No one previously noticed there is a second solution to the equations of Richard Feynman’s Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). It makes identical predictions in the lab. The new solution (Reverse-QED) is closer to nature: it is free of quantum weirdness. For example, it eliminates Schrödinger’s cat. This article is the first time the equations of R-QED have been published. The R-QED amplitude is the negative of Feynman’s amplitude. Because of the Born rule, both amplitude and negative amplitude, when squared, produce the same probability to be tested against empirical data. If you were to measure the distance from Los Angeles to New York City with R-QED’s accuracy, it would be exact to the breadth of a human hair. If reality corresponds to the newly discovered R-QED equations, but scientists use the old QED equations, the result would be predictions for the lab that are precisely accurate, but scientists would be unable to construct a coherent picture of the quantum world. R-QED is based on a different picture of how the quantum world is organized. Experiments, including a neutron interferometer experiment we review, show that particles follow waves backward. R-QED integrates in the same direction that the waves travel.
No one previously noticed there is a second solution to the equations of Richard Feynman’s Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). It makes identical predictions in the lab. The new solution (Reverse-QED) is closer to nature: it is free of quantum weirdness. For example, it eliminates Schrödinger’s cat. This article is the first time the equations of R-QED have been published. The R-QED amplitude is the negative of Feynman’s amplitude. Because of the Born rule, both amplitude and negative amplitude, when squared, produce the same probability to be tested against empirical data. If you were to measure the distance from Los Angeles to New York City with R-QED’s accuracy, it would be exact to the breadth of a human hair. If reality corresponds to the newly discovered R-QED equations, but scientists use the old QED equations, the result would be predictions for the lab that are precisely accurate, but scientists would be unable to construct a coherent picture of the quantum world. R-QED is based on a different picture of how the quantum world is organized. Experiments, including a neutron interferometer experiment we review, show that particles follow waves backward. R-QED integrates in the same direction that the waves travel.
The quantum world is allegedly strange. But is it? What if there’s a simple mathematical explanation, and a simple solution? The success of quantum mechanics (QM) arises from the accuracy of its probability predictions, which are obtained by squaring amplitudes (the Born rule). Suppose for a moment that nature uses the negative of QM’s equations. When squared they would yield the same probabilities, confirmed by the same experiments and technological triumphs. If that were true, if nature uses the negative of QM’s equations, then the quantum world would become transparent, easy to understand. No more Schrödinger’s-cat. No quantum-eraser. No backwards-in-time cause-and-effect. No paradoxes nor enigmas. But, what’s a negative quantum equation? It could mean that particles follow zero-energy waves backwards, instead of forwards. That’s still an eccentric idea, a residual strangeness. Overall, it’s a bargain. We could swap one odd idea for another, because wave-particle duality is odd. We are accustomed to wave-particle duality. But we’ll show that experiments support the other arrangement: quantum particles follow zero-energy waves backwards. How could that possibly be true? We present substantial experimental evidence, new mathematics, and six dozen colorful illustrations. This is the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW).
Is the quantum world as strange as they say? If this were an unsolved mathematics question, we might try a new angle of attack. We know quantum mechanics (QM) is the most accurate and productive science humans ever had, meaning its probability predictions are accurate. Every probability has two square roots. The Born rule says either would produce the same probability. Assume nature uses the negative of QM’s equations. What could that mean? We’d need to revise Feynman’s path-integrals and Schrödinger’s equation. If waves travel in the opposite direction as what QM believes, that could produce the negative equations. No wave-particle duality. Free particles would follow backwards zero-energy waves coming from detectors. This, surprisingly, gets rid of quantum weirdness. Our proposal is that nature uses the negative of QM’s equations because particles follow zero-energy waves backwards. Considerable evidence fits this model, including a neutron-interferometer and the Davisson-Germer experiments, a quantum-eraser experiment, Wheeler-gedanken and double-slit experiments, Bell-test experiments, Stern-Gerlach, and high-energy scattering experiments. Finally, we propose a plan for how to motivate students to want to study quantum technologies, thereby addressing the most prominent problem in QM today: the shortage of an educated workforce, the scarcity of aspiring students.
In Quantum ElectroDynamics (QED) the propagator is a function that describes the probability amplitude of a particle going from point A to B. It summarizes the many paths of Feynman’s path integral approach. We propose a reverse propagator (R-propagator) that, prior to the particle’s emission, summarizes every possible path from B to A. Wave function collapse occurs at point A when the particle randomly chooses one and only one of many incident paths to follow backwards with a probability of one, so it inevitably strikes detector B. The propagator and R-propagator both calculate the same probability amplitude. The R-propagator has an advantage over the propagator because it solves a contradiction inside QED, namely QED says a particle must take EVERY path from A to B. With our model the particle only takes one path. The R-propagator had already taken every path into account. We propose that this tiny, infinitesimal change from propagator to R-propagator would vastly simplify the mathematics of Nature. Many experiments that currently describe the quantum world as weird, change their meaning and no longer say that. The quantum world looks and acts like the classical world of everyday experience.
With a clever new interpretation of the Schrödinger equation, those quantum experiments that allegedly prove that the quantum world is weird, no longer do so. When we approach the math from an unexpected angle, experiments that appeared to prove that time can go backwards in the quantum world, no longer say that. Experiments that appeared to demonstrate that a particle can be in two places at the same time, no longer say that. This requires that we take a counter-intuitive approach to the math, rather than a counter-intuitive approach to the quantum world. QM makes sensible assumptions and discovers that the quantum world is weird. Our math from the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW) makes weird assumptions and discovers that the quantum world is sensible. We pay the weirdness tax up front. QM does not pay the weirdness tax and is penalized with a permanent misperception of the quantum world. This article is paired with a lively YouTube video that explains the same thing in 18 minutes: “New Schrödinger wave mathematics changes experiments from saying there is, to denying there is quantum weirdness.” That video can be found at the website ElementaryWave.com.
This article proposes that an unexpected approach to the mathematics of a Schro ̋dinger wave packet and Quantum Electro-Dynamics (QED), could vastly simplify how we perceive the world around us. It could get rid of most if not all quantum weirdness. Schro ̋dinger’s cat would be gone. Even things that we thought were unquestionably true about the quantum world would change. For example, the double slit experiment would no longer support wave particle duality. Experiments that appeared to say that entangled particles can communicate instantaneously over great distances, would no longer say that. Although the tiny mathematical change is counterintuitive, Occam’s razor dictates that we consider it because it simplifies how we view Nature in such a pervasive way. The change in question is to view a Schro ̋dinger wave packet as part of a larger Elementary Wave traveling in the opposite direction. It is known in quantum mechanics that the same wave can travel in two countervailing directions simultaneously. Equivalent changes would be made to QED and Quantum Field Theory. It is known in QM that there are zero energy waves: for example, the Schro ̋dinger wave carries amplitudes but not energy.
Richard Feynmans book QED, written for a lay audience, is a trusted source of information about Quantum Electro-Dynamics by a Nobel laureate. It is a mirror image of the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW), discovered by Lewis E. Little. Recent work on TEW, published in this journal, shows that an elementary ray has the shape of a cylindrical helix traveling in Euclidean space, with a complex amplitude. This is an analog in physical nature of Feynmans mathematical concept of an amplitude, which is the core of QED. The only substantial difference is that an amplitude is assumed by Feynman to travel in the same direction as the particle, but in TEW they travel in opposite directions. There is almost no empirical data to resolve that disagreement. Such evidence as exists favors the idea they travel in opposite directions. If we modify Feynmans QED in this way we end up with a theory symmetrical to QED. We nickname it QÆD, using the letter Æ to symbolize an ælementary ray. QÆD is a fountain of information about the nature of elementary rays, and resolves some of the problems that Feynman said he found in QED.