Edwin,

Sorry for the late response.

I think locality is a given in that operations that generate a measurement must be local, but our concept of reality is not. More specifically, that while there is an appearance of objects that are physically separable, which we interpret as real objects, these are outcome dependent on local operations. The notion of non-locality is a horrible interpretational problem that has been allowed to diffuse through the physics community at large. The fact that we see quantum correlations in test of Bell theorems does not mean the universe is non-local; there was no non-local operation that generate the correlation. What the measurement did was provide some perceived definiteness to a local observer.

Hope that helps,

Best

Harlan

Harlan,

As best I can tell we are pretty much in agreement on this topic. You note that the notion of non-locality is a horrible interpretation problem based on Bell's belief that "there was no non-local operation that generates the correlation." I hope that you got from my essay that there is now a local operation (as outlined in my essay) that exactly generates the correlation, thereby negating Bell's conclusion about non-locality. It's local all the way.

This has real consequences for the idea of entanglement, such as Susskind's treatment of information loss and the firewall problem, as well as other current ideas about entanglement. If you missed this aspect of my essay, I invite you to look at it again.

I've read your essay and responded to it, and I thank you again for reading mine and for your response.

Best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Hi Edwin,

I read your essay and admire your attention to detail in EPR. I am also impressed with your contribution to intellectual property. I had only about a dozen US patents and am not as educated or recognized as you. However we have a lot in common because we are innovators. I'm afraid that most of the people we deal with now don't understand innovation. In their view, different is wrong. I used to know my gatekeepers but where are they (kind of reminds me of the wizard of OZ)? Later in my career I hired and managed people, some were PhD's. I depended on young less well educated engineers for the innovation we needed. Their scholarly peers loved to consult with their college professors and we funded their studies, but they were so enamored with the science they learned that they could not "trash" what didn't work and ask the innovation question "what do we need to know that we do not now know to solve the problem?" We were perhaps the first to use computers as a powerful scientific tool.

Now the problems at hand: Do we need to list them? For you, why would anyone not listen to a new view of troubling findings if it leads to deeper understanding? In my case, why would anyone not listen to innovation when they don't know what time or space is?

I approached my deep need to understand by trying to "reverse engineer" nature. I took the best fundamental particle data I could find and correlated it. The result was the logarithmic "code" I presented. I wish, as you requested, that I could find the origin. In arXiv 3701.0090, I suggested that that it started with 90 and separated into four parts of 22.5 each because E=2.02e-5*exp(22.5) is close to data for the Higgs particle energy. I noted the extensive use of ln(3/e) that underlies the electromagnetic field and information. I have been working with the information code for about 30 years and applied it to most processes in nature. All I can say is "it works". My recent interest has been quantum gravity. The scholarly university products of the last 25 years have worked on the problem but in my view that didn't question the basic tenant....the Planck scale. They fell in "love" with a relationship that contains Planck's constant, C and G in what is considered a defining relationship. I don't care how many dimensions you use, the general theory of relativity is not quantum if it is the curvature of large scale space time. I question the view and can calculate the gravitational constant from the proton model. Yes, BTW, the neutron decays in the model exactly produces the proton, electron and expected neutrino.

Thanks, lets continue the discussion.

    Hi Gene,

    Thanks for reading and commenting on my essay. As you note, novelty is often suspect. That's actually a good thing, as there are far more novel ideas than there are good or correct novel ideas. We would not want mankind chasing off after every new idea, as some of them lead straight over the cliff. That's why the patent examiners tried to shoot down every one of your patents, if they were doing their job.

    That's a different problem from when novelty is opposed simply because it affects an industry of people quite successfully living off doing things the old way.

    You answered my question well about the origin of your numerical code. Setting out to 'reverse engineer' the best particle data we have seems quite reasonable to me. The standard model came about from looking at patterns in the data. You said "All I can say is "it works"." There are much worse things than that! It's a great place to start.

    Best,

    Edwin Eugene Klingman

    Hello Edwin. In your essay, I am mostly in agreement with your opinion, "Bell's 50 year old proof of the non-local nature of the Universe is an over-simplified solution to a complex problem. As this is generally considered the basis for 'entanglement', it suggests that reappraisal of much of current physics is in order." Bell's proof might be oversimplified or wrong, but I am not sure that Bell's proof can ever be refuted EVEN IF IT IS WRONG. The problem is that the string landscape can be formulated within a conceptual framework in which Bell's theorem is valid, and by means of clever D-brane adjustments the string landscape might be able to provide models of any plausible (or implausible) physics. In any case, my guess is that Bell's theorem shall always be regarded as great. According to Dirac, "The measure of greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research."

    Regards, David Brown

      • [deleted]

      • Post #30

      Hi Eugene,

      Thank you for looking at my essay on Solving the mystery.

      I wanted to comment on your essay but my difficulty is a lack of depth in understanding the details.

      I would like to talk about Bell's theorem and the issue of whether physical effects are local or non-local and see how this relates to your position on the subject.

      For my reference I include the definition of nonlocality from Wikipedia.

      In physics, nonlocality or action at a distance is the direct interaction of two objects that are separated in space with no perceivable intermediate agency or mechanism.

      Bell' theorem: No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.

      Looking at the problem from the perspective of the Spacetime Wave theory, it is necessary to accept that the behaviour of physical objects is non-local. I clarify this by saying that the progression of waves in spacetime is always local (at speed c) but it is the interaction of, for example, a photon with an electron which can be non-local at the interaction itself.

      Making the assumption that it is a real physical wave passing through an interference experiment requires that it is a dispersed physical wave arriving at the detection screen and interacting with an atom at the screen in a probabilistic way affected by the magnitude of the wave at each point of possible detection. This must in turn mean that there is action at a distance happening at the point of detection so that a detection at point A prevents a detection at another point B.

      The non-local effect at detection can be considered to be instantaneous in the frame of reference of light propagation and the mechanism of delivery of the non-local effect is spacetime itself. I had understood that the results of the EPR experiment showed that entangled photons must be transmitting information instantaneously at the time of first measurement.

      So looking at the compatibility of Bell's theorem with the spacetime wave theory (ref: solving the mystery): The spacetime wave theory does propose a description which puts waves in spacetime as the underlying mechanism for the effects described by quantum theory and so could be considered a hidden variable description. However, my contention is that interactions are non-local at the point of measurement so no violation of Bell's theorem is occurring.

      As I understand your excellent paper, you have shown that a local theory has matched one of the predictions of QM but I don't think this makes Bell's theorem false.

      With best regards

      Richard

        Hi Edwin,

        Apologies for sending the previous post as anonymous. I must have been logged out.

        Regards

        Richard Lewis

        Klingman

        Thanks for reply on my site. I'd like to propose a task.

        Links to my effort my effort.

        The book I am thinking of getting is ``The Gene Man Theory''. I didn't find it on Amazon and $100 seems a bit tough.

        Do you have any papers on the web? I looked in academia.edu, found 3 on Bell and spin in viXra. None on arXiv.

        A decade ago I had one in New Astronomy as I was getting my feet in cosmology.

        Then I started to deviate from the status quo but arXiv still accepted a few until I started to really deviate. Academia.edu has some. Today I publish mostly in Intellectual archive. Arp, Gibbs, and others are correct. I'm thinking of updating my book the Theory of Everything.

        My story on QM in grad school is fairly typical. I am conceptually oriented. I asked the prof for a conceptual view of QM. His reply was Feynman's reply.

        After thinking I had a handle on cosmology, I attacked the small with photon interference. The idea is to use classical methods (stay away from all the assumptions of QM where the map fuzzies the issues). I had some success. The view of the single photon interference was to say a laser doesn't produce just one at a time. For the last year + I've been attempting a simulation with only one photon in the experiment at a time. No joy.

        Then this contest and your paper happened.

        The contest crystallized my view of math and physics and the skepticism of transformations. With Bohm the EPR and Bell's inequality are irreverent. All that needs done is to invoke some aspect of Bohm and Bell goes away.

        I noticed you have some facility with QM. Let me propose a task to interpret the Schrödinger equation in a classical form (not a Hamiltonian) complete with classical interpretation (F=ma type). This is back to grad school for me, but you know the calculations now. My approach has been to start with the Diffusion equation (you may note I use the version of the heat equation in my previous papers) and V is calculated from masses in my \rho field, \nabla \rho produces the force on the particle, and the \Psi is a real (my plenum) field (density field in the diffusion equation).

        Could you add to this to produce a QM Schrödinger equation with real waves?

        Of interest?

          "http://myplace.frontier.com/~jchodge/">my effort

          Hi Edwin,

          I am following up on your question regarding the 13.8 MeV quark in the neutron/proton model. The PDG standard model masses and designations follow:

          The quarks are not independently observed and standard model correlations are based on protons and neutrons that may have transitioned over time to lower energy states. I studied and correlated meson and baron observations. All except the proton decay and almost all of them decay to intermediate states consisting of lower energy mesons and baryons. The following diagram is from viXra: 1307.0133. The decay paths all conserve energy in their intermediate states, i.e. a high energy quark becomes a lower energy quark plus kinetic energy. For example, the 13.8 MeV quark in your note becomes a 1.87 MeV quark plus 11.93 MeV of orbital kinetic energy.

          I detail how the neutron decays to a proton in viXra:1307.0082.

          I could bore you to death with the details of meson and baryon decays but pairs of quarks eventually annihilate one another ending up as kinetic energy, electrons and neutrinos. BTW, I went far enough with the meson and baryon studies to understand them and then lost interest. It was very time consuming.

          Unfortunately the diagrams would go through.

            Dear David Brown,

            Thanks for reading and responding. You suggest that you're not sure that Bell's proof can ever be refuted even if it is wrong, because you believe string theory can be formulated in a conceptual framework in which Bell's theorem is valid. I'm not exactly sure I understand this, but in my essay on 'math and physics' as 'map and territory' I specifically state that I ignore maps that point to no territory. In your essay you acknowledge that "there is not yet any proof that the [string] theory is relevant to physics", which I interpret as saying the same thing. Thus my position is to ignore string theory and we can agree to disagree on this point. That's healthy.

            Your other point, that "greatness in a scientific idea is the extent to which it stimulates thought and opens up new lines of research" is more difficult to judge, as it must be contrasted with what would have occurred if thought had not been suppressed for 50 years, and with what advances might have occurred based on a correct understanding of local realism. That is half of the 20th century, the most prolific period in physics. It is hard to think of any real physics, as opposed to thousands of papers, that have come from Bell's theorem. So except for a small industry based on publishing 'entanglement' papers, I'm unaware of just what new line of research has accomplished anything in reality. I don't see the 'quantum computers' that supposedly use entanglement and I don't see much beyond encryption that would really benefit from such, although I know others will disagree on this last point.

            In short, I did not expect to convince everyone, but I appreciate your taking the time to read it and think about it and respond thoughtfully.

            Best regards,

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Dear Richard Lewis,

            Thanks for your comments. I know of course that my essay is quite complex in dealing with a very specialized topic that not everyone has spent time on. I appreciate your going to Wiki to try and understand my essay, and agree with their summary of Bell's theorem to the effect that "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever produce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics." That "all" is a tricky word, but Bell and most experimenters have focused specifically on the correlation, -a.b. By exhibiting a local model which does produce this quantum correlation I have disproved Bell's theorem. But some have complained that I do not apply Bell's constraints, so I've spent considerable time showing that his constraints are based on a mistaken interpretation of the eigenvalue equation or 'map' that Bell chose to use.

            You look at the problem from the perspective of your Space-Time Wave theory, which you say supports non-local behavior. Of course I did not have access to your theory before submitting my essay, but it probably would not have changed anything.

            You are correct that interference experiments must be explained as well, but those are not really part of Bell's theorem, and, as I explained in referenced papers, the 'spin'-physics and the 'momentum'-physics are separable, and need to be tackled separately.

            You have correctly referred to the EPR interpretation in which "there is action at a distance happening at the point of detection so that detection at point A prevents the detection at another point B." That seems a strong argument, but I have discussed an alternative interpretation in my 2013 essay on The Nature of the Wave Function, and I still believe that is the correct interpretation. In 1927, two years after Schrödinger and before Dirac, there was quite a bit of confusion and trying to understand things in an atmosphere dominated by the Copenhagen interpretation. Ninety years later I think we have a more complete picture.

            In short, you have prepared a very good comment, which I appreciate, and you are free to interpret the Wiki "all" predictions to claim that a local theory that has matched "one" of the predictions of QM does not make Bell's theorem false. But having shown that Bell's hidden constraints are the reason that local models fail to produce quantum correlations, (the only prediction actually discussed by Bell) I continue to believe that I have proved Bell's theorem false, and explained in detail why it is false.

            Good feedback such as yours helps all of us, so thanks again.

            Best regards,

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            John,

            Recently published e-prints on viXra, both to support Phil Gibbs' worthwhile undertaking, and because it's fast and does not require towing the status quo line. You mentioned arXiv was okay til you deviated. It's hard to find a greater deviation today than going against Bell. Most recent writings (see the 50 year celebration of Bell) resemble hagiography.

            You ask if I have interest in reinterpreting Schrödinger, but the other question is whether I have time. Currently still extracting information from my model and the feedback I've received over the past few months, especially negative feedback, requires time and effort to respond to. And believe me, my theory is vastly improved from some of the negative feedback I received.

            I'm also trying to prepare papers for refereed journals, etc. etc. So yes, I'm interested, but no, I don't think anything will come of it. I suggest we go off-line to discuss such -- Klingman@geneman.com.

            Finally, I know from past experience that when this contest kicks into high gear it soaks up time like a sponge.

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Hi Gene,

            I was hoping you'd respond about quarks. In the past I've used ~5 Mev for up quarks (rest mass) and ~9 Mev for down quarks, but I haven't checked recently to see what latest beliefs are. Obviously most of the energy of baryons is in the interactions and kinetic energies. I'll try to look at 1307.082. I agree meson and baryon studies are time-consuming.

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Hi Edwin,

            Thank you for your feedback which I take as very positive. I am quite relaxed about the idea that Bell's theorem could be false and this would be a great achievement on your part if it becomes generally accepted.

            What I am more interested in is the true nature of events in physics and whether interactions can be non-local. Since the spacetime wave theory implies non-locality it is important for me that non-locality be accepted as a physical reality. Then Bell's theorem becomes irrelevant because it is making statements about local hidden variable representations.

            One of the issues that arises when non-local effects are taking place is that the implication is that a measurement at A instantaneously affects the possible measurement outcome at B. When we talk about instantaneous effects we have to consider in which frame of reference they are instantaneous. Special Relativity requires us to do this.

            This is where we must consider the idea of a unique frame of reference in which non-local effects take place and this is deemed to be the same frame of reference for light wave propagation (as per the spacetime wave theory).

            We arrive at a position where the laws of physics (Special Relativity and General Relativity) are constructed based on the idea that all the laws of physics are invariant in all frames of reference moving with a constant relative velocity. Then we find that to accommodate light wave propagation and entanglement effects we have to consider the existence of a unique frame of reference with the possibility (at least in the realm of thought experiment) of identifying that unique frame of reference through a precisely controlled entanglement experiment.

            Ultimately, I do think it is acceptable to consider the laws of physics within the scope of SR and GR to be invariant while still assuming the existence of a unique frame of reference for non-local effects.

            Regards

            Richard

            Dear Richard,

            Not just everyone enters the FQXi contest about fundamentals. Almost invariably, we all come here with a theory or worldview that has evolved over time. It's unlikely that all of our ideas are correct, but we are all (I believe) interested in the "true nature of events". You see non-local as physical reality. I don't. I believe my idea of energy-exchange in Stern-Gerlach can be tested and the presence of the hidden variable confirmed or not.

            Your point about "in which frame they are instantaneous" is well taken. I don't believe that I've seen "the idea of a unique frame of reference in which non-local effects takes place" stated so clearly before. In other words, that's novel, as far as I can tell. A good part of the purpose of FQXi is to bring forth novel concepts, and these contests deliver in that regards. What I've yet to see in in any of these contests is minds being changed. It's hard to convey a view evolved over years in nine pages. But it's fun to try.

            As regards a unique frame of reference, I've seen some interesting papers recently on the cosmological implications of an absolute frame for space, with implications for absolute time. I think such ideas, written off for a century, will find their way back into physics in light of new information. It's a good time to be thinking, and rethinking, the fundamentals of physics. Thank you for your thoughts in this regard.

            Best,

            Edwin Eugene Klingman

            Dear Edwin,

            I tried to carefully read your paper. Let me note first some of its strengths: You have a gift for expressing yourself lucidly, there are several very clear and nice-looking diagrams to help illustrate your points, and you do raise some interesting points, particularly with respect to what you call "Bell's hidden constraints."

            I am baffled, however, that though the SG experiment features very prominently in your paper, you did not, as far as I can tell, address at all that aspect of the experiment for which it is most famous, namely, that if you separate out spin up and down beams along some axis by means of an inhomogeneous B-field, pass one of the beams through a second inhomogeneous B-field with a perpendicular orientation and pass one of those through a third B-field with the same orientation as the first, you obtain two beams one of which has a spin that should have been excluded by the initial separation.

            Any local and/or realist account of entanglement phenomena has to be able to explain this empirical result, otherwise it is dead on arrival. The absence of an explanation of this in your argument makes it difficult for the reader to conclude anything other than that it cannot explain it, and I think that among those who have thought about this issue a lot this will dramatically diminish the persuasiveness of your argument.

            The most charitable interpretation I can attribute to your argument is the passage in which you mention a work by Potel (with which I am not familiar), presumably to support the notion that the quantum mechanical model of the SG experiment (i.e. spin states in 2D Hilbert space) does not fully capture what is really going on. But if you want to make that case, then the burden is on you to show exactly how this failure of modeling the empirical result leads to an explanation of the observations by your model. You did not do this.

            I do not relish pointing out weaknesses in other people's arguments, but I noticed a conspicuous absence of a discussion of this elephant in the room in the above posts, and someone has to point it out.

            Let me close by mentioning a point on which we share the same viewpoint, namely, I think that there is no true non-locality in nature. However, I do believe that "realism" however fuzzy a concept it is right now, has to be sacrificed. I will touch on this issue in the essay that I plan on submitting to this contest, and I'd expect nothing less than criticism as candid as mine.

            Best wishes,

            Armin

              Dear Armin,

              Thank you for your very kind comments and your extremely well thought-out question. Allow me to respond to your first criticism. You say I "did not address at all that aspect of the experiment for which it is most famous, namely that if you separate out spin up and spin down beams... pass one of the beams through a second inhomogeneous be field with a perpendicular orientation and pass one of those through a third B-field... You obtain two beams one of which has a spin that should've been excluded by the initial separation."

              First, the aspect you speak of does not form any part of Bell's theorem, which is the central topic of my essay. Second, although Feynman made rather famous this 'aspect' of sequential Stern-Gerlach experiments, I do not think the experiment has ever actually been performed. I believe it is more of a 'gedanken' experiment and a teaching tool. But you say any local and/or realist account of entanglement phenomena has to be able to explain this empirical result, otherwise it is dead on arrival. You say I cannot explain it.

              But if you study page 8 of my essay you will find the explanation. In an inhomogeneous field the incoming spin aligns with the local field. If the incoming spin is perpendicular to the local field the end result is 50-50. This yields exactly the behavior you refer to. My local model thus quite simply explains this behavior. I hope that you will study this and revise your opinion. I treat the problem in more detail in referenced works, but with a nine page limit I could not treat all aspects, especially those not directly related to Bell's theorem.

              I thank you for candidly pointing out what you see as a weakness. That is how theories get stronger. But I do believe that you will find that your criticism is mistaken. I do understand how you came to this conclusion, because when I was thinking in terms of entanglement, that particular aspect was quite difficult to comprehend. Surprisingly in a local realism model it is actually quite simple to understand. But one has to take local realism seriously, and not try to extrapolate from entanglement.

              Thanks again for thinking seriously about my essay. I hope you will give it further consideration. I look forward to your essay, and am pleased to learn that you too doubt 'non-locality' in nature. This is a complex topic, and nine pages is too short to solve all of the problems of QM, so I have focused very tightly on Bell's theorem and refute his claim that local models cannot produce -a.b correlation.

              My very best regards,

              Edwin Eugene Klingman

              Edwin,

              Very interesting read. I agree with your fundamental argument, however I believe it was Bell's intent to define a state of locality in a non-localized field, thereby introducing the constraint as +/- 1. I believe, or my intuition tells me, we are led to a fuzzy paradox when attempt to constrain any bounded state of locality.

              I do feel we often describe things in mathematics that we truly can not in physics. Idealistically my argument would contend we only use mathematics as a model to physical reality.

              Nevertheless, it was a good essay. Kudos!

              Best Regards,

              D.C. Adams

                Edwin,

                In regards to Bell, let me give you something to think about, in the realm of truly macroscopic objects like idealized coins, rather than electron spins.

                The correlation given for classical entities is a triangular function. The correlation given for quantum entities is a sinusoid. A triangular function has a Fourier spectrum, consisting of odd harmonics of the sinusoidal fundamental. Consequently, even a crude lowpass filter (smoothing operation) applied to the triangular function, will convert it into a sinusoid. Thus, the only difference between the triangular and sinusoidal correlation functions, is a lowpass filter.

                Now Shannon's Capacity theorem, reduces to the uncertainty principle, when only a single bit of information is recoverable from a message. Any such message is inherently band limited (lowpass filtered). But was the filter applied at the transmitter or the receiver? If it was applied at the transmitter, then the "single bit" is an intrinsic property of the entity being received, not the apparatus being used to receive it.

                Now consider making a very noisy, time-bandwidth limited measurement (limited at the transmitter, to contain only a single recoverable bit of information), and then trying to "decide" whether the measurement is +1 or -1. As noted above, a simple lowpass filter will convert a triangular function into a sinusoidal one. But does one apply the filter to the measurements or the discrete decisions derived from the measurements? And how, exactly, did one make the decisions? More importantly, in this limiting case of only a single bit being present, can one even separate the measurement and the decision making processes, and thus which data set, the measurements or the decisions, are to be filtered? If filtered decisions are used as input to the correlation computation, the result will be sinusoidal, though perhaps not "normalized".

                My point is that, the correlation may result from the peculiar nature of attempting to "decide" the difference between a measurement and a decision/index based on the measurement, when only a single bit of information exists, rather than from any considerations of the physics per se, which is merely the carrier of the one-bit message.

                Rob McEachern