy. I glad that someone who knows a lot more about this than I do seems to believe the same thing.

      Now onto your main thesis, the discussion of Bell's theorem. What I know of this theorem comes from the book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" by Gary Zukav (1979). He summarized the theory as two particles A & B head off in different directions. If the spin of particle B, which is now far from A, is changed, then particle A also changes its' spin accordingly. And it seems to do this instantaneously (faster than light). This created quite a stir in the "New Age" community as providing evidence that everything in the Universe is connected.

      So, based on this, does your theory accept or reject this ? Is there truly a communication faster than light ? And, perhaps most importantly, can we test it ?

      That's my Simplico view.

      Jim Baldwin

        Dear Akinbo Ojo,

        I'm glad you've returned. I will respond in-line above. -- Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Dear Jonathan,

        I appreciate your comments here and on other threads. And you do it so well, with the same insight that showed when you labeled the problem 'self-concealing'.

        If there has been specific argument about facts, I have missed this. Instead, I'm accused of being a "denier", which is the current approach one takes when one wishes to dismiss another's arguments. More specifically, I'm accused of denying "established truths". Of course the only relevant truths that have been established by experiment is the fact that Bell's model, on which he bases his conclusions, fails to agree with either the quantum mechanical predictions or with experimental results. Bell concludes from this that no local model can produce quantum mechanical correlations but my essay presents a local model that does just this.

        No one is arguing with me about the fact that Bell assumes the precessing particle, leading to an inherent contradiction with experiment, is precessing in a constant field and produces no deflection, while the experiment is based on deflection.

        Akinbo Ojo said it best when he asked for a short list of "established truths" that must not be opposed according to the particular critics "professional way of doing physics."

        Have fun,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Dear Akinbo,

        Welcome back!

        Yes, as I understand your argument, splitting the atom into positively and negatively charged particles, the correlation will be 100%.

        You infer from this that when electric charge is used there can be 100% correlation and a locally realistic outcome in physics. You are quite correct, and that is an excellent point to make!

        If Alice and Bob choose to test spin by using the same orientation, then they too find 100% (anti-)correlation. It is when they choose different orientations that the correlation decreases, and both quantum mechanics and experiment find the correlation to be -a.b, which is the product of a times b times the cosine of the angle between them. Bell's model cannot match this result. While not discussing the crucial aspect of 'orientation', you infer that

        (a) we don't know as much as we claim about spin.

        (b) we don't know enough about how this spin is measured.

        I of course agree that both of these statements are true, and have proposed what I consider to be better models of spin and of the apparatus with the surprising result that my local model does produce the correct correlation.

        Those (and there are many) who believe that we do know all about spin and about Stern-Gerlach reject this, although I don't find their oft-repeated arguments ("it's binary") convincing.

        I agree that entanglement is a result of a misconception about spin, which is the Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck idea that "the projection of spin on any axis is +1 or -1."

        This 'qubit' or two-state solution is only appropriate for a constant field, but that is what Bell and his followers assume, so they are consistent, even if consistently wrong.

        You conclude that "any non-correlation is a result of orientation inconsistencies." My own conclusion is that when 'real' magnetic moments are scattered from a non-constant field, the actual scattering or deflection results do agree with the quantum mechanics and experimentally determined correlation, and so there is no need for entanglement as a concept. This disturbs some people for whom 'entanglement' has apparently become a central Mystery in their faith. I say faith, because no one claims to understand entanglement in any physical sense.

        As is far too evident today, some do not react well when this faith (they believe it's "knowledge") is challenged. That does not change the fact that my local model does what Bell claimed to be impossible.

        Also, I very much appreciated your request for a short list of "established truths" that must not be opposed in order not to offend the particular critics "professional way of doing physics."

        My very best regards,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Hi Jon,

        Thank you for your lighthearted comment. When I first reviewed your essay, I did not find that much physics to remark on. But after seeing a number of your comments on other threads I decided to go back for a second look, but had not done so yet. Having quickly glanced at your essay again, let me say that I find your set of questions at the back very worthwhile. I believe it is hard for most people to ask good questions and yet a properly phrased question can lead to new insights.

        I made similar movies in the 70s, so I understand your urge, but mine had only minor local success [i.e., local colleges, etc.] I wish you the best of luck with yours. It's a hard field to break into.

        I have not extensively studied Leggett's inequality. I reject his two-state version for the same reasons I describe in my essay, it is physically unrealistic - at least for Stern-Gerlach experiments. And I have not analyzed photon-based experiments to the same level that I have SG experiments. I have not studied Leggett's N-state version. I believe it gets into "quantum decoherence" arguments and I am not impressed with this program. Most such arguments also depend on counterfactualism, about which I also have severe reservations. Finally, I tend to agree with Bell when he noted that the only thing impossibility proofs prove is a lack of imagination.

        Did you have any reaction to my arguments in my essay?

        Best wishes,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Dear Jim,

        I very much enjoyed your essay and recommend it to others. As you note there is considerable overlap in our views. You are also correct that not everyone recognizes that multiverse maps point to no observed territory, but, on the other hand, quite a number of us do. And yes, for many they are sacred cows.

        I'm familiar with Zukov's book (or was in 1979) and, in short, do not require entanglement to realize that everything in the universe is connected. The gravitational field, for example, connects everything in the universe. But as far "instantaneous" connection, as implied by entanglement, my theory rejects this. If you view the figure at the bottom of page 6 in my essay, the difference between Bell's local model [the straight line] and quantum mechanics and experimental results [the cosine curve] is shaded. It is the shaded area that represents 'entanglement'. Bell concluded [based on the failure of his own oversimplified local model] that no local model could produce the cosine curve [mine does, see page 7]. Thus there had to be "something" to explain reality [i.e., the cosine correlation] so entanglement was invented. If my local model produces the cosine curve [it does] then the shaded area vanishes and there is no need for entanglement. I have not yet analyzed photon-based experiments sufficiently to draw the same conclusion, but I expect that will be the case.

        The issue of "communication faster than light" in terms of entanglement, is a little more complex, and people argue over the exact meaning of 'communication', but my theory rejects entanglement in the Bell sense, at least where it relates to Stern-Gerlach experiments.

        Thanks for reading and commenting, and thanks for entering your excellent essay in the contest.

        Best wishes,

        Edwin Eugene Klingman

        Dear Edwin,

        I find this a most enlightening response. I am not enthusiastic about the Bell topic, except that I perceive it as an attempt to foist falsehood on the scientific community under the guise of Authority.

        I am considering posting my Classical and Quantum poser on a more accessible FQXi forum (still wondering under what forum topic). If I do so, kindly oblige me exactly this same response, then others can pick up the thread from there. Thanks.

        Akinbo

        Edwin, your essay is excellent and very stimulating to read - it offers a fascinating approach to Bell's theorem and to reclaiming the intuition of locality. I really liked how you gave a fresh analysis while covering all the technical background very informatively. It reminds me in many ways of the style in your other essays and comments. My essay also addresses intuition and "changing the map" via different representations. Also, I discuss how non-locality can instead be understood as the physical manifestation of superposition expressed through alternate universes and invoked from a self-referential operation, and I back this up technically. Your focus was a little different, and I like your take on expanding what otherwise was considered to be restraints in measurement theory - your ideas are very inspiring.

        Thoroughly a great contribution to the forum and I rated this very highly, the top. Please take a moment to check out my essay and to rate it as well.

        Thanks, Steve

          Hi Steve,

          Thanks for your very kind remarks on my essay.

          I very much enjoyed your essay. While ordinarily I tend to think of coordinates as simply a labeling convention, your discussion of inertia and the fact that "Any mathematical representation still depends on physical assumptions, and changing the mathematical representation changes the physical explanation we use." And, per gravity, changing the physical assumptions changes the mathematical representation of space-time.

          This perspective certainly applies to Bell's theorem. When one changes the physical assumption from "precession in a constant field" to "scattering in a non-constant field" the representation changes from Pauli's provisional binary map to a continuum-based scattering spectrum, with consequent changes in correlation.

          Your treatment of computation is excellent, beginning with "every finitely realizable physical system can be perfectly simulated by a ... computing machine..." My Automatic Theory of Physics explores this point and [page 10 in my essay] I show how the automaton's 'next-state-address' corresponds to the physics 'potential' by linking the canonical automaton to Feynman's QFT kernel.

          Your explanation that undecidability of self-referential statements can be traced to endless loops that destroy causality is excellent. Your further discussion of half pulses, not gates, and your insights for future research are fascinating. Thank you for your essay.

          My best regards,

          Edwin Eugene Klingman

          Dear Alan/Edwin,

          I am sorry to "borrow" your respective essay pages to make the following points (and I sincerely hope it does not affect your ratings adversely).

          Mathematics is our investigation into our own brains (codified in the language of mathematics). It requires great creativity for it to be fruitful. Physics, then, would be the attempt to express (explain) in a "language" (usually mathematics) how things behave in the universe.

          Let's not forget that the referents of "mathematics" and "physics" did not exist prior to human existence. We get to define what those terms mean.

          Much is being made of the success of mathematics (being taken to its logical conclusions) in "predicting" certain results that are later confirmed by experiments (or aligned with physics theory). This should not be a surprise. It is not mathematics alone that derived the said conclusions. The terms (i.e. qualities) at first established to have mathematically valid relationships are just "rehashed" (using mathematics) into new physical relationships. Those physical relationships existed prior to that, and the mathematical "machinations" simply converted the already known relationships into ones that existed in physics, but had not yet been expressed in their new form.

          I am only writing this for those who can understand it. Please don't ask me to explain it.

          You cannot have a scientific theory that is based on probability, and expect to derive new physical relationships from there indefinitely. Only deterministic physical theories (i.e. ones that can be taken to logical conclusions without "end") will work in the long run.

          Soon, our garden will melt, and I will be busy interacting with the universe "first hand."

          En

            Dear En Passant,

            You make a very interesting observation:

            "You cannot have a scientific theory that is based on probability, and expect to derive new physical relationships from there indefinitely. Only deterministic physical theories (i.e. ones that can be taken to logical conclusions without "end") will work in the long run."

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Dear Akinbo,

            I will be happy to respond with the [above] response to any FQXi forum posting you desire. But please alert me to the thread where and when I can so olige you.

            My best regards,

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Dear Edwin,

            Considering your response to my comment, I will "improve" upon my comment.

            If the universe was not what we ordinarily call deterministic, it would have disappeared by now.

            I am sure this will invite many contrary opinions.

            En

            En,

            That sounds true to me but I don't think you can prove it. Wait, where have I heard that before?

            Best Regards,

            Gary Suimpson

            Hi Dr. Klingman--

            A truly excellent essay! Congratulations. I have always loved Korzybski's dictum, "The map is not the territory". I think that you applied it perfectly to the question of the relation between physics and math. Maps are merely tools to aid in our navigation of the terrain. Just so, math is a tool to aid in the navigation of our physical world. In terms of the Big Picture, I align with you.

            As to the issue of Bell's Theorem, I confess that your grasp of quantum mechanics (QM) far exceeds mine. So, permit me to ask the proverbial stupid questions: How does your energy exchange model handle space-like entanglement situations? Do space-like correlations entail more-or-less instantaneous exchanges of energy? If so, how does that work, especially with respect to Special Relativity?

            I suspect that you have already answered these types of question someplace in your ~300 posts and threads (which has to be some sort of record and leaves me overwhelmed!). If so, just point me to the right thread and I'll take it from there.

            Once again, a great essay. I really liked you diagrams, too.

            Best regards,

            Bill.

              Hi Bill,

              Thanks for your very positive comments. I'm glad you enjoyed my essay as much as I did yours.

              As I understand your question, you are interpreting energy-exchange as a global phenomena between remote particles. Instead, it is a local exchange between two modes of the particle: the precession-mode (rotational) energy and the deflection-mode (linear) kinetic energy. [Think of molecules that exchange energy between their own vibrational and rotational energy modes.] As the dipole moment aligns with the field, the precession energy vanishes, while the particle is accelerated up (or down) and this component of kinetic energy increases. This exchange of energy correlates with the output of the Stern-Gerlach experiment; the particle is scattered in an inhomogeneous field. So there is no energy exchange between remote particles, only between modes of each local particle. The amount of energy exchange depends upon the initial spin direction, i.e., upon the angle θ between local spin and local field, hence the output position is θ-dependent. Bell suppresses and does not consider this θ-dependent physics.

              As a result of the θ-dependent physics, the position of the scattered particles varies, and is not +1 or -1 as Bell insists. Thus the correlation between Alice's and Bob's outputs does not yield Bell's straight line, but instead yields the cosine curve -a.b predicted by quantum mechanics and found by experiment.

              Entanglement was invented to explain the difference between Bell's local model and reality (the end-to-end correlation). But my local model does not differ from the real correlation, hence there is no need to either invent or invoke entanglement. Therefore, local energy-exchange between local particle modes and the lack of entanglement for my local model means that there is no 'instantaneous' global (end-to-end) exchange of anything, hence no need for entanglement, hence no special relativity issues.

              The remainder of my essay examines why Bell ignored this θ-physics, and I concluded that, by assuming a precessing particle in a constant field instead of a particle scattered by a non-constant field, he applied the wrong (Pauli's provisional) eigenvalue 'map' to the physics problem. It's complex, and as Jonathan Dickau remarks, a "self-concealing" problem. So most of the analysis of Bell's theorem for 50 years has focused on probability, math, logic, and counterfactualism, and simply accepted that Bell's 'constant field approximation' was correct. But it is not appropriate, and thus one should not draw such hugely non-intuitive conclusions as 'non-locality' from an inappropriate approximation.

              Thanks for putting the effort into understanding a complex essay. [It's not as if your own essay was simple!]

              Best regards,

              Edwin Eugene Klingman

              Dear Dr. Klingman,

              I thought that your engrossing essay was exceptionally well written and I do hope that it fares well in the competition.

              I think Newton was wrong about abstract gravity; Einstein was wrong about abstract space/time, and Hawking was wrong about the explosive capability of NOTHING.

              All I ask is that you give my essay WHY THE REAL UNIVERSE IS NOT MATHEMATICAL a fair reading and that you allow me to answer any objections you may leave in my comment box about it.

              Joe Fisher

                Hi Dr. Klingman--

                Yes, you correctly interpreted my question. Thank you for taking the time to provide an answer. It was very clear. I wish you all the best.

                Bill.