PROGRESS OF QUANTUM PHYSICS ================ TERMINOLOGY
QUANTUM PHYSICS (QP) has more multivalued, muddled terms than any other branch, e.g. "QM" a catch-all term mixing up higgledy-piggledy ultraviolet catastrophe, wave function collapse and Higgs boson. I propose to replace it with "RQM" (Rudimental QM) denoting the short interlude of Quantum Physics, based upon the Schroedinger equation, preceded by "INCEPTION" and followed by QFT. Successive steps of Quantum Physics' progress, to wit Inception, RQM and QFT may be classified with respect to the continuum/discreteness (CD) polarity, embodied in QP by continuous field and its discrete quantization. For reasons explained in "CAUSALITY AND IMPLICATION" http://findgeorges.com/CORE/D_RATIONAL_VIEW/d1_causality_and_implication.html only models founded in CD, i.e. in quantized field are causal in physical sense. Thus defined "physical causality" clarifies and replaces "locality" and "separability", muddled at the outset by Einstein himself and turned to a hopeless mare's nest by interpreters of the QP. Physical causality is abstract, fuzzy and strictly restrained to specific abstract models. Its naive metaphysical reification, aka "determinism" is utterly off topic in physical context and its misuse occasioned a lot of bewilderment in interpretations of physics, especially of the RQM. Incapability to causally coordinate some type of events does not mean that they are acausal, but that an involved causal model has not yet been conceived. The steps: INCEPTION, encompassing Plank's blackbody and Einstein's discovery of photons is based on field quantizing and thus, causal. RQM, ignoring field continuum is based upon probabilistic and statistical handling of discrete events and consequently acausal. QFT is based on field quantizing and thus, causal. ================ DESCRIPTION OF ASPECT EXPERIMENT based upon http://roxanne.roxanne.org/epr/experiment.html Calcium atom's valence electron is placed into an excited state where it has no net angular momentum (L = 0). As the atom de-excites, the electron cascades into the 4s4p 1P1 state and releases a green photon at 551.3 nm. This state then decays back to the 4s2 1S0 state releasing a blue photon at 422.7 nm. It is assumed that because the total angular momentum at the beginning and end of the cascade is zero, the green and blue must be circularly polarized in opposite directions. (Comment. False. Each emission has to conserve momentum, i.e. to balance the emitted momentum. Thus, the green emission is balanced by itself and the blue emission sets its own +- balance independent of the green. Relations of green/blue polarizations are entirely random.) What happens to the photons which are produced in this experiment? (Comment. They cease to be "photon" particles and travel as wave "beans" to recover their "photon" aspect at their detection death. We shall further consider "photons" exclusively at emission and detection and talk about "beans" in between.) When a blue photon is produced at the source, if it travels to the left down path A, then it will be blocked by the filter along that path. If, on the other hand, it travels down path B, it will pass through the filter and travel to the polarization analyzer PA2. The polarization of the photons produced by the source are oriented randomly. Using quantum mechanics alone, we cannot make any predictions about this polarization. But, there are aspects of the theory (hidden variables) which ensure that the photon must have a definite value of polarization. So, half the time our blue photon will pass through the filter and the other half of the time it will be deflected by the filter. It is important to note two things at this point. First, the photon is EITHER deflected by the filter OR it passes through the filter; one or the other, never both. Secondly, the direction which the photon takes depends ONLY on its polarization - it does not depend on any other photon in this experiment nor does it depend on the orientation of the filter PA1. These two details are the separability and locality conditions required in John Bell's solution to the EPR paradox. (Comment. Typical straw man argument replacing causality with muddled "locality", separability" and "hidden variables", and pretending to refute the former by contesting the latter. The causal view sees the bean partially passing by the polarization filter and partially deflected, depending on filter's orientation and technology. So not "never both", but instead "usually" both. Direction mix which the bean takes after passing the filter depending on filter's orientation and technology, the (fictional) conditions required by Bell's solution(?) are not met. ) ================ The above comments show that causal previsions and RQM's acausal ones are indistinguishable. What's worse, they are both meaningless due mainly to Micro-/Macroevents dichotomy and to the resulting utterly confused timing. Let's consider a microscopic event like the atom decay that determines the fate of Schrödinger's cat. Shelving the shamanic belief that the cat's fate remains undecided until one opens the box, the exact time at which that fate has become certain is unclear. For Aspect tests to be conclusive we would have to time microscopic events with sufficient exactitude. But we can time only macroscopic events and that without their clear definition and exact relation to presupposed microscopic ones. The lifetime of the excited atomic state which produces the pair of involved photons counts 89-nsec. The photon emission time remaining indeterminate for this period, the final outcome of the event remains indeterminate for a comparable duration. Critical for Aspect experiment is the time delay between a change of polarizer angle and its impact on detecting photon pairs. Aspect estimated this time as based on the speed of a photon and the distance between the polarizers and the detectors. However, Quantum Physics, including the RQM itself, forbids assumptions about particle location between emission and detection. We cannot know when a bean traverses a polarizer unless we detect (and kill) it at the polarizer, which we don't do, wishing it to pursue its flight towards the detector. Aspect's design of loophole-free Bell tests using light amounts to attempting the impossible, undertaken on a false premise that light may be modeled as particles. And we cannot demonstrate “quantum entanglement” by macroscopic experiments. It remains an uncorroborated presumption of RQM. ============ BOTTOM LINE Physicists, excited by the discovery of quanta, confused discretisation of continuum with autonomous discreteness and, with the zeal of neophytes, rushed to create new physics and Weltanschauung entirely founded in discreteness - the RQM and its shamanic Copenhagen Interpretation. First euphoria passed, we note the return to the pervading rigorous physical causality, headed by most prominent creators of the RQM, to mention Dirac and Schroedinger, whose intellectual honesty and integrity became proverbial. Let's consider two essential milestones of Schroedinger's career: the conception of the Schroedinger wave equation and its replacement with a relativistic one, later known as the Klein-Gordon equation. The Schroedinger equation involving partial differentiation of wave function psi reproduced the energy levels of the Bohr model. Einstein welcomed it as alternative to Heisenberg's matrix system, although, both were mathematically equivalent as representations of the Bohr model. One may ask, why one of two mathematically equivalent models should appear as preferable. It concerned their potential extension beyond Bohr's energy levels over the whole physical reality. The matrix representation did not offer any opening in this direction. Einstein - and Schroedinger - considered continuum predominance embodied usually by partial differentials as bedrock of models representing the physical reality and in that sense Schroedinger equation appeared promising. However, the physical meaning of the continuous psi extended over the whole physical reality seemed for a moment unclear. Born's successful interpretation of psi as a probability amplitude was a disappointment for Schroedinger. He opposed a probabilistic approach, at best a statistical approximation to an underlying causal model of the physical reality. He never liked his own equation and when the CI mysticists based upon it their panpsychic shamanism, he started hating it and regretting that he ever conceived it. Yet Dirac considered it as a foundation of the QP, relegating to the discard attic Bohr's orbital allegory; a transitory, but necessary platform supporting the progress towards a fully fledged causal representation of the quantal physical reality. And Schroedinger made the first step in this progress' way, replacing his own equation with a relativistic one, which he did not follow up, but which became, under Klein-Gordon name, the inception of truly physical, causal Quantum Field Theory. Concurrent fundamental physics deals with such problems as - by which mechanism does the Higgs boson "mediate" mass in the cosmos - how to unify gravity with other fields - or what's the physical reality of the dark matter (see http://findgeorges.com/ROOT/SECOND_ENLIGHTENMENT/0h_dark_matter.html ) Yet some people still talk about Aether, get PHD's in the Science of Exorcism from a Roman university, pretend that a fellow creates galaxies by simply looking at them or, alternatively, that an unused, obsolete abstract probability function creates the moon by "collapsing", whatever it may mean. There is no law against it. But there should be one banning creationism, shamanism and all sorts of mystical dogmaisms from educational establishment financed by cheated taxpayers. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en.
