QM reflection

There are two visual aids I recently came across that i.m.o. can help to visualize what is happening at the sub atomic level. The first is about spin, and how it might be possible that a particle needs a turn of 4 pi to get back in its original position.



It is known as Dirac's belt trick (among many other names).

The second feature that mimics QM at a macroscopic level are the effects seen with walkers. Walkers are tiny droplets bouncing on a vibrating fluid. The droplets in combination with waves on the fluid simulate nicely some QM features, including the interference seen in the double slit experiment. A popularized version of the experiments can be seen here:  



and


It appears that the Austrian Institute for Nonlinear Studies has taken up the challenge imposed by the findings of Yves Clouder and has come up with several computer simulations and calculations based on the walkers or 'bouncers' (3):

"On this basis, it has been explicitly shown how the following quantum mechanical features can be derived from purely classical physics: Planck‘s relation E = hw for the energy of a particle, the Schrödinger equation for conservative and non-conservative systems, the Heisenberg uncertainty relations, the quantum mechanical superposition principle, Born‘s rule, and the quantum mechanical ―decay of a Gaussian wave packet‖. Moreover, also the energy spectrum of a quantum mechanical harmonic oscillator has been derived classically, as well as that of a particle in a box."

 I would like to finish with two statements I consider more or less true. I would like to hear your opinion on these:

"Apart from Theology Quantum Mechanics is the only branch in science in which there are observed phenomena postulated to be inexplicable" (wave-particle duality, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, wave function, entanglement, quantum randomness)

"Furthermore it's framework contains several ill- or circular defined objects (measurement, superposition, decoherence) and postulates that cannot even theoretically be disproved" (particle position nonexistent before measurement)

1. Single-Particle Diffraction and Interference at a Macroscopic Scale 2006, Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort, https://hekla.ipgp.fr/IMG/pdf/Couder-Fort_PRL_2006.pdf
2. A macroscopic-scale wave-particle duality, Toronto 2011, http://www.physics.utoronto.ca/~colloq/Talk2011_Couder/Couder.pdf
3. Sub-Quantum Thermodynamics as a Basis of Emergent Quantum Mechanics, Gerhard Grössing, Entropy 2010, 12, 1975-2044, http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/12/9/1975
4. Emergence of Quantum Mechanics from a Sub-Quantum Statistical Mechanics Gerhard Groessing, 2013,  http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.3719.pdf

 

Weihs disproved?

Donald Graft kindly notified me of his most recent article on EPR (1), in which he describes a computer simulation that models the results of the famous Weihs (2) experiment. The model is local realistic, and neatly mimics the results obtained in the real experiment, while making use of reasonable assumptions on detector calibration etc.

As soon as the source of the simulation has been made publicly available I will add a link in this post.

1. A local realist account of the Weihs et al EPRB experiment, Donald A. Graft, http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1670
2. Violation of Bell’s inequality under strict Einstein locality conditions
   Gregor Weihs, Thomas Jennewein, Christoph Simon, Harald Weinfurter, and Anton Zeilinger, http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/9810/9810080v1.pdf

Relativity and QM approaching

For a FQXi contest Klingman has written a very interesting essay on the nature of the wave function (1). His argument is that, just as the earth has been proved to bend and drag the fabric of space time by its mass, the electron having the highest mass density known kan also produce this 'C-field' (I'm not sure whether this is the bending or the dragging or both).



trajectories for the double split experiment

This C-field can be held responsible for de Broglie-Bohm-like trajectories which guide the particle resulting in the typical QM observations, like in the double split experiment.

Furthermore the self-interference behaviour of electrons in atoms can be better explained

1. Nature of the wave function, Edwin Eugene Klingman, http://www.fqxi.org/data/essay-contest-files/Klingman_FQXi_essay_1.pdf

Battle of the Giants

Last week Richard D.Gill has written an article (1) in an attempt to refute Joy Christian's work. Richard Gill is a mathematician and known for his discussions in the Hess-Philipp debate (7), and has written quite a few papers on quantum mechanics (5).


He focusses on the one page explanation from Joy Christian at Arxiv (2). The main argument seems to be whether a term in Joy's correlation formula is vanishing or not.

Only a week after Richard's article, Joy replied with an extensive response (3).

It cannot be a surprise to the frequent reader of this blog that I would like Joy Christian to be right on this. But knowing that I am a relative nitwit on geometrical algebra (GA) I am not in the position to judge the arguments. So I will try to remain objective.

So far the debate doesn't seem to have a winner. The pro-Christians have expressed their doubt about Richard understanding the mathematical GA rules used by Joy, and I must say he hasn't convinced me yet of the opposite in his replies.

Discussions can be followed on the FQXi archives (4, it's about time that FQXi chooses another interface for these: they are way too sluggish) and physicsforums (6).

ps. the arguments might be summarised by the formula's below, as extracted from some of the post at the FQXi blog (8). I think I do understand (this part of) Joy's math, but I don't know why one should want to 'multiply by lambda square=1' to get Richards formula.

Joy argues that since lambda is a fair coin, the last term in his formula will vanish when having a large number of repetitions. Richard has Beta(lambda) in the last term. This being equal to lambda Beta (see (2)) will result in lambda square, so the last term will not vanish.

1. Simple refutation of Joy Christian's simple refutation of Bell's simple theorem, Richard D. Gill, http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.1504
2. Disproof of Bell's Theorem, Joy Christian,  http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1879
3. Refutation of Richard Gill's Argument Against my Disproof of Bell's Theorem, Joy Christian, http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2529
4. FQXi community: discussions: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/995, http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/983
5. Richard Gill on Arxiv: http://arxiv.org/find/quant-ph/1/au:+Gill_R/0/1/0/all/0/1
6. http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=584996
7. Comment on "Exclusion of time in the theorem of Bell" by K. Hess and W. Philipp, Richard D. Gill, http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0204169.pdf
8. http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/995#post_50816

First high detection simulation available

In a search to implement a model from Robert Close (1) Chantal Roth found a model that reaches about 73% detection while having a CHSH of 2.8. From the literature it was clear that these model existed (2), but so far I had not been able to find code for this.

The hidden variable is a common angle theta, and the measurement formula (to calculate the spin for a particle)  is:

public int measure(double filter_angle, Particle particle) {
   double theta = particle.getTheta();
   int spin = (int) Math.signum(Math.sin(theta+ filter_angle));
   double pdetect = 2.3*Math.abs(Math.sin(theta + filter_angle));
   if (Math.random()<=pdetect) return spin;
   else return Integer.MIN_VALUE;
}

When Integer.MIN_VALUE is returned the particle pair is not counted.

Chantal has made the (Java) simulation available from Sourceforge.

1. Robert Close, http://www.classicalmatter.org/Bell/SpinCorrelation.pdf and http://www.classicalmatter.com/Bell/SpinCorrSim.pdf. Att.: the model discussed above is different from that of Robert Close.
2. Part of LH models non-issue for scientific community, http://challengingbell.blogspot.com/2011/04/part-of-lh-models-non-issue-for.html

Another brick in the wall...

I came across some recent papers addressing alternatives to the classic quantum interpretation (Copenhagen view and related). Randall O'Reilly (1) argues that the formulas used in QM should be considered to be calculation tools, not describing the actual physical process, just as Newton was superseded by Einstein in describing gravity. Many paradoxes in QM can disappear when seeing matter as composed from just waves.

A somewhat similar line seems to have been followed by Robert Close (2), although I should admit I haven't read it yet. It's a 163 pages book that can be temporarily downloaded.

The last I like to mention is the work of Edwin Klingman (3), who summarizes some recent theoretical and experimental results that seems to invalidate the classical view of quantum processes

1. Surely You Must All be Joking: An Outsider's Critique of Quantum Physics, Randall C. O'Reilly, http://arxiv.org/abs/1109.0880
2. The Classical Wave Theory of Matter, Dr. Robert A. Close,  http://www.verumversa.com/
3. A Physics-based Disproof of Bell’s Theorem, Edwin Eugene Klingman, http://www.geneman.com/pubs/physics_bell/A_Physics_based_Disproof_of_Bells_Theorem.pdf

Discussion on Joy Christian's work

There is an interesting discussion going on at the fqxi community site between Joy Christian and Florin Moldoveanu (and others)
http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/983 (and http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/975) concerning Joy's description of the EPR statics using geometric algebra.

One should follow the blogs comments to really follow the arguments. It is one of the first discussions I have encountered on the web on Joy's work that is quite sophisticated and not dominated by preoccupied opinions*.

In some of the comments also the use of simulation models are discussed, and partial EPR-Bell model code (in javascript) is shared http://www.unitaryflow.com/2011/08/hidden-variables-correlations.html.



* only yesterday I wrote this, but it seems today (sept, 6) the tone is changing. Pity