Uncategorized

Abbott, E. (1884). Flatland: a romance of many dimensions. Retrieved February 22, 2010, from http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/201

Adams, D. (1995). The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. New York: Ballentine.

Aspect, A., Grangier, P., & Roger, G. (1982). Experimental Realization of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen-Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A New Violation of Bell’s Inequalities. Physical Review Letters, 49(2), 91–94.

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.

Barbour, J. (1999). The End of Time: The next revolution in physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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

Bekenstein, J. D. (2003). Information in the Holographic Universe. Scientific American, 289(2), 58–65.

Bojowald, M. (2008). Follow the Bouncing Universe. Scientific American, October, 28–33.

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

Cho, A. (2000). Physicists Unveil Schrodinger’s SQUID. Science, 287(31 March).

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

D’Espagnat, B. (1979). The quantum theory and reality. Scientific American, 241(5), 158–182.

Deutsch, D. (1997). The Fabric of Reality. Penguin Press: Allen lane.

Einstein, A., Podolsky, P., & Rosen, N. (1935). Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete? Phys. Rev., 47, 777–780.

Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (1977). The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Reading, Ma.: Addison-Wesley.

Greene, B. (2004). The Fabric of the Cosmos. New York: Vintage Books.

Herbert, N. (1985). Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics. New York: Anchor Books.

Kant, I. (2002). Critique of Pure Reason. In M. C. Beardsley (Ed.), The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietsche. New York: The Modern Library.

Kwiat, P. G., Weinfurter, H., Herzog, T., Zeilinger, A., & Kasevich, M. A. (1995). Interaction-free Measurement. Phys. Rev. Lett., 74, 4763.

Laughlin, R. B. (2005). A Different Universe: Reinventing physics from the bottom down. New York: Basic Books.

Lederman, L. M., & Hill, C. T. (2004). Symmetry and the beautiful universe. New York: Prometheus Books.

M. Arndt, O. Nairz, J. Voss-Andreae, C. Keller, G. van der Z., & Zeilinger, A. (1999). Wave particle duality of C60 molecules. Nature, 401, 680–682.

Mermin, N. D. (2009). Whats bad about this habit? Physics Today, May.

Oerter, R. (2006). The Theory of Almost Everything. London: Plume, Penguin.

Penrose, R. (1994). Shadows of the Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Salart, D., Baas, A., Branciard, C., Gisin, N., & Zbinden, H. (2008). Testing spooky action at a distance. Nature, 454, 861–864.

Satinover, J. (2001). The Quantum Brain. New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Schiller, C. (2009). Motion Mountain: The Free Physics Textbook.

Tegmark, M., & Wheeler, J. A. (2001). 100 Years of the Quantum. Scientific American, (Feb), p68-75.

Walker, E. H. (2000). The Physics of Consciousness. New York: Perseus Publishing.

Wheeler, J. A. (1983). Law without law. In J. A. Wheeler & W. H. Zurek (Eds.), Quantum Theory and Measurement (pp. 182–213). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Wilczek, F. (2008). The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether and the Unification of forces. New York: Basic Books.

Wootters, W., & Zurek, W. (1982). A Single Quantum Cannot Be Cloned. Nature, 299, 802–803.

Zeh, H. D. (2004). The Wave Function: It or Bit? In J. D. Barrow, P. C. W. Davies, & J. Charles L. Harper (Eds.), Science and Ultimate Reality: Quantum Theory, Cosmology and Complexity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Next

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. What is the mystery of light? (QR3.1.1)

2. According to current physics, 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. Bohr’s Copenhagen view lets the quantum world exist for calculations but nothing else. What is the problem with this? (QR3.1.4)

5. Can counterfactual events that didn’t happen define physical outcomes? Give reasons (QR3.1.5)

6. What proves for sure that light is a wave? (QR3.2.1)

7. What does it mean to say that we are three-dimensional “Flatlanders”? (QR3.2.2)

8. Can light waves vibrate in a physical direction? If not, in what direction then? (QR3.2.2)

9. Why hasn’t light slowed down, even after traveling for billions of years in space? (QR3.2.3)

10. If light is a wave that travels in empty space, what mediates it? (QR3.2.3)

11. Why can nothing ever travel faster than light? (QR3.2.4)

12. What does every photon in the electromagnetic spectrum have in common? (QR3.3.1)

13. What is energy in processing terms? (QR3.3.2)

14. Why does all energy come in Planck units? (QR3.3.3)

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

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

17. 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)

Next

We see ourselves in the sunlight of rationality standing before the dark cave of quantum paradox, but as in Plato’s cave analogy, it may be the other way around, that we are sitting in the darkness of physicality with our backs to the quantum sunlight, calling the shadows it casts on the wall of space real. Quantum theory and relativity have loosed the chains that bind, but who will turn and look? Einstein did but the quantum brilliance blinded him. Bohr did but his impenetrable Copenhagen suit revealed only his own reflection. The quantum light is currently quarantined behind a wall of arcane equations and the acolytes that harvest it must first deny that it exists. The first rule of the quantum club is that there is no quantum world, but calling its own best theory a theory of nothing is leading physics nowhere.

Table 3.3 contrasts how quantum realism and physical realism explain light for the reader to decide. Quantum theory today makes no more sense now than it did last century and the next hundred years will be the same unless it becomes a reality description. If the quantum world is a great smoky dragon (Wheeler, 1983), then the physical world is its smoke (Figure 3.27). The quantum world is not a shadow world existing alongside physical reality but the real world whose shadow is the physical world we see.

Next

We assume the world is physically real because we see it as such. For the same reason, when people meet actors from their favorite TV soap opera for the first time, they often treat them like their onscreen persona. Likewise, we assume that what we see is reality not because it has been proven, as it hasn’t, but because it is self-evident, as that is our bias:

“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

That we register the world as physical doesn’t prove it is so, but we accept:

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

Yet science advances by questioning assumptions not sanctifying them. Quantum theory implies that behind what we see is quantum reality, of which Bohr said we must not speak, but since when was science about not asking questions?

And since quantum collapse occurs in an instant, entities are mostly between measurements:

“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 entities exist mostly as spreading quantum waves, by what logic are their brief moments of collapse considered real? Surely reality is what is there most of the time? And if quantum waves cause physical reality, isn’t saying that the unreal causes the real backwards logic? If one thing causes another, surely reality is the cause not the effect?

The current denial of quantum reality is doctrinal not logical, based on faith not facts. When atoms were first proposed, Mach denied they existed because they were unseen but today, we accept quarks that are never seen alone. Yet when quantum theory says physical reality is a set of possibilities, we cry “Enough!” and turn away. That the answer to life, the universe and everything is just a probability is a step too far. After two thousand years of scientific struggle, physics is ignoring its own conclusion that physical reality is a choice from unmeasurable quantum outcomes.

Next

Bell’s experiment tested the following axioms of current physics (D’Espagnat, 1979):

1. Physical realism. 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 realism and induction are true, then locality must be wrong. If locality and induction are true, there can’t be a real physical world out there. If physical realism 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

Quantum realism resolves the quantum paradox by changing the first two axioms as follows:

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

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

This permits a quantum reality to exist independent of human observers.

2. Add the world “physical” to the second axiom so it becomes:

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

This permits quantum collapse to occur instantly as server-client effects aren’t physical influences, so Bell’s results no longer contradict locality.

For example, a statement of scientific realism such as:

“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

now becomes instead:

“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.”

Removing “physical” from the first statement gives quantum realism, that science discovers rather than invents the true and unique structure of the universe, even though it isn’t the world we see. If physical reality reflects quantum reality, physical laws come from quantum laws that aren’t limited by their output. This new realism requires new rules based on quantum theory not physical mechanics.

Quantum theory describes waves spreading not billiard ball particles following linear paths so light does indeed take every path. It sees a physical event as a primal choice not an inevitable mechanic so randomness is real. And it calls the result an observation not a collision so observing is an inherent property of quantum reality. Hence just as an eye can’t see itself seeing, we can’t observe quantum reality because it is what creates the observation itself.

The resulting vision of a universe where everything observes, everything chooses and everything is alive is a far cry from the mechanistic universe usually portrayed by physics. Materialism was the mother of physics but as every child one day leaves its mother for a new reality, so physics must give up physical realism to adopt a new realism based on new facts.

Next

The quantum measurement problem arises from how quantum collapse and its effects occur. Quantum waves evolve in a deterministic fashion by Schrödinger’s equation but when measured they collapse to a point for reasons unknown. The problem is that physics has deduced the probability set of that collapse but has no idea what chooses from it. It is as if a choice from nowhere decides every microscopic measurement. 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.

The measurement problem, in a nutshell, is that it doesn’t conform with Aristotle’s view that:

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

Two thousand years later, this vision of a world of things that cause other things still dominates thought, so why not apply it to quantum theory?

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

This didn’t happen 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 physical realism. In addition, if one accepts that part of quantum theory is real, then 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 have all who have tried the same since. What quantum theory describes isn’t physically possible: quantum states that disappear at will ignore physical permanence; entangled effects that occur instantly over any distance ignore the speed of light limit; and superposed states that co-exist in physical contradictions ignore physical limits. A quantum wave can spread across a galaxy then instantly collapse to a point but:

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

When Pauli and Born defined the quantum wave amplitude as a probability of physical existence, physics ceased to be about anything physical at all:

“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

That quantum theory predicts physical reality gives thequantum paradox, that what isn’t real physically predicts what is, so can the unreal cause the real? As one theoretical physicist says:

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

For over a century, physics has faced this paradox like a deer in headlights, attracted by the quantum brilliance but afraid to abandon the orthodox stance of physical realism.

Paradoxes only disappear when false assumptions are exposed. For example, Figure 3.26 has two square and three round prongs depending on where you look which is impossible. The answer isn’t a mystical “square-round duality” but to see that one line can’t bound both a square prong and a round one at the same time. Likewise, the quantum paradox arises from the false assumption of physical realism, so when Penrose asks:

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

the honest answer is that they can’t. One might equally ask “How can a purely physical world have random events?” or “How can a complete physical universe begin?” A physics based on illogic builds paradox into its foundations but to do this is to institutionalize illogic and this isn’t science. The logical way forward is to abandon the physical realism of Aristotle and accept that quantum reality creates physical unreality, based on the facts of physics.

Next

Physics today 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 a quantum wave collapses it to a physical event. That quantum theory is based on what can’t be directly observed raises the question “Is it really science?”

The doctrine that only “…what impinges on us directly is real.” (Mermin, 2009) p9 has been taken to imply that what we can’t observe isn’t real, so one can argue that:

1. Science should only describe physical reality, not imaginary things like fairies.

2. Physical reality is only what we can physically observe.

3. Therefore, science shouldn’t describe what we can’t physically observe!

If describing what isn’t physical isn’t science then quantum theory isn’t science, yet it is the most successful theory in the history of physics! The flaw in the argument is that statement 1 is false because science is based on predicting physical reality, not what it describes.

The idea that science can only describe physical things is called logical positivism, a nineteenth century fallacy of science that predates quantum theory. Statement 1 above, that science must describe physical reality, is physical realism masquerading as an axiom of science.

Science is actually based on Locke and Hume’s empiricism, that scientific theories must be tested by physical reality. Quantum theory is then a science because it predicts physical events, regardless of what it describes. There has never been a requirement that scientific theories must describe physical things e.g., gravity isn’t a physical thing but Einstein’s theory of gravity is science because it predicts physical effects. To reject any reference to the non-physical would deny the mathematics of complex numbers that physicists use every day.

Logical positivism has failed every discipline that tried it. Behaviorism tried to reduce psychology to physical acts until Chomsky showed it failed for language, and applying positivism to computing would ignore the human and social levels behind socio-technical systems like Twitter. In some ways, physics is the last bastion of the idea that only the physical is real, but yet again, it is failing.

Saying the physical is all there is ignores the observer but reality in a participative universe is an observer-observed interaction, so to ignore the observer is to ignore half of reality. The observer is fundamental because every science needs it, even physics as an observer triggers quantum collapse and relativity needs an observer frame of reference. Attempts to “ban” the observer from science don’t work because the observer is inherent to our reality.

In quantum realism, the quantum world observing itself makes a virtual physical world, so the observer is the answer not the problem. Physical reality arises when an observer interrogates quantum reality as a game click gives a view so the long-sought boundary between the classical and quantum worlds is the “click” of observation. We see a phenomenon not the noumenon or “thing in itself” (Kant, 2002, p392) so calling physical phenomena real and quantum noumena unreal was the wrong turn that led physics into the current desert of physical realism. All science is based on the observer.

Next

In quantum theory, quantum collapse is random and the evidence is that when a radioactive atom emits a photon is unpredictable. A random event by definition has no physical history that can explain it and in quantum theory, every physical event involves a random quantum collapse, contradicting the claim that all physical results are caused by prior physical acts.

That every physical interaction involves a random choice clearly contradicts physical realism so in 1957, Everett proposed many-worlds theory, that every quantum choice spawns a new universe. Now if an electron anywhere in the universe chooses to be say spin up, another universe magically arises in which it is spin down, so there is no choice. Everett’s idea was first seen as absurd, as it is, but today physicists prefer it 3:1 over the Copenhagen view (Tegmark & Wheeler, 2001, p6). They believe that for fourteen billion years every photon that exists has created a new universe with its every act! With up to 1043 universes being created per photon per second, 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 just from the light that hit your eyes? Current physics does because it is the only way to dismiss quantum randomness. Some now talk of the multiverse as a fact despite no evidence at all, based on the belief that “It must be so”.

In historical terms, many-world-theory essentially replaces the clockwork universe that quantum theory demolished last century with a clockwork multiverse. Attempts to rescue this zombie theory (Note 1) by letting a finite number of universes repartition after each choice (Deutsch, 1997) only recovers the original problem, as what chooses which worlds are dropped? Yet why would the universe, like a doting parent with a quantum camera, want to store everything that might happen? The many-worlds multiverse is truly a fairy tale for physicists (Baggot, 2013).

Next

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 our world regularly does what isn’t physically possible, why is physical realism still accepted? Time and again, quantum theory predicts a result that can’t physically occur but still does, whether it’s a photon traversing two slits at once or traveling many paths. The data doesn’t lie but we, it seems, are happy to believe in a theory that doesn’t work! The logic seems to be “Physical realism must be true because there is no scientific alternative”. Quantum realism is now that alternative but it comes at the price of redefining reality. Physics can either accept that the physical world does impossible things or redefine reality to be quantum. The many-worlds fairy tale is an example of the first choice.

3.9.1. The Many Worlds Fairy Tale

3.9.2. Is Science About Physical Things?

3.9.3. The Quantum Paradox

3.9.4. A New Realism

3.9.5. The Unmeasured Reality

3.9.6. The Quantum Dragon

Next