Interpreting Quantum Mechanics and Predictability in Terms of Facts About the Universe by Andrew Knight

Andrew Knight

Dr. Gupta,

Thank you for your comments and enthusiasm! I look forward to reading your essay and I wish you the best of luck in this contest.

Andrew

H.H.J. Luediger

Hi Andrew,

in his paper "On the quantum-mechanical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations", in Zeitschrift für Physik, 1925, Heisenberg stresses: "This question [of discretisation] has nothing to do with electrodynamics, but is, and this is important to us, of a purely kinematic nature." And in his 1927 'indeterminancy' paper, his emphasis is on pointing to the 'Anschaulichkeit' (intuitivity) of this 'kinematic'.

Doesn't he say that quantum-mechanical indeterminancy is not a physical theory, but an (actually the only!) a priori means for the qualification of QM measurement outcomes? So, I agree with you that 'indeterminancy' is to be regarded as an assertion in the context of physics, but not that it describes some physical reality whatsoever. At this point in time (1927), in my opinion, everything that can reasonably be said about quantum mechanics had been said.

Heinz

Andrew Knight

Hi Heinz,

Thank you for your comments! I think you are probably right that very little (or perhaps even nothing new) has been said about the mathematical formalism of QM and its predictions since 1927. My first reaction when I read that was to object and mention the violation of Bell's inequality, but then again that's really just a test of the nonlocality of entanglement, and entanglement is an inherent feature of the QM formalism.

Andrew

Stefan Weckbach

Dear Andrew,

i like your attempt to interpret QM in terms of consistent facts. A similar line of reasoning brought me to write an essay in - i think it was in 2012.

You wrote

"Further, the characterization of a superposition as the absence of a relevant fact may help to explain why we never observe superpositions: we cannot observe the lack of a fact."

In my current essay I infer a similar conclusion. Nonetheless the absence of a superposition is also a fact, independent of whether or not in the future there may be experiments that can bring about some macroscopical superpositions.

Andrew Knight

Hi Stefan,

Thank you for the note! I just downloaded your essay and look forward to reading it. Best of luck to you in the contest.

Andrew

Gene Barbee

Hi Andrew,

I was particularly interested in your concept of a fact being required for a QM system to develop. It supports observer based reality. The information change you discuss makes this more specific and meaningful.

Your statement regarding FAPP required some research. Apparently it refers to "For All Practical Purposes" and specifically means that a wave function for a many particle system is either too difficult or perhaps non-meaningful. I wonder what you would think about a Schrodinger based wave function exp(iEt/H)*exp(-iEt/H)=1, where 1 is interpreted as the information the observer receives. Of course probability 1 represents no information even if it is the multiplication of wave functions for a many particle systems consisting of 1*1*1*1. But each 1 could be a combination of probabilities. A set of probabilities I found important was: Excerpt from my essay:

The sub probabilities multiply to 1 for each quad (example P=1=exp(-15.43)*exp(-12.43)/(exp(-17.43)*exp(-10.43)).

Each of the probabilities is the ratio p=e0/E where e0 is a constant or E=e0*exp(N). The N's above on the top of P=1 above represent positive energy and N's on the bottom represent negative energy. This separates (creates) energy but it obeys E-E=0. I found probability values that represented mass, kinetic energy and field energy of one of the quarks in a proton and then went ahead and constructed the whole four particle proton with probabilities from NIST data.

I believe this represents a wave function for a many particle system. It is limited to E-E=0 and probability 1 (the point where the Schrodinger equation collapses) but it represents our perception of the proton at unity. It is what you call a fact "there are protons in nature that we observe". The remainder of the protons are produced by duplication of P=1 for the proton. But this again is where your concepts help. The protons are correlated by their duplication and become an observation system. This suggests that QM is the math that supports perception of separated energy.

I would like your thoughts if possible.

Andrew Knight

Hi Gene,

Thanks for the post and comments. I didn't fully follow your point so I'll have to take a closer look at your essay. Best of luck to you in the contest!

Andrew

Steve Dufourny

Hi Mr Knight,

A very relevant general essay I must say, one my favorites also.

You tell "In fact, this assumption underlies the very foundation of wave mechanics. Note that for any ? = ??(), в„Џ ? = в„Џ?? = ?? only if ? = в„Џ?. It was realized that the mathematical operation в€'?в„Џ could be defined as the momentum operator ? (in one dimension) and utilized on its own. If ? acts on eigenstate ? then it yields eigenvalue ? = в„Џ? multiplied by ?, which is another way of saying that ? has a distinct momentum, while the superposition in equation (1) may not. 4 The fact that the quantum state of a system can be described in configuration space is often ignored in the typical textbook "proof" of HUP. In fact, given the assumptions that an object is fully described by a wave and that the momentum wave packet of a particular quantum state is equal to the Fourier transform of the position wave packet for the same state, HUP is a mathematical tautology that provides no further information"

When you tell us "in one dimension", what is it really because if the informations are particles coded and that the Waves are just due to fact that these particles oscilate and imply fields and Waves in a kind of superfluid vacuum in contact of particles , in my model, 3D spheres in motions oscillations and if the 1D is just a mathematical extrapolation not really existing, and that the strings and the 1D main field are not real, so how can we really understand that all is Waves instead of particles ? The problem seems philosophical about the main causes of our reality and its geonetries, topologies and properties of matters, if we take the strings or geonetrodynamics , so we have strings or points at this planck scale and a 1D Cosmic field, but if all is made of particles and that the codes are inside the particles, how can we be sure about the main philosophical essence of our universe?

Regards

Steve Dufourny

I have shared it on Facebook, regards

Andrew Knight

Hi Steve,

Thanks for the comments. I'll take a look at your essay. It is an interesting question of whether waves by themselves describe the ontology of the universe. QFT asserts this, and Art Hobson in his excellent recent book (Tales of the Quantum) makes a very strong case that there are only waves, no particles. Best of luck in the contest!

Andrew

Steve Dufourny

Hello,

You are welcome. I am not sure that I will do this essay s Contest, my English is not perfect and I have difficulties to resume also.

Thanks for sharing also about the bool of Art Hobson, maybe I will read it. But if I can, I beleive that we cannot prove what is the main cause, I prefer personally the particles but it is just my opinion of course. It is logic :)

I consider 3D coded spheres and a super fluid , space , vacuum also made of coded 3D spheres and I beleive that all is the same but coded differently, that is why I have considered mainly 3 E8 and I have replaced the points or strings by finite series of 3D spheres having the same number than our cosmological finite serie of 3D spheres, they are coded and play between the zero absolute and the planck temperature, I have considered also the deformations of spheres and the Ricci flow and an assymetric Ricci flow also to explain the unique things, the lie derivatives, the euclidian and topological spaces and the poincare conjecture also.

Now you are going to encircle , the space disappears with a specific serie and primes with a central biggest sphere after we decrease the volumes and increase the number, 3 around the center, after 5 around the 3, after 7 around the 5 and we continue with this finite number the same than our cosmological serie, oddly we approach the dirac large number.

So I consider one main E8 coded for the space and after two others E8 and these spheres , one for the photons and one for the DM, they are just fuel permitting so the gravitation and the electromagnetism, I have reached this quantum gravitation even in changing the distances and mass because the standard is just emergent but we have a deeper logic, main codes farer.

So I respect also this Waves particles duality because we have a superfluid gravitational aether and these 3D spheres are in motions but they oscillate also and all is in contact, these series in my model of spherisation, an optimisation of the universal sphere or future sphere, are sent from the central cosmological sphere, it intrigues me a lot because for me it is there that something transforms the E in matters, coded.

You see like that the philosophical difference with the strings and the fact to consider only Waves and fields. For me it seems more logic because the strings and this 1D main Cosmic field and the 1D strings at this planck scale don t take into account the evolution. Best Regards and good luck for your essay that I liked a lot,

Steve Dufourny

I thought about the primordial fractal of spheres and the number 2 is incredible when we consider 2 smaller spheres around the central one and not 3 , that create the dipoles and the distances can be assymetric even , we continue the fractal with the primes and when we consider the two fuels, photons and DM encoded in this fractal of space with the number finite corelated with the finite number of cosmological spheres, wowww that becomes intriguing and universal, this prime the number 2 is fascinating considering this primordial serie

Steve Dufourny

personally I don t understand why the majority of thinkers are in this prison like if we had only photons like main piece , I understand why they insist on strings even to create this reality, it is odd for me because we have still many secrets to encircle and add, I doubt that this universe beyond the physicality is an infinite heat you know that this thing oscillates the photons to create our topologies, geonetries, matters and properties, I see an infinite energy but totally different than a heat, I beleive that it is an energy above our understanding able to create with the matters all the energies inside the physicality, the energy is more than we can imagine, Einstein and Witten have created a prison, philosophical and physical for me and now all try to understand only this photonic reality forgetting to Think beyond the box, in 100 years of relativity , frankly it is odd , like if we had understood with this the generality of this universe??? is it a joke , the universe is more than this simply and it seems logic.

John Crowell

Andrew I enjoyed your essay. Thanks for presenting a different viewpoint of QM and their fit within the universe. I especially enjoyed your pointing out - there is currently "no apriori" explanation of QM My essay is an attempt to provide that explanation. What you may find interesting is that I was able to "map" most of the major points of your new interpretation of QM to my new SSC model of creation. Three examples --1. your facts correspond to stable SSCUs and their progeny 2. a consistent set of facts (SSCUs) become the physical universe. 3. QM is an emergent phenomena from an underlying ontology- note the C*s to SSCU transformation described in the appendix of my essay. I think you will find it interesting how the SSC mathematical model can show how your ideas can be quantized and related to the measurements of Planck's constants, H atoms (atomic structures), the galaxies and the universe. Hope you find the essay useful. I would appreciate your comments. John Crowell

Andrew Knight

Hi John,

Thanks for the note! I'll take a look at your essay and ideas on SSC model.

Andrew

Avtar Singh

Hi Andrew:

A very engaging and thought-provoking essay; I enjoyed reading it gave it high marks.

Interesting to know your MIT background; when were you there? I finished my Sc.D. in mechanical engineering there in 1974.

You correctly point to the fundamental deficiency in QM interpretations in that - "...If our intuition is correct that predictability of an

object depends on its description in phase space, but if

the state of an object is entirely specified in

configuration space, then the information necessary to

predict the object simply does not exist. On this basis

alone, many argue that the universe is fundamentally

unpredictable."

You may be interested in my essay - "Unravelling the Missing Physics behind Undecidability, Uncomputability, and Unpredictability" by Avtar Singh, wherein I point to the fact that uncertainty and unpreditability are artifacts of measuring or predicting an inherently relativistic (V~C) phenomenon in classical fixed space-time coordinates.

I would deeply appreciate your feedback comments/rating on my essay integrating the relativistic effects into the well-known DeBroglie and HUP equations. Then, the universe also could be predicted as described in my referenced papers (see attached pdf files) in the essay.

Looking forward to hear your feedback,

Best Regards

Avtar SinghAttachment #1: 2_Published_Paper_in_Phy_Essays_Origin_of_Motion_Part_2_4Singh.pdf Attachment #2: 2_Published_Paper_in_Physics_Essays_Origin_of_Motion_Part_1_14Singh.pdf

Andrew Knight

Hi Avtar,

Your essay sounds very interesting. It would be fascinating if you are correct that HUP is a relic of measuring relativistic phenomena. I'll take a look. Best of luck to you in this contest.

Andrew

Fabien Paillusson

Dear Andrew,

This was a nice and thought provoking essay.

It seems naive but I really liked your definition of a fact!

I would have a couple of questions though, as it seems that some things are escaping my understanding:

- First, it is not clear to me what really constitutes a superposition. From the example you gave I do not see the difference between superposition (with possibility of interference) and simply not knowing all facts (tossing a coin). Can you please clarify on this?

- Second, at the very end you discuss the fact "it rained yesterday" and the various traces that would follow even many years after. I appreciate that this is a microscopic world view but what of the 2nd law of thermodynamics?

- Third. It is more a comment but your definition of fact and the following detailed example with particles reminded me of simulation method called Event Driven Molecular Dynamics (https://academic.oup.com/ptps/article/doi/10.1143/PTPS.178.5/1869834) which literally implements what you describe in your essay. Are you familiar with this method? Do you see any way of using it to emulate the kind of things (e.g. entanglement, superposition) in your essay?

Many thanks.

Best,

Fabien

Andrew Knight

Hi Fabien,

Thank you for your great comments!

Your first question: if my paper is right, then a superposition exists when a fact does not exist, unrelated to knowledge. When an event occurs, then there is no longer a superposition. When I toss a coin but don't look at the result, there is still a fact about the result, a fact that is embedded in correlations with other facts about the universe. But that is different from the lack of a fact.

Not sure I get your second question. The 2nd law is not actually a "law" in the sense that classical processes are in principle reversible, so the increase in entropy appears as a statistical result. Whereas if there is a fact that "it rained yesterday" then this fact will be embedded in correlations with photons that speed outward to the night sky and can never, even in principle, be caught and "uncorrelated" to reverse the fact.

Third - THANK YOU!! I just downloaded the paper and am extremely excited to read it. One of my goals in writing and submitting this essay was precisely to see if anyone had done related research.

Thank you again for your notes and thoughts!

Andrew

Fabien Paillusson

Andrew,

Thank you for your reply.

I suppose my 2nd question was precisely on the blatant incompatibility between the reversibility of the microphysical laws (based on Hamiltonian mechanics) and the irreversibility of macrfphysical observables such as "raining".

This is not at all an original question. It reminds me of the objection from Loschmidt to Boltzmann's H theorem relying on uncorrelated velocities where Loschmidt observed that you could in principle reverse all velocities and the entropy should decrease accordingly (since it was increasing with time for the "forward process"). Boltzmann would have allegedly replied "go on reverse the particles velocities".

What I am saying is that I am not convinced that, even in principle, events leave measurable traces of their happening at all later times.

Even a three body problem is already not reversible even when people try hard (https://www.sciencealert.com/three-black-holes-orbiting-each-other-can-t-always-go-backwards-in-time).

This is just a thought if you think that can help you improve upon your argument against this concern.

Cheers.

Fabien

Andrew Knight

Hi Fabien,

This is a fascinating reply and I had to think twice before replying.

First, I think that every event MUST leave traces/evidence of their happening and I base this on the quantum eraser experiments. Are you familiar with them? I had originally discussed them in my essay but I had to cut it out to keep the length within the requirements.

Second, reversibility is not the same as events leaving traces. Yes, if an event is reversible, then it obviously must leave traces, but not the other way around. If an event leaves traces, it may or may not be reversible. For example, if some of the evidence of an event is in a correlated photon moving toward the black night sky... it is not retrievable in principle and therefore the event is irreversible.

Thanks for the reference to the article... I'll look at it now!

And thanks again for your comments... please let me know if you have more or if you disagree with my reply.

Andrew