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Audretsch, J. (2004). Entangled World: The fascination of quantum information and computation. Verlag: Wiley.

Baggot, J. (2013). Farewell to Reality: How fairytale physics betrays the search for scientific truth. London: Constable.

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Barrow, J. D. (2007). New theories of everything. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Bolles, E. B. (1999). Galileo’s Commandment: 2,500 years of great science writing. New York: W. H. Freeman.

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Davies, P., & Brown, J. R. (1999). The Ghost in the Atom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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The following questions are addressed in this chapter. They are better discussed in a group to allow a variety of opinions to emerge. The relevant section link is given after each question:

1. Why is light a mystery? (QR3.1.1)

2. Is light made of waves, particles, or both? (QR3.1.2)

3. In Young’s experiment, does a photon go through both slits or just one? Give reasons. (QR3.1.3)

4. What is the problem with Bohr’s Copenhagen dualism? (QR3.1.4)

5. Why is quantum mechanics a Pinocchio theory? (QR3.1.5)

6. How do we know that light is a wave? (QR3.2.1)

7. How might physics change if we are three-dimensional Flatlanders? (QR3.2.2)

8. Is a photon a perpetual-motion machine? (QR3.2.3) 

9. Why is the speed of light really the speed of space? (QR3.2.4)

10. What do X-rays, visible light, and radio waves have in common? (QR3.3.1)

11. Why does energy come in Planck units? Why does light come in photon units? (QR3.3.2)

12. Why does Planck’s constant also define the size of our space? (QR3.3.3)

13. If a quantum wave is a processing wave, how does it spread? (QR3.4.2)

14. Why is it wrong to say that a photon “has” a quantum wave? (QR3.4.3)

15. Will hidden variables ever explain why photons hit a screen at random points? (QR3.5.1)

18. Is a photon a wave, a particle, or both? If both, how can that be? (QR3.5.2)

19.How can a quantum wave collapse instantly to a point, regardless of its spatial extent? (QR3.5.2)

20. Why does a photon wave always deliver all its energy instantly at a point? (QR3.5.2)

21. How can a photon go through both Young’s slits but still hit the screen at a point? (QR3.5.3)

22. Why does a photon’s probability of existence depend on its quantum wave power at that point? (QR3.5.3)

23. What causes quantum randomness? (QR3.5.3)

24. Why can’t physics explain how light always finds the shortest path? (QR3.6.2)

25. How does a photon always find the shortest path to any destination? (QR3.6.3)

26. Why is a photon’s spin on any axis always the same? (QR3.7.1)

27. Why does a filter that blocks horizontally polarized light not block vertically polarized light? (QR3.7.2)

28. How can a photon of polarized light pass entirely though a filter nearly that blocks most of it? (QR3.7.3)

29. How can physically incompatible quantum states occur at the same time, i.e. superpose? (QR3.8.1)

30. Can Schrödinger’s cat be both alive and dead? Explain. (QR3.8.2)

31. According to quantum theory, observation creates physical reality, so is life just a dream? (QR3.8.2)

32. Does the delayed choice two-slit experiment prove that time can flow backwards? (QR3.8.3)

33. How can a photon choose the physical path it took to reach a detector after it arrives? (QR3.8.3)

34. How can a photon of light detect an object on a path it didn’t travel? Is this physically possible? (QR3.8.4)

35. How do entangled photons instantly affect each other faster than the speed of light? (QR3.8.5)

36. Is the physical world distinguishable from a hologram? Why does quantum realism require it to be so? (QR3.8.6)

37. If there no evidence for the multiverse, why do so many physicists accept it? (QR3.9.1)

38. What is the long-sought boundary between the quantum world and the physical world? (QR3.9.2)

39. What is the quantum paradox? How has physics handled it? (QR3.9.3)

40. How does quantum realism resolve the quantum paradox? (QR3.9.4)

41. If quantum entities exist mostly in an unmeasured state, what makes this state “unreal”? (QR3.9.5)

42. Does quantum theory describe unreality or reality? Give reasons. (QR3.9.6)

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We see ourselves in the sunlight of science, standing before a dark cave of quantum paradox, but it may be the other way around. In Plato’s allegory, we are sitting in the cave of materialism with our backs to the sunlight, calling the shadows it casts on the wall of space real. If quantum theory is true, then so was Plato, that our reality is but a shadow of what causes it. And the chains that bind aren’t of culture but evolution, so humanity has been entranced by this shadow-show for millions of years. 

But if so, can’t we turn from the shadows to see their source? A hundred years of physics says no. Einstein tried, but the quantum brilliance baffled him, so he concluded that nothing was there. Bohr tried too, but in his impenetrable Copenhagen suit, saw only more shadows, so he concluded that it was an illusion. We are built to see shadows it seems, not light.

Given the situation, physicists quarantined the quantum light behind a wall of equations only they could read. This let them use it without looking at it, so the first rule of their quantum club became that it was about nothing at all. The acolytes who followed, to harvest the benefits of quantum reality, had to first deny that it exists, but saying that its own best theory was about nothing led physics nowhere.

Quantum theory makes no more sense now than it did a hundred years ago, and the next century will be the same if we follow the same path, so it’s time to talk about quantum reality. The physicist Wheeler, who understood quantum theory more than most, called it a great smoky dragon (Wheeler, 1983) that is both powerful and mythical but if quantum theory is true, this dragon is real and the world we see is its smoke (Figure 3.27). At best, most see quantum reality as a shadow world that might exist beneath physical reality but in quantum realism, it is the real world whose shadow is the physical world we see.

Table 3.3 compares quantum realism and physical realism for light, but if our universe began as light, how did matter begin? The next chapter addresses this and questions the wall that separates waves from particles.

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Humanity couldn’t handle the truth of quantum theory a hundred years ago but can it today? The first barrier is the naive belief that what we see is real because we see it so, hence:

“Observers have to be made of matter…Our description of nature is thus severely biased: we describe it from the standpoint of matter.” (Schiller, 2009), p834.

We see matter all around us, and so assume the observer is also matter, but matter has no ability to experience a physical event, and quantum theory doesn’t say it does. It says that quantum waves interact, not matter, to cause physical events, so our materialism bias, that matter is everything, is just being applied to the observer. This same bias also produces other dogmas, such as:

“… the dogma that the concept of reality must be confined to objects in space and time…” (Zeh, 2004), p18.

Yet as shown in Chapter 2, the evidence suggests that space and time are generated constructs. We describe things in matter terms because that is what we see, but the dogma that only matter is real is the sort of assumption that science advances by querying, not sanctifying. Quantum theory implies another reality, of which Bohr said we must not speak, but since when was science about not asking questions? The second barrier is to deny that quantum states exist, so:

“Little has been said about the character of the unmeasured state. Since most of reality most of the time dwells in this unmeasured condition …the lack of such a description leaves the majority of the universe … shrouded in mystery.” (Herbert, 1985), p194.

If quantum states are real and only occasionally produce physical states, our universe exists mostly in the unmeasured state. Quantum waves spread until they interact in a physical event, then start to spread again, so by what logic is their instant collapse real? Surely reality is what is there most of the time? We see physical events but in quantum theory, they are far apart between a constant press of quantum events. It follows that quantum reality always exists but the physical reality we see doesn’t.

Equally if quantum waves cause physical reality, saying the unreal causes the real is reverse logic. If one thing causes another, surely reality is the cause not the effect? Why then is that something unseen causes what we see so hard to accept? It isn’t logic, as the logic of quantum theory is undeniable. Nor is it the physical evidence, as it again always supports quantum theory. The current denial of quantum reality is doctrinal not logical, based on faith not facts.

The reason seems to be that evolution has primed us to see what increases fitness, not truth:

“You may want the truth, but you don’t need the truth. Perceiving truth would drive our species extinct. You need simple icons that show you how to act to stay alive. Perception is not a window on objective reality. It is an interface that hides objective reality behind a veil of helpful icons.” (Hoffman, 2020).

We see what helps us survive not what is true, so the very evolution that grew us now opposes science, but wasn’t it always so? For thousands of years, we didn’t know that unseen bacteria cause disease, but now we do, thanks to science. When atoms were first proposed, Mach denied they existed because they were unseen, but today, we accept not only them but also invisible protons and neutrons, even quarks that can’t exist alone.

But when quantum theory says that reality is just possibilities, we say “Enough!” and turn away. That the answer to life, the universe, and everything is just a number is, it seems, a step too far. After two millennia of scientific struggle, the knowledge that we don’t see reality is still too much to bear. But if science is to progress, it must at some point face what Wheeler called the great smoky dragon.

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The key study that exposed the foundations of physics is Bell’s experiment. It tested the following axioms of current physics (D’Espagnat, 1979):

1. Reality. That “there is some physical reality whose existence is independent of human observers.” (D’Espagnat, 1979), p158.

2. Locality. That no influence of any kind can travel faster than the speed of light.

3. Induction. That logical induction is a valid mode of reasoning.

The result showed that one or more of these assumptions must be wrong. If physical reality and induction are true, then locality must be wrong. If locality and induction are true, there isn’t a real physical world out there. If physical reality and locality are true, then logical induction must be false. To this day, physics has not resolved this issue:

“According to quantum theory, quantum correlations violating Bell’s inequalities merely happen, somehow from outside space-time, in the sense that there is no story in space-time that can describe their occurrence:” (Salart et al., 2008), p1.

If Bell’s experiment breaks the axioms of physics, its time for new ones. Let us therefore change the first two axioms to a quantum ground to exist, as follows:

1. Reality axiom: Remove the word “physical” so it becomes:

That there is a reality whose existence is independent of human observers

This then allows quantum reality to exist independent of human observers.

2. Locality axiom: Limit it to physical transfers so it becomes:

That no physical transfers of any kind can propagate faster than the speed of light.

This then allows changes that aren’t physical transfers to occur faster than light.

As a result, reality and locality axioms still apply but the first refers to quantum reality, and the second is limited to physical transfers. For example, consider the following statement:

“If one adopts a realistic view of science, then one holds that there is a true and unique structure to the physical universe which scientists discover rather than invent.” (Barrow, 2007), p124.

This is the old axiom that only the physical universe is real, which Bell’s experiment proves might be false. To replace this with the new axiom, one need only remove the word “physical”:

“If one adopts a realistic view of science, then one holds that there is a true and unique structure to the universe which scientists discover rather than invent.”

This simple change lets reality still exist but now Bell’s results don’t contradict it, so science remains intact. There is still a true and unique structure to the universe that scientists discover rather than invent, but it isn’t the world we see. Science can still study a real universe if physical laws follow from the laws of quantum theory, as the evidence suggests they do. This new axiom doesn’t destroy science, it preserves it, based on quantum mechanics and the facts of physics.

The second new axiom does the same. If locality applies only to physical transfers, then Bell’s results no longer contradict it, as quantum collapse is a server-client change not a physical transfer. Einstein’s law, that no effect is faster than light, apples to physical effects but not to quantum ones.

This then is quantum realism, that quantum reality exists, just as quantum theory describes it. The paradoxes that bedevil physics now disappear, as they should, so our world is caused by reality, not unreality. There is no particle-wave duality, just quantum waves. These waves take every path then pick one on arrival, so delayed choice experiments don’t reverse time. A physical event is a primal choice, not an inevitable mechanic, so randomness is real. Some see this as giving up on physics, but the current stagnation is no better. Materialism is the mother of modern physics, but every child leaves home one day, so it’s only a matter of time before it explores the unmeasured reality.

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The measurement problem in physics is that quantum waves evolve predictably by Schrödinger’s equation, to allow many possibilities, but the measured result is always one physical state. This problem was raised early last century, and no progress has been made on the matter since:

“The history of the quantum measurement paradox is fascinating. There is still no general agreement on the matter even after eighty years of heated debate.” (Laughlin, 2005), p49.

Essentially, we understand quantum waves very well, but can’t explain why observing them always produces a single physical event. Given the science is good, then:

“… why not simply accept the reality of the wave function? (Zeh, 2004), p8.

This hasn’t happened so far because quantum theory:

“… paints a picture of the world that is less objectively real than we usually believe it to be.” (Walker, 2000), p72.

In other words, quantum theory contradicts the current culture of physics, and if one accepts the wave part of quantum theory is real, one must accept that all of it is.

“… if we are to take y [the quantum field] as providing a picture of reality, then we must take these jumps as physically real occurrences too…” (Penrose, 1994), p331.

Schrödinger tried to explain quantum theory in physical terms but failed, as did all who tried later, because it describes waves that superpose in physically impossible ways, entangle to ignore the speed of light, and disappear instantly when observed. A quantum wave that is spread across a galaxy can instantly collapse to a point, but:

“How can something real disappear instantaneously?” (Barbour, 1999), p200.

When Pauli and Born defined the quantum field strength as the probability of physical existence, physics inevitably became about something that wasn’t physically real:

“For the first time in physics, we have an equation that allows us to describe the behavior of objects in the universe with astounding accuracy, but for which one of the mathematical objects of the theory, the quantum field y, apparently does not correspond to any known physical quantity.” (Oerter, 2006), p89.

If we say the quantum field doesn’t exist because it isn’t physical, why does quantum theory predict so well? The result is the paradox that the unreal causes the real, for as one physicist says:

“Can something that affects real events … itself be unreal?” (Zeh, 2004), p4.

Physics uses quantum states to predict physical states, but as Penrose says:

“How, indeed, can real objects be constituted from unreal components?” (Penrose, 1994), p313.

For over a century, physics has faced this paradox like a deer in headlights, attracted by the success of quantum theory but afraid to abandon its orthodox stance of materialism. No-one has resolved this issue in the past hundred years, so will the next hundred years be the same? 

Paradoxes vanish when false assumptions are exposed. For example, Figure 3.26 seems to have two square and three round prongs based on where you look. Look at the top to see two square prongs, but look at the bottom to clearly see three round ones! Both seem to be true but how can one object have two and three prongs? The answer isn’t some sort of square-round duality but to see that one line can’t bound a square and a round prong at the same time.

Likewise, a physics where the unreal causes the real builds illogic into its foundations. Accepting paradoxes like this and wave-particle duality, by institutionalizing illogic, isn’t science. The paradoxes of physics suggest that materialism is the false assumption, so we now consider the alternative that quantum reality generates physical events, based on quantum theory and the facts of physics.

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Modern physics agrees that quantum waves aren’t observable:

“The full quantum wave function of an electron itself is not directly observable…” (Lederman & Hill, 2004), p240.

Nature’s firewall separates us from quantum reality, as any attempt to observe it gives a physical event, so quantum theory describes what can’t be observed. Is it then really scientific? The doctrine that only “…what impinges on us directly is real” (Mermin, 2009), p9, suggests that it isn’t, because:

1. Science is about reality, not imaginary things like fairies.

2. Reality is only what we can physically observe.

3. Thus a theory describing what we can’t observe is about imaginary things, so it isn’t scientific.

By this logic, quantum theory isn’t scientific because it describes what can’t be observed, so why is it the most successful theory in the history of physics? The flaw in the argument is the second statement, that reality is only what we see, which is materialism. If materialism is true, quantum theory isn’t scientific, but materialism isn’t, and never has been, a requirement of science.

For example, the theory of gravity is scientific, but we don’t have to observe gravity, just its effects. Science is actually based on Locke and Hume’s empiricism, that scientific theories must be physically testable. Scientific theories have never needed to describe physical events, just predict them, so quantum theory is scientific because it does that, regardless of what it describes.

The belief that science must describe physical things is called logical positivism, a philosophical movement that began in the 1920s, before quantum theory developed. It is the naive realism that only what we observe exists, so science should reference nothing else. As well as dismissing most of mathematics, it requires sciences like music, fashion, painting, psychology, and linguistics to be about physical events like notes, clothes, brush strokes, behavior, and words, respectively.

Yet positivism has failed every discipline that tried it. Behaviorism tried to reduce all psychology to behavior until Chomsky proved it failed for language, and applying positivism to computing ignores the human and social aspects of socio-technical systems like Twitter. Physics is now the last bastion of logical positivism but even there, it is failing, because physical events can’t, for example, explain what light does, as we have seen. Essentially, logical positivism is materialism masquerading as an axiom of science when it isn’t, so quantum theory is just as scientific as any other theory.

According to logical positivism, physical reality exists whether its observed or not, so removing the observer redues bias. According to quantum theory, physical events are triggered by observation, so the observer is inherent to our reality. If quantum theory is true, we live in a participative universe based on observer-observed interactions, so to ignore the observer is to ignore half of reality. Attempts to ban the observer from science then fail because even in physics, quantum theory needs an observer to trigger quantum collapse and relativity needs an observer frame of reference.

If we accept that quantum theory is scientific, then science doesn’t have to describe physical things. After all, we can’t see a ray of light from the side, only head-on, but that doesn’t make it not exist, so quantum waves could exist even though we can’t see them. Quantum science says that physical events arise when an observer interrogates quantum reality, just as a click creates a view in a game, so the long-sought boundary between the classical and quantum worlds is the click of observation. However this conclusion then produces what physics calls the measurement problem.

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According to quantum theory, when a radioactive atom emits a photon is random, so no physical history can explain it, and the evidence agrees. And it adds every physical event is the same, so when and where it occurs can’t be predicted absolutely. Quantum waves define the possibilities, but which one actually happens isn’t decided by its physical past.

Clearly this contradicts Newton’s view of the universe as a great machine driven by physical laws where each event causes the next. Randomness was seen to undermine physics, so in 1957 Everett proposed the many-worlds interpretation, that every quantum possibility actually occurs in another physical universe. It follows that if any photon in the universe is measured say spin up, another universe spawns in which it is spin down, so there is no randomness. The choices of quantum theory then aren’t really choices, as every event that quantum theory says could happen actually does happen physically, somewhere in what is now called the multiverse.

Everett’s idea was initially seen as absurd, as indeed it is, but physicists now prefer it 3:1 over the Copenhagen view (Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001, p6) because it avoids quantum randomness. They would rather let every photon event generate a new universe than tolerate a non-physical cause. Since our universe is estimated to have produced 4×1084 photons in its lifetime, it isn’t hard to see that the:

“… universe of universes would be piling up at rates that transcend all concepts of infinitude.” (Walker, 2000), p107.

For a scientist, this doesn’t just offend Occam’s razor, it outrages it. Do you believe that in the time it took to read this sentence, a billion, billion universes arose from the light that hit your eyes? Current physics does because it avoids randomness, but why? The goal isn’t to advance a new theory based on evidence but to sustain an old one despite it. To be clear, no facts at all support the multiverse, so it only exists to sustain the materialistic view that physical events cause everything.

Many-worlds theory tries to replace the clockwork universe quantum theory demolished a century ago with a clockwork multiverse, but it is a backward step. Attempts to rescue this zombie theory (Note 1) by letting a finite number of universes repartition after each choice (Deutsch, 1997) just recover the original problem, as what chooses which worlds are dropped? But why would nature, like a doting parent with a quantum camera, want to store everything that might happen? The multiverse sustains the belief that everything is physical, so it is really just a fairy tale for physicists (Baggot, 2013).

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Note 1. Zombie theories make no new predictions and can’t be falsified. Like zombies, they have no progeny nor can they be killed by falsification, as they are already scientifically “dead”.

If light regularly behaves in physically impossible ways, why is materialism still accepted? Science seems new, but it began thousands of years with Aristotle’s conclusion that reality consists of:

“… a multitude of single things (substances), each of them characterized by intrinsic properties …” (Audretsch, 2004, p274).

This view checks our boxes, as it is simple, intuitive, and fruitful. It is simple because particles of the matter we touch cause everything. It is intuitive because even a ray of light strikes a screen at a particular point. And it was fruitful because science grew by studying matter rather than scriptures.

But one box it didn’t check is validity as in Young’s experiment, one photon goes through two slits to interfere with itself, which a particle can’t. Time and again, light does what it shouldn’t, like detect an object without touching it, or find the best path to any destination. Light seems to ignore the predictions of materialism.

Then along came quantum theory, with all the answers based on quantum waves not particles. It was perfect, but its waves weren’t physical, so it contradicted materialism. It said that photon waves spread down every path, then collapse to a point when observed in a way that physical causes can’t predict. Essentially, quantum theory was a nightmare for a science based on materialism.

This section reviews how physics responded, by trying to deny randomness and redefine science, and then suggests an alternative approach, given that materialism isn’t working.

3.9.1. A Fairy Tale for Physicists

3.9.2. Is Quantum Theory Science?

3.9.3. The Measurement Problem

3.9.4. Quantum Realism

3.9.5. The Unmeasured Reality

3.9.6. The Smoky Dragon

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