Quantum mechanics (QM) has the problem of lacking a coherent conceptual foundation, even if its quantitative algorithms are functionally adequate. This paper appraises the conceptual logic beneath quantum mechanics, using as the point of reference a novel alternative conceptual framework called the cordus conjecture. If the cordus conjecture is correct then the comparison suggests that quantum mechanics is conceptually fallacious in several areas: (1) Particles need not be zero-dimensional points after all. (2) Bell�s theorem is refuted as being not universally applicable, and the principle of locality also fails. (3) The wavefunction is a mathematical approximation of a deeper reality, and superposition is not a physical state. (4) Superposition confounds positional and causal (temporal) variability, and this causes the weirdness of the QM interpretations. (5) Cordus identifies the factors that cause decoherence and (6) explains why quantum mechanics does not scale up to macroscopic objects. (7) It is fallacious to consider fields and particles as independent phenomena. Instead they are closely coupled in the cordus, and this explains the measurement context. Several core principles of QM are thereby refuted. The paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat is explained as an artefact of these flawed premises. The paper also explains why the mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics is a reasonable approximation to reality, even if the concepts are not. The mathematics works, at least within a certain scale-range where: (a) things look like particles and the proposed cordus structure is not evident (i.e. not too small) and (b) where body-coherence is attainable (i.e. not too large). Outside of that range quantum mechanics seems neither conceptually nor mathematically relevant. The same analysis predicts QM is unlikely to scale down to the next deeper level of physics. The implications are that QM is profoundly deficient in its conceptual foundations, and is only an approximation of a deeper and more logically consistent mechanics.
Quantum mechanics (QM) has the problem of lacking a coherent conceptual foundation, even if its quantitative algorithms are functionally adequate. This paper appraises the conceptual logic beneath quantum mechanics, using as the point of reference a novel alternative conceptual framework called the cordus conjecture. If the cordus conjecture is correct then the comparison suggests that quantum mechanics is conceptually fallacious in several areas: (1) Particles need not be zero-dimensional points after all. (2) Bell�s theorem is refuted as being not universally applicable, and the principle of locality also fails. (3) The wavefunction is a mathematical approximation of a deeper reality, and superposition is not a physical state. (4) Superposition confounds positional and causal (temporal) variability, and this causes the weirdness of the QM interpretations. (5) Cordus identifies the factors that cause decoherence and (6) explains why quantum mechanics does not scale up to macroscopic objects. (7) It is fallacious to consider fields and particles as independent phenomena. Instead they are closely coupled in the cordus, and this explains the measurement context. Several core principles of QM are thereby refuted. The paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat is explained as an artefact of these flawed premises. The paper also explains why the mathematical machinery of quantum mechanics is a reasonable approximation to reality, even if the concepts are not. The mathematics works, at least within a certain scale-range where: (a) things look like particles and the proposed cordus structure is not evident (i.e. not too small) and (b) where body-coherence is attainable (i.e. not too large). Outside of that range quantum mechanics seems neither conceptually nor mathematically relevant. The same analysis predicts QM is unlikely to scale down to the next deeper level of physics. The implications are that QM is profoundly deficient in its conceptual foundations, and is only an approximation of a deeper and more logically consistent mechanics.
Quantum mechanics is the dominant conceptual foundation for fundamental physics. Nonetheless there are effects that it does not explain, or explains only by reference to metaphysical effects. While many have wondered whether there could be a more-complete explanation, the solution has been elusive. Cordus suggests that the necessary deeper mechanics is only accessible by abandoning the premise of �particle�, and shows how to achieve this. The resulting Cordus mechanics provides a new way of thinking and a radically different conceptual foundation. This paper primarily contrasts Quantum and Cordus mechanics. In the process, Cordus re-conceptualises Heisenberg�s uncertainty principle. It also provides an explanation for the paradox of Schr�dinger�s Cat, and shows it to be based on unrealistic and unattainable premises.
Problem: Superposition and entanglement are coherent effects, which can be quantified by quantum mechanics (QM), but lack descriptive explanations. They are typically analysed with inequality methods, and the results favour QM and reject physical realism and hidden-variable solutions. In particular, Colbeck & Renner (2011) showed that no extension of quantum theory can exist with better predictive power than quantum mechanics itself. Purpose: The purpose here is to critically evaluate from a conceptual and philosophical perspective the ontological underpinnings of the inequality approach. The current work is speculative in nature as it is based on a conjectured non-local hidden-variable (NLHV) design for particles, and does not yet have a mathematical formalism. Nonetheless this is worth attempting for the philosophical questions it poses about the nature of reality, and the pointers it gives to possible future directions in fundamental physics. Findings: The premises of the C & R proof (that particles are points, that locality exists, that quantum theory is correct) are inconsistent, hence invalidate its conclusion. We also show that superposition and entanglement may be qualitatively explained if particles were to have the internal structure proposed by the Cordus NLHV theory. Originality: The ability to explain superposition and entanglement conceptually in terms of physical realism is relevant because it rebuts the claim that it is impossible that such a hidden-variable theory could exist. This is significant because previously it has been believed that these phenomena are explainable by QM only.
Lying at the heart of quantum mechanics, the notion of quantum superposition causes enormous difficulty in understanding the problem of quantum measurement, which concerns the Einstein-Bohr debate on the conceptual foundations of the quantum theory. According to Bell’s theorem, Einstein’s viewpoint in his debate with Bohr seems to be wrong. In the present paper, a new principle (referred to as the general principle of measurements) is introduced and proved as a mathematical theorem. Based on this principle, various forms of quantum superposition (including quantum entanglement) and the corresponding experiments are scrutinized. The main findings are as follows. (a) Einstein’s viewpoint is correct and Bell’s theorem is problematic. (b) Measurement outcomes of any actual experiment with individual microscopic objects described in a form of quantum superposition, in particular, the experimental results of testing Bell inequalities, are all erroneously explained. (c) Bell inequalities failed to capture the essence of the Einstein-Bohr debate, i.e., whether quantum superposition is legitimate for describing individual microscopic objects. (d) All kinds of quantum superposition violate the general principle of measurements and hence are illegitimate. (e) Quantum mechanics can be completed by using disjunction (“or”) as the logical relation between the orthonormal vectors that span an arbitrarily given Hilbert space for describing a single microscopic object, and the mathematical setting will remain essentially unchanged; hidden-variable theories are irrelevant to the real world. (f) After completing quantum mechanics as above, the difficulty in understanding the problem of quantum measurement disappears naturally. Implications of the findings are also discussed.
For over a century, scientists have been fascinated by the strange behaviour of matter at the quantum level, where particles can exist in many states at once and affect each other instantly across distances. This paper explores this realm of quantum mechanics by focusing on wave–particle duality, superposition, entanglement and the measurement problem. It shows how these concepts defy the foundations of clas-sical physics to challenge assumptions about determinism, locality, interconnection and objectivity. The paper maintains that although quantum theory works remarkably well, we lack a clear account of what kind of reality it describes, as major interpretations such as Copenhagen, Many-Worlds and objective collapse still struggle to match quantum theory’s success with a clear picture of reality. yet as its major interpretations offer com-peting and unresolved pictures of the world. Schrödinger’s cat illustrates this tension to showcase how macroscopic systems can expose the limits of observation and the line be-tween classical and quantum worlds. The paper concludes that these quantum principles are underpinned by both technical and philosophical challenges and they force us to re-think causality and the role of the observer in explaining reality.
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}
Quantum mechanics (QM) has attracted a considerable amount of mysticism, in public opinion and even among academic researches, due to some of its conceptually puzzling features, such as the modification of reality by the observer and entanglement. We argue that many popular "quantum paradoxes" stem from a confusion between mathematical formalism and physics; We demonstrate this by explaining how the paradoxes go away once a different formalism, usually inconvenient to perform calculations, is used. we argue that some modern developments, well-studied in the research literature but generally overlooked by both popular science and teaching-level literature, make quantum mechanics (that is, "canonical" QM, not extensions of it) less conceptually problematic than it looks at first sight. When all this is looked at together, most "conceptual puzzles" of QM are not much different from the well-known paradoxes from probability theory. Consequently, "explanations of QM" involving physical action of consciouses or an infinity of universes are conceptually unnecessary