ISU 2015

Discussion in 'Alternative Theories' started by quantum_wave, Jan 17, 2015.

  1. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    Needless to say, there isn't much enthusiasm for a layman science enthusiasts hobby-model of the universe, especially one named, The Infinite Spongy Universe model. However, I'm fairly satisfied with the video and the questions that have been asked out in other forum communities. Only one forum sent it to trash, and there are a couple of on-going discussions which are helping me scope out improvements, and ideas for the micro realm video.

    The main issue that has come up is about the mechanics, related to the fact that the model features quantum gravity, and particles that are composed of energy in quantum increments. While those topics are only briefly touched on in the macro realm video, I do mention that the mechanics in the two realms are quite similar. But to complete the overview, the micro realm needs a video too.

    (457)
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    Not very many people know my position on the nature of particles, and in particular the photon. It is covered in my threads, and if some unexpected discussion arises as a result of this post, I'll be glad to provide a link.

    But here is link to Sean Carroll's blog and a particularly appropriated guest presenter about a new interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
    http://www.preposterousuniverse.com...racting-worlds-approach-to-quantum-mechanics/

    The reason I bring it to my thread is because it has some interesting animations of a photon going through both slits. I am going to try to show my version of the wave-particle photon going through both slit with the particle state of the photon going through one or the other at the same time, and differentiate it from those shown. I think it is generally agreed at this point that the spot that appears on the screen is made by the photon particle going through one slit, and the interference pattern is caused by the broad photon wave front that goes through both slits.

    (483)
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    In an interesting and unexpected development at the forum where my thread and video were sent to the Trash Can, there was some support from the members to have it restored and open for discussion. My thanks to the Moderator, Scheherazade, and the members who helped.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    My thoughts are turning to the slides for the quantum realm:

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    Vcap1 is the volume of the vertical cap R. It is divided by the volume of sphere R. Vcap2 is the volume of the vertical cap r, and it is divided by the volume of sphere r. Then, since the overlap space has energy from each parent wave, each cap is composed of energy from each parent wave, so each cap is also divided by the volume of the other sphere, and the four cap values are percentages of a total of two quanta. The new quantum is forming in the overlap space, and when the equation equals 1 (one quantum), the new expanding quantum wave is formed.

    Note the line labeled H in the image is shown as h' in the equation.

    R, and r, are the radii of the parent spheres. H or rather h', and h, are the heights of the spherical caps.

    If you followed through the Macro realm video and slides, this might register some recognition.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2015
  8. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    Each sphere is equal to one quantum of energy.

    When the equation equals 1, a new expanding quantum wave is generated in the overlap space.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!


    \(\frac{V_{capR}}{V_R}+\frac{V_{capr}}{V_r}+\frac{V_{capR}}{V_r}+\frac{V_{capr}}{V_R}=\)


    \(\frac{1/3\pi H^2(3R-H)}{4/3\pi R^3}+\frac{1/3\pi h^2(3r-h)}{4/3\pi r^3}+\frac{1/3\pi H ^2(3R-H)}{4/3\pi r^3}+\frac{1/3\pi h^2(3r-h)}{4/3\pi R^3}\)


    VcapR is the volume of the vertical cap R. It is divided by the volume of sphere R. Vcapr is the volume of the vertical cap r, and it is divided by the volume of sphere r. Then, since the overlap space has energy from each parent wave, each cap is composed of energy from each parent wave, so each cap is also divided by the volume of the other sphere, and the four cap values are percentages of a total of two quanta. The new quantum is forming in the overlap space, and when the equation equals 1 (one quantum), the new expanding quantum wave is formed.

    R, and r, are the radii of the parent spheres. H and h, are the heights of the spherical caps.
     
    Last edited: Feb 20, 2015
  9. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    Revision:

    From the video (and/or the slide/narrative), the concept of a micro level and a macro level quantum of energy was hypothesized. At the micro level, the waves are quantum waves expanding and overlapping within a particle space. At the macro level, the waves are two parent Big Bang arenas intersecting and overlapping.

    This graphic expresses the example of two parent quanta overlapping. As their energy is combined, the energy contained in the overlap increases. The amount of energy captured there increases as the radii of the parent spherical waves increases, and when the value of the equation equals one quantum, a new quantum wave is generated from the energy contributed by the parent waves.

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
    Last edited: Feb 21, 2015
  10. CptBork Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,460
    In the "Bells' Theorem and Nonlocality" thread, I've finally decided to go to the tedious trouble of showing you how quantum mechanics correctly predicts the Bell test results which, as I have demonstrated mathematically, cannot be predicted by any local hidden variable theory or hypothesis, including your own. So you can stop claiming that you've withstood all challenges to your speculation, because burying your head in the sand isn't a legitimate form of argument.
     
  11. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    I agreed with the math all the way through your thread, and said so. What we never agreed on was if there should be a distinction made between a hidden variables theory that is tested against the current laws of quantum mechanics, or if the current laws of quantum mechanics might not be complete.

    Also, for clarification, the fundamental particles that you refer to in your thread, according to the standard particle model, have no internal composition, and in my model, I speculate about a foundational level where those fundamental particles do have a complex wave pattern making up their internal composition.
    I wouldn't call it burying my head in the sand; I would call it your denial, or else your failure to recognize what my claim is. In spite of your efforts, admirable as they are, you do not address the operative language in the disclaimer. Read it carefully again, and see if you see where you still are not addressing the part about "the mechanics", i.e. what are the mechanisms at work behind of the laws of quantum mechanics that make things like superposition, combined states, spin, entanglement, etc. produce the observables that we measure and use in the experiments that are used to confirm the predictions of QM:

    "My hobby-model is internally consistent, and it is not inconsistent with known scientific observations and data, stipulating that those observations are understood and explained with the mechanics that they operate by."

    If you still don't see why you have not falsified that statement on your thread, I will be glad to go over there and work it through with you.
     
  12. CptBork Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,460
    Maybe I haven't emphasized this point enough, because I don't think you grasp it yet: Bell's Theorem doesn't rely on what quantum mechanics says. All you need to know for these tests is that electrons and photons exist and have certain coherent properties (such as spin and polarization). You seem to think that something needs to be understood about quantum mechanics in order for Bell tests to be conducted, whereas the truth is that the theorem would apply even if it turned out that quantum mechanics had it completely wrong. It's a general mathematical theorem that basically covers all local deterministic possibilities and says that, regardless of whether quantum mechanics is or isn't complete, any local deterministic theory is guaranteed to be incomplete no matter what, since none of them can violate the Bell inequality which is violated in experimental reality.

    It doesn't matter how many layers you posit to the observable reality and how little we might presently know about these layers (or how little it might be possible to know). If none of the underlying mechanisms you propose are capable of communicating at faster than light speeds, then they can't reproduce the experimental Bell inequality violation, and that's what the proof of Bell's Theorem demonstrates. On the quantum side, the only relevant bit is that quantum mechanics gets precisely the correct prediction, and it does so even when the axis A, B, C are arranged at arbitrarily different respective angles. So the Bell tests support quantum mechanics only in the sense that it correctly anticipates the experimental results, but the theorem itself demonstrates that local deterministic theories can never be complete even if quantum mechanics itself is incorrect or incomplete.

    I believe I've understood this concept from the beginning, and my assertion all along has been that it doesn't do anything to change the result. The reason Bell's theorem applies with such generality is because it doesn't need to assume anything about local deterministic theories in the first place, other than the fact that they're local and deterministic.

    Sounds good to me, please do.
     
  13. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    No, I don't think that.
    I've been agreeing with you on that.
    I think when you say "no matter what", you are determined to ignore the issue I am interested in, which is that the understanding we have of reality is incomplete. Therefore, given our lack of understanding of how a hidden variables theory, if it can be tested using the current laws of quantum mechanics, will fail to represent reality, and so it will be false to start with.
    And there is the issue, no hidden variables theory can violate the laws of QM as we understand them, given our lack of understanding of reality.
    And I agree. But that does not exclude the possibility that because we don't understand reality, and we therefore might misunderstand and misinterpret the observables due to our lack of understanding of the nature of realty at some foundational level.
    I don't believe you have made the proper analysis of the situation. The situation is that we don't understand the results, because of our current lack of understanding of the mechanics involved.
    And to the contrary, I think it requires us to believe that there is no local reality unless there is faster than light communications. And I am saying that we don't know enough about reality to make that statement.
    It might be pointless for me try to prove that we don't yet understand reality, when I think you would agree with that. What we observe has not been explained mechanistically. If that is beside the point to you, we would just end up agreeing on the math and not agreeing that there might be some as yet unknown science where a mechanistic explanation of what is going on within particles and particle interactions has local reality attached to it, without requiring instantaneous communication between particles.

    (842)
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2015
  14. CptBork Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,460
    I'm confused by this paragraph, I think you need to fix the grammar here. Are you trying to say that we can only rule out hidden variable theories testable using the laws of quantum mechanics? If so, I don't see what your issue is, since Bell's Theorem doesn't depend on the laws of quantum mechanics.

    That's not what I said. I said no local hidden variable theory can violate Bell's inequality, and this result is deduced without requiring any knowledge of quantum mechanics. When dealing with electron spins for example, as in the calculation I just displayed in my Bell's Theorem thread, Bell's Theorem proves that any local hidden variable theory must predict a 33% or greater anti-correlation. In quantum mechanics and in well-established experiments, Bell's inequality is violated and we see a 25% anti-correlation rate for axes aligned at \(120^\circ\) separations.

    One of the central points I've been trying to drill home this entire time is that Bell's Theorem is a result independent of the specific underlying mechanics in electrons, photons and detectors. There's a statistical pattern for the electrons arriving at each end of the lab in which, for any chosen axis of measurement, the result is a 50/50 coin toss between spin up and spin down. Furthermore, if the same axis of measurement is chosen at each end, the electrons always have opposite spins. These are well-established experimental facts and do not depend on the electron's underlying mechanics. If the apparatus is timed properly, it's impossible for the last-minute choice of axes at each end to affect what happens at the other end without a faster-than-light signal being exchanged, and therefore, just working from basic statistics, there has to be at minimum 33% anti-coincidence in differing axis spin measurements. In practice, for \(120^\circ\) separations, we see a 25% anti-coincidence, meaning some sort of faster-than-light communication must be occuring in order to screw with the statistics and force correlations.

    Consider the following scenario: Suppose I have two people each rolling a fairly balanced 6-sided die at opposite ends of the galaxy, and from my POV on Earth, the rolls are simultaneous (as I will be able to determine after collecting and analyzing all the appropriate data). If faster-than-light communication between these dice rollers is impossible, then there is no statistical correlation between the two outcomes on each roll, and they will only roll the same number 1/6 of the time. If I find that, even after taking large sample sizes, the two rollers are instead rolling the same value 1/3 of the time, I know there must be some sort of collusion between the two, and therefore some form of faster-than-light communication. And so it is with Bell tests, there's simply no local deterministic way to explain the results if you accept that there's no correlation between the randomized choices of measurement axes.

    You seem to be confused about terminology here. In general, when referring to locality, scientists are referring to the speed of light being a cosmic speed limit for all phenomena. You could postulate a non-local deterministic theory in which arbitrarily fast speeds (or at least speeds much faster than light) can be achieved under certain circumstances, and that would be consistent with existing Bell tests, but then you'd run into problems with Relativistic causality instead. Quantum mechanics just happens to be the only working theory which correctly anticipates these experimental results without running into any self-contradictions or paradoxes.

    As I've said many times before, there's no logical reason to insist that anything needs to underlie quantum mechanics. It may well be that quantum mechanics itself is the mechanism, and that concepts such as "absolute" position and momentum are merely approximations that emerge at the macroscopic level, as predicted by the theory. At present, you have no means of conclusively demonstrating otherwise, and any mechanism you care to posit as a substitute will itself operate on unexplained principles requiring yet deeper mechanisms, ad infinitum.

    If you want to construct a working description of the universe, then you've got to accept some fundamental axioms without explanation as a starting point, and the only justification you'll have for them is that the consequences they lead to match with experimental reality. The only flaw with the quantum axioms is that there are certain phenomena they haven't yet been shown to describe and predict.

    That having been said, it may instead be that quantum mechanics is only an approximation to an even deeper, as yet undiscovered reality. What has been conclusively demonstrated, however, is that the underlying reality must itself be nonlocal.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2015
  15. quantum_wave Contemplating the "as yet" unknown Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,677
    I'm not going to address that post in detail because we are on completely different wavelengths.

    I've agreed with your main points about the math, and I agree that the conclusions of Bell's theorem, though faulty IMHO, are interpreted to prove there is no local reality unless there is instantaneous communication between particles.

    I don't agree with your statement that "nothing needs to underlie Quantum Mechanics", and I think that is more of a philosophical question than scientific, at least until new evidence is developed. I don't agree that anything you have presented, or that anyone has presented in regard to Bell's theorem, is evidence that there is no local reality unless there is instantaneous communication between particles, because I do believe that we don't yet fully understand the nature of particles and particle interactions. If we did, there could very well be mechanistic explanations that allow for particles to have location and momentum at all times while retaining all of their natural characteristics, and further, such an "as yet unknown" reality might not necessarily require instantaneous or faster than light communication.

    We disagree, and though we probably won't agree to disagree, I'll move my participation in the discussion over to your thread. I'll post a response over there, in due time, that should lead to some discourse that will reveal our individual positions on topics where the observational evidence is the same, but the conclusions we individually draw from those observations will be generally different; and then maybe we can agree to disagree over there.

    (863)
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2015
  16. CptBork Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    6,460
    I've reversed the order on some of these quotations to better facilitate my response.

    If you agree that it's a philosophical question pending further evidence, then you're agreeing that there's no logical reason to demand that anything lies beneath the surface of quantum mechanics; it's nothing more than your personal hunch.

    If instantaneous communication is possible, then by definition there's no local reality. A local reality involves scenarios where an event in one location of space will only affect a finite region of space at any time later, with the region in question diminishing to zero over sufficiently short times, such as is the case when effects can't propagate faster than light.

    But as Bell's Theorem demonstrates, it's not possible to violate the Bell inequality unless faster-than-light signals can be exchanged, regardless of whether superpositions are real at not. That's what the math conclusively shows, without any consideration for the specific mechanisms at work, and you said you don't dispute the math.

    What the Bell tests prove, in conjunction with the theorem, is that faster-than-light communication is a fact of nature, just as other experiments prove that it's possible for communication to occur faster than the speed of sound. If two people are randomly rolling fair 6-sided dice at opposite ends of the galaxy and getting matching values 1/3 of the time instead of the statistically expected 1/6, you must either conclude that faster-than-light communication of some sort is occuring, or else that the entire galaxy is conspiring to ruin the experiment and has been doing so for thousands of years in advance.

    If I come up with some model that I claim will one day explain and accurately predict all major experimental observations, but my model requires that 8 be a prime number in order for the explanations and predictions to work, then I can't claim to be in agreement with existing experiment unless I can show why all the mathematicians are wrong and 8 really is prime. To my knowledge, my initial assumptions in deriving Bell's Theorem didn't contradict any of the statements found in your model, so if you don't agree with the validity of the 33%+ anti-coincidence prediction, then you are indeed saying that something's wrong with the math, and I'll leave it to you to explain what's missing from the basic initial postulates and resulting deductions. The theorem doesn't say "this is what we might expect", it says "this is what we have to expect under any circumstances, provided the initial assumptions of locality and determinism hold throughout".

    Fair enough.
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2015

Share This Page