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From this week's feature...

?The electron is not a particle with uncertainties in position and momentum, but a holistic wave that occupies space,? argues Prins. ?The uncertainties describe the size of the wave in position and wave-vector spaces. These sizes can morph instantaneously when the boundary conditions change. Furthermore, a photon can merge with such a wave [entangle] to form another electron-wave with a higher energy. It is such instantaneous entanglement that corresponds to a quantum jump.? So, according to Prins, an electron is a wave; not a particle, or even a particle with wave-duality.


Comments please.


Blacknad.

The situation reminds me of the 'epicycles`
created in the attempt to 'normalize` the
Copernican solar system before the advent
of the Newtonian.
Something is coming be it small folded
additional dimensions, 'all wave` matter
as suggested by Prins, or "something
entirely different" per Monty Python.
Whether by law or simply through
circumstances, Heisenburg was right.
We simply can't see that well at the
scale required and progress demands
energies impractical to reach.

Pragmatist.

As stated by pragmatist Heisenberg is partly correct from an experimental point of view; however, Heisenberg's interpretation of his uncertainty relationship for position and momentum has been and still is wrong. According to his interpretation one cannot, even in principle, determine the position and momentum of an electron simultaneously. This implies that you cannot know the classical path of an electron; however, electrons were discovered as cathode rays and the path of an electron's centre of mass can be calculated accurately by specifying both it position and momentum. THIS IS NOT POSSIBLE ACCORDING TO HEISENBERG! If Heisenberg is right, we should not have had operational electron microscopes or electron accelerators.

Furthermore, an electron has mass. This means that it has inertia. This means that it MUST BE at rest within an inertial reference frame travelling with it. This means that in this reference frame both its position and momentum must be known simultaneously. So how can Heisenberg be right when he concludes that knowledge of position obviates any knowledge of momentum and vice versa?

Sure, with /_\p/_\m greater than or equal to h/2(pi). How are ya gonna look, git? For that matter, what could you possibly see? An electron in vacuum has a g-factor other than exacty -2, -2.0023193043718.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Hbase/quantum/lamb.html#c1

The electron anomalous g-factor is due to coupling with vacuum zero point fluctuations, as in the Lamb shift and Rabi vacuum oscillations.

How do you plan to "isolate" an electron if the vacuum itself is interactive?

Good argument Uncle Al, however, according to my viewpoint, it is based on the wrong paradigm. The argument that there are vacuum fluctuations is, at least to me, suspect. The Casimir force can also be explained as a van der Waal's interaction. Furthermore, the real origin of spin has not been explained by Dirac's equation. The latter solution derived by Dirac for the free electron is nothing more than a mathematical trick. This will be treated in one of my forthcoming papers.

The more important point you are making is the uncertainties in momentum and position. When you calculate a time-independent wave that represents an electron, you still get uncertainties in position and momentum; however, relative to what is this wave time-independent. The "particle" is NOT a photon, so that the wave must be time independent relative to an inertial reference frame. The actual momentum of an electron is not, like that of a photon, invariant relative to different inertial reference frames, but depends from which inertial reference frame an electron is observed; i.e. the momentum can have many values, and this has NOTHING to do with uncertainty but relates totally to relativity. So what has the uncertainty in "momentum" within an inertial reference frame relative to which the wave is time-independent and stationary got to do with the momentum of an electron? NOTHING. It should not be interpreted as momentum. It only gives the size of the wave in k-space; hbar should not have been attached to this k-vector. Momentum only manifests when the electron moves relative to the observer and this requires the wave representing the electron to also move relative to the observer: i.e. THE WAVE HAS TO BE TIME-DEPENDENT!! In order to interpret the uncertainty in k as an uncertainty in momentum requires a unique stationary inertial reference frame; we know from Einstein that such a thing does not exist.

Thus, Heisenberg's interpretation of his uncertainty relationship violates relativity. All Heisenberg's relationship really implies is that when the wave encounters new boundary conditions in position space it will morph in such a way as to adhere to this relationship between position and k-space. This is universally true for all waves.

How to isolate an electron? It is only a problem when one erroneously assume that an electron is a "point-particle". I believe that a "point" only exists in Plato's mathematical universe. The electron is not a "point-particle" but a wave that occupies a volume in space. Furthermore the "essence of the electron" is contained within a region that does not include the parts of the wave that can act as "tunnelling tails" (in the case of the s-orbital of a hydrogen atom the essence of the electron lies within the van der Waals radius of the hydrogen atom). It only acts like a point particle under the conditions where its centre of mass plays a role; i.e. when the wave is "observed" from outside the "essence-volume"; i.e. the volume which does not include the tunnelling tails.

Johnny Boy wrote:
"The Casimir force can also be explained as a van der Waal's interaction."

Not possible. Were this true the strength of the force, as plates are brought closer together, would not behave as it does.

Feel otherwise ... post an explanation of observed behaviour.

I agree that I am not an expert (and will do some more research on this apect). Whatever it is, however, it is not "zero-point fluctuations" of the "vacuum". I challenge you to prove that it is!! I have seen very good calculations relating it to van der Waals' forces. Prove to me that it is not the case! To go along this route requires more reading from my side (I agree); however, rather counter my arguments on relativity and Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship. How can the k-space wave relate to momentum when momentum is a relativistic parameter; as it is in the case of an electron? In which reference frame can one calculate a "time-independent" wave?

I agree that I am not an expert. Whatever it is it is not "zero-point fluctuations" of the "vacuum".

Earth to Johnny Boy ... earth to Johnny Boy. Please reread these two sentences. And you wrote 'em.

JB wrote:
"I challenge you to prove that it is!!"

That is not how science works. The Casimir Effect is proven science. It is up to you to establish facts that the current theory can not explain and, if you can, to provide a competing theory that properly explains them which you can not do with Van der Waal forces.

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/casimir3.htm

DA Morgan is in the catbird seat. Casimir effect. Lamb shift (including the enormous Lamb shift for for uranium 91+), electron anomalous g-facor, Rabi vacuum oscillations... all source from vacuum ZPF. An alternate explanation for any must hold for all. Diddling consistent math doesn't necessarily make it physics,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zitterbewegung

I conceed that my arguments on so-called "vacuum fluctuations" have not been well thought out. I am now reading more about the Casimir effect; however, I am of the opinion that the experimental manifestation of this force does not change the fact that the uncertainty relationship of position and momentum for a time-independent wave-intensity cannot have anything to do with the actual momentum of the particle with mass that it represents. If a particle with mass moves relative to an observer, the wave-intensity must also move relative to the observer; the wave will thus not be a stationary time-independent wave. "Vacuum fluctuations", if they are indeed "vacuum" and not just the manifestation of Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship for time and energy for existing waves, does not change this in any way. Thus if you have to represent the quantum state of an electron by a time-independent "stationary" wave-intensity (whatever your interpretation of the wave) it implies that you are within the same inertial reference frame relative to which the wave intensity is stationary. If another observer is moving relative to this reference frame, he/she will have to describe the wave function as moving relative to him/her; i.e. the wave-intensity must be time-dependent. Only in this case can one argue that the "particle" with mass has actual momentum; i.e. there must be relative movement between the observing apparatus and the "particle" and its accompanying wave. This is the case when electrons diffract.

The Heisenberg uncertainty relationship for "momentum" and position of a time-independent wave is nothing else than the relationship between position- and k-space that is valid for that wave. This relationsip is determined by the boundary conditions. So what Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship for "momentum" and position implies is that when the boundary conditions change the wave has to morph, but any morphing cannot violate this relationship: i.e when the wave morphs to occupy a smaller region in space, it must expand in k-space and vice versa. Thus when a wave "collapses" to morph into a "particle-electron" it is NOT a probability that becomes an actuality, but a large wave morphing into a localised wave whose centre of mass seems to act like a "point particle", when observing the wave from "outside" the distributed charge within the wave.

By applying this reasoning consistently, one finds that the quantum-mechanical ground-state energy of a free electron within an inertial reference frame moving with the electron, is the rest-mass of the electron. This means that the electron can also have excited states within such an inertial reference frame: i.e. the muon and tau. With these assumptions one finds that there are no "magic tricks" like renormalization required to model the free electron.

So I will appreciate it if you would concentrate on my arguments about position and momentum, and the relevance of Heisenberg's relationship of "momentum" and position, when applied to an electron.

NOTE ADDED LATER: I have been misled by a paper I cannot now find. The Casimir force is definitely not a van der Waals' interaction; however, I have another idea that relates to "vacuum fluctuations" but is not "vacuum fluctuations" as presently modelled in QED. It relates to the ability of a wave to lend and borrow energy for limited times; i.e. to Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship for energy and time. Photons can then disentagle from the surface electron waves into the gap between the mirrors. According to my proposed wave model for the electron, this energy comes from the wave component over the fourth dimension; i.e. it is like a vacuum fluctuation but not quite trhe same. The same argument can be applied to model Rabi oscillations, anomalous g-factor etc. It still needs refinement but I would like to thank DA Morgan and Uncle Al for bringing this to my attention.

JB wrote - "It still needs refinement but I would like to thank DA Morgan and Uncle Al for bringing this to my attention."

- This kind of interaction is where SAGG is at its very best. Uncle Al, you could easily make your point as effectively without having to call people gits. A very interesting debate though.

Blacknad.

Competence is the springboard of criticism. If hundreds of thousands of physics grad students across the planet over 70 years have gone through this from postulates to final derived theory and nobody has found an error, including experimentalists, then you don't

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/analysis.jpg

unless you have a powerful falsifying argument consistent with prior observation... and it is testable. Hard science is not the Liberal Arts. You cannot call a dog turd a sausage, eat it with relish, and expect to get away with it. That is why your computer reliably works (science) and your investment counselor does not (economics and its perpetual whine of "heteroskedasticity").

I have no problem with heterodox thought as such. Einstein postulates all mass falls identically in vacuum and Weitzenb?ck says left and right hands fall differently. Fine. So we find a way to quantitate handedness and we propose falsifying experiments,

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz3.pdf

Theory will predict what it is told to predict. Shouldn't we look?

William A. Little proposed excitonic high temp superconductors,

Phys. Rev. A 134 1416 (1964)
Phys. Rev. B 13 4766 (1976)

Replace BCS phonons (large-mass nucleus displacement characterized by Debye temperature) with excitons (small-mass electron displacement) possessing characteristic energies around 2 eV or 23,000 K. Exciton-mediated electron pairing suggests superconductor critical temperatures exceeding 300 K even under weak coupling conditions - a robust, processable room temperature organic superconductor.

In 1964 it was a best guess. In 2006 we can model polymer structures and compare them to expectations (Little's example is awful when calculated),

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/littnap.png
1-naphthyl polyacetylene
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/littpyr.png
1-pyrenyl polyacetylene
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/littboth.png
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/anthcore.png
9-anthracenyl polyacetylene viewed down the central spine.

We can propose a four step synthesis of each of those polymers from reasonably cheap commercial chemicals. Theory will predict what it is told to predict. Shouldn't we look?

Saying that modern physics is a crock is stooopid talk at face value. Physics works perfectly across an astounding range of scale and venue. Don't gainsay physics unless you are backed up by something suitably weighty - and experimetally falsifiable. Have some manners...

...or be met in kind.

Hi Uncle Al,

I have some sympathy with your sentiments especially that new science should be testable. This also implies that new science should not be rejected out of hand just because it does not fit presently accepted dogma. This is only done by a bigot. I thus find the following statement by you very perturbing: ?Competence is the springboard of criticism. If hundreds of thousands of physics grad students across the planet over 70 years have gone through this from postulates to final derived theory and nobody has found an error, including experimentalists, then you don't?. I can now clearly see why Galileo had a problem. Ptolemy?s model of the universe have been accepted as correct for far more than 70 years and it worked experimentally (even though one had to clonk on epicycles (renormalizing it?)). ?Nobody has found an error for hundreds of years, including experimentalists, then you don?t either Galileo?. And then we blame the poor church! The church was advised by the scientists of the day. It seems times never change Uncle Al. Can I buy you a Cardinal?s robe?

What perturbs me is that all these grad students have been quite happy to accept that the ?vacuum energy? becomes infinite when you calculate it. It is my experience that mathematics is more powerful than that. When applied correctly it is a fair arbiter. If you get a silly result you are asking a silly question, or you are calculating something that does not exist. The renormalisation problem flows from the stupid idea that one can calculate an electric field-energy around a solitary charge. Electric field with energy only forms between separated charges. Furthermore when modelling wave interactions, you can generate the wave from sub-waves which are not the actual harmonic waves relevant to the problem. For example we can digitise music today but it does not imply that the waves on a violin?s string consist of computer code. When you do not use the correct harmonics you find that the number of sub-waves required increases to become a monumental number of terms; just as is the case in QED. Does QED thus give the real mechanisms involved or is it just creation akin to ?virtual reality?? Maybe Wolfgang Pauli?s comment might be more applicable: ?It is not even wrong!?

Little?s model based on excitons is, most probably, wrong. Although the charge carriers can be bi-electron states, they do not have to be. Furthermore, they do not form a Bose-Einstein condensate, but a dielectric array of centres. For example in YBCO, the arrays are formed between the crystallographic planes as entities that are each akin to a covalent bond; which in this case form between positive charges below the ?surfaces? of the crystallographic planes. Thus if you apply an external electric field, the bi-electron wave polarises relative to the positive charges to in this way cancel the applied field. If you inject electrons at the same time the bi-electron carriers can tunnel from anchor point to anchor point to, in this way, on average cancel the applied field. Thus by tunnelling at a speed v, they constitute a current. The tunnelling occurs by means of Heisenberg?s uncertainty relationship for time and energy. Each charge carrier borrows the required energy to break free from its anchor point and to have the speed required to reach the next anchor point while at the same time cancelling the applied electric field. When injecting the electrons faster, the charge-carriers borrow more energy to move faster; however, this energy is not permanent, so that the increase in speed does not manifest as an increase in kinetic energy. This must be so or else the charge carriers will scatter within the contact they are moving to; and in this way a resistance will be recorded. As I said the charge carriers need not be bosons. In heavily doped p-type diamond they are holes (fermions). In the low temperature metals they are not Cooper Pairs generated by phonon exchange (note that this mechanism also has its origin in QED), but pseudo-electron orbitals that form a Wigner crystal. This is why good conductors like gold cannot superconduct. A Wigner crystal only forms within poor conductors. When analysing the mechanism responsible for superconduction, it becomes clear that the best materials to use for generating high temperature superconductors are carbon-based materials; but not for the reasons advanced by Little.

The more interesting SC phase is the one I have discovered at room and higher temperatures. It is akin to a macro-?chemical bond? between the diamond?s surface and the anode; i.e. an entanglement of a large number of electrons to form a single time-independent wave. There are no separate charge-carriers in this phase. Thus when injecting an electron into it at the cathode, another jumps out at the anode. No current exists between the contacts.

The Casimir force might also relate to electron ?orbitals? forming between the two surfaces of the metal mirrors. It is also possible that it relates to virtual photons, where these are emitted by the electron waves on the surfaces of the mirrors. A vacuum energy field with an infinite energy which has to be renormalised seems to me pure virtual reality.

I have asked some questions about Heisenberg's uncertainty relationship for time-independent electron waves. How can uncertainties in actual momentum apply to such a wave?

Anybody else noticed that all physics can be derived from Maxwell, Newton and fundamental constants?

Quantum mechanics, in it's many forms, is old news, and it's only because of the millions of man-years that have been invested in it that people aren't willing to step back and say "It works, but it's evidently nonsense, let's go back to first principles".

If you postulate magical energy levels for the non-radiation of bound electrons, you'll spend years renormalising because your boundary condition is wrong. Derive a boundary condition from first principles and everything works just fine.

http://www.blacklightpower.com/theory/theory.shtml

Sorry to evangelize - i'm a physicist on the edge...

Johnny Boy wrote:
"This also implies that new science should not be rejected out of hand just because it does not fit presently accepted dogma. This is only done by a bigot."

I agree wholeheartedly.

But most of what is passed off as "new science" is the wild ranting of nut-cases who think that because they have an idea it somehow equates with being a theory which somehow equates with being science.

Ignorance of what science is, and the scientific method is rampant. If the shoe fits ... wear it.

I also agree wholeheartedly. There are too many cooks who think they suddenly have "the solution". Mostly these persons are easy to spot. They are usually not scientists who have published widely in science. Nevertheless, I still always give them the benefit of the doubt and read their theories and hypotheses with an open mind. I even did this with McCutcheon's book the socalled "Final Theory". It was easy in this case to point out why he is wrong scientifically without having to call him a nutcase. I will never reject ideas out of hand just because the scientific community has thought for years that certain scientific principles are sacrosant. As I have said before, that is the attitude of the bigot. By doing that one closes the door for a possible new paradigm shift; the latter is what science is all about.

I notice that both DA Morgan and Uncle Al are not willing to analyse and answer the concepts and questions that I have posted on this BB, but they keep on trying to classify me as a "nutcase" or by stating tha I am "clueless". Is this the way science operates when you are NOT ignorant? I wonder who are really ignorant of what science is, and what the scientific method is? The biggest culprits are those who have elevated the status of presently accepted scientific theories to religious dogma. I will NEVER do so, because I believe that we as human beings still have a lot to learn. This implies that our most "sacred theories" will most probably have to adapt to new experimental evidence. What I am proposing at present has come about owing to unexpected new experimental evidence which is reproducible and has been confirmed idependently. Not just confirmed but additional results are at present being measured, which will be published sometime this year.

So, DA Morgan and Uncle Al, please apply the scientific method you are supposedly advocating, when analysing new theories and results. Or are you not able to understand science and the scientific method at all? The progress of science relies on argument and counterargument, NOT on insulting other people, because their ideas in some way threaten your stability.

That's false, because then he would no longer be ''Uncle Al''

Johnny Boy's comments about the Casimir effect are partially correct, see here:

The Casimir Effect and the Quantum Vacuum

Count Iblis quoted:
"The Casimir force (per unit area) between parallel plates vanishes as \alpha, the fine structure constant, goes to zero, and the standard result, which appears to be independent of \alpha, corresponds to the \alpha\to\infty limit."

Which is evidence of wavelength not that the standard interpretation of the Casimir effect is not valid.

Neither does it take away the possibility that the standard interpretation of the Casimir effect could be wrong?