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Physics Essays

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Bohr's complementarity principle, and the Copenhagen interpretation

Emory Taylor, Rajan N. Iyer

Published Mar 15, 2024• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The atomic absorption and emission process that uses noninstantaneous electronic transitions of the atomic electron (i.e., electric charge), the tangent reference system, the property of speed instantaneity, and the conservation laws leads to a violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and it is maintained in the atomic absorption and emission process discontinuity that is conserved as the emitted photon's (i.e., electromagnetic radiation's) discontinuity. This leads to a falsification of Bohr's complementary principle that aligns with Einstein's 1909 falsification of it. The violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and falsification of Bohr's complementarity principle falsify the Copenhagen interpretation, because it requires Heisenberg's uncertainty principle not to be violated and Bohr's complementarity principle not to be falsified.

DOI
10.4006/0836-1398-37.1.71

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The atomic absorption and emission process that uses noninstantaneous electronic transitions of the atomic electron (i.e., electric charge), the tangent reference system, the property of speed instantaneity, and the conservation laws leads to a violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, and it is maintained in the atomic absorption and emission process discontinuity that is conserved as the emitted photon's (i.e., electromagnetic radiation's) discontinuity. This leads to a falsification of Bohr's complementary principle that aligns with Einstein's 1909 falsification of it. The violation of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and falsification of Bohr's complementarity principle falsify the Copenhagen interpretation, because it requires Heisenberg's uncertainty principle not to be violated and Bohr's complementarity principle not to be falsified.
An analysis of applying the property of speed instantaneity to electronic transitions (i.e., transitions of the atomic electron that are not instantaneous), instead of quantum jumps (i.e., instantaneous transitions), during a complete oscillation for the process of Bohr’s model of the atom absorbing and emitting electromagnetic radiation (i.e., photon) reveals a discontinuity that is conserved as an emitted electromagnetic radiation (i.e., photon) discontinuity. The frequency of the oscillations of the atomic electron (i.e., electric charge) and induced magnetic field for the transitions of the atomic electron (i.e., electric charge) during the complete oscillation for the absorption and emission process (of Bohr’s atomic model) is conserved as the frequency of the oscillating electric and magnetic fields of the emitted electromagnetic radiation (i.e., photon). The conserved frequency and discontinuity (based on speed instantaneity and electronic transitions that are not instantaneous) of the atomic absorption and emission process (of Bohr’s atomic model) lead to predicting the need for Planck’s constant (i.e., quantum of action) without the use of probability. Planck claimed the interpretation of reality must change if his method of deriving the radiation law stood on a physical concept. Einstein, whom Planck credited as the first to make an advancement in the quantum field, unknowingly introduced a quantized two-dimensional discontinuum geometry that is one of the foundations on which a table of five realities used in physics was developed for making predictions. Using the table of realities, locality is redefined, and entanglement is demystified.
One of the various interpretations of quantum mechanics occupies a privileged position in the opinion of the majority of physicists. This is the Copenhagen view, which owes its fame and popularity not only to historical reasons but also to its simplicity and practical efficiency. As is well known, the Copenhagen outlook was elaborated collectively. Nevertheless, Niels Bohr's and W. Heisenberg's contributions should be singled out as particularly outstanding. This chapter describes two principles, which are in fact the two pillars on which Bohr's doctrine is built. These are: The working of measuring instruments must be accounted for in purely classical terms . Another one is quantum systems that should not even be thought of as possessing individual properties independently of the experimental arrangement. In the particular case of the pair of observables "position" and "momentum," the Heisenberg uncertainty relations can be considered as a generalization of the complementarity principle.
The world of the quantum, which encompasses all particles of matter at rest or in motion, photons and massbound charges, is thought to be a world of uncertainty. Yet, the present communication treats the quantum as merely an invariant moment situated at the convergence of very different energy (fine-) structures and processes, all of which permit accurate measurement of particle velocities and their associated wave functions. In the aetherometric approach, a particle and its waves form an energy multiplicity. The outcome of the proposed algebraic analysis is a novel, nonclassical and nonrelativistic theory of photoinertial and electroinertial linear momenta that treats heisenberg-ian path distances as functions of the de Broglie wavelengths, and all photoinertial and electromagnetic energy events as byproducts of electrical processes. Bohr complementarity is easily avoided, once the Heisenberg Principle is demonstrated to be an erroneous interpretation of the quantum nature of the energy processes associated with massbound particles.
Abstract While the theory proved successful at describing a broad range experimental results, from the black body spectrum to the hydrogen atom, the question arose as to what the theory was telling us about the nature of physical reality. Schrödinger’s attempt to represent particles as wave packets failed because of the spreading of the wave packets. Max Born, investigating how the theory could be applied to scattering processes, was led to introduce the probability interpretation of the wave function. In an attempt to summarize the physical meaning of the theory, Heisenberg introduced the uncertainty principle. Niels Bohr and his Copenhagen school developed the philosophical position known as “complementarity.” There was a bitter dispute between Schrödinger and the “Copenhageners” over the necessity of quantum jumps in the theory.
From the outset, Heisenberg had resolved to eliminate classical space-time pictures involving particles and waves from the quantum mechanics of the atom. He had wanted to focus instead on the properties actually observed and recorded in laboratory experiments, such as the positions and intensities of spectral lines. Alone in Copenhagen in February 1927, he now pondered on the significance and meaning of such experimental observables. Feeling the need to introduce at least some form of ‘visualizability’, he asked himself some fundamental questions, such as: What do we actually mean when we talk about the position of an electron? He went on to discover the uncertainty principle: the product of the ‘uncertainties’ in certain pairs of variables—called complementary variables—such as position and momentum cannot be smaller than Planck’s constant h (now h / 4π‎).
In the past both instrumentalism and empiricism have inspired certain pragmatic elements into the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The relation of such pragmatisms with the correspondence principle is discussed. It is argued that neither Bohr nor Heisenberg did take `correspondence' in one of these forms, and that it, in particular, was Bohr's classical attitude which caused him to apply in an inconsistent way his correspondence principle to the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment, thus causing much confusion. It is demonstrated that an empiricist pragmatism is conducive to an explanation of violation of the Bell inequalities as a consequence of `complementarity' in the sense of `mutual disturbance in a joint nonideal measurement of incompatible observables' rather than as being caused by `nonlocal influences'.