The quantum mechanics takes the significant place in the contemporary physics. It has many achievements in the development of our knowledge in the field of micro-world. There is the trial to penitence it on macro world [1]. With that in many ways such knowledge has the formal character that lowers the cognitive value of this theory that is so nus different as compared with the classical physics. Below the endeavor to give the alternative description of the notions of quantum mechanics is undertaken.
The quantum mechanics takes the significant place in the contemporary physics. It has many achievements in the development of our knowledge in the field of micro-world. There is the trial to penitence it on macro world [1]. With that in many ways such knowledge has the formal character that lowers the cognitive value of this theory that is so nus different as compared with the classical physics. Below the endeavor to give the alternative description of the notions of quantum mechanics is undertaken.
The modern physics is characterized by deeper and deeper penetration into the laws of the world of atoms and other minute particles of matter. These laws require not only new experimental techniques to be developed, but also new notions to formulate them. To describe atomic phenomena new methods that are completely different from those used to investigate larger objects of our world are required. The new problem of description of atomic objects is of particular practical importance since the arising notions could be applied to other fields of knowledge. Therefore on the ground of the modern physics some questions of the philosophical character arise. We are going to consider them here.
This paper re-opens the debate on the failure of quantum mechanics to provide an understandable view of micro-reality. A critique is offered of the commonly accepted ‘Copenhagen Interpretation’ of a theory that is only a mathematical approach to the level of reality characterized by atoms and electrons. This critique is based on the oldest approach to thinking about nature for over 2500 years, known as Natural Philosophy. Quantum mechanics (QM) was developed over the first quarter of the 20th Century, when scientists were enthralled by a new philosophy known as Positivism, whose foundations were based on the assumption that material objects exist only when measured by humans – this central assumption conflates epistemology (knowledge) with ontology (existence). The present critique rejects this human-centered view of reality by assuming material reality has existed long before (and will persist long after) human beings (“Realism”). The defensive view that the micro-world is too different to understand using regular thinking (and only a mathematical approach is possible) is rejected totally. At least 12 earlier QM interpretations are critically analyzed, indicating the broad interest in “what does QM mean?” The standard theory of quantum mechanics is thus constructed on only how the micro-world appears to macro measurements - as such, it cannot offer any view of how the foundations of the world are acting when humans are not observing it - this has generated almost 100 years of confusion and contradiction at the very heart of physics. Significantly, we live in a world that is not being measured by scientists but is interacting with itself and with us. QM has failed to provide explanations: only recipes (meaningless equations), not insights. Physics has returned to the pre-Newtonian world of Ptolemaic phenomenology: only verifiable numbers without real understanding. The focus needs to be on an explicit linkage between the micro-world, when left to itself, and our mental models of this sphere of material reality, via the mechanism of measurement. This limits the role of measurement to confirming our mental models of reality but never confusing these with a direct image of ‘the thing in itself’. This implies a deep divide between reality and appearances, as Kant suggested. This paper includes an original analysis of several major assumptions that have been implicit in Classical Mechanics (CM) that were acceptable in the macroscopic domain of reality, demonstrated by its proven successes. Unfortunately, only a few of these assumptions were challenged by the developers of QM. We now show that these other assumptions are still generating confusions in the interpretation of QM and blocking further progress in the understanding of the microscopic domain. Several of these flawed assumptions were introduced by Newton to support the use of continuum mathematics as a model of nature. This paper proposes that it is the attempt to preserve continuum mathematics (especially calculus), which drives much of the mystery and confusion behind all attempts at understanding quantum mechanics. The introduction of discrete mathematics is proposed to help analyze the discrete interactions between the quintessential quantum objects: the electrons and their novel properties. A related paper demonstrates that it is possible to create a point-particle theory of electrons that explains all their peculiar (and ‘paradoxical’) behavior using only physical hypotheses and discrete mathematics without introducing the continuum mathematical ideas of fields or waves. Another (related) paper proves that all the known results for the hydrogen atom can also be exactly calculated from this new perspective with the discrete mathematics. * Surrey, B.C. Canada (604) 542-2299 spsi99@telus.net Version 2.015 08-05-2017 Begun 23-06-2008 {pp. 82, 70.2 Kw; 800 KB}
It is the matter of fact that quantum mechanics operates with notions that are not determined in the frame of the mechanics' formalism. Among them we can call the notion of "wave-particle" (that, however, does not appear in both classical and high energy physics), the probabilistic interpretation of the Schroedinger wave ψ-function and hence the probability amplitude and its phase, long-range action, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the passage to the so-called operators of physical values, etc. Orthodox quantum mechanics was constructed as a physical theory developed in the phase space of the mentioned notions. That is why the formalism of quantum mechanics is aimed only at detailed calculations of the stationary states of the energy of the quantum system studied and is not able to describe a real path running by the system in the real space; instead, the formalism gives an averaged probabilistic prediction. Thus, if we are able to develop quantum mechanics in the real space, an option to clarify all the difficulties associated with the above notions would appear. Such a theory of quantum mechanics developed in the real space in fact has recently been constructed by the author. The theory started from deeper first principles, namely, from the consideration of the notion of a 4D space-time. So, the notion of fundamental particle, the principles of the motion of a particle and other characteristics have been made clear. The theory, rather a submicroscopic one, is characterized by short-range action that automatically means the introduction of a new kind of carriers, i.e. carriers of the quantum mechanical force. The existence of the carriers called "inertons" (because they carry inert properties of matter) has indeed been verified in a number of experiments.
Classical physics has enabled the acquisition of significant knowledge of the physical properties of nature on a standard macroscopic scale. These achievements were driven by use of the causal ontological approach (proposed originally by Aristotle) to formulate models of physical reality. At the beginning of the 20th century, however, the physics community began to prefer models based on a fundamentally different approach to human knowledge. Copenhagen quantum mechanics (CQM) was used to describe the micro-world. The special theory of relativity was used to describe the kinematics of objects moving at high velocity values in both the macroscopic and microscopic regions. This phenomenological approach to knowledge has been more focused on how things appear - instead of their actual properties and causal sequence. In the middle of the 20th century, the causal ontological approach was used to develop a significant scientific advance: the systematization of fundamental strongly interacting particles on the basis of unified algebra in three-dimensional isotopic spin space for spin values 1, 1/2, and 0. However, it was later strongly deformed under the influence of the phenomenological approach and the quark model. This paper will show that practically all contemporary theoretical models of physical reality contain mistakes or unresolved problems. Further scientific progress can be obtained if (and only if) scientists return to the successful causal ontological approach and falsification. Classical physics may be slightly generalized to enable the description of inertia mass increase in dependence on velocity, replacing the relativity theory and CQM. New assumptions may then be employed using generalized classical physics (GCP) to formulate new descriptions of observed phenomena that were previously inaccurately interpreted and used to promote fundamentally inadequate theories.
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago there began a quest for how to interpret the theoretical constructs of the formalism. In fact, the pursuit of new interpretations of quantum mechanics persists to this day. Most of these endeavors assume the validity of standard quantum formalism and proceed to ponder the ontic nature of wave functions, operators, and the Schödinger equation. The present essay takes a different approach, more epistemological than ontological. I endeavor to give a heuristic account of how empirical principles lead us to a quantum mechanical description of the world. An outcome of this approach is the suggestion that the notion of discrete quanta leads to the wave nature and statistical behavior of matter rather than the other way around. Finally, the hope is to offer some solace to those older of us who still worry about such things and also to provide the neophyte student of quantum mechanics with physical insight into the mathematically abstract and often baffling aspects of the theory.