The quantum network never stops, nor do the waves upon it. A quantum wave, of light or matter, runs at a point, then is passed on to its neighbors, that also run and pass it on, and so on. Each point runs and passes on what it gets, in a ripple of processing that travels at light speed because the quantum network is so fast. This ripple, or quantum wave, is a processing wave, and in the next chapter these waves explain the miracle of light.
A processing wave can spread like a wave across network points but if any point reboots, it will restart again, just as turning a smartphone off and on again reboots and restarts it. A phone will reboot when it overloads, so reverse engineering suggests that a network point overloading will reboot and restart the quantum wave. It follows that quantum waves spreading on a network will eventually overload a point that will reboot and restart them again. Chapter 4 details how these reboots can give rise to matter.
In this view, photons are like apps that spread on a network. We call an app that spreads on the Internet a virus, but a photon on the quantum network spreads like a virus until a reboot restarts it. As will be seen, this model explains how quantum waves spread, collapse, and restart in network terms.
But while our networks transfer information, the quantum network transfers processing, and while our apps generate processing, quantum “apps” generate processing. The principles are the same, but the quantum network is based on processing while our networks are based on information. For example, quantum waves spread processing not information, so quantum computers are more powerful than physical computers. Doubling the power of a physical computer needs double the bits, but adding just one qubit to a quantum computer doubles its power (Note 1). Comparing quantum processing to physical processing is like comparing a nuclear bomb to a classical bomb.
Our computers are lightning fast but each bit is still a choice between two physical states. In contrast, a qubit can choose both states at once, so while a physical electron can spin up or down, its quantum version can spin up and down at the same time. Schrödinger’s example of a cat that is alive and dead at the same time shows how strange this is to us (3.8.2). Quantum currents can even travel both ways around a circuit at once, even though it is physically impossible (Cho, 2000).
Quantum theory’s description of photons and electrons, as waves that restart when observed in physical events, predicts their behavior brilliantly, so Heisenberg imagined the quantum world as one of possibilities:
“The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.” (Rosenblum & Kuttner, 2006) p104.
Einstein ridiculed this because it was physically impossible, so Bohr proposed the compromise we have today, that the quantum world is imaginary but we can still use its equations:
“There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract quantum physical description.” (Petersen, 1963).
Essentially, the physical events quantum theory predicts are real, so we can use its equations, but what it describes is imaginary, so no explanations are possible. This example of doublethink lets physicists use equations based on quantum waves that they say don’t exist! If astronomers used equations based on the earth orbiting the sun but denied that it did, they would be ridiculed, but current physics allows it!
Despite its relegation to the realm of fantasy, the revelation that quantum events cause physical events was the greatest discovery of last century, on a par with evolution the century before, and that the earth orbits the sun centuries earlier. But while religion opposed the earlier advances, physics is the denier this time. That orthodoxy denies innovation is no surprise, but who expected the orthodoxy to be physics itself?
If quantum events generate physical events, the physical world we see reflects a quantum world we can’t see. Most of us think that we see reality but the evidence is that we only see outputs. That space and time are also generated would explain why they curve and dilate, so let us explore how that could be.
Note 1. A quantum computer of N qubits equates to a classical computer of 2N bits.