All waves vibrate a medium so a light wave needs a medium. Something must move to make light waves but with no physical ether, current physics simply declares that:
“… we accept as nonexistent the medium that moves when waves of quantum mechanics propagate.” (Laughlin, 2005) p56.
In current electromagnetic field theory, electric changes cause magnetic changes that cause electric changes and so on, in a circular fashion. So light is said to be a:
“… self-renewing field disturbance.” (Wilczek, 2008) p212.
This circularity begs the question of what renews the fields that renew? That an electric field powers a magnetic field that powers the electric field is like Peter paying Paul’s bill and Paul paying Peter’s bill. With such logic, I could borrow a million dollars today and never pay it back. According to current physics, light is a cosmic Ponzi scheme!
Physical waves that move matter up and down as shown in Figure 3.10, inevitably involve friction so by the second law of thermodynamics they eventually fade, with no exceptions. Yet ancient light that has traveled the universe for billions of years to reach us still arrives at the same speed. Light as a frictionless wave of nothing is physically impossible so it can’t be based on any physical movement. A century of physics still hasn’t answered the question:
How can vibrating nothing (space) create something (light)?
Quantum realism answers that space is no more empty than an “idle” computer is idle, so the:
“… vacuum state is actually full of energy…” (Davies & Brown, 1999) p140.
Space is active because the quantum network never stops so it is always “on” to power light. Electricity and magnetism correlate not because they mutually cause each other but because quantum events create both. Physical realism can’t say what powers light but in quantum realism, the quantum network maintains light as a wave.
Feynman called quantum theory’s quantum field a vector potential. Born called it a probability amplitude, Hiley called the quantum potential (Davies & Brown, 1999) p138, and others today call it the quantum function (ᴪ), but none can explain how a mythical field predicts physical reality. Quantum realism calls it the quantum field and contends that it predicts physical events because it generates them.