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JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN PHYSICS

On the Need for a Certain Physicality from Quantum Theory

Devin Hardy

Published Mar 29, 2017• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Many attempts have been made at the unification of General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Theory (QT), but there is a fundamental error made with these attempts, as we will discuss. What is the point of such theories? Well, obviously to describe the physical world we live in. QT describes what happens on the tiny scale, and GR describes what happens to bodies on a large scale. The fundamental error in unifying the two subjects is that QT doesn’t provide the physical happenings for GR to work, or in other words, QT describes why the world is the way it is, but not how, and this does not philosophically suffice in GR. Must we simply give up, in that the subjects are two different entities? I think the answer is that we mustn't. I think that we should put one theory in terms of the basic mechanics of the other, perhaps by simplifying, or perhaps by taking the physical reality to be our guide. Do I believe QT describes the world? Accurately. Do I believe that QT is the physical truth? Of course not… it is simply a mathematical construct to provide a model that allows for us to predict future outcomes. I will begin very simplistic, but the goal for the first part of the paper is to Classically describe the physical mechanics of QT. I will stick with particles in their ground state, and hence no translational motion.

DOI
10.24297/jap.v13i3.5953

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Many attempts have been made at the unification of General Relativity (GR) and Quantum Theory (QT), but there is a fundamental error made with these attempts, as we will discuss. What is the point of such theories? Well, obviously to describe the physical world we live in. QT describes what happens on the tiny scale, and GR describes what happens to bodies on a large scale. The fundamental error in unifying the two subjects is that QT doesn’t provide the physical happenings for GR to work, or in other words, QT describes why the world is the way it is, but not how, and this does not philosophically suffice in GR. Must we simply give up, in that the subjects are two different entities? I think the answer is that we mustn't. I think that we should put one theory in terms of the basic mechanics of the other, perhaps by simplifying, or perhaps by taking the physical reality to be our guide. Do I believe QT describes the world? Accurately. Do I believe that QT is the physical truth? Of course not… it is simply a mathematical construct to provide a model that allows for us to predict future outcomes. I will begin very simplistic, but the goal for the first part of the paper is to Classically describe the physical mechanics of QT. I will stick with particles in their ground state, and hence no translational motion.
We discuss the problems of quantum theory (QT) complicating its merging with general relativity (GR). QT is treated as a general theory of micro-phenomena—a bunch of models. Quantum mechanics (QM) and quantum field theory (QFT) are the most widely known (but, e.g., Bohmian mechanics is also a part of QT). The basic problems of QM and QFT are considered in interrelation. For QM, we stress its nonrelativistic character and the presence of spooky action at a distance. For QFT, we highlight the old problem of infinities. And this is the main point of the paper: it is meaningless to try to unify QFT so heavily suffering of infinities with GR. We also highlight difficulties of the QFT-treatment of entanglement. We compare the QFT and QM based measurement theories by presenting both theoretical and experimental viewpoints. Then we discuss two basic mathematical constraints of both QM and QFT, namely, the use of real (and, hence, complex) numbers and the Hilbert state space. We briefly present non-archimedean and non-hilbertian approaches to QT and their consequences. Finally, we claim that, in spite of the Bell theorem, it is still possible to treat quantum phenomena on the basis of a classical-like causal theory. We present a random field model generating the QM and QFT formalisms. This emergence viewpoint can serve as the basis for unification of novel QT (may be totally different from presently powerful QM and QFT) and GR. (It may happen that the latter would also be revolutionary modified.)
After the development of a self-consistent quantum formalism nearly a century ago, there ensued a quest to understand the often counterintuitive predictions of the theory. These endeavors invariably begin with the assumption of the "truth" of the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics and then proceed to investigate the theory's implications for the physical world. One of the outcomes has been endless discussions of the quantum measurement problem, wave/particle duality, the non-locality of entangled quantum states, Schroedinger's cat, and other philosophical conundrums. In this essay, I take the point of view that quantum mechanics is a mathematical model, a human invention, and rather than pondering what the theory implies about our world, I consider the transposed question: what is it about our world that leads us to a quantum mechanical model of it? One consequence is the realization that discrete quanta, the quantum of action in particular, leads to the wave nature and statistical behavior of matter rather than the other way around.
“Despite almost a century’s worth of study, it is still unclear how general relativity (GR) and quantum theory (QT) should be unified into a consistent theory. The conventional approach is to retain the foundational principles of QT, such as the superposition principle, and modify GR. This is referred to as ‘quantizing gravity’, resulting in a theory of ‘quantum gravity’. The opposite approach is ‘gravitizing QT’ where we attempt to keep the principles of GR, such as the equivalence principle, and consider how this leads to modifications of QT. What we are most lacking in understanding which route to take, if either, is experimental guidance. Here we consider using the Dirac–Pauli representation of free Dirac equation to search for the clues. In particular, we study how the double-slit diffraction experiment, when only one Dirac particle (‘say’ electron) at a time is in the apparatus, could test a gravitizing QT proposal in which the wavefunction collapse emerges on the detector screen from the Dirac–Pauli representation, as an objective process, resolving the measurement problem of QT.” [1] We found that the Dirac–Pauli representation is inherently a unified theory embodying a gravitizing QT proposal that Dirac–Pauli representation as wave nature is manifestation of inertial mass and the Foldy-Wouthuysen representation as particle nature is manifestation of gravitational mass such that the fact, that same physics is involved in these two representations, is simply the validity and exhibition of the principle of equivalence, of GR, in QT. [1] Richard Howl et al 2019 New J. Phys. 21 043047 DOI 10.1088/1367-2630/ab104a
Quantum theory To conceptualize the molecular origins of thermodynamic equilibrium, one must first understand the elemental ways by which molecules interact. How does the world really work? What are the most fundamental principles that form the basis of reality as we know it? Currently our understanding of reality rests upon two principal concepts in physics: quantum theory and relativity. Both of these have been subjected to stringent experimental tests over the past century, and their combination has in part led to a deep understanding of elementary particles. There still remain some incompatibilities between the two, namely in understanding the nature of gravity, and there have been intense efforts to find new fundamental physical explanations. However, for the purposes of our discussion, we will focus solely on quantum theory since for nearly all of the models and systems that we will discuss one can safely avoid considerations of relativistic effects. Quantum mechanics describes the complete time evolution of a system in a quantum sense, in a manner analogous to what Newtonian mechanics does for classical systems. It is most easily described in terms of a system of fundamental particles, such as electrons and protons.
www.philipgoyal.org Quantum theory is an extraordinarily successful physical theory. But what does it mean? What implications does it have for the mechanical conception of Nature that underlies classical physics? Remarkably, some eighty years after the creation of quantum theory, we still lack clear answers to these questions. In this paper, we discuss the nature of the obstacles that stand in our way, and describe recent work to overcome them by attempting to reconstruct the mathematics of quantum theory from a small number of simple physical ideas.