Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics

by Nick Herbert

An electron, and every other quantum entity, does not possess all its attributes innately. An electron does possess certain innate attributes—mass, charge, and spin, for instance—which serve to distinguish it from other kinds of quantum entities. The value of these attributes is the same for every electron under all measurement conditions. With respect to these particular attributes, even the electron behaves like an ordinary object.

The manner in which an electron acquires and possesses its dynamic attributes is the subject of the quantum reality question.

VON NEUMANN’S QUANTUM BIBLE

Neumann poses the famous quantum measurement problem which, as we shall see, lies at the heart of the quantum reality question. It is fair to say that if we could say what actually goes on in a measurement, we would know what physical reality was all about. Because of his peculiar views on measurement, von Neumann is sometimes regarded as the godfather of the consciousness-created reality school (QR #7).

“von Neumann’s proof”)

you assume that electrons possess contextual attributes that stem from ordinary objects inaccessible to measurement but whose innate attributes combine “in a reasonable way” to simulate the electron’s measurement-dependent behavior, then these entities likewise must violate quantum theory’s predictions.

BOHM’S ORDINARY-OBJECT MODEL OF THE ELECTRON

electrons are not things.

In Bohm’s model, quantumstuff is not a single substance combining both wave and particle aspects but two separate entities: a real wave plus a real particle.

Bohm’s pilot wave model revived neorealist hopes that quantum theory might be explained in terms of ordinary objects.

Because of its somewhat contrived nature and the presence of superluminal influences, Bohm regarded his model as a mere beginning, as a concrete demonstration that an ordinary reality model of quantum reality was indeed possible.

BELL’S INTERCONNECTEDNESS THEOREM

reality be non-local. In a local reality, influences cannot travel faster than light. Bell’s theorem says that in any reality of this sort, information does not get around fast enough to explain the quantum facts: reality must be non-local.

Bell’s theorem proves that any model of reality, whether ordinary or contextual, must be connected by influences which do not respect the optical speed limit. If Bell’s theorem is valid, we live in a superluminal reality. Bell’s discovery of the necessary non-locality of deep reality is the most important achievement in reality research since the invention of quantum theory.

FEYNMAN’S VERSION OF QUANTUM THEORY

Quantum Theory #4: Heisenberg represented it as a matrix, Schrödinger as a wave; Feynman represents quantumstuff as a sum of possibilities.

‘The electron does anything it likes,’ he said. ‘It just goes in any direction, at any speed, forward or backward in time, however it likes, and then you add up the amplitudes and it gives you the wave function.’ I said to him ‘You’re crazy.’ But he isn’t.”

“Can nature possibly be as absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?”

The Cinderella effect itself is a subtle example of quantum weirdness: why does nature employ such extraordinary realities to keep up merely ordinary appearances?

“However far the phenomena transcend the scope of classical physical explanation, the account of all evidence must be expressed in classical terms … The account of the experimental arrangement and of the results of observation must be expressed in unambiguous language with suitable application of the terminology of classical physics.”

Bohr believed that ordinariness is built into human modes of perception so that all future quantum facts would likewise be ordinary. Humans are fated to experience the quantum world secondhand: we will never, like Max, enjoy direct experience of quantum reality.

This alternation of identities is typical of all quantum entities and is the major cause of the reality crisis in physics.

This restriction on the mutual measurement precision of certain attributes is just sufficient to prevent you from devising an experiment that would show you what’s really there and decisively resolve the wave/particle dilemma.

Quantum theory, because it precisely mirrors the quantum facts, possesses the same qualities that prevent us from building a consistent observer-free picture of reality from the quantum facts.

So we can better appreciate the probability waves with which quantum theory characterizes the world in its unmeasured state,

Quantum waves carry no energy at all; for this reason they are sometimes called “empty waves.” A quantum wave’s intensity (amplitude squared) is a measure of probability.

Wherever waves of the same frequency (spatial or temporal) come together with identical phases, they are said to be “in phase”; waves whose phases differ by half a cycle are “out of phase.”

SUPERPOSITION PRINCIPLE

When waves meet, their amplitudes add. The fact that waves everywhere form such uncomplicated unions is called the “superposition principle.” This principle works not just for oscillatory waves but for all waveforms whatsoever.

A remarkable feature of quantum waves is that they seem to obey the superposition principle without restriction: no matter how complex the circumstances, the amplitudes of quantum waves add, and nothing more.

Two waves can cross paths, form a momentary superposition, then continue on their ways entirely unchanged by their encounter—an option not generally available to other forms of being.

Because quantum theory in a certain sense regards the world as made out of waves rather than out of things, quantum entities and their attributes combine according to the rules of wave addition rather than the rules of ordinary arithmetic. The superposition principle, which governs how waves add, is as important for the quantum world as arithmetic is for everyday life.

WAVE INTERFERENCE

The superposition principle applied to oscillatory waves requires that when such waves add, the amplitude of the resultant wave d...

When two waves add in phase, peaks line up with peaks, valleys with valleys to make the resultant wav...

When two waves add out of phase, peaks line up with valleys to decrease the amplitude of the resultant wave.

When the phase lies somewhere in between these two extremes, the combined amplitude likewise falls in the middle.

When two waves with equal amplitude come together, the amplitude of the combined wave can be anywhere between zero and twice the amplitude of a single wave. The critical factor which decides the outcome of this peculiar wave arithmetic is the waves’ relative phase.

show the importance of the phase variable for wave addition.

This ability of two waves to augment or diminish each other depending on their phase difference is called interference:

waves add or subtract their amplitudes with complete indifference to another wave’s presence.

“concurrence,”

precisely in phase to achieve maximum enhancement is called “constructive interference.”

Out-of-phase superposition is called “destructive interference.”

WAVE ENERGY

A wave’s amplitude measures how big it is, but grossly underestimates the wave’s destructive power. A wave’s external effect depends on the energy it carries, which is proportional to the wave’s intensity (amplitude squared).

Wave energy goes as amplitude squared. When you double a wave’s amplitude, you quadruple its energy content.

For any quantum wave, amplitude squared means probability.

All that we learn here about the energy carried by an ordinary wave is directly applicable to the probability carried by a quantum wave.

A common feature of energy and probability is that bo...