Quantum Theory without Quantization by Ken Wharton

Ken

Many thanks. I agree with the wave treatment. You'll have noticed I consistently referred to signal not phase velocity to avoid confusion. I've studied and researched optics for many years and there is still poor understanding, within but particularly outside optics. Optic Fibre and plasmon science has helped, but, well just look at; Nano letters DOI;10.1021/nl103408h. and Science, vol331,p892. to see how poor the science of just a few years ago was.

I wrote a paper clarifying much re; superposition, harmonics, plasma and refraction, but to the specialist editors it's not 'new discovery' just a clearer way of explaining what we've already discovered, and to general journals it's too far from the ruling paradigms to be considered! We have to smile!! I've now been asked to agre to publication is a less mainstream journal. What does one do!?

I could have written a whole essay on the wave aspects, but omitted it all to avoid red herrings as it is the overview that's important.

I'm not sure if you saw the fundamental derivation from correctly treating time averaged Poynting vectors in co-moving ion media or missed it. It did require slow reading, difficult multi variable visualisation, and consideration of the consequences. Essentially it derives from pure logic SR and GR with a preferred 3rd frame and quantum mechanism, and it's falsifiable.

Or perhaps you disagreed with the logic for some reason? Please do advise if you can find the time. (Don't get confused by plasma waves as we're dealing only with the block reference frame of the medium).

Best wishes

Hi Ken,

I think my response to your email is more appropriately posted here, since others may benefit by our discussion.

You write,

" I'm quite interested in new ideas of how to get quantum behavior to emerge from classical fields".

This was also what attracted my attention to your essay, as this is exactly what I am doing in my essay. What I mathematically demonstrate is that Planck's Law for blackbody radiation can be derived using continuous processes, without using energy quanta and statistics. Since Planck's Law is at the very roots (historical as well as theoretical) of modern physics, this result is very significant.

But more than that! In my essay I show that Planck's Law is an exact mathematical tautology that describes the interaction of measurement! This, in my view, explains why Planck's Law fits so remarkably well the experimental data. Check the blackbody spectrum obtained from measurements and obtained from Planck's Law.. "The FIRAS data match the curve so exactly, with error uncertainties less than the width of the blackbody curve, that it is impossible to distinguish the data from the theoretical curve". Naturally, the measurements will be exactly the same as the tautology that describes the measurements.

I also show in my essay why it is mathematically true that energy is proportional to frequency and why the uncertainty principle must hold. But this is only just some of the results in my essay. Too many to list here in this post!

You further write,

"Really, I was stumped at "mathematical identity" -- at that point you are claiming to derive a physical conclusion with no physical assumptions...? Surely there is some link to physical reality in this math, or it wouldn't mean anything. So what's the underlying picture of reality that this math is assuming to be true? "

I fully understand why you were "stumpt" at the mathematical identity nature of Planck's Law. I was anticipating just such response!

But there is nothing unusal about finding mathematical tautologies in physics - and without these having a 'physical basis'! If I was to measure a distance of 3 miles going east and follow that with a measure of a distance of 4 miles going north, and then measure that I am a distance of 5 miles from where I started, do I need to have derived the Pythagorean Theorem using some 'physical basis' in order for this Theorem to apply to my physical measurements? Likewise with Planck's Law, as I show in my essay!

Conserning my photoelectric effect paper. I am surprised that you actually read it since I don't disucss this result in my essay!

You write,

"1) There is no experimental delay between the time that a weak photon source is turned on and the time that the detectors start registering the photons. If the energy had to "build up" over time, one would expect to see such a delay."

As I explain in the paper, the time required for an 'accumulation of energy' h to occur (the minimum threshold needed for energy to manifest) is h/kT. I think you will agree that this is a very short time! I don't think any experimental claims are for a shorter time.

But there is a more general principle about 'instantaneous' that you raise which I find very important. Do you really believe that if the 'source' is turned on at say t=s, the 'sensor' will detect the photon at t=s also? That 'instantaneously' (in the sense t=s) the photon will be detected? I show in my essay that The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that some positive duration of time is required for a physical event to manifest. Physical events have both 'extention' in space as well as 'duration' of time. Your view that events happen 'instantaneously' at t=s in my opinion violates this fundamental Law.

You further say,

"2) A related issue is when the average field is very weak everywhere, but there are many detectors. If the energy has to build up to hv on one particular detector, they would all take a long time to fire -- but in fact one of them will fire quite quickly, as if all the energy in the whole field somehow was "directed"."

This would be a paradox if you assumed 'ballistic photons' carrying an energy of hv (how? don't ask!) following a path trajectory and striking some one detector! But in my view, the 'photon emitted at the source' is not the same as the 'photon detected at the sensor'. These are separate by related events, as I also argue in my explanation of the double-slit experiment). A detector will 'fire' when it has 'a minimal accumulation of energy that can be manifested'. If a detector does not 'fire' it means that it does not have that threshold to 'trip' the detector. You may ask, what happens to the 'lower than threshold' energy at a detector? It's possible that eventually it just dissipates into the Cosmos, undetected and undetectable. Or it may linker around a bit for the next photon to 'strike'. Since all this is below our 'veil of observation', we just wont know.

Finally you say,

" I simply don't understand how you can simply assume that the energy is always exponentially increasing with time"

What is exponentially increasing with time is the 'time dependent local representation' E(t). But this is at the level of 'accumulation before manifestation'. When energy becomes 'manifested', an amount of energy hv (in agreement with the quantization hypothesis!) is absorbed and the 'exponential representation collapses' (see my essay for a fuller discription of this).

Ken in my essay I present exactly what you are also seeking: Quantum Theory without Quantization. This is what brought me to your corner!

Best wishes,

Constantinos

Ken

I was interested in your comments to Constantinos. You seem to be saying he may be wrong ref the delay. In fibre optics the delay is established with great accuracy as polarisation mode dispersal (PMD) delay, somewhat frequency and polarity dependent (birefringence) but fully consistent with that Constantinos derives. This is the 'charging' or 'momentum' delay of scattering.

Also consistent with this and of topical interest are the latest results reported in Science vol 331,p892, and p 16 of 26th Feb NS, where particles were charged and 'bounced off', or were re-emitted by, the fine structure ABOVE the surface of matter, (done here with coated glass). This is equivalent to reflective scattering. The 19th Feb NS (p18) showing plasmons 'grabbing photons' through a nano hole and re-emitting them, when an 'empty' hole won't let then through at all! All equivalent to QED, with electrons 're-emitting' photons, and always at the relative 'c' of the electrons if in a refractive medium co-moving wrt an incident medium. And we find the greater the relative motion the higher the 'fine structure' surface plasma or 'plasmasphere'. Is that purely a co-incidence? The discrete field model (DFM) explores the implications if not. It's consistent with Constantinos and Edwins, and we haven't been able to falsify it yet.

You ask about "how to get quantum behavior to emerge from classical fields". It it worth considering the converse; How to get classic relativity to emerge from quantum behaviour. With refractive dispersion this seems to emerge naturally.

Food for thought?

Best wishes

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for all the experimental facts you brought to my defense! I had no idea there is so much evidence for such 'time delay'. I think Eckard Blumschein would also add to this list the Gompf et al. false measurements of single photon counting. Rethinking this issue over again, I would like to add to this supportive arguments and experimental evidence the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Clearly, QM uncertainty results in some positive duration of time for an amount of energy 'delta E' to manifest.

I think the rejection to my proof that Planck's Law is a mathematical tautology that describes the interaction of measurement is more 'disbelief' than 'refutation'. It cuts so deeply into the grain and fibre of modern physical thinking. It's just hard for physicists to accept.

Best regards,

Constantinos

Dear ken,

really interesting, accessible, clear, enjoyable. Nice introduction explaining your approach to the question and where you are going with it. I definitely want to spend more time re reading it as it is full of good ideas and explanations.

PS.I have used a quote from your essay on the FQXi Time travel blog forum (where you very clearly explain the static nature of space time.)

Good luck Georgina.

Ken / Costas

There's much more on delay time too. Also look at the Mossbauer effect (1957) where the charge/emission scattering delay is attributed to 'recoil.' There is a logical discrepancy here related to continuous processes, which is probably why his results are oft ignored, but the actual results have been repeated and confirmed (At one of the US major universities I think).

The frequency dependence of PMD in fibre optics is fascinating, as it also reverses at a certain frequency! My work focussed on harmonics, which explains this and absorption bands in terms of Huygens/Fresnel principle (HFP), in similar terms to superconductivity. Waves are still very poorly understood!

Peter

Dear Ken

I agree with your arguments about the fact that discreteness is just a consequence of our models, but in the same way continuity is also just a consequence of our models. Until now We have ignored that the properties of nature we see are conditioned by our models particularly by the logic we use to study nature; this is not a philosophical idea but a mathematical reality. On my essay I try to explain how our perception of quantum reality is blurred by the use of classical-logic tools. I would like to hear your opinions about it.

Regards,

J. Benavides

Dear Ken,

Thanks for a fascinating essay. I agree with premise to take the unpopular route of making QT more compatible to GR. Focusing on the measurement problem from the GR POV is both novel and creative. I also would like to point out the work of Joy Christian which I was introduced on the forum of FQXI's very own website, which seems to support your work, although he concentrates on non-locality. He uses topological and division algebra arguments to conclude *that "quantum non-locality" is nothing but a make-belief of the topologically naive.*

Having said that I have one small "quibble" of my own. You wrote: "First and foremost, GR is a theory of spacetime."

It was my understanding that GR was first and foremost a theory of gravity, that includes spacetime. Isn't true that GR is actually agnostic as to the ontology of spacetime? Although gravity is assumed to be the curvature of spacetime, isn't it indistinguishable from a field in an arbitrary background? For example see here. In the words of Kip Thorne, isn't the "curved spacetime paradigm" equivalent to the "flat spacetime paradigm" in GR?

I would be interested in your response, and thanks again for a beautiful essay.

Dan

Ken

Further to my post above Dan Bruiger has just posted me this, on reverese Doppler shift, apparently surprising but consistent with discrete fields (DFM) and my CD/Harmonics paper I reffered above. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45366

My theory predicts the effect, emerging as a natural result of harmonics, which proves the Regaza delay factor, (found experimentally anyway in PMD) and also it's reverse over short harmonic frequencies where wave particle 'polarisation' inverts.

I haven't read the paper yet, but was sure you'd be interested too.

Best wishes

Peter

Ken,

"At the very least, the \measurement problem" should give one pause when drawing digital conclusions from quantum theory. As for the best, there is promise that we can solve the measurement problem by framing it in our continuous block universe."

I don't see a commitment to one or the other but I do see an open mind that perhaps cagily lean toward analogue which is my perspective but less well-argued.

Jim

Ken,

Well written essay with many good arguments for a continuous reality. You are being a little unfair with the Wikipedia quote. If the word "bound" means stable forever (i.e. infinite lifetime) then the energy must have a single discrete value. Also as you know I don't like the block universe model. Such a model doesn't allow for causal chains. I do like retro-causation in the quantum world where future events can bring reality to properties which are initially undefined in the past. Causal chains in the macroworld go forward in time and this gives time its sense of flow from past to future. A block universe doesn't have any sense of time flow.

Finally, it is good that you acknowledge that we will probably never know for sure if reality is discrete or continuous.

Bill

Ken,

I'm glad you clarified this point. I didn't have a problem understanding it, though I did note by their comments that at least a couple of other people in the contest did.

I agree heartily with your research program. If you haven't had a chance to read my essay, I do hope you can before the polls close.

Best,

Tom

Dear Ken,

Thanks, for your response. You have given me some food for thought. I have read your ref. [11] and confirms what I had deduced from your essay; your work is essential to gaining a better understanding of the foundations of the "quantum realm".

Wishing you continued success,

Dan

Dear Ken,

Congratulations on your dedication to the competition and your much deserved top 35 placing. I have a bugging question for you, which I've also posed to all the potential prize winners btw:

Q: Coulomb's Law of electrostatics was modelled by Maxwell by mechanical means after his mathematical deductions as an added verification (thanks for that bit of info Edwin), which I highly admire. To me, this gives his equation some substance. I have a problem with the laws of gravity though, especially the mathematical representation that "every object attracts every other object equally in all directions." The 'fabric' of spacetime model of gravity doesn't lend itself to explain the law of electrostatics. Coulomb's law denotes two types of matter, one 'charged' positive and the opposite type 'charged' negative. An Archimedes screw model for the graviton can explain -both- the gravity law and the electrostatic law, whilst the 'fabric' of spacetime can't. Doesn't this by definition make the helical screw model better than than anything else that has been suggested for the mechanism of the gravity force?? Otherwise the unification of all the forces is an impossiblity imo. Do you have an opinion on my analysis at all?

Best wishes,

Alan

Dear Ken,

Dear Ken,

thank you for the citation added (even though the long delay) in your paper arXiv:1003.4273 [

Time-symmetric boundary conditions and quantum foundations] to my paper arXiv:0903.3680 [Compact Time and Determinism for bosons: foundation].

As you have already noticed, in my essay [ref:http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/901] Clockwork Quantum Universe [\ref] (thank you also for the congratulations for this first phase on the contest) the possibility of a consistent interpretation of quantum mechanics in terms of boundary conditions.

Cheers,

Donatello

Dear Ken,

I would like to introduce myself in quantum terminology and share the truth that I have experienced with you. who am I?

I superpositioned myself to be me, to disentangle reality from virtuality and reveal the absolute truth.

Love,

Sridattadev.