Dear Sir,
We have gone through your excellent article. While agreeing with your views, we think that there could be simpler explanations of the phenomenon.
We agree that: "Attempts at understanding should not be fallacious or driven by desperation to make the world conform to our prejudices or convenience". But unfortunately, there is a rush for recognition that makes increasing number of young talents desperately trying to project "the world conform to our (their) prejudices or convenience".
You have correctly said: "Consider a graphical simulation, with one state represented as red and the other as green: after decoherence, we imagine a messy and complex pattern with various shades of red, orange, yellow, green - but both colors are always part of the display. Why then wouldn't such a combination be part of our observations as well? Disorder shouldn't make superpositions "inaccessible" in all possible ways." While we agree with your views on decoherence, we have a different explanation for the phenomenon.
You have said: "Nor should it matter to my experience right now of an event, whether I can recover information such as the phase setting on C. Furthermore, why should phase change that happen in the past or future, affect my current experience of exclusivity in measurement? Is there some "anticipation" of that?" The answer to your question lies in the nature of our measurement system and the nature of superposition. We will give an alternative explanation for these phenomena.
Superposition of states and Entanglement are grossly misreported phenomena. Measurement is a process of comparison between similars. Thus the result of measurement is always a scalar quantity. Measurement processes for particles and fields are different, just like measurement processes for space, time and space-time are different. The result of measurement is the description of the state of the object measured at a designated instant. The state of the object was not the same before nor will be the same after the measurement as it continues to evolve in time independent of our observation or measurement. We freeze the description of the state at a designated instant and call it the result of measurement at subsequent times. All other unknown states before and after the instant of measurement together are called superposition of states.
It is said that "micro-sized particles millions of miles apart respond to one another or communicate as if they were local to each other, whereby the speed of light does not apply", whereas in reality, it tapers off after a few kilometers. We have shown in different threads in this forum (below the essays of Mr. Weckbach and Mr. Castel, etc.) that it is not a mysterious phenomenon at all and it has macro equivalents. When two objects retain their original relationship after being physically separated, such relationship is called entanglement. Suppose someone while traveling forgot to take one of the pair of socks. The individual sock of the pair is complementary to the other. They cannot be used in isolation. If someone asks, 'which of the pairs has gone with the traveler', the answer will be unknown till someone at either end finds out by physical verification. This is a macro example of entanglement. Before the verification (measurement) was done; which one went out was not known. It could have been either one (superposition of all states), but not both at the same time in all locations (as is generally described). After measurement, the answer is conclusively known (so-called wave function collapses). There is no need to unnecessarily sensationalize it. The quantum entanglement can be easily explained if we examine the nature of confinement and the measure the distance up to which entanglement shows up (generally, it is not infinite, but lasts up to a maximum of a few kilo meters only).
We hold the field as the absolute entity and define particles are locally confined fields. The nature of confinement differentiates between particles and fields (field densities) and matter and energy. They are not interchangeable, but are inseparable conjugates, though the proportion of each in a coupling may vary. This variation determines its charge. We do not accept Coulomb's law. We have a different explanation for the apparent attraction of opposite charges and the apparent repulsion of similar charges. We explain the double slit experiment and decoherence as follows:
There is a river at the entrance of our home town, where a bridge was built in ancient times by erecting 19 big stone pillars in the water. This created 18 equidistant channels through which water flowed. Sometimes we went swimming and playfully pushed water through the channels. Sometimes we will push water in one channel. Sometimes standing behind the pillar; we would push water through both channels. At other times we would stand still and watch the waves flowing naturally. We would watch the waves and see the interference pattern. When the water flowed naturally, the waves behaved like the bands in the double slit experiment when unobserved. When we pushed the water through one channel, it showed no interference (the small natural waves were subdued). When we pushed water through both channels (slits), the interference pattern was also absent.
The simplest explanation for this phenomenon is the periodicity of wave formation and the interference by the retarded wave. When waves flowed naturally, the periodicity of wave generation remained almost constant. The amplitude and wavelength also remained constant. The waves retarded after hitting the shore line in equal time and velocity. Since the waves propagated through different channels generated different but similar waves, the interference pattern was visible. When we pushed water, it injected additional energy. This changed the amplitude, wavelength and periodicity of the waves. Thus, whether we pushed through one channel or both, the energetic wave alone was visible and the weak interference pattern was subdued. In the case of double slit experiment, something similar happens. The detection device directs the photon or electron to a particular slit. This requires additional energy. This changes the amplitude, wavelength and periodicity of the waves. Thus, we see the result differently from the unobserved state. The confuser in your experiment affects in a similar way.
One reason why the scientists still cling to the theory in spite of such simple explanations is the nature of mathematics for interference experiment. For calculating the probability distribution of detection of the electron or the photon over the surface of the screen, one cannot take the probabilities of the passage through the slits, multiply with the probabilities of detection at the screen conditional on passage through either slit, and sum over the contributions of the two slits. There is an additional so-called interference term in the correct expression for the probability. This term depends on both wave components that pass through the slit. Thus, the experimental result is interpreted to show that the correct description of the electron or the photon in terms of quantum wave-functions is one in which the wave passes through both slits. The quantum state of the electron or the photon is not given by a wave that passes through the upper slit or a wave that passes through the lower slit, not even a probabilistic measure of ignorance. Thus, the scientists are forced to accept the superposition principle and wave-particle duality to explain interference.
Contrary to popular perception, the general mathematical superposition principle holding for linear differential equations has nothing to do with physical reality, as actual physical states and their evolution is supposed to be uniquely defined by corresponding initial conditions. These initial conditions characterize individual solutions of Schrödinger equation: they correspond to different properties of a physical system, some of them being conserved during the whole evolution. Yet, initial conditions alone cannot fully explain the time evolution of a particle or for that matter, anything. The uncertainty principle has to be brought in here and the other environmental effects are also to be considered. Without this there will be no meaning for evolution as evolution implies change and change is not restricted to redistribution of the same thing over and over again. Such statements like: "quantum mechanics including superposition rules have been experimentally verified" are absolutely wrong. All tests hitherto have concerned only consequences following from the Schrödinger equation and not the stand alone equation.
Mathematically, we know that the area of a rectangle and a parallelogram on the same base is equal. Since area implies two dimensional field, we have to use second order terms. If the length is a units and breadth is b units, then the area will be a + b squared units, which is a^2 + b^2 + 2ab. This can be geometrically proved. But when the rectangle is shifted to make it a parallelogram, the projection of b along y axis is reduced. Thus, we have to bring in an additional factor of cos θ to bring parity. This shows that b in a rectangle and b in a parallelogram over the same base are different, even though distance-wise both have the same value. In the diffraction experiment, this difference becomes dominant, because traveling time for the waves after the deflection in both ways are different. There is no mystery in this case. The difference in relative path lengths causes the different patterns.
Regards,
basudeba
