Is This What Quantum Mechanics Looks Like? I think you'd like this.
Posted Nov 3, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC
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Can someone ELI5 how pilot wave theory differs from the Copenhagen Interpretation?
The very basic difference is, the Copenhagen interpretation assumes, whole the particle is represented with wave function itself, whereas the pilot wave theory considers the particle as a pin-point objects surrounded with wave function. Pilot wave theory explains double slit experiment better, because the particles still form the dots at target, only their invisible pilot wave is responsible for their flabelliform distribution. Copenhagen theory always predicts only fuzzy patterns. But de Broglie himself abandoned pilot wave theory on behalf of even more exact double solution theory, in which the seeming dots are formed with tiny wave function by itself. Few years ago Neumaier found an example system for which pilot-wave theory and quantum mechanics give disparate predictions. To my knowledge this latter system has never been tested, but Chen and Kleinert showed that pilot wave theory doesn't agree with quantum mechanics on one of the simplest examples that can be found: the double slit experiment.
pilot wave theory postulates that there exists a literal point particle (for distinction I'll call it a "mote") which is "guided" by the wavefunction.
And of course, this is the only physically realistic description of situation. We can see it for example during double slit diffraction of macroscopic particles, like the phtalocyanine molecules. It's physically unthinkable to assume, that this tangible particle (which can be comfortable observed under STM/AFM microscope) could be replaced with abstract wave function and dissolve itself into space-time just for the purpose of double slit experiment.
hydrodynamical analogs test rig tested at MIT
“Truth, like gold, is not to be obtained by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.” — Leo Tolstoy
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We're never going back to not knowing that photons cannot have wavefunctions.
Are you perfectly sure about it? Not only they can have it, but this wavefunction can be even "directly" measured. IMO your conviction is ideological, not based on experimental facts.
How mysterious that you omitted that pesky word "relativistic", no?
The truth is, the special relativity is native part of quantum mechanics neither. And the pilot wave theory can also have its relativistic formulation - it's just matter of formalism. But as I told already, the pilot wave theory has been considered a simplistic model even by its author, deBroglie himself. But because mainstream physics is biased against every aether-motivated model, it bothered to check neither relativistic pilot wave theory, neither double solution theory.
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photons can't have wavefunctions because this violates a fundamental theorem
This is double slit experiment with photons, this is double slit experiment with electrons. Electrons have wave function, photons cannot have, nevertheless the result of both experiments is the same and valid for particles with wave function - on this model it can be also derived theoretically.
Explain your "theorem" with experiment... ;-)
pilot wave theory can also have its relativistic formulation - It cannot
So how is it possible, it's derived here or here, for example?
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Quantum field theory does away with the concept of wavefunction altogether
A wave function in quantum mechanics is a description of the quantum state of a system. Without wave function the field theory cannot be quantum.
Since the same experiment can be described relativistically as well as nonrelativistically, it's clear that the wavefunction is not necessary for explaining the double slit experiment
Both relativistic, both nonrelativistic quantum mechanics utilize wave function. The wave function is the cornerstone of both Schrodinger, both Dirac wave equations - which are cornerstones of nonrelativistic and relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics. Phenomenological question: the double slit experiment illustrates diffraction of some wave function. If this wave function doesn't exist, what actually diffracts there?
wavefunction is not fundamental. And at least for photons it can't be because it doesn't exist.
No comment (1, 2). You can indeed present here your private theories (in the same way, like I'm doing it) - but you should label them so. The ideas of yours have no basis in mainstream physics, textbook peer-reviewed physics the less. That is to say, I don't believe you a single word - just deal with it... :-)
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show me where it is that wavefunctions are used in relativistic quantum theory
In relativistic quantum theory the wave functions are matrix elements of the field creation and annihilation step operators. Doesn't it include the Klein-Gordon and Dirac's equation?! You see, the Hamiltonian of Dirac equation is a two-component wave function by itself. The QFT functionals of the fields (hermitian operator) in configuration space obey a Schrödinger-type equation and they're analogous to the wavefunction in QM. The wavefunctions and state vectors are routinely used even in relativistic QFT - this is how we compute crossection scattering amplitudes for example. But I don't actually care, whether the QM could be expressed with abstract wave vectors or matrixes, but whether wave function gets real in quantum experiment. This is completely different level of evidence.
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Lev Vaidman: The Reality in Bohmian Quantum Mechanics or Can You Kill with an Empty Wave Bullet? Vaidman is well known proponent of Many Worlds interpretation (MWI), and Bohmian interpretation is close to the MWI
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Steven Weinberg: The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics A large part of the article is devoted to explaining his lack of satisfaction with the "two widely followed approaches to quantum mechanics, the "realist" and "instrumentalist" approaches, which view the origin of probability in measurement in two very different ways." The confusion of physicists with recent development about quantum mechanics is holographically dual version of general relativity breaking with dark matter and related stuffs.
In a different article Weinberg builds up to a deep concern he has that "The trouble is that in quantum mechanics the way that wave functions change with time is governed by an equation, the Schrödinger equation, that does not involve probabilities. It is just as deterministic as Newton’s equations of motion and gravitation...if we regard the whole process of measurement as being governed by the equations of quantum mechanics, and these equations are perfectly deterministic, how do probabilities get into quantum mechanics?
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Physicists can’t agree on what the quantum world looks like A recent survey shows that physicists disagree over the picture of reality that quantum mechanics describes – and that many of them don’t even care. There was no consensus among the 149 survey participants. While 39 per cent supported the so-called Copenhagen interpretation, the conventional picture of quantum mechanics, 25 per cent supported alternatives and 36 per cent had no preference at all. In addition, many weren’t sure they understood what certain interpretations described. In a survey, 32 per cent of respondents didn’t understand enough to have an opinion
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Water soap video , compare also Analog of crystalline structure with bouncing droplets and Veritasium's and Dustin's Smarter Every Day latest video. The link of water surface with quantum mechanics has been ignored with mainstream physics for nearly ten years due to its connection to aether and deBroglie theory. Pilot wave theory was the first known example of a hidden variable theory of quantum mechanics.
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New research demonstrates that particles at the quantum level can in fact be seen as behaving something like billiard balls rolling along a table, and not merely as the probabilistic smears that the standard interpretation of quantum mechanics suggests. But there's a catch - the tracks the particles follow do not always behave as one would expect from "realistic" trajectories, but often in a fashion that has been termed "surrealistic."
Original study This is the trivial consequence of classical double slit experiment, which I'm talking here all the time. The typical experiment evolves into wave patterns, where each particle leaves spot at the target. So it must impact there as a projectile, i.e. the real particle.
But how to explain the wavy patterns, after then? According to Richard Feynman, the two-slit experiment for electrons is (Feynman et al. 1963, p. 37–2) “a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. In reality it contains the only mystery.”
Well, Louis deBroglie suggested in 1927 already, that each particle gets surrounded with wake wave of vacuum, which travels together with it and it's large enough for to interfere with both slits at the same moment. A very easy and intuitive interpretation, which isn't very different from situation with boat floating at the surface of river, as implied by aether model. DeBroglie theory was even smarter than this and it involved double quantization of both photon, both pilot wave around it, which is aspect which advanced time even more. Not surprisingly, deBroglie was aetherist and he proposed the existence of hidden energetic continuum for to explain his model. But just this aspect of deBroglie theory hit the ideological barrier in mainstream physics: the physicists got upset with it and deBroglie pilot wave theory was abandoned in the same way, like all later "renegade" attempts based on it (David Bohm and others).
The scientists have a good reason to ignore deBroglie theory, because if the photons behave in this experiment like pin-point particles surrounded with wake wave, it must also mean, that they're as massive as the normal particles - and they even make waves around itself. These waves are believed to spread with speed of light, which is just a problem, because it would also imply, that the photons are slower than the light. For all physicists who believe in relativity such a conclusion is simply a deep shit, which is labeled PSEUDOSCIENCE here all the time. But - how to explain after then, that the stars lose their mass by their radiation? All experimental evidence we have points to fact, that the light is composed of two components, one of which propagates slower (being identified as a photon) and second one (scalar and so far hidden for mainstream physics), which propagates faster. The experiments observing the speed of light macroscopically just measure the combined effect of both components.
We should realize, that all experiments dealing with speed of light were never arranged with lone photons (despite we can already produce them), so that the actual speed of photon still remains a mystery for physics. Not so much for dense aether model, which is inspired with water surface analogy with solitons. At the water surface the solitons also propagate slower than the surface ripples. But they're also unstable and they occasionally disappear and emerge somewhere else at distance, which macroscopically violates the wave speed limit. In this way the photons behave both like the massive bosons, both the tachyons jumping from place to place. I we would arrange the experiments in a way, we would track the photon consequently along whole its path, then we would probably get the subluminal speed. But because we aren't doing it, then the photon undergoes quantum decoherence and it will jump to more distant place, which compensates its delay.
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For all physicists who believe in relativity such a conclusion is simply a deep shit, which is labeled PSEUDOSCIENCE here all the time.
Not here. This is your place, Zephyr.
I must say, that was a lucid essay. I do not understand how vacuum can form a wake, though I do understand that the photon moves through something.
I wonder if virtual pairing is more dense than we suspect.
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how vacuum can form a wake
Vacuum is behaving like the elastic foam, this applet illustrates its behavior quite well. This foam gets thick and dense if we introduce an energy into it in similar way, like the soap foam shaken inside the closed vessel.The quantum mechanical Schrodinger equation describes the elastic string, the mass density of which in each time and space interval is also proportional the energy density in each time and space interval (the Hamiltonian). On the thickening of spin quantum foam with introduction of energy also the causal dynamical triangulation approach of loop quantum gravity theory is based (this theory also describes the space-time as a foam).
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Violation of the Born Rule: Implications for Macroscopic Fields. It is shown that violation of the Born Rule leads to a breakdown of the correspondence between the quantum electromagnetic field and its classical counterpart. Specifically, the relationship of the quantum coherent state to the classical electromagnetic field turns out to imply that if the Born Rule were violated, this could result in apparent deviations from the energy conservation law applying to the field and its sources (Poynting's Theorem). The result, which is fully general and independent of interpretations of quantum theory, suggests that the Born Rule is just as fundamental a law of Nature as are the field conservation laws.
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Original follow up at NewScientist ([Firefox backup](http://www.aetherwavetheory.info/images/disscussion/Classic quantum experiment could conceal theory of everything _ New Scientist.maff)) A tweak to the iconic double-slit experiment could reveal if quantum mechanics is incomplete. See also Why Probability in Quantum Mechanics is Given by the Wave Function Squared. There is a result called Gleason’s Theorem, which says that the Born Rule is the only consistent probability rule you can conceivably have that depends on the wave function alone.
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Weinberg's new calls for an overhaul of quantum mechanics: Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg says current debates suggest need for new approach to comprehend reality. Being formally thinking Jew, Steven Weinberg used to be happy with quantum mechanics as it is and didn’t worry about the debates. But as he has thought about it over the years, the 83-year-old Nobel laureate has reassessed.
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I thought Weinberg would be immune to this junk since he is the author of dreams of a final theory, it seems they lose it as they get older (T Hooft was before him). It's sad really getting old and not being able to do hard science anymore, leaving you no option but to embarrassingly enough fooloshophize.
OLOL... :-)
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“I’m not as happy about quantum mechanics as I used to be, and not as dismissive of the critics. And it’s a bad sign in particular that those physicists who are happy about quantum mechanics, who see nothing wrong with it, don’t agree with each other about what it means. (link to 17:40 minute of Patrusky lecture)
It’s become a cliché that physicists in their late years develop an obsession with quantum mechanics. On this account, you can file Weinberg together with Mermin and Penrose and Smolin. Whatever Weinberg’s motivation, he doesn’t like neither Copenhagen, nor Many Worlds, nor decoherent or consistent histories, and he seems to be allergic to pilot waves (1:02:15). As for qbism, which Mermin finds so convincing, that doesn’t even seem noteworthy to Weinberg.
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How does the Pilot Wave interpretation account for the collapse of the wave function? The discussion at r/Physics illustrates, that the young people today have no idea, how the pilot wave theory works - not to say about quantum mechanics.
The collapse of wave function is closely related to INSINTRIC perspective of deBroglie wave, not extrinsic one, as usually. In AWT both particles of observer, both particles of observed object are surrounded by their adjacent pilot waves. At the moment, when observed object exchanges some energy with particles of observer during process of observation, the undulations of both waves aren't independent anymore: they will undulate in phase too. As the observed object doesn't undulate independently from observer in this moment, the corresponding part of their mutual undulations will disappear from observation, because the internal motion of both systems had been synchronized. We are calling this situation, that the observer gets ENTANGLED with the object (particle) observed. Such an object can still remain undulating from perspective of another observer, though - this is the moment, when relativity and many worlds concept takes place in quantum mechanics. Occasionally the pilot waves of observer and observed object may get desynchronized with quantum fluctuations of vacuum again and this is the process known as a quantum decoherence.
Here I presented an illustrative macroscopic analogy of that situation. Try to imagine, you're a blind sailor, who is staying at night at the end of floating wharf, to which some boat is attached. Because night sea is stormy, everything (both sailor, wharf and boat) are wobbling up and down, but in different phases. From the perspective of sailor this boat sways randomly. The observation of quantum particle is analogous to situation, when sailor touches the boat for a moment, thus exchanging some kinetic energy with it. What will happen, after then? The wharf and boat will begin to oscillate at phase. It means, the sailor will keep his relative position with respect to boat, so he cannot detect any boat wobbling anymore, because he moves by the same way. We can say, the wave motion/function of boat has collapsed from local perspective of that sailor.
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Many-Worlds and Schroedinger's First Quantum Theory Schroedinger's first proposal for the interpretation of quantum mechanics was based on a postulate relating the wave function on configuration space to charge density in physical space. Schroedinger apparently later thought that his proposal was empirically wrong. The authors argue, that when analyzed carefully this theory is seen to be an empirically adequate many-worlds theory and still not an empirically inadequate theory describing a single world. Moreover, this formulation--Schroedinger's first quantum theory--can be regarded as a formulation of the many-worlds view of quantum mechanics that is ontologically clearer than Everett's one.
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Bohmian mechanics/pilot wave theory: How are particles created or destroyed? In essence, the quantum mechanics doesn't solve/answer such a question - this is a subject of quantum field theory, not vanilla quantum mechanics. But the pilot wave is massive (it's responsible for so-called relativistic mass and contraction) and in original formulation of double solution theory of deBroglie (Bohm's pilot wave theory is just crippled version of it) the particle itself is represented with quantum wave in similar way, like it's wake wave.
The core idea, put forward by Prince Louis de Broglie is that there is alongside Schrodinger’s equation, a second wave (this one obeying a non-linear equation) which he called a “matter wave”. The equation for the guiding wave is the normal Schrodinger equation. De Broglie proceeded by analogy to hydrodynamics, working to formulate a new wave equation that would give him soliton-type solutions for the matter wave that would represent “particles” — this whole wave would then be guided dynamically by the Schrodinger wave. This also provides the difference from Copenhagen interpretation, in which whole the particle is represented by the probability wave itself. In AWT the Copenhagen formulation can describe only photons at the CMB wavelength, nothing else.
However, as de Broglie came to prepare to present a talk on his ideas at the 1927 Solvay conference, he realized that he had not been able to develop his double-solution idea sufficiently for him to calculate with. So he retreated to a simpler approach which drops the matter wave, and replaces it with a single particle “riding” on the Schrodinger wave. This particle represents the state of the whole system. de Broglie felt that this whole approach was less satisfactory, but kept enough of his essential ideas to be helpful, and had the great advantage of being possible to calculate with. This simpler theory is essentially what we know now as Bohmian mechanics, and is a fully worked out interpretation of quantum mechanics.
At the Solvay conference de Broglie was greeted with a deal of skepticism, though he was tempted several times to return to see if his double solution theory could be revived and in his later articles he developed his ideas further. so that when Bohm rediscovered the wave+particle approach in the early 1950s, de Broglie remained rather frosty, pointing out that he had already explored this area.
Therefore the double solution theory should be always referenced, once we discuss the consequences of pilot wave model. Unfortunately, most of redditors have no idea, that something like the double solution theory exists.
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Is it possible to reproduce the entanglement phenomenon with the oil droplets?
Of course. - with whole arrays of particles (YT video) Isn't it quite apparent?
After all, whole the double slit experiment is just about entanglement of particle with double slit barrier. It's therefore impossible to correctly model double slit experiment without demonstration of entanglement concept at the same moment.
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how do you create a topological shortcut between two particles in a dimensionally reduced simulation
The topological shortcut is already established here. The surface wave spreading between pair of particles undulating in unison travels along shorter path, than this one between particles desynchronized, because the water surface remains less deformed there in average.
For to make things completely clear: the 3D water surface analogy of quantum mechanics cannot really model the subtleties of weak and strong entanglement and another hyperdimensional stuffs. But the formal maths of existing reductionist models of quantum mechanics cannot account to them neither. But the added value of surface wave analogies is, it illustrates the way, in which these models can be improved. Compare also Why bouncing droplets are a pretty good model of quantum mechanics
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The first ever photograph of light(?) as both a particle and wave - unfortunately just for plasmon field only, not vacuum.
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Quanta Magazine link about experimental verification of pilot wave theory: "We have verified the effect pointed out by ESSW that for a WWM with a delayed readout, Bohmian trajectories originating at the lower slit may be accompanied by WWM results associated with either the upper or the lower slit. …"
Because we as experimenters don't have access to the hidden variable level, violation of locality does not mean we can signal faster than light. Compare also ten years old An experimental test of non-local realism
Two interpretations of double slit experiment
In this thread I linked the water surface analogy of EMDrive. In this perspective the EMDrive behaves like the conical barrier, floating at the water surface. Try to imagine, we are doing ripples & splashes inside this barrier, which are bouncing back and forth, but because they cannot leave the barrier, they wouldn't spread into outside. If we would neglect the (existence of) underwater, then the floating barrier couldn't propagate in any direction in similar way, like the classical physics predicts for EMDrive in vacuum.
But the surface ripples also induce an underwater sound waves, which can escape the barrier beneath the water surface, and because it's wider at one end, the sound wave pressure will push it into reactive motion in opposite direction. The underwater sound waves also manifest itself like tiny turbulences at the water surface, which are speeding up the surface wave spreading.
Hydrodynamic analogy of EMDrive
The interpretation of quantum mechanics has nothing very much to do with it, because the quantum mechanics disallows the EMDrive thrust by one interpretation of it or another one. In particular, the pilot wave is still surface ripple (kinda wake wave which is forming around particle in motion), so it cannot explain the spontaneous propagation of EmDrive. You would need hyperdimensional quantum field theory for to explain it.
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What's the minimum thrust level thought to be necessary for 'interesting' missons?
Define "interesting". For contemporary grant seeking lobby even the manned flight to Mars is interesting, despite the apparent lack of its usefulness. Ad Astra VASIMR VX-200 with argon propellant generates thrust 28.5 mN/kW and it's still interesting, despite it's not propellantless drive.
But the best, but still unverified EMDrive prototypes reportedly generated thrust 10.000 x higher - so I do perceive the latest NASA reports rather as a failure than another success from this perspective.
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IBTimes UK has been informed that the US Air Force is currently testing out a version of the EmDrive electromagnetic microwave thruster on the X-37B unmanned military space plane, while the Chinese government has made sure to include the EmDrive on its orbital space laboratory Tiangong-2. This case just illustrates, how the official scientific research - and the public awareness of scientists about its possibilities - gets delayed behind actual state of technology. The EM Drive just gives the military industrial complex an opening to start testing an exotic propulsion technology without having to acknowledge they've already had such systems for many decades. Although their technologies probably did not incorporate cone shaped cavities with microwaves bouncing in them, asymmetrical capacitor based propulsion systems have been around for a very long time.
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How Physics Falls Apart If The EMdrive Works (Forbes article)
Physics will not fall apart, if the EMDrive works as anounced by NASA, because the thrust observed by NASA was very small and such a weak drag force could be explained with small corrections of existing theories, which the physicists would undoubtedly invent soon. Not to say about classical corrections following from less or more hidden errors in experimental arrangement (aka unbalanced convective, radiative or electromagnetic forces).
The problem for existing physics will arise, once it will turn out, that the Shawyer / Cannae drives work as announced, because their thrust is reportedly by many orders of magnitude higher than the thrust of EMDrive of NASA. The usual incremental approach will not be possible to apply there.
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Scientific methods are now outdated
On the contrary - every experienced Lutheran or Illuminati would tell you, that the problem of contemporary science isn't the a-priori bad design of scientific method - but the way, in which contemporary scientists learned to fuck with it. The physicists today should just learn to use the Popperian methodology again, that's all. They already have good principles and paradigms of research developed, but they don't use them at all.
Ironically we don't need more "New physics", but more this classical one for actual understanding. I do realize, that the "New physics" looks fancy for many people here - but what we really need is not to find new unexpected yet principles, but to connect many well ignored and abandoned findings with already notoriously known facts - or we would just replace one lack of understanding with another one. As a proponent of dense aether model I do realize, we are still utilizing only one half of physics - this one described from perspective of transverse waves of light only. Whole the second half of physics is based on scalar waves, which were actually proposed and even observed long time ago, but completely ignored.
It's also not secret for me, that the EMDrive is very inefficient as a scalar wave demonstrator/generator/thruster. We already invented much more effective principles and thrusters (Podkletnov/Poher). Their impulse is quite macroscopic. The acceptation of EMDrive would just open the way for more serious study of another already known principles and phenomena, which are the deeper taboo, the more effective and powerful they actually are.
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Pilot Wave Theory and Quantum Realism , unhappy twaddling about it at Motl's blog...
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One thing I find rather peculiar about these discussions is how these bouncing droplet experiments are used in support of Bohmian mechanics. They don't behave anything alike. In BM particles remain stationary in eigenstates (which is a greater affront to intuition that any of the "weird" features of quantum mechanics) whereas these bouncing droplets are just contrived versions of that age old experiment involving a plate, some sand, and a speaker (e.g.). Perhaps we're just sand, and the universe is just a plate with a gigantic speaker... :)
First of all, the Bohmian mechanics isn't the very final version of Louis deBroglie theory, the double solution theory is. In this model the particle is represented by its own wave function, so it's definitely not stationary and its propagation is driven with another wave function, i.e. with pilot wave itself.
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I wrote about it before eight years already (and later for example here). The misunderstanding of double slit experiment is just in the fact, what we are observing is the mixture of dots and waves - this duality points to hidden variables already. Such an result also disqualifies the wave/particle complementarity of Copenhagen interpretation, which disallows such a result.
Born rule violation
I remember. That is why I thought you would like the video.
Cheers!