Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is that one can’t know both the exact position and momentum of a quantum entity at the same time. These facts are called complementary, separately knowable but together unknowable. This isn’t expected of a particle but quantum theory insists that measuring either property fully denies all knowledge of the other entirely.
To understand this, first recognize that every measurement is an information transfer:
“… a measuring instrument is nothing else but a special system whose state contains information about the “object of measurement” after interacting with it:” (Audretsch, 2004), p212.
Figure 3.25. Waves interacting
Now if every measurement is physical event triggered when quantum waves interact to overload a point, a measurement is one wave gaining information from another. Figure 3.25 then shows a simple case of two waves interacting over two points of space, where their combined strength overloads a point:
a. If they arein phase, one of the points must overload to give a position exactly, but no length information is provided.
b. If they are out of phase, both points overload to give a length exactly, but no position information is provided.
In the second case, the length given is the measuring wave wavelength. It follows that a known wave interacting with an unknown one can reveal position or length but not both, with no repeats. If the result gives a position, there is no length data and if it gives a length, there is no position data. In both cases, the observed wave has given all the information it can to the interaction, so one wave observing another can give position or length data, but not both. Since length is needed to define momentum, this is equivalent to the uncertainty principle.
The quantum uncertainty principle follows from the nature of wave interactions based on De Broglie’s equation (Note 1). In this model, the information transferred in any interaction can’t be less than a quantum process, so position plus momentum can’t be less than Planck’s constant (Note 2). The uncertainty principle then implies that every observation is an interaction of waves that have a fundamental unit.
Our eyes see depth because light from different distances arrives slightly out of phase. Photos only store light intensity, so they don’t show depth, but holograms can show depth by storing the phase differences that encode it. A hologram is made by splitting laser light and letting the half that shines on the object interfere with the other half, to give a pattern (Figure 3.24). Light later shone on that pattern recreates the original object as a hologram.
The holographic principle is that we observe our universe like a hologram, or more precisely:
“Everything physically knowable about a volume of space can be encoded on a surface surrounding it” (Bekenstein, 2003).
This principle, widely accepted in physics, is that everything we observe about our world can be encoded on a flat surface, just like a hologram. The information in a space seems to depend on its volume, but if more and more memory chips are packed into a space, to increase its information, the end result is a black hole whose entropy depends on its surface area, not its volume.
Entropy, in physics, measures system disorder and directly relates to information. Black holes have more entropy than anything else, for a given volume, so the information of any physical object depends on its two-dimensional surface, not its volume. It follows that the holographic principle is maintained by the behavior of black holes (Bekenstein, 2003).
It is therefore interesting that if our world is a virtual reality, the same result applies. Every virtual event has to be observed from some direction, so the act of observing uses up one of the dimensions of space, which leaves only two dimensions to transfer the information of the observation. It follows that the information transferred to a point in a three-dimensional virtual world can always be painted on the surface of a sphere around it, because that is the way it is delivered. That our physical world is a virtual reality then requires the holographic principle, and conversely, that the holographic principle applies to our world supports the idea that it is virtual.
Does this result make our universe two-dimensional? The holographic principle just states that our world presents in two dimensions, not that it operates as such, so space still has three degrees of freedom. In our world, every observation comes from some direction, leaving only two dimensions to deliver theinformation across. The holographic principle implies that our world is virtual, not that it is two dimensional. It describes how physical events are observed, not how our space works.
Equally to imagine that our world is like a hologram is misleading. This is no Star Trek hologram that we can enter and leave at will, because our bodies are its images. If we left this hologram, or if it ever switched off, our bodies would disappear, along with everything else physical. The only way then to recover it would be to start it again from scratch, which last happened over fourteen billion years ago.
Quantum entanglement is a mystery of quantum theory because it has no physical equivalent. It is described as two quantum entities being one system, so what alters the state of one entity instantly affects the other, at any distance.
For example, a Cesium atom can emit two photons in opposite directions with a net zero spin, which quantum theory says are entangled, so they evolve as one system with no spin. Yet either photon still randomly spins up or down, so if one is measured spin up, the other must be spin down, and so it is always found to be. But if the spin result is random, how does the other photon instantly know to be the opposite, even when it is light years away?
Einstein called this spooky action at a distance, because it implied a faster-than-light effect, so he suggested an experiment to disprove it (Einstein, Podolsky, & Rosen, 1935). When the test was finally made, called Bell’s inequality, it proved that entanglement occurs, even for photons too far apart to communicate at the speed of light (Aspect, Grangier, & Roger, 1982). This was one of the most careful experiments ever done, as befits the ultimate test of quantum theory, and it found that entanglement occurs, even when there is no physical way it could happen!
How can an event at one location affect another at any distance? For particle physics, the problem is that it can’t, but the evidence is that it does. Two photon particles heading in opposite directions are separate, so if they spin randomly, as they do, why can’t both spin up, or both spin down? Quantum theory just says the initial spin is conserved, but gives no clue as to how. Nature could conserve spin by making one photon spin up and the other down from the start, but apparently this is too much trouble, so it lets both have both spins until one is measured, then instantly adjusts the other to be the opposite, regardless of where they are in the universe. Entangled states that have no physical basis are now common in physics (Salart, Baas, Branciard, Gisin, & Zbinden, 2008).
Figure 3.23. Entanglement as merged processing
A processing model explains entanglement as follows. Physics assumes that two photon particles leave the Cesium atom (Figure 3.23a) but really, processing just spreads. The Cesium atom creates the two photons in a physical event that restarts both at the same place, to merge the processes. Rather than pick a direction, both photon processes just spread in both directions. When light travels, it takes every path and lets a later physical event decide the one it took. In this case, the merged photons go both ways and let a later physical event decide which one went which way. In effect, both servers support both wave front clients as they go opposite ways, so the photon going left is run by two servers, as is the one going right (Figure 3.23b).
Why then is spin conserved when either photon is observed? To recap, the photons entangle when their processes merge, so both servers jointly handle the client requirements until a physical event restart. The entangled photons look and act like photons, but each is in effect half spin-up and half spin-down. When either photon is observed, one server restarts leaving the other to run the other photon, so they have opposite spin. Which server restarts is random, as it depends on which instance accesses a server first, but the result is always photons with opposite spin. Spin is always conserved because the processing after a restart is identical to that before, so the net spin must stay zero (Figure 3.23c).
Entanglement is then non-local for the same reason quantum collapse is, that client-server effects ignore the point-to-point transfer rate we call the speed of light. By analogy, a processor producing a screen pixel doesn’t have to go to that point to do it. It links to any screen point directly and likewise photon servers act regardless of how far apart entangled photons are on the screen of our space.
If the photons leaving a Cesium atom are particles that spin randomly, the spin of one can’t affect the other without some message between them, so how can it occur instantly? In contrast, if two servers are sharing both wave fronts, they are already in place to adjust to any physical event. Nothing then has to go anywhere to achieve the entanglement effect, as when one server restarts one photon, the other instantly carries on running the other. How entangled photons interact is thus solved.
Entanglement also underlies super-conductivity where many electrons entangle, so every electron is run by all their servers. They then move with no resistance because, in effect, nothing moves in a superconductor metal. Bose-Einstein condensates let any number of quantum entities merge in this way. Chapter 6 explores the implications of this unique feature for consciousness.
Using quantum waves, physicists can detect an object without interacting with it physically. In a purely physical world, this is impossible, but in our world it isn’t. Figure 3.22 shows the Mach-Zehnder device that lets experimenters detect objects on a path that light didn’t take.
Figure 3.22. The Mach-Zehnder interferometer
This device splits light into two paths, to the two detectors, then splits it again to give four paths. The light shines onto a splitter that sends half the light down path 1 to detector 1, and half down path 2 to detector 2, where the mirrors make the paths cross. As expected, each detector fires half the time. Then a second splitter is added where the paths cross to split the light again, half to each detector. But now the result is that detector 1 fires but detector 2 stays silent. Quantum theory explains this as follows:
As photon waves evolve down the paths, each mirror or splitter turn delays its phase by half. Both paths to detector 1 have two turns, so they add up, but path 1 to detector 2 has three turns while path 2 has two, so they cancel out. Detector 2 then never fires because the waves from the two paths to it are out of phase, and so always cancel.
This setup then allows a very unusual result. If an object that detects any light is put on path 2, the previously silent detector 2 sometimes fires without the object detecting anything. This doesn’t happen if path 2 is clear, so this proves there is an object on path 2 without touching it. To recap, the results (Kwiat et al, 1995) are:
1. With two clear paths, only detector 1 fires.
2. If an object blocks path 2, detector 2 sometimes fires without light touching the object.
Quantum theory then explains this result (Audretsch, 2004), p29, as follows:
Again, light waves evolve down both paths, so they hit the object half the time, but the other half of the time, they go down path 1. However, if path 2 is blocked, the waves to detector 2 no longer cancel out, so it fires sometimes, even when the object on path 2 registers no light. This result only happens if there is an obstacle on path 2.
To illustrate how strange this is, let path 2 contain a bomb that even one photon can set off, but the experimenters don’t know this. Yet if they are lucky, sending a photon down the system will trigger detector 2, which proves the bomb is there, although no light touched it. This is a bad way to detect a bomb, as half the time it sets the bomb off, but they still detected the bomb without touching it!
Non-physical detection supports quantum theory but materialism can’t explain it at all. If only physical things exist, how can we register one without physical contact? How can a photon detect a bomb on a path that it didn’t take?
This result suggests that quantum theory is literally true, so light must be a processing wave that spreads instances down all four paths to the two detectors. Table 3.2 shows the four paths that light can take, with their result probability. As shown, half the time the bomb goes off, and sometimes detector 1 fires, but sometimes detector 2 fires without triggering the bomb. Non-physical detection is when an instance travels down path 1 to detector 2, avoiding the bomb, to trigger a physical event.
Non-physical detection is the ultimate proof that quantum waves exist, as materialism can’t explain it at all, but a processing model can. The evidence is clear, even though current physics can’t accept it.
That photons travel about a foot per nanosecond allows a delayed choice two-slit experiment. Two detection options are used, either the usual screen or two telescopes that focus on one slit or the other (Figure 3.21). The trick is that the choice of which to use is made after the photon passes the slits, when the screen is either quickly removed or not. If the screen is used, the result is interference, so the photon had to pass though both slits, but if the telescopes are used, only one fires, so the photon just took one path. The inevitable conclusion is that a detector turned on after the photon passes the slits decides the path it took before that:
“It’s as if a consistent and definite history becomes manifest only after the future to which it leads has been settled.” (Greene, 2004), p189.
If the physical path a photon takes can be altered after it sets off, then its future can affect its past! The distances involved are irrelevant, so a photon could travel from a distant star for a billion years, then it hits a telescope on earth,decide if it physically came via galaxy A or B. As Wheeler says:
“To the extent that it {a photon} forms part of what we call reality… we have to say that we ourselves have an undeniable part in shaping what we have always called the past.” (Davies & Brown, 1999), p67.
This is a big problem, as that time can flow backwards puts all physics in doubt, but now consider the alternative, that the photon takes every path and only picks one when it arrives. Computing calls this tactic, of leaving choices until the last possible moment, just-in-time management. For example, it lets supermarkets restock based on point-of-sale data rather than historical estimates.
In Young’s experiment, just-in-time management makes the photon immune to delayed events. It goes through both slits, as usual, and if a screen is there, gives interference, but if not, it just carries on until it hits a telescope, which restarts it with a path that went through one slit. If the screen is there, we conclude the photon went through both slits, but if the telescopes are there, we conclude it went through one slit. Yet swapping the screen in and out after the photon goes through the slits doesn’t matter at all because the physical event that defines the path occurs on arrival.
If light is made of particles, the delayed choice two slit experiment implies backwards causality, but if it is a processing wave, time doesn’t reverse and causality remains intact.
Schrödinger found superposition so odd he tried to illustrate its absurdity by a thought experiment. He imagined his cat in a box, with a radioactive source that could randomly emit a photon to trigger a deadly poison gas. In quantum theory, that photon plus a detector is a quantum system that both detects and doesn’t detect a photon until it is observed. If the box is also a quantum system, it also superposes the poison being released and not, so the cat is in an alive-dead superposition until Schrödinger opens the box to observe it. But how can a cat be alive and dead? Or if cats can’t be alive and dead, how can a photon exist and not exist? Or if a photon can do this, but a cat can’t, when does the superposition stop?
Quantum theory doesn’t define observation, so if the superposition doesn’t stop until Schrödinger observes it, the cat will be both alive and dead before that, which doesn’t make sense. This assumes that only human observation triggers quantum collapse. In contrast, a processing model takes observation to mean any physical interaction, as any physical event will collapse a quantum wave. It follows that to observe a quantum wave means to interact with it in a physical event.
For Schrödinger’s cat, this means the photon superposition collapses when the detector observes it, so the poison that kills the cat is released regardless of Schrödinger’s observation. Before opening the box, Schrödinger doesn’t know if the gas was released but the cat does, or did! The quantum superposition is stopped by any observation, not just ours, so there is no alive-dead cat.
Schrödinger assumed the observation of quantum theory was human observation, but then physical events couldn’t occur until we saw them, which can’t be. After all, if the universe needs us to cause quantum collapse, physical history couldn’t begin until we evolved, which is silly. Hence, any observation causes quantum collapse, not just those that involve our eyes or instruments.
This also clarifies the concern that quantum theory means that observing the world creates it. It is true that observation formally causes it, but it isn’t a sufficient cause, because every observation is a mutual interaction, so it isn’t a dream. We are creating the physical world but so is everything else, so when we observe a photon, it also observes us. If every observation creates a physical event, we alone aren’t creating the universe, everything is. This might seem strange, but the strange logic of quantum theory, that observing quantum events creates physical events is, as usual, impeccable.
The Schrödinger’s cat example was meant to illustrate the absurdity of quantum theory but actually illustrates its depth. We think we see our world objectively, as it is, but quantum theory tells us that we only observe the view we generate, just as in a virtual reality.
Quantum theory lets one photon go through both Young’s slits at once in a superposition. Solving a normal equation gives one solution that satisfies its conditions, but solving a quantum equation gives a set of solutions, each a physical event with a known probability. These orthogonal solutions evolve over time, as the wave spreads, but at each moment there can be only one physical event. Quantum mathematics has the strange feature that for any two solutions, their linear combination is also a solution but while single solutions match familiar physical events, these superposed solutions never physically occur (Note 1). For example, in Young’s experiment, one photon goes through both slits at the same time in a superposed state, but we never observe the photon in both slits at once. That quantum solutions can superpose underlies the mysterious efficacy of quantum theory.
Figure 3.20. Ammonia molecule states
Superposition applies not only to photons but also to molecules. For example, ammonia molecules have a pyramid shape (Figure 3.20) with a nitrogen atom apex (1) and a base of hydrogen atoms (2, 3, 4). This molecule can occur in either right or left-handed forms but to turn a right-handed molecule into a left-handed one, a nitrogen atom must pass through the pyramid base, which is physically impossible (Feynman et al., 1977) III, p9-1. Yet in quantum theory, if these two solutions are valid, then so are both at once. This explains how an ammonia molecule can be left-handed one moment, and right-handed the next, even though it can’t physically change between these states. In the quantum world, ammonia molecules exist in a superposition of left and right-handed states, so we can see either at any moment, just as a photon go through either of two slits.
To think that superposition is just ignorance of a hidden physical state is to misunderstand it, as superposed quantum currents can flow both ways round a superconducting ring at once, even though physical currents would cancel (Cho, 2000). As the interference pattern of Young’s experiment shows, the superposed photon really does go through both slits at once. Superposition is physically impossible but is just business as usual in the quantum world.
In this model, superposition is quantum processing simultaneously exploring possible options regardless of their physical compatibility, so when a photon spreads through two slits in Young’s experiment, it literally half-exists in both. Why then don’t quantum combinations occur physically?
This isn’t possible because a physical event is a processing restart. When our computers restart, only one event can cause it. Any event after that doesn’t affect the restart, and any event before would replace it. Restarting a process stops anything else it is doing, and the same is true for a quantum process. It follows that while a photon, or an ammonia molecule, can be in two quantum states at once, it can only restart from one of them. Superposition then never occurs physically because a physical event is a processing restart. Even so, we struggle to imagine how, as Schrödinger’s example of a cat that is both alive and dead shows in the next module.
If a photon is a processing wave, then quantum theory can be literally true rather than imaginary. Given this perspective, we now revisit some of the principles of quantum theory that have baffled physicists for decades, as a processing model of light can explain what the particle theories of current physics, based on materialism, can’t.
Polarization is a transverse wave property that describes its vibration direction, so that light can polarize suggests that it is a wave. because particles don’t do that. Yet a filter at an angle to a ray of polarized light reduces it but still lets some photons through unaffected, so its like particles that might hit an obstacle and might not. And a bigger angle lets fewer photons through, so a filter at 81º to the polarization plane lets 10% of them through. If light was a wave, an obstacle that 90% blocks it would weaken it entirely but instead, parts of it get through entirely. As usual, the evidence suggests that light can behave like a wave or a particle, so why is this so?
In the following discussion, quantum spin is taken to involve a:
a. Rotation axis. Around which the spin occurs.
b. Rotation plane. In which the spin rotation occurs.
Now let a polarized photon spin on its movement axis, as a bullet does, so it turns into all the planes that cut its movement axis (Figure 3.19). One might assume this alters its polarization plane, but typically it stays the same, so in general, the vibration direction of a photon doesn’t change as it spins in our space.
To understand this, consider a book sitting on its edge on a table so it is, say, ten inches tall. If the book is now spun in the rotation plane of the table, its height doesn’t change at all, as it is at right angles to table. Likewise, if the table is our space, spinning a photon within in our space doesn’t change its transverse vibration either. A photon that spins in our space, as assumed, needn’t change its vibration because it is at right angles to our space (Note 1). It follows that a photon can spin in our space without changing its polarization plane.
In contrast, turning a filter that blocks light polarized one way lets more and more light through until at 90°, it lets all the light though. Why then does turning a filter differ from spin turning a photon? In the example above, turning the book doesn’t alter its height, but does affect its width for a given direction. If the filter then acts like a wall that blocks a wave, turning the wall will block a wave less. Rotating a filter is then like turning a book to obstruct less (Note 2), while spinning a photon in our space doesn’t alter the wave amplitude or direction. Of course it isn’t that simple, as Chapter 4, matter fills many quantum directions not one, but the principle remains.
Figure 3.19. A photon spins like a bullet
Why then do some photons pass entirely through a filter on an angle? Again, it is because a physical event is an all-or-nothing affair. The filter reduces the probability that instances get through it, but if one is detected, the entire photon restarts there. By the same logic, what passes through the filter is also the entire photon. A photon then travels like a wave because it is a wave, but is detected like a particle because processing waves always restart all the processing that is the photon.
Note 1. Let the photon’s wave amplitude be in a direction Q, at right angles to its polarization plane XY. Now if the photon spins in the plane YZ, this swaps its Y and Z values but leaves Q unchanged, as it is at right angles to that spin. It follows that a photon can spin around its movement axis X without altering its amplitude vibration, and hence its polarization plane.
Note 2. If Q is the quantum amplitude it reduces as Q.Cos(q°), where q° is the angle between that amplitude and the filter direction in quantum space, so at a 90° angle it has no value, as Cos (90°) = 0.
As the last chapter concluded, our 3D space is a surface within a higher dimensional network. It is contained by a 4D quantum space that allows directions at right angles to it, so light can travel in empty space by vibrating at right angles to it, which vibration defines the polarization plane of a photon. Light then travels on the surface of space as water waves travel on the surface of a pond.
One might think that adding a dimension to our space just adds one new direction but mathematics tells us it isn’t so. Adding a dimension to our space gives three new directions not one (Figure 3.18), all at right angles to each other. Each of the three planes that cut through a point in space has its own quantum direction at right angles to the other two. Allowing one more dimension outside our space then allows three new quantum directions (Note 1). This lets light passing through a point vibrate in three independent quantum directions for the three independent polarization planes it has.
In this model, light vibrates at right angles to its polarization plane, into a quantum direction that is outside our space. Current physics represents this direction by a complex value it calls imaginary, but in quantum realism there really are three quantum directions. However, light moving in a given direction has only two possible quantum directions, because its movement uses up one dimension.
Figure 3.18. Quantum directions
This explains why light moving in a direction can only polarize in two ways, called vertical and horizontal. The quantum directions of each polarization plane are at right angles to each other, so a filter blocking vertical polarized light doesn’t block horizontal polarized light, and vice-versa. A filter blocking light polarized in one plane does so because its matter occupies that quantum direction, but it doesn’t occupy the other, so light vibrating that way passes right through it. Light traveling in a direction has two different quantum directions to vibrate into that are at right angles to each other, so what blocks one vibration doesn’t block the other. What then happens when a filter that blocks all the light in one polarization plane is turned on an angle?
Note 1: If physical space has dimensions (X, Y, Z), let quantum space have dimensions (X, Y, Z, Q), where Q is a fourth quantum dimension. If a point in physical space has three independent planes XY, XZ and YZ through it, this allows three independent quantum directions at right angles to them, so a photon with any polarization plane can vibrate into a quantum direction at right angles to it.
