Is Quantum Mechanics a Digilog Theory? by Chris Kennedy

Chris,

Because you ask several good questions that require a reasonably lengthy answer, and because the answers are relevant mostly to my essay and I answer one by linking to an earlier comment on my page, I answered these on my page.

Thanks for reading my essay and asking for clarification.

As for Joy Christian's work, his math is beyond most of us, but it makes sense to me. And if he is correct, the consequences are absolutely major for physics, since all of the so-called 'violations' of Bell's inequality would mean nothing.

And finally, if you know someone who can make the cheeseburgers 'disappear' then logic seems to demand that they can 'appear'. Wow!

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Chris,

Very nice, very pleasantly readable essay. I appreciate your concentration on the 2-slit experiment; as Feynman said, that's really what quantum mechanics is all about.

With the effort you devoted to the peculiar behavior of the electron, however, I'm surprised that you didn't mention Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory as another explanation. Too off-the-wall?

Your final paragraph is beautifully stated.

Good luck in the contest!

Best,

Tom

Chris,

This essay was well-written. Clear and concise with examples and a sense of humor.

What if light is just a wave that appears like a particle because of how it interacts with matter?

The shape of the field is there soon after the experiment is set up. The "photon" is an event in that field.

Here is what I mean: a metal is a good conductor of heat because electrons help conduct heat. When a metal become a (type I) super-conductor it becomes a very poor conductor of heat. The electrons perfectly conduct electric current, but not heat. In normal state metals, heat flow produces electric current flow and electric current flow can produce heat flow.

I think the reason for lack of electron heat flow in type I super-conductors is that the electrons are not "moving". The have momentum, mass and charge, but are undefined in time. An electron or "photon" is not defined in time and by extension place until it is involved in enthrophy.

All the best,

Jeff

Chris,

If you think of an electron as not being part of time flow unless involved in an entropy event such as resistance or heat-flow then light appearing as a particle makes sense. An irreversible event defines time and we see it an a photon. Something that goes back and forth between states is reversible and no "photon" is seen.

Jeff

Dear Chris,

I wanted to say hello and let you know I found your essay riveting all the way through. You seem to have supplied a pretty good assessment of where we are at. The essay asks a lot of questions, but seems to have a good grasp of the situation.

I am in favor of exploring both roads of smooth analog motion and discrete quantum methods to their fullest extent. Like you, I have questions about each. I do tend to favor analog systems. My essay attempts to explore a possible model for an analog system that surprisingly has a simple set of equations with a lot of implications packed into them. Although my essay does not discuss locality (if I'm using that term correctly), I expect its unique features of particle motion to explain data observed in Bell Inequality experiments. So I feel the door is not closed on a smooth analog reality, and the right analog model may offer a very good way to look at it.

Thanks for your very readable and relevant essay. It gets a high mark from me and I hope it does well.

Kind regards, Russell Jurgensen

Chris

I can't imagine how I missed your excellent essay til now! ..You say;

"Do we now have enough evidence to absolutely eliminate the need for further investigating the possibility of a more physical model that would also be consistent with the experimental data? If your answer to that very long question is yes - chances are, you are probably correct," Thanks for a nice resume, good identifiction of the issues and excellent writing style.

Thank god I'm probably correct!

I have a more physical model, which avoids Bells inequalites and derives SR and QR from a quantum mechanism, rigorous logic and empiricism. As an educational consultant you really do need to read and understand it. It takes just a little more conceptual power manipulating dynamic variables than our brains are used to, but then the clear obvious simplicity of it hits you.

Do look at the lively string too.

Please let me know if you grasped it at once. A group of 12 year olds did (using a sliding block of ice) as I explained in a post to the pair of educationalists languishing here, but most physicists tend not to! (about 1 in 5 now do).

Best of luck

Peter

Chris,

Not being an experimentalist, I'm really not in a position to offer much in the way of fresh evidence and the only insight which might be of use is the basic description of energy as expanding and mass as contracting. What goes unmentioned in the descriptions of these experiments is the fact that all the testing devices have some definite mass structure, thus any expanding wave of energy would collapse on contact. In the two slit experiment, possibly the atomic structure of the recording surface is such that, rather than heating up the entire surface, it is delicate enough the first point of contact is destabilized and quickly absorbs enough energy to bounce to a higher energy level, thus recording it as a single point of contact, even though the wave passes through both slits.

Chris,

I've just re-read your essay and continue to admire it. Although you do not really propose a theory, you do a great service by laying out in detail the absurdities associated with quantum mechanics and asking whether physicists are really willing to just live with these.

On my thread I note that my morning mail brought two mentions of the C-field in the 12 Mar 2011 issue of 'Science News':

The first (p.14) states that the C-field generated by a spinning Black Hole imparts (detectable) angular momentum to light passing through the field, circularly polarizing the light. Martin Bojowald suggests upgrading most telescopes to search for more of this.

The second article (p.20) on quantum vortices has Kerson Huang of MIT speculating that the vortices in the (C-field) 'superfluid' after the big bang may be responsible for the gaps of empty space between galaxies.

From 'Fly-by' mysteries to spinning Black Holes to the Big Bang, the C-field is being recognized as having physical reality responsible for observable effects.

You ask the important question: "Is there any explanation for why a photon and an electron will produce the same pattern in a double slit experiment? Especially curious, since electrons possess electric and magnetic fields while photons are points representing moving locations in those same changing fields."

As I mention in my comment above, the C-field couples to the "momentum" which both electron and photon possess!

Finally, I again had to admire your question, "why doesn't an electron ever pop back into existence as a muon, or a cheeseburger?"

I believe that you've beautifully analyzed a fundamental issue plaguing physics and for this I give you a very high rating!

Thanks for your analysis.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Dear Chris,

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

Alan,

Sorry I can't be more helpful. I did read your essay and I'm afraid I can't form enough of an expert opinion on your theory. I did look at your thread and saw that you have been getting feedback from others. Hopefully you can keep a discussion going enough to build on your current explanation. Good luck and thank you for your nice words.

Chris

Chris,

no problem. Yes, I'm making headway and I'm pleased about that.

Kind regards,

Alan

Dear Chris

I enjoyed your clearly-written essay arguing for the need for a physically realistic physics, if that is a good way to put it.

I was struck by your comment related to Bohm (whose work I am now encouraged to study): "It would be fascinating if all movement measured in the universe turned out to be particle or wave information transmitted to the piece of quantized space next to it as it would continue to do in its perceived direction of travel (much like the illusion that lights are streaming across a theater marquis when actually they are a well-timed series of on-off switching)." That is very similar to how everything gets transmitted in my in my 2005 Beautiful Universe theory on which my present fqxi paper is based. In fact I have used the marquis example there see Fig. 5 of my fqxi paper, although I spelled it marquee. I should make some animated images to illustrate how this works.

In these papers I have argued that many of the often mutually contradictory assumptions on which SR GR QM and the Standard Model are based, can be reinterpreted anew from a very simple model of marquis-like interactions between dielectric nodes of a universal lattice acting like loose spherical gears transmitting angular momentum in units of Planck's constant (h).

Best wishes from Vladimir

Vladimir,

Thanks for reading and commenting on my essay. I just checked out fig. 5 on your essay and see that great minds think alike. However, on that particular point, you published your essay first and used the proper spelling of Marquee, so the edge goes to you! I needed a very visual analogy to describe Bohm's idea and that was the first thing that popped into my head.

I have printed your essay (which looks very interesting) and will read it over the next fedw days.

Good luck in the contest and I hope things are going well in your present location.

Chris