Quantum Mechanics (QM)

This revisionist essay aimed at educated people who have learned physics from pop TV 'science'. It was written to correct the false impression of the historical development of Quantum Theory that has unfortunately become accepted as orthodoxy and has even entered popular culture (TV and book popularizations via the ‘magic’ word “Quantum”). This essay is a highly boiled-down version of a much larger paper aimed at professionals who are quite familiar with the technical outline. The implicit message here (and made explicit in the technical paper) is that both mathematical evolution and new physics experiments both threatened the 2,500-year​ dominance of the trio of traditional philosophy, physics and mathematics. The mathematical revolution will be omitted here as it is much too technical for a general audience but the ‘hidden’ story of quantum physics should be understandable to anyone with a strong imagination while recognizing the persistence of traditional ‘continuous’ concepts.

2018

A variety of speculations about the nature of quantum mechanics and wavefunction collapse. A number of “key principles” are set down; these must surely hold true. Holding onto these, a variety of mathematical effects are explored, to see if or how they might be appropriate for describing QM, and its relationship to

Physics of Atomic Nuclei, 2009

Some aspects of the interpretation of quantum theory are discussed. It is emphasized that quantum theory is formulated in a Cartesian coordinate system; in other coordinates the result obtained with the help of the Hamiltonian formalism and commutator relations between 'canonically conjugated' coordinate and momentum operators leads to a wrong version of quantum mechanics. In this connection the Feynman integral formalism is also discussed. In this formalism the measure is not well-defined and there is no idea how to distinguish between the true version of quantum mechanics and an incorrect one; it is rather a mnemonic rule to generate perturbation series from an undefined zero order term. The origin of time is analyzed in detail by the example of atomic collisions. It is shown that the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the closed three-body (two nuclei + electron) system has no physical meaning since in the high impact energy limit it transforms into an equation with two independent time-like variables; the time appears in the stationary Schrödinger equation as a result of extraction of a classical subsystem (two nuclei) from a closed three-body system. Following the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and Bell's inequality the wave function is interpreted as an actual field of information in the elementary form. The relation between physics and mathematics is also discussed.

2006

Planck and black-body radiation.

 About the end of 19 th century, classical physics had attained near perfection and successfully explains most of the observed physical phenomenon like motion of particles, rigid bodies, fluid dynamics etc under the influence of appropriate forces and leads to conclusion that there is no more development at conceptual level.  But some new phenomenon observed during the last decade of 19 th century which are not explained by classical physics. Thus to explain their phenomena a new revolutionary concept was born which is known as Quantum physics developed by many outstanding physicists such as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, De Broglie, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Born, Dirac and others.  The quantum idea was 1 st introduced by Max Planck in 1900 to explain the observed energy distribution in the spectrum of black body radiation which is later used successfully by Einstein to explain Photoelectric Effect.  Neils Bohr used a similar quantum concept to formulate a model for H-atom and explain the observed spectra successfully.  The concept of dual nature of radiation was extended to Louis De Broglie who suggested that particles should have wave nature under certain circumstances. Thus the wave particle duality is regarded as basic ingredient of nature.

Physics Essays, 2012

Some aspects of the interpretation of quantum theory are discussed. It is emphasized that quantum theory is formulated in a Cartesian coordinate system; in other coordinates the result obtained with the help of the Hamiltonian formalism and commutator relations between 'canonically conjugated' coordinate and momentum operators leads to a wrong version of quantum mechanics. In this connection the Feynman integral formalism is also discussed. In this formalism the measure is not well-defined and there is no idea how to distinguish between the true version of quantum mechanics and an incorrect one; it is rather a mnemonic rule to generate perturbation series from an undefined zero order term. The origin of time is analyzed in detail by the example of atomic collisions. It is shown that the time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the closed three-body (two nuclei + electron) system has no physical meaning since in the high impact energy limit it transforms into an equation with two independent time-like variables; the time appears in the stationary Schrödinger equation as a result of extraction of a classical subsystem (two nuclei) from a closed three-body system. Following the Einstein-Rosen-Podolsky experiment and Bell's inequality the wave function is interpreted as an actual field of information in the elementary form. The relation between physics and mathematics is also discussed.

2000

Fundamental issues concerned with time, both the possible connection of the thermodynamic and cosmological arrows and the possibility of retrocausality, are analyzed using a two-time boundary value formulation. Ways in which the future fate of the universe could leave observable traces today are suggested. Finally, if the definiteness of quantum measurement arises from the occurrence of ''special states'' then the

Orthodoxy has created a false view of the historical development of Quantum Theory. The thesis here is that the 100 years, beginning around 1840 has been " The Century of the Mathematicians", who now dominate theoretical physics. The 2500-year-old​ domination of western thinkers' commitment to Geometry, Analysis (with its infinitesimals) and their associated metaphysical assumption of infinity and the Continuum, was threatened around 1850 by the inventions of discrete mathematics and non-Euclidean geometries. This threat became serious with the discrete discoveries around 1900 by experimental physicists: firstly of the electron, then the physical atom and their discrete electromagnetic (EM) spectra, compounded by Bohr's radical model of the hydrogen atom with its very good agreement with its measured spectrum. Hilbert and others headed the successful mathematical Counter-Reformation with the invention of infinite Euclidean spaces and Analytic Function theory (known as Hilbert Spaces). These new mathematical tools, along with the misreading of de Broglie's dramatic wave/particle proposal, rapidly led to a second generation quantum theory, usually called Wave Mechanics (WM) that completely overshadowed (by design) the " older " Quantum Mechanics (QM) of Bohr and its brilliant elliptical extension by Arnold Sommerfeld. Most new textbooks on quantum theory (usually written by mathematical physicists) begin with WM or its continuum vector space equivalence. Even some of the histories of the Quantum make the same omission (perhaps through ignorance, as the orthodox view is now so widely accepted).

Foundations of Science, 2016

Although the present paper looks upon the formal apparatus of quantum mechanics as a calculus of correlations, it goes beyond a purely operationalist interpretation. Having established the consistency of the correlations with the existence of their correlata (measurement outcomes), and having justified the distinction between a domain in which outcome-indicating events occur and a domain whose properties only exist if their existence is indicated by such events, it explains the difference between the two domains as essentially the difference between the manifested world and its manifestation. A single, intrinsically undifferentiated Being manifests the macroworld by entering into reflexive spatial relations. This atemporal process implies a new kind of causality and sheds new light on the mysterious nonlocality of quantum mechanics. Unlike other realist interpretations, which proceed from an evolving-states formulation, the present interpretation proceeds from Feynman's formulation of the theory, and it introduces a new interpretive principle, replacing the collapse postulate and the eigenvalueeigenstate link of evolving-states formulations. Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between regions of space, this principle implies that the spatiotemporal differentiation of the physical world is incomplete. Applied to alternatives involving distinctions between things, it warrants the claim that, intrinsically, all fundamental particles are identical in the strong sense of numerical identical. They are the aforementioned intrinsically undifferentiated Being, which manifests the macroworld by entering into reflexive spatial relations.