Dear En:

Thank you for your careful reading of my essay and your very extensive comments. I will read them more carefully and respond later. And thank you for the various pointers to related work.

I also noticed, perhaps coincidentally, that my Community Rating jumped up. Thank you, again.

One interesting aspect of physics is that "facts" as observed in experiments are actually strongly filtered through theories, something that most physicists do not really appreciate. For example, it is universally believed that diffraction experiments prove that neutrons and atoms are waves. But I've presented an alternative explanation compatible with particles. It is also widely believed that non-local quantum entanglement is an experimental fact, but all such observations are based on measurements of linearly polarized single photons, using detectors that cannot distinguish one from two simultaneous photons. The proper experiments could be done, but have not yet been reported.

I also proposed a 2-stage Stern-Gerlach measurement. This is presented in standard quantum textbooks as if the experiment was done many years ago, but it has never been done. Feynman in his Lectures on Physics (1963) admitted as much:

"Incidentally, no one has ever done all of the experiments we will describe in just this way, but we know what would happen from the laws of quantum mechanics, which are, of course, based on other similar experiments. "

It is not that these experiments are particularly difficult or expensive; rather, it is viewed as disreputable to question accepted wisdom, so no one even wants to try.

Finally, I note that virtually all of the interest and comments on my essay come from amateurs. As a rule, theoretical physicists refuse to engage in any way. I feel like I'm being shunned.

Alan

Alan,

Thank you for your reply.

In your comment (Alan M. Kadin replied on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 18:46 GMT), you mention that "...It is also widely believed that non-local quantum entanglement is an experimental fact,..."

In response to the above quoted comment, I am going to say something that is either ignored or "underappreciated" generally. Even if we were to assume that the Bell-EPR experiments found what the QM community says they found, nothing can get around the following: All that was ever observed experimentally were correlations. "Entanglement" was never observed and never will. Its "extrapolation" requires the a priori acceptance of the thing "they" are trying to prove in the first place (non-locality/non-realism of QM). Only if you already believe and take a priori as axiomatic that particles and photons have no attributes until being measured/detected could you come to the conclusion (as a consequence of said experiments) that the detection of one "branch" of a singlet pair determines the state of its other "branch."

There cannot (in principle) be experimental "proof" of entanglement (since no one knows what that even is, and if they think they do, let them propose the mechanism) unless we assume ahead of time that particles have no attributes while not being observed (and even then there is never an actual observation of entanglement, only inference). The claim "they" could be entitled to is that they are observing unexplained correlations, and "they are working on it."

I am not surprised that you are being shunned by your colleagues. One of the Directors of the NSF told me that every time he proposes funding for research that might "put in question" prevailing views, the Bell Mafia (his words) descends upon him, and he is discouraged (via moral suasion) from pursuing it. Due to a combination of historical and scientific evolution (meaning, its various developments, social or otherwise) over the last 90 years, the QM movement has built up such an imposing "edifice" that it is virtually impossible to dislodge it from its pre-eminent position. It is a historical anomaly.

Like it or not, this is a long-term project (but it is extremely important).

However, in the interim, regardless of the status of QM, there will still be the issue I raise in my comment. It has to do with the progress toward ever-more esoteric physics, and our inability to keep going in that direction. I wonder if you could put your mind on that as a subject in itself.

But if you would be so kind as to address the other parts of my comment (En Passant wrote on Mar. 17, 2015 @ 15:43 GMT) to the extent you deem appropriate, that too will be appreciated.

En

Dear Alan,

Thank you for very good essay. Reading was a pleasure as I agree practically with all your conclusions. Moreover I have proposals how to add details you expect in future.

The major part of mathematics is completely abstract in the sense that have nothing to do with physical reality. But I cite you: pictures should guide physics. Pictures are geometry, that is part of mathematics. The same here - not the entire geometry can be isomorphic to the reality like e.g. highly speculative 11-dimensional M-theories. So the question is what geometrical structures fit to the reality? As you point out, mathematical models were adopted prematurely in the development of quantum theory. That time there were no Thurston geometries. This is the geometrization conjecture, proved by Perelman in 2003. Having that, we need only an universal correspondence rule which links the geometrical structures with the empirical domain. That rule have to be a new paradigm. Then we are able to assign proper Thurston geometries to all fundamental interactions and matter. We can treat them as a space-like, totally geodesic submanifolds of our familiar 3+1 dimensional spacetime. To make the picture of submanifolds (3) alive we need time (+1). With time included we have got quantized wave packets.

This is my proposal on the basis for the quantization. I have called this concept Geometrical Universe Hypothesis referring to Tegmark's MUH. In this picture there is no indeterminacy, entanglement or decoherence. No Copenhagen interpretation. Apparently what I have described here is oversimplified, but you can find details in my essay.

I would appreciate your comments. Thank you.

You deserve the highest rating that you will see in a while.

Jacek

    Dr. Kadin,

    I wouldn't worry about being shunned if I were you. I'd worry about the think tank types patenting your work. Seriously, get some tech money in your corner, wave-particle duality is a glorified admission of failure. A friend of mine on a construction crew once (damn good crew) had grown up in a family of con artists, and one time we were talking and he said that "if you walk into a room and can't spot the mark, you are". And you're right, the Bell-Aspect experiments with the polarized sunglasses type filters and the trick bulb (?), yep, it's a trick bulb. Best of luck, jrc

    Dear Alan,

    For the modelling of a spin-zero particles, your idea of combining 2 spin 1/2 particles is certainly valid. I took a slightly different approach after spending considerable time looking at the ideas of physicists Helmholtz, Larmor and Rabi in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Although Larmor's ideas were dis-proven for massless particles (ie. photons) by the famous Michelson-Morley experiment to discover the ether, his ideas on massive particles (protons and neutrons) went on to form the basis for the mathematics behind Rabi FID decay times in modern medical MRI equipment.

    The approach I advocate for modelling spin-zero particles starts with the Helmholtz decomposition of vortex spin, breaking it into its longitudinal and transverse components. The vortex with only transverse components of spin, ends up being the natural candidate for the Higgs Boson.

    I have read your essay again and enjoyed it just as much, maybe someday we will have a chance to discuss pros and cons of the different models.

    Best Regards, Ed

    Dear Alan Kadin,

    I have no interest related to Quantum Theory, but I see that you are in a serious way to approach this problem.

    Your words are:

    "In contrast, in my picture, deterministic causal equations apply at all levels - no boundary is present, and therefore no boundary problem".

    The original table with concrete relationships at all levels (no boundary is present) is in my essay. Perhaps you could expand it to Quantum Theory. Critique of my concept is appreciated.

    Regards,

    Branko Zivlak

    Dear Alan and readers of this post,

    If you do not believe in quantum mechanics (and qubits), you will be alone soon

    http://www.livescience.com/23820-nobel-prize-physics-haroche-wineland.html

    For quantum information theory (information is physical) I recommend

    "Quantum computation and quantum information' by M. Nielsen and I. Chuang (Cambridge Press, 2000): the so-called QIP "bible"

    More on the foundations of QM in Peres' book:

    Quantum theory: concepts and methods, Kluwer 1995

    Also Bohr:

    "If quantum mechanics hasn't shocked you, you haven't understood it yet"

    Michel

      Dear Gary,

      However amusing it may seem, I would rather agree with Alan on the idea that "It is mostly amateurs talking to amateurs, and professionals to professionals". As you seem to have difficulties to distinguish between amateurs and professionals, my (still incomplete) work of classification of the essay authors of this contest may help you (though I did not care to distinguish between professionals and those amateurs whose views are not too far from them). Of course, "mostly" means that exceptions may happen too ;)

      Dear Michel,

      Please read my essay carefully before making statements like:

      "If you do not believe in quantum mechanics (and qubits), you will be alone soon"

      I am familiar with all of the works that you indicate, and yet I and a large number of physicists continue to question the foundations of quantum mechanics. Clearly, there is something seriously wrong with quantum mechanics, going back to its origins.

      Your attitude is an indication of the quasi-religious nature of quantum belief. No questioning is allowed, and skeptics are to be shunned.

      This is not science, which should by its nature be skeptical. If you read my paper, you would see that I am proposing specific experiments that should clearly distinguish orthodox QM from my alternative realistic picture. Furthermore, I identify specific aspects in the mathematical Hilbert space formalism that may be in error.

      I would like to receive serious comments and criticism about my essay, but sarcasm is not the same as a serious comment.

      Alan

      Dear Allan,

      You can forget "believe" and replace by "accept". I don't understand what you are writing in your essay. About Bohmian mechanics, there are many well written criticisms, one of them here

      http://motls.blogspot.fr/2013/07/bohmian-mechanics-ludicrous-caricature.html

      We are in the quantum information age, with quantum cryptography already working, many quantum algorithms already experimentally proved, may be soon using teleportation in a quantum internet, NSA is involved in the building of a quantum computer.

      It may be that QM may some day appear as a limiting case of a more general viewpoint but I would be surprised to learn that is wrong.

      Best regards,

      Michel

        Michel,

        I will keep this brief so as not to co-opt Alan's page for a slightly off-topic discussion.

        Your comment betrays the sentiment (shared by a self-appointed cadre of "Illuminati" within FQXi) that people who question QM (or at least aspects of Quantum Theory) are somehow deluded. You should note that hardly anyone within FQXi questions Relativity (so it's not as if the skeptics were opposed to mainstream physics). And it's not that QM is counterintuitive (although that is another favorite distraction employed by the apologists).

        Michel, I think you should accept that you are dealing with a sophisticated audience not composed of demagogues (they are willing to accept evidence, but are skeptical about at least some parts of QT). Telling a scientist that s/he will soon be "alone" in whatever pursuit they are engaged in is not the right way to go about things.

        Look, you may well be right, and everything is just fine with QT (QM). But I, for one, think that this discussion is far from settled. Only the future will tell (god, I hate clichés).

        But I know you are pretty open minded, and when I email you later to ask you some questions about math (to which you agreed on another essay page), I will explore your belief that information is physical.

        Anyway, I was pleased (to see, as I read various essays and the comments that followed) that the FQXi community appreciates your ability to see the connections between various branches of math (with perhaps corresponding connections in Physics).

        En.

        P.S. I was actually replying to your first comment, but it applies here too. So I will just add a few lines to answer your current comment.

        I think pointing at Motl's comments will not win you any favors here. He talks about Mr. Smolin's, Mr. Woit's and Mr. Sean Carroll's brains as cesspools (two of them are participants in this essay contest). I think you are misinformed about things in your 3rd paragraph, including the NSA. But I will take even that up via email if you wish.

        In any case, none of these things matter. Only the right theory, backed by the right experiments.

        To En Passant and Michel Planat:

        Dear En,

        Thank you for coming to my defense. I can see clearly that I am not alone.

        Dear Michel,

        First, what I have proposed is not Bohmian mechanics, as I state directly on the top of page 3 (but maybe you didn't get that far). So I don't think that Motl's ad hominem attacks on David Bohm (who is not around to defend himself) are relevant. My picture has NO POINT PARTICLES, only spin-quantized soliton-like waves which act in certain respects as particles.

        Second, Bohm proposed his mechanics to show that a hidden-variables theory was possible, completely consistent with the results of standard QM, notwithstanding Von Neumann's proof that this was impossible. In contrast, I specifically state that my picture makes predictions that are different from those of standard QM, and I propose experiments that can distinguish them.

        Third, you brought up the NSA, i.e., the US National Security Agency funding of research into quantum computing. In fact, the NSA in the past decade has been funneling enormous sums of money (probably totaling 10 figures) into QC on both the theoretical and experimental levels, and is responsible for most of the research funding in many laboratories. I am less familiar with the funding situation in the EU, but I would expect that it is similar with respect to the corresponding EU or national agency. In my essay, I question the entire basis for quantum computing. I have never received NSA-related research funding.

        A general remark is that one can never prove a physical theory to be correct by any number of measurements, but one can prove it to be incorrect by a single verifiable measurement. So we should never stop doing experiments on QM, just because we have all been taught it is correct. And we should not believe in QM just because it is expressed in an abstract mathematical formalism - that too can be incorrect.

        Alan

        Jacek,

        Thank you for your interest and your comments, and I will read your essay carefully.

        Alan

        Peter,

        Thanks for your encouraging comments.

        Your video and paper bring up interesting but unfamiliar material, so that I will have to study them more carefully before I can comment.

        Alan

        Dear Dr. Poirier:

        I just came across your comment, which I missed because it was buried in someone else's comment.

        You have a rather long comment (almost a rant), which basically asserts that I am a "crackpot".

        You must find it quite confounding then, that my essay seems to have risen near the top of the Community Ratings.

        If you had taken the time to read my essay more carefully without prejudice, you might have a different understanding.

        I present a consistent realistic picture, which makes predictions that differ from standard QM in testable ways. For example, the two-stage Stern-Gerlach experiment is presented in standard quantum textbooks as if the experiment was done many years ago, but it has never been done. Feynman in his Lectures on Physics (1963) admitted as much:

        "Incidentally, no one has ever done all of the experiments we will describe in just this way, but we know what would happen from the laws of quantum mechanics, which are, of course, based on other similar experiments. "

        It is not that these experiments are particularly difficult or expensive; rather, it is viewed as disreputable to question accepted wisdom, so no one even wants to try.

        Alan Kadin

        • [deleted]

        • Post #69

        Alan,

        Your essay is at or near the top, in my opinion. (I have a few more to consider.)

        I do have questions and a suggestion. I question why and how firmly you picture "some kind of big bang"? There may have been a big bang but I do not find any compelling evidence of such. And feel that efforts to support a big bang story are part of the distraction that yields the present patch work which is the standard theory of today. Also a suggestion as to the universal locked-in, self-organized, h-bar scale fields that are the essence of the vacuum; I will post a "picture" after your comment on my present essay entry here or you can see similar at my entry to the first FQXI Essay Contest on The Nature of Time.

        Sherman Jenkins

        4 days later

        Dear Alan,

        There is indeed no indeterminacy in the motion of wave packet. As you mentioned The motion of a wave packet is completely deterministic, with both position and momentum being arbitrarily defined (no uncertainty principle!).A wave packet must be spread over at least about a wavelength, but the center of energy follows a definite trajectory. The standard textbook proof of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is a mathematical identity about waves, and provides for uncertainty only if one assumes the orthodox statistical interpretation.

        As you metioned : In the orthodox Copenhagen interpretation, the wave represents a statistical distribution of the locations of a point particle that is associated with the mass. In an alternative "pilot-wave" interpretation (suggested by de Broglie and refined by David Bohm), both particle and wave are real, and the wave guides the trajectory of the particle.

        I have mentioned that even in Copenhagen's interpretation,statistical probability is nothing but the measure of observer's ignorance. The Indeterminacy,Uncertainty also stem from the same. Heisenberg Uncertainty principle inequality was derived directly from the mathematical framework itself.Schrodingers differential euqation describing the trajectory of so-called probabilistic wave functions is itself fundamentally deterministic! mathematics is indeed responsible for this quantum mechanics. The fact is the incompatible blind application of mathematical structures in the physical scenarios. There are certain laws of invariance behind mathematical and physical structures both. There should be match between their intrinsic characetristic otherwise it leads to wrong applications and result.Thats the case of orthodox Quantum mechanics.

        Thats what my Mathematical Structure Hypothesis sates that mathematical structures and physical world both are creations of Vibrations.

        Probability, Randomness, Complexity are the measure of human/observer's ignorance.

        As you have written : If quantum mechanics provides the microscopic foundation for matter, where does classical mechanics come from? In the orthodox theory, the microscopic world is comprised of indeterminate, entangled superpositions, associated with quantum coherent states. The macroscopic classical world consists of realistic, deterministic trajectories without superposition or entanglement. The interface between these two domains is rather fuzzy. Classical physics is believed to come about via interaction of a given quantum system with a classical measurement apparatus, causing decoherence, i.e., loss of microscopic coherent degrees of freedom. Exactly how this occurs has never been made clear, and the logic seems rather circular; if everything is ultimately quantum, how is this classical apparatus initiated?

        In contrast, in the realistic theory described here, there is no quantum-classical separation.

        The big question before dealing with our above classical trajectoties on microscopic level is -what is Matter & how it is linked with observer's(human) Mind. What are micro and macro? They all are fundamentally linked with Russells' paradox geometry where A larger set can exist within smaller set B and vice versa. This is possible in a peculiar geometry where internal and external,micro ¯o are merely the geometrical effects. Mind and Matter are simple question of Vibrations. Mind at very low rate is Matter and Matter at high rate of Vibration is Mind.Please see my essay or the links attached here.

        Anyway, what's take on what governs the structure of mathematical equations itself which are used in Quantum mechanics/physics,which causes these fundamental paradoxes issues.Richard Feynman once said that -The next great era of human awakening would come ,today we don't see the content of euqations.

        Whats your take on the geometry of consciousness(paradox of self-consciousness) as David Bohm said that without peeping into this we can't understand quantum aspects e.g.bell's locality-at-distance?

        Anyway you have written great essay.

        Regards,

        Pankaj ManiAttachment #1: MindBrain_MatterConsciousness.pdfAttachment #2: Swami_Vivekananda_on_universe_space_time.pdf

        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,

          Albert Einstein once said, indicating his dissatisfaction with orthodox quantum theory, "God does not play dice with the universe."

          I tend to agree. Of course, many physical phenomena appear random, but that does not prove that they are intrinsically random; it just means that we do not have control (or knowledge) of all of the underlying parameters. In classical physics, random motion of atoms in a gas is consistent with a deterministic theory. But the quantum decay of a radioactive nucleus is believed to be intrinsically random, characterized only by a statistical half-life. That very assertion acts to discourage physicists from looking further to identify an underlying mechanism.

          Alan

          Dear Alan,

          I am glad you posted the following:

          "But the quantum decay of a radioactive nucleus is believed to be intrinsically random, characterized only by a statistical half-life. That very assertion acts to discourage physicists from looking further to identify an underlying mechanism."

          Doesn't it occur to those same physicists that if things were "intrinsically random," then there would not be a precise half-life? The half-life (if random) would vary (sometimes this, and sometimes that).

          The very fact that there is a specific half-life indicates a very precise mathematical relationship between the state of a given population of atoms and their resultant new state measured by time.

          I feel regret (even contrite) that I cannot help you guys any further. It is your job to figure out the exact mathematically expressible dynamic between a bunch of atoms in one state, and their eventual state given a time-frame later. Of course the same ideas occur to me as they do to others. There must be something in the constituents of said atoms to react in such a way.

          Also, is there a short enough time during which no atoms decay? This might be another line of thought to examine.

          I will keep thinking about this, but only you (the "greater you" out there) will solve it.

          En