If mathematics is the queen of science, then physics might well be the king. It successes are obvious. However, as a science, physics may have failed in one regard, and that is to explain what its basic concepts – such as state vectors, wavefunctions, and transformation matrices – actually represent. When studying quantum mechanics, it is, effectively, hard to keep up the initial enthusiasm, and those who branch out to other fields – which is most of us – quickly end up going through the motions only: we regurgitate models and equations and know how to solve the standard problems, so as to pass the exam, but then forget about them as soon as possible. This paper explores a very intuitive sentiment about the issue: the wavefunction is a rather ‘flat’ mathematical object – it is two-dimensional, basically – so it can’t do the trick, perhaps. In contrast, Maxwell’s equations have real vectors in them, which is why a deeper or more intuitive understanding of electromagnetism comes relatively easily. Indeed, when everything is said and done, we are just human beings living in three-dimensional space, and that is why vector equations (or systems of vector equations), as a mathematical tool, make sense to us. This paper further explores this sentiment. It also offers a way out by, predictably, presenting yet another possible physical interpretation of the wavefunction. More importantly (for the reviewer of this paper, at least), this paper offers a sensible response to the mainstream view that three-dimensional physical interpretations of the wavefunction cannot make any sense because of the weird 720° symmetry of the wavefunction when describing spin-1/2 particles (fermions or – for all practical purposes – electrons). The author does so by analyzing (1) Dirac’s belt trick more in detail – and what it implies in terms of the interaction between the observer and the object – as well as (2) Feynman’s derivation of the transformation matrices for spin-1/2 two-state systems.
If mathematics is the queen of science, then physics might well be the king. It successes are obvious. However, as a science, physics may have failed in one regard, and that is to explain what its basic concepts – such as state vectors, wavefunctions, and transformation matrices – actually represent. When studying quantum mechanics, it is, effectively, hard to keep up the initial enthusiasm, and those who branch out to other fields – which is most of us – quickly end up going through the motions only: we regurgitate models and equations and know how to solve the standard problems, so as to pass the exam, but then forget about them as soon as possible. This paper explores a very intuitive sentiment about the issue: the wavefunction is a rather ‘flat’ mathematical object – it is two-dimensional, basically – so it can’t do the trick, perhaps. In contrast, Maxwell’s equations have real vectors in them, which is why a deeper or more intuitive understanding of electromagnetism comes relatively easily. Indeed, when everything is said and done, we are just human beings living in three-dimensional space, and that is why vector equations (or systems of vector equations), as a mathematical tool, make sense to us. This paper further explores this sentiment. It also offers a way out by, predictably, presenting yet another possible physical interpretation of the wavefunction. More importantly (for the reviewer of this paper, at least), this paper offers a sensible response to the mainstream view that three-dimensional physical interpretations of the wavefunction cannot make any sense because of the weird 720° symmetry of the wavefunction when describing spin-1/2 particles (fermions or – for all practical purposes – electrons). The author does so by analyzing (1) Dirac’s belt trick more in detail – and what it implies in terms of the interaction between the observer and the object – as well as (2) Feynman’s derivation of the transformation matrices for spin-1/2 two-state systems.
The difficulties of the old quantum theory were largely dispelled by the development of quantum mechanics in the 1920s. First Heisenberg (1925) developed the rather abstract matrix mechanics and soon after Schro¨dinger (1926; see also Eckart, 1926) developed the physically more appealing wave mechanics. Subsequently he showed them to be mathematically equivalent. The physicists were greatly relieved; now they had once again a mathematical formalism that enabled the results of experiments to be calculated. It was possible to move forward. It is certainly a very elegant and indeed beautiful formalism, and does enable the results of many physical measurements to be calculated with great accuracy. It is used daily by atomic and nuclear physicists; there is no other way to make calculations. From the earliest days there has been intense debate about the interpretation of quantum mechanics, and it shows no signs of being settled; if anything it is becoming more intense over the years. As Penrose has remarked, no one understands quantum mechanics. Feynman (1967; see also Sykes, 1994) also admitted that ‘nobody understands quantum mechanics’, and Einstein once remarked: ‘I have thought a hundred times as much about the quantum problems as I have about general relativity theory’ (Pais, 1994, p. 57). It should therefore be evident that the most that can be done here is to try to show where the real difficulties lie, and how the failure to recognize that quantum mechanics is an essentially statistical theory has led to a series of confusing quantum paradoxes. It is just these paradoxes that have often been used to support theological speculations. It is useful to ask what ‘understanding quantum mechanics’ actually means. Certainly it means being able to calculate the results of many measurements. The same applies to Newton’s theory of gravitation, which we understand in the sense that we can use it as a basis of calculation, although we do not really understand the gravitational force itself. Very often, especially in modern physics, the mathematical formalism does not give us the sort of intuitive physical feeling for what is going on that we often obtain from classical mechanics. Perhaps we can never achieve more than this for quantum mechanics. In classical mechanics we can assume that a property that is measured objectively exists prior to the interaction of the measuring apparatus with the observed system. Quantum mechanics, however, ‘is incompatible with the proposition that measurement discovers some unknown but pre-existing property’ (Peres, 1997, p. 14). There is an important distinction between mysteries and absurdities. We may be forced to live with mysteries, but there is no reason why we should put up with absurdities such as the wave-particle duality, tunnelling through potential barriers, acausal events and the collapse of the wave function. These are the quantum paradoxes that will be discussed later on. They arise within the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and are solved by other interpretations. These alternative interpretations enable us to make conjectures about what is going on, even though we cannot understand it in detail. This is acceptable and a stimulus to further research. It is certainly difficult enough to understand quantum mechanics, but there is no need to try to visualize logical absurdities in the effort to do so. Quantum mechanics is a mathematical formalism that makes it possible to calculate the results of some experiments. Anything more than this, such as questions about the interpretation of what is measured and whether it tells us what is actually going on in the system being studied, belongs to philosophy. Thus we are concerned here with what is essentially a philosophical debate; if it were just a matter of physics the debate would have been settled long ago. One of the difficulties is that it invokes the results of experiments and uses the language of quantum mechanics. Inevitably this language uses philosophical terms and then it is easy to give the impression that the philosophical propositions are in some way entailed by the physical results. These in turn can influence theological thinking. In order to be quite clear which arguments are justified and which are not, it is essential to separate the three levels of discourse: physical, philosophical and theological. Our task is to relate these together, and this immediately raises the traditional problems of the philosophy of science, including the relation of experiment to theory, and of theory to explanation. We begin by discussing experiments, distinguishing between those that are real and those that are imaginary.
Introduction Chapter 1 dealt with one of the deepest mysteries in modern science: how to explain consciousness. This Part deals with another mystery: how to make sense of quantum mechanics. Both involve a problem of reconciliation with the classical worldview, which is one hint that the two mysteries might be related. A second is that, unlike classical physics, which makes no reference to or allowance for consciousness, quantum theory raises the issue of consciousness and its relationship to the physical world in a very direct way. These hints do not necessarily mean there is a connection between the two mysteries, but by the end of this Part I hope to have shown why it would be natural to look for one. My more immediate aim here is to give the social scientific reader an introductory understanding of the experimental findings of quantum theory, its key concepts, and the debates about its interpretation. The discussion assumes no prior knowledge of quantum physics and makes no use of mathematics. Quantum theory without equations might seem like an oxymoron, and certainly reading this Part will not enable anyone to use quantum theory. But to a perhaps surprising degree it is possible to understand quantum theory without being able to use it. Its findings can be communicated in ordinary language, and the same goes for its main concepts and interpretive debates. One consequence of this has been the emergence of a virtual cottage industry of books on quantum theory for a lay audience. Most are written by physicists, and many are quite good. However, it is not just popular treatments that do without equations: much of the professional philosophical literature does as well. (I draw on both kinds of literature below.) Philosophers of physics are trained to understand the math, of course, which is necessary for a full appreciation of the issues.
This paper aims at explaining that a key to understanding quantum mechanics (QM) is a perfect geometrical understanding of the spinor algebra that is used in its formulation. Spinors occur naturally in the representation theory of certain symmetry groups. The spinors that are relevant for QM are those of the homogeneous Lorentz group SO(3,1) in Minkowski space-time R4 and its subgroup SO(3) of the rotations of three-dimensional Euclidean space R3. In the three-dimensional rotation group, the spinors occur within its representation SU(2). We will provide the reader with a perfect intuitive insight about what is going on behind the scenes of the spinor algebra. We will then use the understanding that is acquired to derive the free-space Dirac equation from scratch, proving that it is a description of a statistical ensemble of spinning electrons in uniform motion, completely in the spirit of Ballentine’s statistical interpretation of QM. This is a mathematically rigorous proof. Developing this further, we allow for the presence of an electromagnetic field. We can consider the result as a reconstruction of QM based on the geometrical understanding of the spinor algebra. By discussing a number of problems in the interpretation of the conventional approach, we illustrate how this new approach leads to a better understanding of QM.
Introduction to the Maths and Physics of Quantum Mechanics details the mathematics and physics that are needed to learn the principles of quantum mechanics. It provides an accessible treatment of how to use quantum mechanics and why it is so successful in explaining natural phenomena. This book clarifies various aspects of quantum physics such as ‘why quantum mechanics equations contain “I”, the imaginary number?’, ‘Is it possible to make a transition from classical mechanics to quantum physics without using postulates?’ and ‘What is the origin of the uncertainty principle?’. A significant proportion of discussion is dedicated to the issue of why the wave function must be complex to properly describe our “real” world. The book also addresses the different formulations of quantum mechanics. A relatively simple introductory treatment is given for the “standard” Heisenberg matrix formulation and Schrodinger wave-function formulation and Feynman path integrals and second quantization are then discussed. This book will appeal to first- and second-year university students in physics, mathematics, engineering and other sciences studying quantum mechanics who will find material and clarifications not easily found in other textbooks. It will also appeal to self-taught readers with a genuine interest in modern physics who are willing to examine the mathematics and physics in a simple but rigorous way. Key Features: Written in an engaging and approachable manner, with fully explained mathematics and physics concepts Suitable as a companion to all introductory quantum mechanics textbooks Accessible to a general audience
This paper is the 5th in a series of explorations to see if a simple physical interpretation of the quantum-mechanical wavefunction could possibly make sense. It challenges two of the usual objections to such interpretation: 1. The superposition of wavefunctions is done in the complex space and, hence, the assumption of a real-valued envelope for the wavefunction is, therefore, not acceptable. 2. The wavefunction for spin-1/2 particles cannot represent any real object because of its 720-degree symmetry in space. Real objects have the same spatial symmetry as space itself, which is 360 degrees. Hence, physical interpretations of the wavefunction are nonsensical. The heuristic arguments in this paper will, hopefully, convince the reader these objections are subject to interpretation themselves. If anything, the ideas presented in this paper might contribute to a better didactic model for teaching quantum mechanics.
We have seen in the previous chapter how useful wave mechanics can be in solving physical problems. But wave mechanics has several limitations. It describes physical states by means of wave functions, which are functions of the positions of the particles of the system, but why should we single out position as the fundamental physical observable? For instance, we might want to describe states in terms of probability amplitudes for particles to have certain values of the momentum or energy rather than the position. A more fundamental limitation is that there are attributes of physical systems that cannot be described at all in terms of the positions and momenta of a set of particles. One of these attributes is spin , which will be a chief subject of Chapter 4. Another is the value of the electric or magnetic field at some point in space, treated in Chapter 11. This chapter will describe the principles of quantum mechanics in a formalism which is essentially the “transformation theory” of Dirac, mentioned briefly in Section 1.4. This formalism generalizes both the wave mechanics of Schrödinger and the matrix mechanics of Heisenberg, and is sufficiently comprehensive to apply to any sort of physical system. States The first postulate of quantum mechanics is that physical states can be represented as vectors in a sort of abstract space known as Hilbert space . Before getting into Hilbert space, I need to say a bit about vectors in general. In kindergarten we learn that vectors are quantities with both magnitude and direction. Later, when we study analytic geometry, we learn instead to describe a vector in d dimensions as a string of d numbers, the components of the vector. The latter approach lends itself well to calculation, but in some respects the kindergarten version is better, because it allows us to describe relations among vectors without specifying a coordinate system. For instance, a statement that one vector is parallel to a second vector, or perpendicular to a third, has nothing to do with how we choose our coordinate system. Here we will formulate what we mean by vector spaces in general, and Hilbert space in particular, in a way that is independent of the coordinates we use to describe directions in these spaces.