Irreversible Processes in Physical Theory

A.P. Grécos, I. Prigogine

Geoffrey L. Sewell

Huaiyu Zhu

The standard quantum theory is mathematically incompatible with irreversible macroscopic theories. An alternative irreversible quantum theory is proposed, which also provides an explanation of measurement as a physical process. It is based on the postulate that the physical world is governed by unitary evolution (wave propogation) punctuated by random discontinuity (particle interaction). The time, space and identities of particles are in superposition, while the types and numbers of interactions are in mixture.

Danker L. N. Vink

Thomas G. Blomberg

A deductive physical theory should in principle be a pure mathematical theory together with an identification of certain quantities/concepts (“observables”) in the theory and corresponding observable entities in the real world. This identification – the “interpretation” of the theory – should be unproblematic, both for the theoretician and the experimentalist. A general basis for a deductive physical theory, comprising both classical and quantum physics in a unified way, is proposed. The theory is based on successive confidence estimates on quantum-mechanical wave functions corresponding to space-localizations of particles. This allows a direct and simple way of describing both macroscopic and microscopic phenomena by means of the same basic concepts. Central in the axiomatics of the outlined theory is a concept called equiangular sequences of projection operators. It describes a successive sequence of “collapses of the wave function”. The proposed theory gives a basis for a general theory of irreversible processes based directly on quantum mechanics. It gives an alternative definition of entropy and an alternative derivation of entropy increase in irreversible processes.

Jürgen Michael Grimm

Born's probability interpretation of 1926 was formulated without knowledge of detector physics. Modern silicon photodetectors show what Born could not have known: the measurement process is a continuous, irreversible, physical process with measurable timescales and mechanisms – not an instantaneous collapse, with no role for the observer's consciousness. We describe this process as TIME (Temporal Interference with Multiple Eigenstates) – x – EMIT (Electronic Materialisation via Irreversible Transition): three phases of a single continuous process. The moment x – the entropic point – lies inside the detector. There, entropy opens irreversibly. The Heisenberg cut – the conceptual boundary between quantum and classical description, shiftable in principle – is physically localisable, thermodynamically describable, and metrologically accessible. The overlap integral of the band transition behaves like a logical AND gate: energy, Bloch symmetry, and – in indirect semiconductors – a phonon clock edge must all be satisfied simultaneously. Experimental spectroscopy confirms the universal Fourier relation between linewidth and lifetime – a mathematical identity, not a quantum mystery. This is pure didactics: no new postulate, no new experiment, no new theory. Only the physics that has stood in the textbooks for decades – followed through consistently to its end.