Is Quantum Mechanics a Digilog Theory? by Chris Kennedy

Chris,

An excellent summation of quantum light phenomena.

I'm merely a naive information systems analyst, but there are several subtly interesting aspects of Bell test experiments that may support a physically oscillating particle-wave state manifestation of matter.

In a simple grating test, 'photons' do not pass through holes placed too far apart. I think the simplest explanation for this is that it is the propagating wave state manifestation of matter that passes through multiple grating holes.

If the grating holes are considered to physically partition propagating waves containing element state 'information' dispersed throughout some expanse of spacetime, the seemingly separate waves passing through the grating can be considered as separated, independently directed wave-fronts still representing the singular, originally emitted wave. Dispersed through spacetime, they may even continue to be physically adjoined to the singular origin wave.

Each of the partitioned wave fronts can be individually detected as particles at varying points in spacetime: they will all continue to reflect the characteristic properties of the originally emitted wave.

I think this scenario supports an oscillating state manifestation of elements in which elements are originally emitted as propagating waves. At some characteristic interval they may manifest as a stationary, spinning massive particle. Terminal detection through material absorption of wave momentum produces a stationary particle manifestation.

While I may have overlooked something, I suggest this interpretation as the simplest, physical explanation for quantum entanglement.

A very interesting essay.

Sincerely,

Jim

BELL .....

If one analyzes polarity, he constrains the parameter which become temporarily quantized. Therefore, the only polarity really measurable was 0 or 90 degrees, the rest as other angles was artefacts... Basic quantum mechanics!

The same with electrons. In linear confinement, Direction becomes a quantum number: one way or the other!

Marcel,

Hi Chris, I was very impressed with your informative and easy-to-read summation of physics w.r.t the particle/wave duality of nature. I have made some foundational conclusions myself with regard to the visualisaiton of this duality, namely the Archimedes screw model for the graviton, which appears to have been overlooked in our science history. Believe it or not, this simple idea can also explain DARK ENERGY, due to the fact that a helical screw GRAVITON will become a force of repulsion, an ANTI-GRAVITON, if it travels around a wraparound universe i.e. a hypersphere. Best of luck in the competition.

Alan

Chris,

I think we're examining some of the same questions, but I've been so audacious as to discrd the uncertainty principle as being unphysical, preferring that the correlation between quantified characteristic properties is determined by an elementally characteristic particle-wave state manifestation probability.

Most directly, it's the quantisized mass associated with more stationary particles that is not exhibited by propagating waves. Rather, it is the manifestation of wave state propagation that is inhibited in massive classes of particles. These exclusionary properties could be the product of alternating, probabilistic particle-wave state manifestations in which mass and kinetic energy are conserved by conversion.

Similarly, you ask "So where does the charge go?" Could the charge property of highly propagating electrons possibly a dependent characteristic determined or perhaps encoded by some relation between spin, mass and propagation conversion rates? In this case charge does not disappear in the electrons propagating wave state but is rather encoded by spin, mass and propagation characteristics.

Of course I'm more than speculating - I'm guessing in the hopes of possibly inspiring productive thoughts in those who are more capable but constrained by their vast knowledge. Hopefully these are not just idle speculations.

Excellent essay!

Jim

Chris,

Thanks for the remarks on my essay. I've also answered them on my page. Your essay does a great job of showing up the absurdities currently implied by quantum mechanics. I especially liked your examination of "where does the charge go?" and "where does the mass go?" when the electron is in its 'unphysical' state before being measured.

Having just re-read John Bell' 1990 paper "Against 'Measurement'" where he finds various QM authorities in conflict with each other and appears to want to 'bring back' the deBroglie-Bohm 'pilot wave' by searching for a way to stop the 'spreading' of the electron wave-function, I am once again struck by the fact that so many on this site are so sure about quantum mechanics, despite Feynman's contention that no one understands it and despite Bell's clear confusion about fundamental issues.

You mention EPR and Bell and note that Bell's inequality has "since been put to the test many times." If you have not yet had a chance to read Joy Christian's work here, you might wish to do so. If Bell's inequality was wrongly calculated [as I believe] then all of the so-called 'violations' of the inequality mean absolutely nothing!

You ask the fascinating question, "Is there any explanation why a photon and an electron will produce the same pattern in a double slit experiment?" Excellent question! The explanation is shown on page 6 of my essay where the C-field circulation induced by the 'particle' momentum "looks the same" for both photons and electrons, and it is the C-field that interacts with the mass surrounding the slits. Note that the C-field does not 'carry' the particle, like the Bohm 'quantum potential'. The relation between the C-field wave circulation and the momentum of the particle is Lenz-law-like as described in my essay. If one changes, the other changes.

And I loved your question about identity while 'spread out'. Why doesn't the 'disappeared' electron re-appear as a muon? [A cheeseburger is not realistic.]

The wave-function (on page 6 in my essay) may achieve Bell's goal of 'stopping the spreading' when the C-field equation is taken into account, but I need to convince myself first.

So thank you for reading my essay (it may make more sense the next time) and thanks for writing an excellent essay yourself. Good luck in the contest.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

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,

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

Dear Chris

I apologize for the delay to answer - just saw your nice response. While de Borglie was a mere Duke one of his ancestors seems to have been a Marquis and I think you were thinking of him :) As to your quip about great minds I can only express happiness that you have have come to the same concept independently. I wonder if you can amplify a bit on Bohm's idea and why it inspired you to think of the light-bulbs of the - er - display.

In my theory the discrete 'bulbs' (the nodes) do not merely go on and off, but can have different energy states and angles of angular momentum. More importantly they transfer their energy to the adjacent ones locally and causally and at a rate depending on the rate of spin of the target node.

Thanks for your good wishes. Things have become almost normal in Tokyo, but that cannot be said of the situation to the North...Best wishes and good luck in the contest

Vladimir

Vladimir,

Who knows - I may be on to something here? A new term can now be assigned to "One who often attends shows while sitting in the royal box" A real theater marquis!

Which speaking of - was inspired by p. 121 of David Bohm's book: Causality & Chance in Modern Physics. There he says: "If a particle in a certain place dissolves, it is very likely to reform nearby.....at a lower the particle does not move as a permanently existing entity, but is formed in a random way by suitable concentrations of the field energy."

I did read your essay and enjoyed it. I will have to read your longer more detailed version soon. I will give some thought to the node theory. It might be interesting to hypothesize what nodes in a given location will do if they represent mass and a transfer of energy from a different source at the same time. Would the nodes take a configuration representative of an interference pattern since they would presumably carry information representing the mass and the separate energy simultaneously?

Chris

Chris

Sorry to interrupt you while enjoying the theatrical show :) I wish fqxi has a member forum tracking page to list new postings. I had to do a Google search to arrive here.

Thanks for the Bohm quote yes - that is how shapes on a marquee would appear to dissolve and reform as if transported by magic. Except that Bohm feels he has to accommodate the alleged quantum randomness by using the words "likely" and "in a random way". In my "Beautiful Universe" (BU) theory there is nothing random in the local physical transfer of angular momentum between nodes in the lattice. Everything whirrs systematically, locally and causally node to node to create the current (and only) state of the universe.

I am glad you enjoyed my fqxi essay - the (BU) paper may be too quantitative and incomplete to fully answer your question, but it will give an idea of how I envisage things. You asked what nodes would do if they represent mass and receive energy at the same time. This relates to how "motion" is initiated. The locked node pattern - say a particle of matter - has a force impinge on it (your transfer of energy). This initiates a restructuring of the pattern of nodes and their being reassembled in the same pattern but nearby in a new position in the lattice. In the process the particle pattern gets compressed and that is why motion entails relativistic length contraction. This links Newton's F=ma to contraction in Special Relativity in a single step.

I wonder if the process should be called interference because two nodes never physically overlap but influence their neighbors when they change orientation and rate of spin. I have tried to imagine (Fig. 20 and Fig. 26 of Beautiful Universe)how the pattern changes during translation and have concluded that the information ('locked' node pattern) in the mass is eventually preserved, as the nodes spin in unison to reform the particle pattern a few steps away in the lattice. En route, cher Marquis, the pattern undergoes systematic changes due to local rotation of the node axes. The node pattern may experience other systematic deformations apart from the relativistic compression before it reassembles the particle in the new position. It all needs to be simulated!

With best wishes from Vladimir