Is the wave-function a physical reality traveling through our apparatus? Is it a real wave, or it is only a mathematical tool for calculating probabilities of results of measurements? Different interpretations of the quantum mechanics (QM) assume different answers to this question. It is shown in this article that the assumption that the wave-function is a real wave entails a contradiction with the predictions of the QM, when the special relativity is invoked. Therefore, this text concentrates on interpretations that conjecture that the reality that moves in our apparatuses is particles, and they move under the constraints of the wave-function. The de Broglie-Bohm interpretation, which matches this picture, assumes that the particle travels along a continuous trajectory. However, the idea of continuous trajectories was proved to lead to a contradiction with the quantum predictions. Therefore this interpretation is not considered here. S. Gao conjectured that the particle is in a permanent random and discontinuous motion (RDM). As it jumps all the time from place to place, the total set of occupied positions at a certain time is given by the absolute square of the wave-function. As motivation for his idea, Gao argued that if a charged particle were simultaneously in two or more locations at the same time, the copies of the particle would repel one another, destroying the wave-function. It is proved here that the quantum formalism renders this motivation wrong. Although refuting this motivation, the RDM interpretation is examined here. A couple of problems of this interpretation are examined and it is proved that they don’t lead to any observable contradictions with the QM predictions, except one problem which seems to have no solution. In all, it appears that none of the wide-spread interpretations of the QM is free of contradictions.
Is the wave-function a physical reality traveling through our apparatus? Is it a real wave, or it is only a mathematical tool for calculating probabilities of results of measurements? Different interpretations of the quantum mechanics (QM) assume different answers to this question. It is shown in this article that the assumption that the wave-function is a real wave entails a contradiction with the predictions of the QM, when the special relativity is invoked. Therefore, this text concentrates on interpretations that conjecture that the reality that moves in our apparatuses is particles, and they move under the constraints of the wave-function. The de Broglie-Bohm interpretation, which matches this picture, assumes that the particle travels along a continuous trajectory. However, the idea of continuous trajectories was proved to lead to a contradiction with the quantum predictions. Therefore this interpretation is not considered here. S. Gao conjectured that the particle is in a permanent random and discontinuous motion (RDM). As it jumps all the time from place to place, the total set of occupied positions at a certain time is given by the absolute square of the wave-function. As motivation for his idea, Gao argued that if a charged particle were simultaneously in two or more locations at the same time, the copies of the particle would repel one another, destroying the wave-function. It is proved here that the quantum formalism renders this motivation wrong. Although refuting this motivation, the RDM interpretation is examined here. A couple of problems of this interpretation are examined and it is proved that they don’t lead to any observable contradictions with the QM predictions, except one problem which seems to have no solution. In all, it appears that none of the wide-spread interpretations of the QM is free of contradictions.
What is the quantum system? Consider the wave-function of the electron—what we call “single particle wave-function”—and assume that it contains N wave-packets. If we pass all the wave-packets through an electric field, all are deflected, as if each one of them contains an electron. However, if we bring any two wave-packets to travel close to one another, they don’t repel one another, as if at least one of them contains no charge. In trying to solve the measurement problem of the quantum mechanics (QM), different interpretations were proposed, each one coming with a particular ontology. However, only one interpretation paid explicit attention to the contradiction mentioned above. This interpretation was proposed by S. Gao who named it “random discontinuous motion” (RDM), because it assumes the existence of a particle that jumps from place to place at random. The particle carries all the physical properties of the respective type of particle, mass, charge, magnetic momentum, etc. It jumps under the control of an “instantaneous condition” about which Gao did not give details so far. Along with presenting problems of the QM that this interpretation solves, this text reveals difficulties vis-à-vis entanglements and the special relativity.
We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distributions of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has effective mass and charge density distributing in space, proportional to the square of the absolute value of its wave function. In a realistic interpretation, the wave function of a quantum system can be taken as a description of either a physical field or the ergodic motion of a particle. The essential difference between a field and the ergodic motion of a particle lies in the property of simultaneity; a field exists throughout space simultaneously, whereas the ergodic motion of a particle exists throughout space in a time‐divided way. If the wave function is a physical field, then the mass and charge density will be distributed in space simultaneously for a charged quantum system, and thus there will exist gravitational and electrostatic self‐interactions of its wave function. This not only violates the superposition principle of quantum mechanics but also contradicts experimental observations. Thus the wave function cannot be a description of a physical field but be a description of the ergodic motion of a particle. For the later there is only a localized particle with mass and charge at every instant, and thus there will not exist any self‐interaction for the wave function. It is further argued that the classical ergodic models, which assume continuous motion of particles, cannot be consistent with quantum mechanics. Based on the negative result, we suggest that the wave function is a description of the quantum motion of particles, which is random and discontinuous in nature. On this interpretation, the square of the absolute value of the wave function not only gives the probability of the particle being found in certain locations, but also gives the probability of the particle being there. The suggested new interpretation of the wave function provides a natural realistic alternative to the orthodox interpretation, and it also implies that the de Broglie‐Bohm theory and many‐worlds interpretation are wrong and the dynamical collapse theories are in the right direction by admitting wavefunction collapse.
The wave function gives not the density of stuff, but gives rather (on squaring its modulus) the density of probability. Probability of what, exactly? Not of the electron being there, but of the electron being found there, if its position is ‘measured’. Why this aversion to ‘being’ and insistence on ‘finding’? The founding fathers were unable to form a clear picture of things on the remote atomic scale . John S. Bell (1990) Introduction The physical meaning of the wave function is an important interpretative problem of quantum mechanics. Notwithstanding nearly ninety years of development of the theory, it is still an unsolved issue. During recent years, more and more research has been done on the ontological status and meaning of the wave function (see, e.g. Monton, 2002; Lewis, 2004; Gao, 2011a, 2011b; Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph, 2012; Ney and Albert, 2013). In particular, Pusey, Barrett and Rudolph (2012) demonstrated that under certain non-trivial assumptions such as the preparation independence assumption, the wave function of a quantum system is a representation of the physical state of the system. This poses a further question, namely whether the reality of the wave function can be argued without resorting to non-trivial assumptions. Moreover, a harder problem is to determine the ontological meaning of the wave function, which is still a hot topic of debate in the realistic alternatives to quantum mechanics such as the de Broglie–Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics (Belot, 2012). In this chapter, we will first give a clearer argument for the reality of the wave function in terms of protective measurements, which does not depend on non-trivial assumptions and can also overcome existing objections. Next, based on an analysis of the mass and charge properties of a quantum system, we will propose a new ontological interpretation of the wave function. According to this interpretation, the wave function of an N -body system represents the state of ergodic motion of N particles.
We investigate the meaning of the wave function by analyzing the mass and charge density distribution of a quantum system. According to protective measurement, a charged quantum system has mass and charge density proportional to the modulus square of its wave function. It is shown that the mass and charge density is not real but effective, and it is formed by the ergodic motion of a localized particle with the total mass and charge of the system. Moreover, it is argued that the ergodic motion is not continuous but discontinuous and random. This result suggests a new interpretation of the wave function, according to which the wave function is a description of random discontinuous motion of particles, and the modulus square of the wave function gives the probability density of the particles being in certain locations. It is shown that the suggested interpretation of the wave function disfavors the de Broglie-Bohm theory and the many-worlds interpretation but favors the dynamical collapse theories, and the random discontinuous motion of particles may provide an appropriate random source to collapse the wave function.
In quantum mechanics, the physical state of an electron is described by a wave function. According to the standard probability interpretation, the wave function of an electron is probability amplitude, and its modulus square gives the probability density of finding the electron in a certain position in space. In this article, we show that this central assumption of quantum mechanics may have an ontological extension. It is argued that microscopic particles such as electrons are indeed particles, but their motion is not continuous but discontinuous and random. On this view, the modulus square of the wave function not only gives the probability density of the particles being found in certain locations, but also gives the probability density of the particles being there. In other words, the wave function in quantum mechanics can be regarded as a representation of the state of random discontinuous motion of particles, and at a deeper level, it may represent the dispositional property of the particles that determines their random discontinuous motion.
The postulate of the collapse of the wave-function stands between the microscopic, quantum world, and the macroscopic world. Because of this intermediate position, the collapse process cannot be examined with the formalism of the quantum mechanics (QM), neither with that of classical mechanics. This fact makes some physicists propose interpretations of QM, which avoid this postulate. However, the common procedure used in that is making assumptions incompatible with the QM formalism. The present work discusses the most popular interpretations. It is shown that because of such assumptions those interpretations fail, i.e. predict for some experiments results which differ from the QM predictions. Despite that, special attention is called to a proposal of S. Gao, the only one which addresses and tries to solve an obvious and major contradiction. A couple of theorems are proved for showing that the collapse postulate is necessary in the QM. Although non-explainable with the quantum formalism, this postulate cannot be denied, otherwise one comes to conclusions which disagree with the QM. It is also proved here that the idea of “collapse at a distance” is problematic especially in relativistic cases, and is a misunderstanding. Namely, in an entanglement of two quantum systems, assuming that the measurement of one of the systems (accompanied by collapse of that system on one of its states) collapses the other systems, too without the second system being measured, which leads to a contradiction.