Canonical Copenhagen QED (KQED) predicts that substantive information cannot be communicated faster than light (FTL) or backwards in time. KQED is essentially just the combination of three assumptions used together to make predictions: (1) the assumption that the wave function ψ(t) evolves according to the time-symmetric system ∂tψ=iHψ where is H is the normal product form of the Maxwell-Dirac Hamiltonian; (2) the classical Copenhagen measurement formalism, including metaphysical observers and collapse of the wave function; (3) Fermi’s Golden Rule for spontaneous emission. MQED, published in 2015, replaces the measurement part with a new measurement formalism without observers based on what (1) actually predicts. MQED is not a local realistic theory, but (unlike KQED) it might be derived as a good statistical approximation to one. The 2015 paper proposed a decisive experiment to test which is right, KQED or MQED. This paper proposes a simpler if messier decisive experiment, to demonstrate FTL communication, more details of MQED and the possibility in principle of an underlying local realistic theory of physics.
Canonical Copenhagen QED (KQED) predicts that substantive information cannot be communicated faster than light (FTL) or backwards in time. KQED is essentially just the combination of three assumptions used together to make predictions: (1) the assumption that the wave function ψ(t) evolves according to the time-symmetric system ∂tψ=iHψ where is H is the normal product form of the Maxwell-Dirac Hamiltonian; (2) the classical Copenhagen measurement formalism, including metaphysical observers and collapse of the wave function; (3) Fermi’s Golden Rule for spontaneous emission. MQED, published in 2015, replaces the measurement part with a new measurement formalism without observers based on what (1) actually predicts. MQED is not a local realistic theory, but (unlike KQED) it might be derived as a good statistical approximation to one. The 2015 paper proposed a decisive experiment to test which is right, KQED or MQED. This paper proposes a simpler if messier decisive experiment, to demonstrate FTL communication, more details of MQED and the possibility in principle of an underlying local realistic theory of physics.
One of the three laboratories which has previously produced three entangled photons (the asymmetric GHz state) has performed the triphoton equivalent of the Bell’s Theorem experiment. The results so far are inconsistent with the traditional operator projection model of polarizers, which was previously used in mainstream explanations of Bell’s Theorem experiments, but consistent with simple local realistic models previously shown to be consistent with Bell’s Theorem results and developed by implementing the form of time-symmetric physics which we previously developed [1]. This paper gives a more detailed proposal (MQED1) for a Markovian version of Quantum Electrodynamics (MQED), which it defines as the minimal modification of traditional versions of QED needed to fit the new results, to resolve disagreements between the four mainstream variants of QED used to predict experiments today, and to be consistent with the program of stochastic realism, albeit not a local model. The paper also discusses how MQED1 might be derived as the emergent outcome of a more fundamental local model fulfilling earlier direct discussions between this author and Louis De Broglie, using new statistical distribution functions extending the Glauber-Sudarshan P mapping essential to quantum optics.
The famous “Bell’s Theorem” proved by Clauser, Horne, Shimony, and Holt [1] rules out all “local causal hidden variable” theories of the universe. However, as demonstrated by Werbos [2], the word “causal” strictly implies an asymmetric, time-forwards model of measurement; this leaves open the reality that local realistic physics can be preserved by adopting a time-symmetric model of measurement. Three distinct, highly rigorous sets of experiments—exploring modified versions of the traditional Bell configuration—demonstrate empirical outcomes that are structurally inconsistent with the classical, time-forwards Copenhagen model of quantum measurement. Crucially, these disparate datasets consistently agree with each other and with the alternative time-symmetric model presented here. The new model of quantum measurement in a previous version of this paper was already able to fit solid new experiments with two entangled photons[3,4], experiments which strongly violated the Copenhagen theory of measurement and collapse. The new model, based on an early form of a new proposed Lagrangian for fundamental physics {5}, also improved the fit to puzzling triphoton experiments involving three entangled photons.[6]. This paper reports an upgrade of that new measurement model, based on an upgrade of that Lagrangian [5] f=giving substantial improvements on three tests on solid nuclear data carried further here This upgraded model exploits new findings in quantitative validation of the continuous-time Markov Random Field (CMRFp) model of time-symmetric quantum measurement against two independent triphoton experiments [6,7] spanning distinct entanglement types and coupling regimes. When tested on polarization GHZ data from the Shih laboratory, CMRFp achieves a 51.4% root-mean-square improvement over the standard Copenhagen collapse model, with characterized experimental asymmetries — including detector imbalance and angular misalignments of −2.4° and −6.1° — accounting for a substantial fraction of the residual error. On time-energy W-state triphoton data from Feng et al., CMRFp fits the conditional two-photon correlations with 3.0% RMS error in the weak-coupling regime and 4.5% RMS error in the strong-coupling regime. The transition from anti-bunching to damped Rabi oscillations across the exceptional point is captured by a single functional form varying only two physically motivated parameters, with the extracted oscillation frequency (0.195 rad/ns, corresponding to ~31 MHz) matching the independently reported dressed-state splitting. A new extraction of the J-field coupling constant from Sawada's published anomalous scattering strengths yields g_J = 0.0054 per nucleon, constant to within 2% from calcium to lead, confirming the mass-number (A) scaling that is the central prediction of the Ouroboros+Eli Lagrangian. The CMRFp framework, grounded in the Ouroboros+Eli Lagrangian, replaces the non-unitary collapse postulate with local, time-symmetric boundary conditions imposed by the macroscopic measurement apparatus. These results establish CMRFp as a unified, quantitatively accurate, and experimentally validated description of multiphoton entanglement, with direct implications for quantum sensor design, nuclear detection, and next-generation quantum architectures.
Quantum nonlocality is shown to be an artifact of the Copenhagen interpretation, in which each observed quantity has exactly one value at any instant. In reality, all physical systems obey quantum mechanics, which obeys no such rule. Locality is restored if observed and observer are both assumed to obey quantum mechanics, as in the many-worlds interpretation (MWI). Using the MWI, I show that the quantum side of Bell's inequality, generally believed nonlocal, is really due to a series of three measurements (not two as in the standard, oversimplified analysis), all three of which have only local effects. Thus, experiments confirming "nonlocality" are actually confirming the MWI. The mistaken interpretation of nonlocality experiments depends crucially on a question-begging version of the Born interpretation, which makes sense only in "collapse" versions of quantum theory, about the meaning of the modulus of the wave function, so I use the interpretation based on the MWI, namely that the wave function is a world density amplitude, not a probability amplitude. This view allows the Born interpretation to be derived directly from the Schrödinger equation, by applying the Schrödinger equation to both the observed and the observer.
Quantum mechanics is our most successful physical theory. It predicts the behavior of atoms, molecules, and light to ten decimal places. No experiment has ever contradicted it. It also contains a crack at its foundation. The theory’s central equation—the Schrodinger equation—describes a smooth, continuous, perfectly predictable evolution of the quantum state. But whenever anyone performs a measurement, they get a single, definite result. Which result they get appears to be random. The transition from smooth evolution to random outcome is called the “collapse of the wavefunction,” and after nearly a century of analysis, there is no agreed-upon explanation for what causes it, when it occurs, or whether it occurs at all. This is the measurement problem. The measurement problem is not a minor puzzle at the margins of the theory. It is a failure to explain the most basic operation in science: looking at the result of an experiment. Around it cluster other puzzles. Light behaves like a wave in some experiments and like a particle in others—two contradictory descriptions. Two particles that have interacted remain correlated across arbitrary distances, as though communicating faster than light. The probabilities that govern measurement outcomes appear as a postulate—the Born rule—inserted by hand with no deeper justification. And the theory offers no unified picture of reality: quantum mechanics, general relativity, and the standard model of particle physics speak incompatible mathematical languages. A century of effort has produced many interpretations of quantum mechanics. Copenhagen. Many-worlds. De Broglie-Bohm. Objective collapse. Quantum Bayesianism. None has achieved consensus. The measurement problem remains. This document proposes that the source of these puzzles is not quantum mechanics itself. It is a single, invisible assumption made at the very beginning of the theory in 1900—an assumption so deeply embedded that nobody noticed they were making it. Change that assumption, and the puzzles do not get solved. They dissolve. They stop being puzzles. They become predictable consequences of geometry.
Quantum Tic‐Tac‐Toe is presented as an abstract quantum system derived from the rules of Classical Tic‐Tac‐Toe. Abstract quantum systems can be constructed from classical systems by the addition of three types of rules; rules of Superposition, rules of Entanglement, and rules of Collapse. This is formally done for Quantum Tic‐Tac‐Toe. As a part of this construction it is shown that abstract quantum systems can be viewed as an ensemble of classical systems. That is, the state of a quantum game implies a set of simultaneous classical games. The number and evolution of the ensemble of classical games is driven by the superposition, entanglement, and collapse rules. Various aspects and play situations provide excellent metaphors for standard features of quantum mechanics. Several of the more significant metaphors are discussed, including a measurement mechanism, the correspondence principle, Everett’s Many Worlds Hypothesis, an ascertainity principle, and spooky action at a distance. Abstract quantum systems also show the consistency of backwards‐in‐time causality, and the influence on the present of both pasts and futures that never happened. The strongest logical argument against faster‐than‐light (FTL) phenomena is that since FTL implies backwards‐in‐time causality, temporal paradox is an unavoidable consequence of FTL; hence FTL is impossible. Since abstract quantum systems support backwards‐in‐time causality but avoid temporal paradox through pruning of the classical ensemble, it may be that quantum based FTL schemes are possible allowing backwards‐in‐time causality, but prohibiting temporal paradox.