Dear Leo,

Thank you for the interesting comments. As you have noticed, I also tend to adopt the optimistic position that reason can lead us far, because the alternative seems to me that is limiting us, or even makes us focusing on excuses to avoid going deeper. By optimism I don't understand thinking that everything is understood, since this would be as unproductive as thinking we can't understand more.

Best wishes,

Cristi

Dear Cristi,

I agree with both of your statements about free will and consciousness.

Your attitude toward Bell's theorem is reasonable. If you read my essay and understand it, but find it in error, there is no need to try to convince me. Yet I would appreciate it if you could give a hint of where you find the error.

Please understand that I do not claim his mathematical theorem is not correct. Bell's theorem is mathematically correct. I claim that his physics is oversimplified and his model does not represent the actual physics that goes on in the inhomogeneous field. He assumes the physics of a constant field, which will produce null results, and so leads to a contradiction. When one analyzes the physics in a non-constant field, one finds new physics, and no contradiction.

My approach is not to deny entanglement as a starting proposition, but to explore Bell's conclusion that no local model can produce the QM correlation. I have presented a local model that does produce the QM correlations, unless Bell's constraints are imposed.

This would seem to call Bell's constraints into question, and so I have analyzed the reason why he might have imposed such constraints. My essay offers an explanation, based on his confusion of Dirac and Pauli eigenvalue equations, and assumptions of eigenvalue measurements. If this analysis is valid, then the rationale for entanglement is called into question.

I fully realize that questioning The Gospel According to Bell almost automatically puts one in the kook category. But if fear of being labeled prevents all attempts to analyze fundamental physics we will never escape any errors that may be built into our fundamental physics.

My very best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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  • Post #13

Dear Cristi,

On the contrary, it is like knowing the rule of the game of Chess, this enabling us to play Chess and the more we play the better we will become. More fun and exciting if we are playing against a grandmaster of Chess, losing and winning is part of the game. Yes, we are in the middle of mathematical game according to FQXI as the creature of Max Tegmark as the creator of this game. Let's continuing on playing as Newton pointed out that the Creator is assumed to help him doing the adjustment to fix the orbits correctly so that our solar system ( our universe at that time) are well behaving and not falling apart. My discovery points me that rather than our Creator is busy in doing so many adjustments in trillions trillions solar systems out there, we as the avatars of our Creator would be the ones doing the adjustments to save ourselves and be the Guardian of Existence.

No bad a job eh, being the guardians of our universe, we will be very busy like in the cartoon,

Leo KoGuan

Dear Edwin,

I completely agree with you that we should question "The Gospel According to Bell" or anything we accept to be true, including classical locality. Bell himself was led to his results by questioning the results against hidden variables accepted in his time (so you are in good company). Reconsidering the foundations should be done systematically, just like one cleans our houses. I do it myself, so I wouldn't be the one to throw the first stone.

However, I hate to be a party killer, but locality in any classical sense is "deprecated". Bell doesn't assume anything about dynamics, neither that it is Dirac or Pauli. He deliberately resumes the discussion to observables of what today we call qubits. His results are true and apply to any kind of qubit, being it given by electron's spin or photon's polarization.

But like I said, I wouldn't stop anyone for critically analyzing his theorem. I am not quantum police. I wouldn't stop anyone to study perpetual motion too. This is how we learn, and many important results were found when thinking at impossible things.

Best wishes,

Cristi

Dear Cristi,

You claim that Bell doesn't assume anything about dynamics, but on page 141 of 'Speakable...' he states clearly that "the angular momentum, by gyroscopic action, should stabilize the angle between particle axis and magnetic fields." This is most definitely a dynamic assumption and it underlies his overly-simple model.

The first Letter in the Phys Rev Letters I received today, (PRL 114, 040401, 30 January 2015) states that

"To determine if the evolution of the quantum system is governed by one or another Hamiltonian, one must perform measurements on the system and use these outcomes to infer the most likely assumptions."

I don't think Bell should be exempt from that. Nor do I understand why so many physicists are adamantly opposed to investigating a different Hamiltonian than the oversimplified and unrealistic one chosen by Bell to model his local system. I hope that when you read my essay, it might have information that you haven't seen yet. Otherwise there would have been little reason to write it.

My best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Dr. Stoica:

Your essay focuses on the liberating aspect of mathematics: "And the Math Will Set You Free."

In contrast, my essay asserts that mathematics can enslave us and blind us from the truth. "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory" questions the orthodox Hilbert-Space Model of QM, and presents a simple realistic picture that makes directly testable experimental predictions, based on little more than Stern-Gerlach measurements. Remarkably, these simple experiments have never been done.

The accepted view of QM is that the physics (and mathematics) of the microworld are fundamentally different from those of the macroworld, which of course creates an inevitable boundary problem. I take the radical (and heretical) view that the fundamental organization is the same on both scales, so that the boundary problem immediately disappears. Quantum indeterminacy, superposition, and entanglement are artifacts of the inappropriate mathematical formalism. QM is not a universal theory of matter; it is rather a mechanism for distributed vector fields to self-organize into spin-quantized coherent domains similar to solitons. This requires nonlinear mathematics that is not present in the standard formalism.

So while mathematics provides essential insights into physics, an incorrect mathematical model that becomes established may be seen as virtually religious dogma which is not to be questioned. That prevents further progress.

Alan Kadin

    Dear Dr. Kadin,

    I completely agree with you that insisting on a mathematical model despite contrary evidence may blind us and lead us far from truth. But if someone hurts his finger with a hammer, it's not the fault of the hammer. This doesn't mean we can't make a better hammer. People can make anything into a dogma, and is their fault here, not of that thing. We should question anything.

    Best regards,

    Cristi

    Dear Mr. Fisher,

    Thank you for reminding us about the uniqueness of various things, from stars to snowflakes, and of course humans. Science, in particular physics, tries to find the things that various entities have in common, since we, as limited beings, don't have the time and resources to understand each unique thing in full depth. It is more efficient for us to focus rather on those things that can be reused in our explorations of various shapes populating the world. Those things we have in common with the others and the universe. The universal. From your phrase, "each real object has a real material surface that seems to be attached to a material sub-surface", I understand that for you this universal is captured in these surfaces. That's an interesting point of view. Good luck in your explorations.

    Best wishes,

    Cristi

    Dear Cristi Stoica,

    Enjoyed your essay. Your comment "there must exist a mathematical structure which satisfies our observations about both the quantum world, and the general relativistic one. Maybe these theories are somehow limits of this theory. But the unified theory must exist, even if we don't have it yet." was well argued and very believable.

    I agree with your comment "The idea that the universe is nothing but a mathematical structure leads to many difficult and interesting questions".

    My essay revolves around modelling the mathematical structures of the particles of the standard model. I hope you get a chance to have a look at the modelling I use for the particles of the standard model and look forward to any comments you may have.

    Good luck on your essay, you deserve a good rating.

    Regards,

    Ed Unverricht

      Dear Ed,

      Indeed, we need a better understanding of the standard model, and I am happy that there are researchers trying various models. It's a fascinating field, in which geometry plays a major role. Thank you for the comments and wishes.

      Good luck to you too,

      Cristi

      Dear Cristi,

      As always I greatly enjoyed you essay. If I understand you, the position you are taking is that we live in a mathematical structure, but can never express the full intricacy of that structure. The purpose of physics is to express the general laws that describe our universe:

      "However, we are just looking for a theory describing the general laws, and not a complete description of this particular instance of the universe, which includes what every human thinks about the universe and themselves. This would not be feasible anyway for practical reasons."

      Is my interpretation of your idea correct? And if so, where would a mathematical structure that failed to match the universe's general laws be said to exist? Or should we take it that one class of mathematical objects conforms to the real world and another are just humanly constructed?

      Also, if you get a chance, please check out my essay where I imagine how a weak version of the MUH might be testable and let me know what you think along with your vote.

      http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2391

      Best of luck in the contest!

      Rick Searle

        Dear Rick,

        Thank you for the comments. Yes, I think that the universal laws can be known, but all details of the particular configuration can't be fully accessed by us, which are subsystems of the world, limited in time and space.

        > where would a mathematical structure that failed to match the universe's general laws be said to exist? Or should we take it that one class of mathematical objects conforms to the real world and another are just humanly constructed?

        I find more compelling the idea that all mathematical structures have equal existence, but if our universe is a mathematical structure, then the other mathematical structures we know were obviously (re)constructed by us, since I find less likely that we gained some access to worlds outside ours. And if we will find the mathematical structure capturing completely the laws of our world, then we will do it by reason, hence by reconstruction too. However, what I argued is that if MUH is correct, we can't really prove it, not only because we are confined to only one of these structures. I reject Tegmark's attempt of proof on the grounds that if the universe, including us, is computational, then any universe with equal computational power offers the same benefits for the occurrence of intelligent life. But maybe other proofs can work, so I look forward to see your arguments for the testability of a weaker version of the MUH.

        Best wishes,

        Cristi

        Cristi,

        I will get to your essay as soon as possible. I have been on travel, but will be able to read it in a few days. Good luck with this.

        Cheers LC

          Dear Lawrence,

          I plan to read yours as soon as possible too. Good luck to you too.

          Best wishes,

          Cristi

          Cristinel,

          After Phipps found better Maxwell's equations, we don't even try and admit what is wrong with Poincaré's Lorentz transformation. This is how science doesn't work.

          Everybody persistently uses the expression Michelson-Morley experiment although Morley did definitely not contribute to the concept of Michelson's experiments in Potsdam 1881 and in Cleveland 1887.

          Pentcho should admit at least the possibility that Michelson's 1881/78 null result does not need an explanation in terms of Relativity if one shares Leibniz' relativity, i.e. the opinion that space is not a medium but just mutual relations between objects.

          You wrote to Michel: "it is possible to find for any object a mathematical description that captures everything that can be said about that object, precisely because mathematics is so versatile." Just consider the rather illusory Human Brain Project, or the future of humanity. Perhaps you cannot even calculate how many grandchildren your grandchildren will have.

          Regards,

          Eckard

          Dear Eckard,

          You said "Perhaps you cannot even calculate how many grandchildren your grandchildren will have."

          Well, I frankly can't even calculate how many children I will have, let alone the grandchildren of my grandchildren :). But this is not what I said to Michel. I was talking about the power of mathematics to describe the objects we know, not to those we don't know, or which depend on information we can't gather for practical reasons. So I think what I said means something else to you that it meant to me.

          Regarding your arguments against relativity, I am sorry, but I am unable to make the conceptual leap required to move forward to Galilean relativity, because my mind is still prisoner of the old paradigm of Einstein's relativity ;). I hope I haven't disappointed you.

          Best regards,

          Cristi