The Red/Green Sock Trick. Can Mathematics Demystify Nature? by Peter Jackson

Peter,

I enjoyed reading your essay, and I remember some of your previous FQXi essays. I need to read it over more carefully.

Given your focus on the limits of mathematical understanding in the context of quantum entanglement, you might be interested in my essay, "Remove the Blinders: How Mathematics Distorted the Development of Quantum Theory". I argue that contrary to universal belief, a simple realistic picture of the microworld is possible, completely avoiding the paradoxes that plague orthodox quantum mechanics (including entanglement). 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 Hilbert-space formalism. This also makes directly testable experimental predictions, based on little more than Stern-Gerlach measurements. Remarkably, these simple experiments have never been done.

So while mathematics can provide important 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

Hello Peter,

I see you continue on your research with this intriguing and interesting contribution. I have given it a first superficial read and will read again. I am seeing for the first time, "The 3 Filter paradox". I checked the website in your reference 5. Apart from the Anton Zeilinger team in Vienna is there any other team elsewhere who have obtained same results?

If confirmed it will be a major plus for the particle picture of light. A wave picture would find it difficult to explain how interposing a filter at 45o 'releases' light.

My own essay is more philosophical than scientific but when you have the time an aspect I will like you to comment on from your unique perspective is 'how to cut a line'?

Regards,

Akinbo

*You have been on off blogging for a while, kind of 'sabbatical leave' or enjoying yachting?

Hi Peter,

As always, an impressive essay, full of relevant examples, and focused on the overview. You begin by noting that our organic computational systems have abilities different than computers and suggest that one proper use of these abilities is to

"keep looking for the boxes outside the boxes which the boxes came in."

You also note "most believe no classical rationale [re Bell] is possible", and discuss the herd behavior that shuns any deviation from conventional wisdom so that few dare to break ranks.

Your '3-filter' example beautifully summarizes the nature of propagation, and is followed by Zeilinger's very important observation that:

"...Light always has the polarization state given by the last polarizer and has no memory of its earlier history."

That is essentially the insight that I employ on Stern-Gerlach, i.e., the dipole moment aligns with the field, versus the QM view that it is only "the component in the field direction" that is being measured. But the 'unaligned' initial spin possesses precession energy, and there is no precession energy when the moment is aligned with the field. Where does that energy go? Obviously it goes into the kinetic energy of the deflection from its initial momentum. Thus the energy of precession when the initial spin enters the field is exchanged from the precession mode (rotational) to the deflection mode (linear) and this determines the scattering of the particle in the inhomogeneous field as indicated by the position measurement.

Bell assumes instead that the particle simply continues to precess all the way through the apparatus and thus has no way to produce any but a constant deflection, normalized to ±1, and, as this is compatible with the basic Quantum Credo that "measurements yield eigenvalues", he imposes unwarranted constraints on the problem. Much of my essay is concerned with why he does this.

In a nutshell, he is tricked by math, assuming that, because the Dirac fundamental eigenvalue equation "looks like" the Pauli provisional eigenvalue equation, which is valid only provided a constant field is present, which it is not! You note on your page 2 Wittgenstein's analysis that "looks like" was the reason why all 'knew' the sun orbited Earth. Today it is the reason why all 'know' that no local model can produce the quantum correlations, which my local model does produce.

The whole argument is subtle, or it obviously would not have evaded physicists for 50 years, but now it is a fundamental part of the QM faith, and it is dangerous for the faithful even to discuss it, judging from comments on my thread [or lack thereof].

Anyway I know you have been concerned with this problem for years and I hope you will find the time to study it until you understand it, or will ask me questions otherwise. Last year I promised you a new approach, but it took longer than I thought to work out all the details.

My very best regards,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Peter,

I read with interest your depth analytical essay in the spirit of Cartesian doubt and new ideas. I fully agree: "But show the trickery is not the fault of maths but from misuse due to our poor initial conceptual understanding and analysis of empirical findings and thus valid formalisms. We propose more focus on teaching well developed methods of improving conceptual analytical and visualization skills, and also identify the importance of countering increasing 'compartmentalization' of physics by wide research and an open mind."

The problem of the ontological justification (basification) of fundamental sign systems, Mathematics and Physics - is the main task of knowledge. Ontological revolution Planck-Einstein must be completed. John Wheeler left physicists good covenant: "Philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers". But how many people follow this covenant? What is needed is a synthesis of all knowledge accumulated by mankind. This problem is well formulated Edmund Husserl in "Origin of Geometry»: "Only to the extent, to which in case of idealization, the general content of spatio-temporal sphere is apodictically taken into account, which is invariant in all imaginable variations, ideal formation may arise, that will be clear in any future for all generations and in such form will be transferable by the tradition and reproducible in identical intersubjective sense."

Kind regards,

Vladimir

Peter, thanks for your communication. I appreciate that you are an architect with broad interest. Your suggestion that we avoid compartmentalization is easy to relate to since I am an engineer who spent many years in compartmentalized industry which probably destroyed Kodak, the place I worked. Your essay was on point regarding the FQXi question (unlike many of us that used the opportunity to weave our work into the FQXi theme). The examples you used to highlight the differences between math and reality were excellent. I had forgotten that polarized light acted the way you described and found it interesting that the scientific community continues to use the concept of "filter" rather than "modulator". Filters were used extensively in photographic products but we knew there was some "unwanted absorption". I also liked your examples that remind us that physics operates at the local level within a background and going outside the brackets can mislead us.

I was pleased to find that you also publish on academia.edu since I have found several people with similar interests on that website that say they read papers (but never interact beyond that). Your continued and deep insights into entanglement are well documented there. To me it says that nature uses complex numbers and is efficient at arriving at solutions that we can only observe as probabilities. I should probably derive more meaning from it. I do believe that every atom is identical and that they are manifestations of the physics that is everywhere and identical. As such, I am not surprised by correlations but this does not lead me to superluminal "cause and effect".

Your quote regarding "finding new ways of thinking about [facts)" is on point. I tried to "reverse engineer" nature by creating models. My interest in information theory led me to thinking about facts as probabilities. That led to a concepts that I used to model cosmology, force unification, gravity, atomic binding energy, elemental abundance, perception, black holes, meson and baryon masses, decay times, etc. I tried to point out in my essay that it was not nature. It was a new way of correlating natural phenomenon and makes it easy to understand. This is a preliminary step to true understanding just like the simple math that Newton used to correlate gravity. People don't get it (probably because I am not a very good communicator).

Gene H Barbee

Hello Peter my friend!

Just dropping in to tell you the Great Abyss you thought swallowed me could not digest me. And had to spit me back into the pages of these Forums! Good to see you here as always. Feels like home!

I have tried to download your essay in my iPad Air, but got a red flag warning! What's up with that? I will try again from a PC.

In the meantime, analyze this! The Anthropocentric Principle: Our Knowledge of the Universe is such as to make Life possible" From my current essay, "The 'man-made' Universe"

Constantinos

Hi Peter,

I have found your essay much more accessible than your previous one's. Perhaps because you are talking, in some sections, about more familiar things that I have also given some thought.I have also talked about the 3 polarisers in this years essay but offer an alternative solution to your own.

Once again you have given us lots to think about, and I will, but best of all it didn't feel that hard to read this time.

Good luck and Kind regards, Georgina

Peter,

Someone from this site inserted a virus into my computer. The virus disabled the Security and that prevented me from going on line.

Joe Fisher

Peter,

Good arguments to support your thought that "Science can sometimes be more about entrenched 'ways of looking' than sound techniques.

I agree with you well-supported statement, but aren't we saying, in effect, that the weak link is the human mind, standing between physics and math and that a system of peer review could help keep us honest (BICEP2, for example). Many of the old school go to the extent of decrying the easy tools of calculation like calculators and computers, but it's our programming that is at fault not the tools.

My connections: mind, math, and physics speaks of this.

Good read,

Jim

Peter,

I don't see you as duplicitous, so I am assuming the 2 was an honest mistake, not your true feeling.

"I don't think your score represents the essay and think it should be higher. I'm certainly marking it so. Best of luck in the competition."

Jim

Thanks, Peter,

I generally do the same in scoring, but had already scored yours. Such trolling is too common. I think we all have experienced it.

Jim

Peter Jackson,

Our approaches remain to this day very different. However, I recognized and stated several competitions ago you arrived prepared. Good essay that deserves comments from deliverers of such low scores.

James Putnam

Excellent essay, enjoyed to read it!