Quantum Mechanics Linear Thread

[junglelord]

This thread is dedicated to QM linear dialogue. Please help me to build up linear information that either supports or redirects this accepted branch of physics. What is valid or invalid with this model? What if anything can replace it or complete it?

[junglelord]

In honour of StevenO, Carver Mead and Collective Electrodynamics
http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN0 ... -wZLL4ogT0

Certainly Mead is the first person we can put forth as a rebuttal against QM. Hopefully StevenO can fill in any gaps or questions. I am curious to see how Mead supports or subtracts from APM when I compare the relationships of structure and function between the two models.

Laputan Logic
Thursday, September 25, 2003
The Complete "An Interview with Carver Mead" Back in November I blogged about an interview with Carver Mead conducted by the American Spectator.
As I have mentioned before, Mead makes some pretty interesting points about the sorry state of obscurantism that typifies our current interpretation of quantum mechanics. This is something he blames largely on Neils Bohr and the Copenhagen school. Einstein was never happy with the Copenhagen formulation which he thought represented an incomplete understanding of nature at the quantum scale.

Mead agrees with Einstein and goes on to claim that a lot of the confusion and counter-intuitiveness of quantum mechanics would go away if we stopped imagining elementary particles like electrons and protons as tiny points and instead saw them as waves with a boundary. Of course it helps to have already had a stellar career in solid-state physics under your belt before you start kicking around scientific giants of the likes of Neils Bohr.

Any way, this post has since generated quite a lot of interest and it is still a major source of Google referrals to this site. But some time after blogging this, the American Spectator took the article offline and unforgivably broke my link so I tried to cobble together enough of the interview from the bits and pieces I could find on the net. The result was less than perfect and had large chunks missing from it.

But you'll be happy to know that I didn't give up. Using my finely honed googling skills and a strong commitment to web archaeology, I have finally been able to reconstruct the complete interview from the digital equivalent of a collection of smashed cuneiform tablets and some hurriedly copied manuscripts (some in Greek). The result is undoubtedly the most authorative version of the interview extant anywhere on the web today!

So without further adieu, please allow me to present for your reading pleasure the complete and definitive "An Interview with Carver Mead". Enjoy.
http://laputan.blogspot.com/2003_09_21_ ... chive.html

[StefanR]

Not sure if this is the right place,..

Predicted fundamental force strengths, all observable particle masses, and cosmology from a simple causal mechanism of vector boson exchange radiation, based on the existing mainstream quantum field theory

Solution to a problem with general relativity: A Yang-Mills mechanism for quantum field theory exchange-radiation dynamics, with prediction of gravitational strength, space-time curvature, Standard Model parameters for all forces and particle masses, and cosmology, including comparisons to other research and experimental tests

(For an introduction to quantum field theory concepts, see The physics of quantum field theory.)

‘It has been said that more than 200 theories of gravitation have been put forward; but the most plausible of these have all had the defect that they lead nowhere and admit of no experimental test.’ - Sir Arthur Eddington, Space Time and Gravitation, Cambridge University Press, 1921, p64.

http://feynman137.tripod.com/

[StefanR]

Again not sure, it's a lot, and provides some links

This page was revised (mainly by corrections to the discussion of tensors in general relativity) on 8 June 2007 and is a totally disorganised, rambling, informal supplement to (not a replacement of) the more concise proof paper at:

http://nige.wordpress.com/2007/05/25/qu ... edictions/ and

http://quantumfieldtheory.org/1.pdf

Professor Jacques Distler has an interesting, thoughtful, and well written post called ‘The Role of Rigour’ on his Musings blog where he brilliantly argues:

‘A theorem is only as good as the assumptions underlying it. … particularly in more speculative subject, like Quantum Gravity, it’s simply a mistake to think that greater rigour can substitute for physical input. The idea that somehow, by formulating things very precisely and proving rigourous theorems, correct physics will eventually emerge simply misconstrues the role of rigour in Physics.’

Jacques also summarises the issues for theoretical physics clearly in a comment there:

1. ‘There’s the issue of the theorem itself, and whether the assumptions that went into it are physically-justified.
2. ‘There’s the issue of a certain style of doing Physics which values proving theorems over other ways of arriving at physical knowledge.
3. ‘There’s the rhetorical use to which the (alleged) theorem is put, in arguing for or against some particular approach. In particular, there’s the unreflective notion that a theorem trumps any other sort of evidence.’

Take Newton’s gravity law as an example. Newton never expressed a gravity formula with the constant G because he didn't know what the constant was (that was measured by Cavendish much later).

Newton did have empirical evidence, however, for the inverse square law. He knew the earth has a radius of 4000 miles and the moon is a quarter of a million miles away, hence by inverse-square law, gravity should be (4000/250,000)2 = 3900 times weaker at the moon than the 32 ft/s/s at earth's surface. Hence the gravity acceleration due to the earth's mass at the moon is 32/3900 = 0.008 ft/s/s.

Newton’s formula for the centripetal acceleration of the moon is: a = v2 /(distance to moon), where v is the moon's orbital velocity, v = 2p .[250,000 miles]/[27 days] ~ 0.67 mile/second), hence a = 0.0096 ft/s/s.

So Newton had evidence that the gravity from the earth at moon's radius is approximately the same (0.008 ft/s/s ~ 0.0096 ft/s/s) as the centripetal force for the moon.

The naïve application of general relativity to a so-called ‘flat’ spacetime cosmology (one which is just balanced between eventual collapse and eternal expansion, so that the expansion rate is forever falling) gives rise to the Friedmann equation (ignoring the small effect of the pseudo dark energy and its pseudo cosmological constant Lambda): density, r = (3/8)H2/(8p G). In this model the retarding effect of gravity is to make the expanding radius of the matter universe proportional to the two thirds power of time: R ~ t2/3, with the current age of the universe t = (2/3)/H, where H is Hubble parameter given by H = v/R. This falsely assumes that gravity is actually slowing down the expansion of the universe, which is why the 2/3 fraction is there. However, experimental evidence shows that there is no gravitational retardation. So the correct age of the universe is t = 1/H, and the correct expansion rate is as R ~ t, not as R ~ t2/3.

The reason for the lack of observed gravitational retardation is ‘explained’ by the ad hoc value of the epicycle of dark energy (which powers the cosmological constant) in the quantum vacuum. However, the first observations of this came in 1998, and in 1996 Electronics World had published a paper with the non-ad hoc prediction that expansion powers gravitation and expansion is not retarded by gravitation. Therefore this successful prediction should be impressive, as is the fact that the actual value for the universal gravitational constant G and various other parameters can be obtained by this mechanism and its extensions to other forces. However, it was removed from the arXiv.org server within a few seconds, without being read.

I’ve explained there to Dr ’string-hype Haelfix’ that people should be working on non-rigorous areas like the derivation of the Hamiltonian in quantum mechanics, which would increase the rigour of theoretical physics, unlike string. I earlier explained this kind of thing (the need for checkable research not speculation about unobservables) in the October 2003 Electronics World issue opinion page, but was ignored, so clearly I need to move on to stronger language because stringers don’t listen to such polite arguments as those I prefer using! Feynman writes in QED, Penguin, London 1985:

‘When a photon comes down, it interacts with electrons throughout the glass, not just on the surface. The photon and electrons do some kind of dance, the net result of which is the same as if the photon hit only the surface.’

There is already a frequency of oscillation in the photon before it hits the glass, and in the glass due to the sea of electrons interacting via Yang-Mills force-causing radiation. If the frequencies clash, the photon can be reflected or absorbed. If they don’t interfere, the photon goes through the glass. Some of the resonate frequencies of the electrons in the glass are determined by the exact thickness of the glass, just like the resonate frequencies of a guitar string are determined by the exact length of the guitar string. Hence the precise thickness of the glass controls some of the vibrations of all the electrons in it, including the surface electrons on the edges of the glass. Hence, the precise thickness of the glass determines the amplitude there is for a photon of given frequency to be absorbed or reflected by the front surface of the glass. It is indirect in so much as the resonance is set up by the thickness of the glass long before the photon even arrives (other possible oscillations, corresponding to a non-integer value of the glass thickness as measured in terms of the number of wavelengths which fit into that thickness, are killed off by interference, just as a guitar string doesn’t resonate well at non-natural frequencies).

What has happened is obvious: the electrons have set up a equilibrium oscillatory state dependent upon the total thickness before the photon arrives. There is nothing to this: consider how a musical instrument works, or even just a simple tuning fork or solitary guitar string. The only resonate vibrations are those which contain an integer number of wavelengths. This is why metal bars of different lengths resonate at different frequencies when struck. Changing the length of the bar slightly, completely alters its resonance to a given wavelength! Similarly, the photon hitting the glass has a frequency itself. The electrons in the glass as a whole are all interacting (they’re spinning and orbiting with centripetal accelerations which cause radiation emission, so all are exchanging energy all the time which is the force mechanism in Yang-Mills theory for electromagnetism), so they have a range of resonances that is controlled by the number of integer wavelengths which can fit into the thickness of the glass, just as the range of resonances of a guitar string are determined by the wavelengths which fit into the string length resonately (ie, without suffering destructive interference).

Hence, the thickness of the glass pre-determines the amplitude for a photon of given frequency to be either absorbed or reflected. The electrons at the glass surface are already oscillating with a range of resonate frequencies depending on the glass thickness, before the photon even arrives. Thus, the photon is reflected (if not absorbed) only from the front face, but it’s probability of being reflected is dependent on the total thickness of the glass. Feynman also writes:

‘when the space through which a photon moves becomes too small (such as the tiny holes in the screen) … we discover that … there are interferences created by the two holes, and so on. The same situation exists with electrons: when seen on a large scale, they travel like particles, on definite paths. But on a small scale, such as inside an atom, the space is so small that … interference becomes very important.’

More about this here (in the comments; but notice that Jacques’ final comment on the thread of discussion about rigour in quantum mechanics is discussed by me here), here, and here. In particular, Maxwell’s equations assume that real electric current is dQ/dt which is a continuous equation being used to represent a discontinuous situation (particulate electrons passing by, Q is charge): it works approximately for large numbers of electrons, but breaks down for small numbers passing any point in a circuit in a second! It is a simple mathematical error, which needs correcting to bring Maxwell’s equations into line with modern quantum field theory. A more subtle error in Maxwell’s equations is his ‘displacement current’ which is really just a Yang-Mills force-causing exchange radiation as explained in the previous post and on my other blog here. This is what people should be working on to derive the Hamiltonian: the Hamiltonian in both Schroedinger’s and Dirac’s equations describes energy transfers as wavefunctions vary in time, which is exactly what the corrected Maxwell ‘displacement current’ effect is all about (take the electric field here to be a relative of the wavefunction). I’m not claiming that classical physics is right! It is wrong! It needs to be rebuilt and its limits of applicability need to be properly accepted:

Bohr simply wasn’t aware that Poincare chaos arises even in classical systems with 2+ bodies, so he foolishly sought to invent metaphysical thought structures (complementarity and correspondence principles) to isolate classical from quantum physics. This means that chaotic motions on atomic scales can result from electrons influencing one another, and from the randomly produced pairs of charges in the loops within 10^{-15} m from an electron (where the electric field exceeds about 10^20 v/m) causing deflections. The failure of determinism (ie closed orbits, etc) is present in classical, Newtonian physics. It can’t even deal with a collision of 3 billiard balls:

‘… the ‘inexorable laws of physics’ … were never really there … Newton could not predict the behaviour of three balls … In retrospect we can see that the determinism of pre-quantum physics kept itself from ideological bankruptcy only by keeping the three balls of the pawnbroker apart.’

– Dr Tim Poston and Dr Ian Stewart, ‘Rubber Sheet Physics’ (science article, not science fiction!) in Analog: Science Fiction/Science Fact, Vol. C1, No. 129, Davis Publications, New York, November 1981.

The Hamiltonian time evolution should be derived rigorously from the empirical facts of electromagnetism: Maxwell’s ‘displacement current’ describes energy flow (not real charge flow) due to a time-varying electric field. Clearly it is wrong because the vacuum doesn’t polarize below the IR cutoff which corresponds to 10^20 volts/metre, and you don’t need that electric field strength to make capacitors, radios, etc. work.

So you could derive the Schroedinger from a corrected Maxwell ‘displacement current’ equation. This is just an example of what I mean by deriving the Schroedinger equation. Alternatively, a computer Monte Carlo simulation of electrons in orbit around a nucleus, being deflected by pair production in the Dirac sea, would provide a check on the mechanism behind the Schroedinger equation, so there is a second way to make progress

http://quantumfieldtheory.org/proof.htm

[StefanR]

Again a large discussion.....

U(1) x SU(2) x SU(3) particle physics based on facts, giving quantum gravity predictions

Galaxy recession velocity: v = dR/dt = HR => Acceleration: a = dv/dt = d[HR]/dt = H*dR/dt = Hv = H*HR = RH2. 0 < a < 6*10-10 ms-2. Outward force: F = ma. Newton's 3rd law predicts equal inward reaction force (via gravitons), but since non-receding nearby masses don't cause reaction, there's an asymmetry, predicting gravity and particle physics. In 1996 it predicted the lack of deceleration at large redshifts.

http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/

[junglelord]

Here is a reply to a question I asked of Dave Thomson and APM vs my current knowledge.

To me Aether models solve these problems. Each of these is a Wave Model, yes? how is APM different?

Yes, the Aether explains the non-material and higher dimensional aspects of existence, which particle physics chooses to ignore. As for the wave model, the wave models are Quantum Mechanics, the Aether Physics Model (as I have presented it) is Quantum Structure. The APM says the Aether is structured as two spheres (hence the 16pi^2 geometrical constant) and in five dimensions. The Wave Models describe the behavior of subatomic particles in terms of spherical dynamics. Now tell me, how hard is it to connect the dots from spherical dynamics to spherical structure? If spherical mechanics work for describing subatomic mechanics, then why would people not be interested in a theory that describes the structures that produce these mechanics?

It is only a matter of time before the APM and Spherical Wave Models are united into a single theory. Perhaps you will be the one to do that?

[junglelord]

Well I might just have to pull out my Kimono and phoney "foo man choo beard" to answer that one Id say, start with verfiable , answerable, and non contradictory ones for a start.

I think these quotes from Wal are poignant.:

“As soon as a physicist talks of particle creation and formation of the universe you can tune out. That's not physics either. Certainly not in our present state of ignorance.”

“The real problem is that no one understands quantum physics. It's not even real physics because it defies the causal principle; an effect has a probability of occurring without any preceding cause. And the barrier to the idea of new matter (which is not the same as mass) coming from "nowhere" is that it defies another principle of physics - "no creation ex nihilo." So it's too bad training in the history and philosophy of science and critical thinking is not required for a science degree.”

StevenO
Do you or do you not understand QM?
Do you accept or invalidate this statement on QM.
I validate that QM is a poor statstical analysis of the wave function. Collective Electrodynamics is the modern QM
Yes or no?

[Plasmatic]

Heres another one for ya:

Light has no wave/particle duality. It is simply a wave in a medium - the medium of neutrinos and normal matter. “

“The question of the existence of an ether needs to be reexamined. A wave of any kind needs a medium to wave.”

[StevenO]

Well I might just have to pull out my Kimono and phoney "foo man choo beard" to answer that one Id say, start with verfiable , answerable, and non contradictory ones for a start.

I think these quotes from Wal are poignant.:

“As soon as a physicist talks of particle creation and formation of the universe you can tune out. That's not physics either. Certainly not in our present state of ignorance.”

“The real problem is that no one understands quantum physics. It's not even real physics because it defies the causal principle; an effect has a probability of occurring without any preceding cause. And the barrier to the idea of new matter (which is not the same as mass) coming from "nowhere" is that it defies another principle of physics - "no creation ex nihilo." So it's too bad training in the history and philosophy of science and critical thinking is not required for a science degree.”

StevenO
Do you or do you not understand QM?
Do you accept or invalidate this statement on QM.
I validate that QM is a poor statstical analysis of the wave function. Collective Electrodynamics is the modern QM
Yes or no?

Hi Dean,

I can't claim I understand QM, though I red quite a lot about it. For me it is what Mead describes:

To most nonspecialists, quantum mechanics is a baffling mixture of waves, statistics, and arbitraty rules, ossified in a matrix of impenetrable formalism.

I think this is exactly what Mead addresses in his CE book. He shows that all the QM effects, statistics and rules follow from the behaviour of the waves and that his method makes this behaviour accesible to intuition and common sense. It shows that QM is a manifestation of EM waves and the other way around. The requirement that the wave functions have to line up with themselves leads to quantum behaviour.

I would not accept all statements from Wal above. We know when particles are created or destructed (though not exactly how) and Mead shows that the causality principle does not apply to collective behaviour.

Steven

[Plasmatic]

We know when particles are created or destructed (though not exactly how) Mead shows that the causality principle does not apply to collective behaviour.

Which is why im here in the Electric Universe forum and not meads.[not that we cant discuss him]
Heres another quote from the founder repeated with permission:

“Phonons, as 'virtual particles' like photons, do not exist. They fall out of the metaphysics of quantum theory. Effects may be seen that can be interpreted theoretically that way, but remember quantum theory is not real physics. Quantum theory discards cause and effect so that it reads like science fiction. “

I dig it Wal, I do!

[StevenO]

Light has no wave/particle duality. It is simply a wave in a medium - the medium of neutrinos and normal matter. “

Light is for sure EM waves. The "photon" particle is an exact amount of energy exchanged between two electron wave functions in two atoms, transmitted through an EM wave.

“The question of the existence of an ether needs to be reexamined. A wave of any kind needs a medium to wave.”

To propagate a wave we need an elastic medium. If the elasticity is a lineair function waves in this medium would just wave through eachother and have no interaction (propagation of EM waves). To get the particles(standing waves) and the wave/particle interactions(forces/fields) we also need non-lineairity in the elasticity of the medium. Some authors (Gabriel Lafreniere, Carver Mead) suggest that an electron can be its own medium because of the Huygens principle on a spherical wave center, but at the moment I have trouble understanding this...

My own understanding would be more that particles are the actual edges of our universe, where the EM waves get reflected.

[junglelord]

Again StevenO your a true voice in the wilderness.
I am so thankful for your education, your experience, and your abililty to teach complex subjects as simple expressions.
I have to agree with you everytime you post, except when you replaced charge with wave in the charge thread.
That was the only time we saw things in a different light.
I am not sure if the reply from Thomson on "moving charge" and the wave/charge duality made an impression on you or not? I am still convinced about two primary charges.

I for one am totally involved in Collective Electrodynamics and like you read it once a day now. I too get something from it every day. Your a huge talent to the forum


I totally understand and love Mead and Feynman.

[junglelord]

Quantum Dot Physics.

Quantum Dots

In our current understanding of nanotechnology, quantum dots reign supreme as the most functional and reproducible nanostructures available to researchers. Quantum dots are very small by nature. They are the smallest objects that we can synthesize on the nanoscale. Like the name suggests, its structure is much like a small dot. Common shapes include pyramids, cylinders, lens shapes, and spheres. Different synthesis routes create different kinds of quantum dots.

The reason why quantum dots are so important is because they confine electrons in three dimensions. The total diameter of a quantum dot varies between 3-60 nm depending on its application. The reason 'quantum' prefixes the name is because the dots exhibit quantum confinement properties in all three dimensions. This means that electrons within a dot can't freely move around in any direction. The only thing that behaves like this in nature is the atom. Unlike an atom, a quantum dot is at least ten times bigger. This has a lot of important consequences for researchers. First of all, they exhibit quantized energy levels like an atom. For a given input energy, for instance, a quantum dot will only emit specific spectra of light. Quantum theory predicts that with decreasing diameters of quantum dots, there will be a corresponding increase in energy of emitted light.

This element of control over a quantum dot's emission properties has huge implications for both lasers and medical tags. Due to excellent confinement properties not seen in nanowires or quantum wells (in all modern lasers), quantum dots are extremely efficient at emitting light. They have been the source of some of the world's most powerful lasers produced to date, though the practicality of a quantum dot laser is still being improved. In medical studies, quantum dots are already in practice as tags that can be inserted into patients. These tags can be seen under most medical scanning technologies and can help pinpoint biological processes as they occur.

Quantum dots can be fabricated with either a top-down technique or bottom-up technique. Top down techniques are great for generating a uniform distribution of diameters. This is crucial if researchers wish to create large arrays of dots that will emit the same wavelength of light. Unfortunately, top down approaches like lithography are limited by the diffraction limit (that we previous discussed) and cannot create dense networks of quantum dots. Furthermore, a top down approach inherently implies material damage and many quantum dots produced with these techniques have defects that reduce their effectiveness.

The most common way to produce a quantum dot is through a bottom up approach. This can be done either with chemical vapor deposition or molecular beam epitaxy on a highly mismatched substrate. By layering a desired material that doesn't fit properly with the lattice of the substrate, high strain occurs at the interface and that layer will start nucleating into small quantum dots. Bottom up approaches are a proven way to create quantum dots in dense arrays that will self-assemble in an orderly manner. Unfortunately, the uniformity of their size distribution isn't as tight as with a top down approach mainly because it's impossible to control their formation as strictly.

http://www.ringsurf.com/online/2017-quantum_dots.html

[junglelord]

Gilles Brassard
Edge work: Using quantum mechanics to protect our privacy
Why? It will make electronic communications more secure.
Where? Université de Montréal
Initial response: “Very few people took it seriously.”

Privacy wonks should love Gilles Brassard. He is the guy who has delivered their seemingly impossible desire: an absolutely confidential way to send electronic messages. Unfortunately, it involves quantum mechanics, the twilight zone of physics. Brassard, a 52-year-old professor of computer science at the Université de Montréal, turned the wild idea of using the quantum world to send messages electronically into something real. Soon it may be essential.

Quantum cryptography ensures complete privacy because any attempt to observe the transmission will change the message. It is a basic principle of quantum mechanics: The act of observing affects the thing observed. “If I send you information in the form of quantum signals and someone tries to eavesdrop on that signal,” Brassard explains, “the act of eavesdropping will disturb the signal. It will also alert the recipient if the transmission has been compromised.”

As a child Brassard wanted to be a mathematician, but he became fascinated with programming when he took a computer science course at the Université de Montréal, which he entered at age 13. A decade later, in 1979, he became fascinated with how the strange properties of quantum mechanics could be harnessed to send confidential messages without an elaborate encoded key, as required by conventional cryptography. In 1983 he codeveloped BB84, the first practical quantum cryptography scheme, and he continued to refine it for years.

Today, along with physicists like Christopher A. Fuchs of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, he is also reexamining the foundations of quantum mechanics to see where information fits in. Brassard suspects that underlying the fundamental laws of the universe are information theory axioms rather than waves or particles. “I don’t have any formal training as a physicist,” he says, “but sometimes that’s good. It helps you see things differently.”

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/jun/30 ... of-science

[junglelord]

Number 866 #2, June 4, 2008 by Phil Schewe
Superconductivity in Super Hard Diamond

T A Study calculates that boron-doped diamond (BC5) should be superconducting on up to temperatures of 45 K, which, if borne out in experiments, would make this class of material with the highest with the highest transition temperature into a superconducting state mediated by the passing of phonons. (Calandra and Maui, Physical Review Letters, upcoming article)


http://www.aip.org/pnu/2008/split/866-2.html