Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics by Alan M. Kadin

Where do I start?

I like this essay, but you have written a paper it is extremely hard for me to grade Alan. Your theory is an unfinished work of art. I agree with your core premise, and I've explored that somewhat, but I warn you there are other other notions further up the chain. Waves are indeed more fundamental than particles, however. And I tend to agree that QM as it it generally applied contains major fallacies. I put Hilbert space in the category of invented Maths, rather than the fundamental kind, because it was devised for a purpose. It is a hypercubic projection into discrete measure spaces, and nature prefers spheres.

If one constructs spheres of increasingly higher dimension, the volume then the surface area reach a maximum and decrease thereafter, while hypercubic expansions go on forever. An illusion therefore arises in QM, when the Hilbert space formulation is incorrectly applied, or is assumed to be a universal generalization. John Klauder is among the few who does it correctly, while Sean Carroll and Ashmeet Singh appear to use the framework inaptly, or abuse the generalization, in my opinion. I've never believed in point-particles, and I like the idea that space is defined by wave expansion.

I have written since my very 1st FQXi essay that the property of waves is to be spread out or extended in space and time, and to move or propagate. This also was in my FFP10 presentation, in Perth back in 2009. While it is a particle-like property to be localized, waves are inherently non-local by virtue of being spread out or extended. Do you agree? At the very least; I see it as a space defining property. But I attach a paper by H.D. Zeh which also claims that waves are more fundamental than physical reality - from a more conventional framework. I have more to say, but I hope you enjoy the prior comments and paper.

I'll have to read again, before I rate this.

All the Best,

JonathanAttachment #1: 2_no-quantum-jumps.pdf

As it turns out...

Back in 2008 and '09; I was exploring ideas myself that incorporate several of the core concepts of the work you present in this year's essay Alan. I was invited to write an article for a special issue of Entropy, and I made a poster presentation at FFP10, but I hit a wall before my work saw publication. I later found out that it was Dieter Zeh who sunk my proceedings paper, and I got to have a long discussion as to why it failed and what was expected. But this rejection came after I encountered an $800 processing fee requirement from entropy, when a change in management nullified the previous fee waiver arrangement for that special issue.

I never got as far as you have come, and I pursued other lines of research for a while after that. But I don't think your ideas are crazy at all, only that you are a bit shy of the same level of formalism Dieter Zeh was requiring of me. I have friends and colleagues working in a similar direction who have taken bits and pieces of your framework further than you have, so I know for a fact that the Math can be filled in. They might not all be comfortable with my sharing their work in progress, but I can always point them at you. And I can probably point you at a lot of published work that supports your central thesis or offers additional corroborating evidence.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dear Alan,

Thanks for clarifying.

Your point of view on quantum mechanics is interesting.

You tell

"Gravitational waves would follow from any relativistic field theory - the LIGO observation does not have the precision to select between alternatives."

This is perhaps the research field where I have the major experience, give a look to this paper. Here is also my last contribution which has been published just last week.

Cheers, Ch.

Thank you Alan.

You may find interesting some of the papers by Laszlo Kish at Texas A&M and his colleagues. He is among those who explores how some of the subtleties of nonlinear EM encountered in antenna or waveguide design and elsewhere aptly explain much of what has been regarded as exclusively quantum effects. But of course; arXiv relegates all his papers to gen-ph even if they later get published in respected QM journals. Nor is he the only established researcher to encounter active resistance for pursuing ideas like this.

But knowledge today is organized in information silos with thick walls. So when people exploring quantum thermodynamics saw the appearance of extra degrees of freedom, they labeled it as something completely new and exciting. But as J. Miguel Rubi pointed out in Scientific American back in '08 or '09, this is a consequence of Onsager reciprocity that has become fairly well-known in studies of non-equilibrium entropy in the mesoscale. There too; we see that linked variables like position and momentum become independent ones.

So what is new depends greatly on the context in which we find it.

All the Best,

Jonathan

Regarding entanglement...

I agree the jury is out, on several issues relating to non-local effects and how they are explained. In a universe where only waves are real, there are no independent particles to become entangled, but non-local effects are automatic. So I understand that this negates the need to describe things that way, and calls into question some of the conclusions drawn regarding the power of quantum computing. If the things I discussed with Tevian Dray at GR21 hold water, it is not quantumness that is being observed, but the transition to non-commutative and non-associative geometries as the distance scale becomes shorter than the well-defined boundaries of structure. GR is strictly defined only down to about 10^-12 cm. So we have a lot to learn!

All the Best,

Jonathan

Dear Alan

I agree with you: there is no spacetime. The new concept of Space and Time explains quantum entanglement (see my essay "Fundamental entities in Physics" ).

Regards,

Ilgaitis

Alan,

I'm sorry not to share your optimism that the Quantum Computing bug will be squashed anytime soon. There is too great a level of hubris to let that happen. What I expect to happen is that 5G being as physically small as an electronic junction can be made and still be an electronic junction, and thus be the terminal moraine of Moore's Law, the global economic dependence on ever more computing power at no greater cost will result in Quantum interpretations of converging continuous functions claiming success as the "Quantum State" made real. In reality it won't be, but greed makes people stupid. jrc

Alan Kadin,

A question about the concept - spin.

Waves in EM radiation must be seen as coils in 3 dimensions with the altitude circling continuously during beam flow. A picture example of the beam is the spring in a pen. Now consider bending the spring. At some point adjacent coils will touch. The particles making up the coil are moving in opposite directions to each other at contact point. This contact has specific identity and a location unlike the rest of the beam which is just flow. Call this contact ½ spin.

The example coil is of solid metal. Change that to sub-atomic particles. Now we can bend the spring further so adjacent coils intersect - cross each other. At the intersect adjacent particle flows are up to 90 degree different in direction. Subsequently each crossing has to be undone/reversed elsewhere by the two coils. Call that spin-1. Additional intersections are possible within one coil pair. The intersections remain in place and begin the formation of matter. The intersections may be electrons. The total spin assigned is the number of crossings and touches by the two adjacent coils.

Does this make any sense to you?

Regards

Paul Schroeder

Alan,

From your reply to Scott above:

"It is clear that only a nonlinear equation can lead naturally to spin quantization, but I have not been able to find an equation with the right combination of properties. I would suggest looking into some kind of self-phase modulation, but I'm open to other suggestions.

Regarding my confidence in this approach, the unification of physics is a strong motivation. I find the missing link of a nonlinear equation much more plausible than quantum entanglement."

Please have a look at this suggestion:

Fritz Fröhner (1998). "Missing link between probability theory and quantum mechanics: the Riesz-Fejér theorem."

A link is provided in the Reference section of my essay:

More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss

I will welcome your comments on Fröhner in due course.

PS: I cite Fritz's work on the way to establishing the classical foundations of modern physics: from true local realism, through (what I call) the Laws of Malus, Bayes and Born, to Planck's constant, relativity, etc. I'll explain in more detail when I reply to your comment on my essay. [I will also post it as a comment below so you'll know that it is done.]

Gordon Watson

More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss

Alan, hoping to help, this is an edited carry-over from my answer to you at

More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.

........................

Dear Alan,

1. Many thanks for this: "I agree with you that true local realism is at the heart of physics." For it's on this foundation that I hope we (with others) might build a productive collaboration [absent point-particles, nonlocality and unwarranted mysteries].

2. My thanks too for this: "And the mathematical structure of quantum entanglement is incompatible with local realism." But here I'm more cautious: my little qualifier "true" is missing, and I suspect we might presently differ re the nature of entanglement and its definition [see my essay, p.6]. However, given the quality of your own work, I very much look forward to discussing this -- confident that agreement is likely.

3. As for quantum computing: and the mainstream one-day starting to question the foundations of quantum mechanics? In that Bell's "theorem" didn't lead more to water, I doubt much else will lead them to a refreshing drink!

4. And you certainly got this right: "You might be interested in reading my essay, "Fundamental Waves and the Reunification of Physics". I look forward to discussing prevalence waves, wavepackets, and physical waves where -- bypassing probability and all its confusions [eg, see Qbism] -- I have here used my preferred term. Thus I seek to understand objective prevalence waves [say, simple cos2 distributions] via a theory of prevalence amplitudes and wavepackets.

5. As for GR, I am still in the basement, cleaning up the more elementary foundations. But (at the risk of being misunderstood), I am bold enough to suggest that we can together strengthen your position, as follows:

5a. You say: "something close to classical physics should be restored, reunifying physics that was split in the early 20th century."

5b. I'm inclined to say, respecting its outstanding history: classical physics itself should be restored. Thus, for me:

(i) Planck's quantum of action is classical. As EPR made clear; see ¶3.1 in my essay: (iii) "The elements of physical reality ... must be found by an appeal to the results of experiments and measurements [the latter, in our terms, often better described as tests]."

(ii) Bohr's "disturbance insight" is classical. As per EPR above: Malus (c1810) taught us that classical light-beams are disturbed by interactions.

(iii) And so on: special relativity is classical; and from my essay, what I call the laws of Malus, Bayes and Born are classical; in short, true local realism is wholly classical.

(iv) What more might be required of classical mechanics and its modern developments?

6. You say: "QM should not be a general theory of nature, but rather a mechanism for creating discrete soliton-like wavepackets from otherwise classical continuous fields. These same quantum wavepackets have a characteristic frequency and wavelength that define local time and space, enabling GR without invoking an abstract curved spacetime."

I say: please see Fröhner; LINK via #17 in my References. The R-F theorem there says that periodic angular distributions entail discrete angular-momentum distributions, hence discrete outcomes of spin tests: the classical rules for linear and angular momentum holding, not just on average but case by case (as in EPRB). See also the spinor wavefunction in eqn (69).

With my thanks again; Gordon

................................................

Gordon Watson

More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.

Dear Alan M. Kadin

Just letting you know that I am making a start on reading of your essay, and hope that you might also take a glance over mine please? I look forward to the sharing of thoughtful opinion. Congratulations on your essay rating as it stands, and best of luck for the contest conclusion.

My essay is titled

"Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin". It stands as a novel test for whether a natural organisational principle can serve a rationale, for emergence of complex systems of physics and cosmology. I will be interested to have my effort judged on both the basis of prospect and of novelty.

Thank you & kind regards

Steven Andresen

Dear Alan,

Given that I already stated in our exchange on my blog where I stand on the likelihood that quantum mechanics will be overturned, let me point out some of the positive aspects of your paper that stood out to me:

1. You made effective use of hyperlinks to help anyone who needs a refresher on a particular concept to attain it

2. You made what appears to be the strongest case that could be made, given where your theory currently stands

3. You pointed out honestly the gaps and where your theory needs to be developed further in order to challenge quantum mechanics. That speaks very much to your integrity.

4. Your explanations are clear and crisp, and your writing is elegant

5. You were careful to point out where and how your theory differs from the orthodox view

A couple additional comments:

a. Regarding your call for quantum entanglement experiments with superconducting technology-based photon detectors, you may wish to consider corresponding with some of the experimentalists in that field. I suspect that if you make a cogent case, Nicolas Gisin might be a good person to talk to about designing an experiment that can close the loophole you see.

b. I understand the current dissatisfaction with quantum mechanics. It doesn't have any overarching principles that "seem intuitive" and the quantum correlations frankly don't seem to make sense if you take relativity at face value. In the second part of my series I will present (among many other unfamiliar ideas) both an overarching principle which has a tautological character (and therefore should be obvious) and a novel kind of mathematical object underlying the quantum state which shows that, as bizarre as it may sound to you at the moment, there is no contradiction between special relativity and the seemingly non-local phenomena (i.e. there is no influence of any kind traveling at v>c. At least, it seems, we agree on that). I would very much appreciate your thoughts once I finish and post the second paper.

All the best,

Armin

Alan,

I was wondering if you have heard of Carver Meade? He has a system similar to yours;

This was an interview from some years ago; http://worrydream.com/refs/Mead%20-%20American%20Spectator%20Interview.html

"That has hung people up ever since the time of Clerk Maxwell, and it's the missing piece of intuition that we need to develop in young people. The electron isn't the disturbance of something else. It is its own thing. The electron is the thing that's wiggling, and the wave is the electron. It is its own medium. You don't need something for it to be in, because if you did it would be buffeted about and all messed up. So the only pure way to have a wave is for it to be its own medium. The electron isn't something that has a fixed physical shape. Waves propagate outwards, and they can be large or small. That's what waves do.

So how big is an electron?

It expands to fit the container it's in. That may be a positive charge that's attracting it--a hydrogen atom--or the walls of a conductor. A piece of wire is a container for electrons. They simply fill out the piece of wire. That's what all waves do. If you try to gather them into a smaller space, the energy level goes up. That's what these Copenhagen guys call the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. But there's nothing uncertain about it. It's just a property of waves. Confine them, and you have more wavelengths in a given space, and that means a higher frequency and higher energy. But a quantum wave also tends to go to the state of lowest energy, so it will expand as long as you let it. You can make an electron that's ten feet across, there's no problem with that. It's its own medium, right? And it gets to be less and less dense as you let it expand. People regularly do experiments with neutrons that are a foot across.

A ten-foot electron! Amazing.

It could be a mile. The electrons in my superconducting magnet are that long.

A mile-long electron! That alters our picture of the world--most people's minds think about atoms as tiny solar systems.

Right, that's what I was brought up on--this little grain of something. Now it's true that if you take a proton and you put it together with an electron, you get something that we call a hydrogen atom. But what that is, in fact, is a self-consistent solution of the two waves interacting with each other. They want to be close together because one's positive and the other is negative, and when they get closer that makes the energy lower. But if they get too close they wiggle too much and that makes the energy higher. So there's a place where they are just right, and that's what determines the size of the hydrogen atom. And that optimum is a self-consistent solution of the Schrodinger equation."

An observation of my own is that I think we see time backwards. Since we experience reality as flashes of cognition, we think of time as the point of the present, moving past to future, which physics codifies as measures of duration, between events. The logical cause is change turning future to past, as tomorrow becomes yesterday because the earth turns.

This makes time an effect, similar to temperature. Duration is simply the present, as events coalesce and dissolve.

Time is asymmetric because action is inertial. The earth turns one direction, not both.

Different clocks can run at different rates because they are separate actions. A faster clock will use energy quicker, like an animal with higher metabolism will age quicker than one with a slower rate.

This flow of events from future probability to present actuality and residual past goes to various other issues, such as determinism. As the occurrence of an event is the calculation of its input and pre-determination would be assuming the information of the input could be acquired prior to the energy carrying it.

Alan,

I have been trying to communicate with you via email. Your likedin is blocking me. I have a lot to discuss from spin and the rest of the NQP.

Paul Schroeder

pshrodr8@aol.com

Dear Alan:

Congratulations on your well-written paper and forwarding the concept of fundamental waves that can provide the basis for reunifying physics on all scales.

You may be interested in my paper with wave/particle model of a photon -"What is Fundamental - Is C the Speed of Light". that describes the fundamental physics of antigravity missing from the widely-accepted mainstream physics and cosmology theories resolving their current inconsistencies and paradoxes. The missing physics depicts a spontaneous relativistic mass creation/dilation photon model that explains the yet unknown dark energy, inner workings of quantum mechanics, and bridges the gaps among relativity and Maxwell's theories. The model also provides field equations governing the spontaneous wave-particle complimentarity or mass-energy equivalence. The key significance or contribution of the proposed work is to enhance fundamental understanding of C, commonly known as the speed of light, and Cosmological Constant, commonly known as the dark energy.

The paper not only provides comparisons against existing empirical observations but also forwards testable predictions for future falsification of the proposed model.

I would like to invite you to read my paper and appreciate any feedback comments.

Best Regards

Avtar Singh

Just a note Alan,

I sent some comments, to the e-mail in your essay, which I hope you will read and appreciate. It deals with derivation of the product rule. If not received; I can try again.

Regards,

Jonathan