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We live in two worlds--a Real World perched atop a Quantum World. The Real World, we detect with our senses. We call it the Real World because, to us, it is all that is real--all that we can really experience.
The Quantum World underlies the Real World and is its foundation--we cannot experience it with our naked sensory organs.
The Real World seems to be continuous. When masses move about, we see smooth movement at a variety of speeds. The state of a mass appears to be an extrapolation of its state an instant before. The characteristics of this new state must be contained in the momentum inherited from the previous state and the mass's interaction with adjacent masses. By retreating further and further into the past, eventually, we arrive at the Real World's primeval state, which contained the original momentum. This momentum is more than simply an individual mass traveling at a particular velocity. It is all masses in the Real World and their interrelationships.
One of these masses can be inert, like a rock, or active, like the human brain. When the brain thinks, its thoughts depend upon its past state, which includes instinctive and sensorial experience--what it has seen, heard, and felt. These external sensations were destined to collide with the brain. As a result, the brain orders its body to perform a predestined act, which precipitates other, predestined acts by other masses.
Therefore, the Real World, as a result of its continuity, appears to be deterministic, where the state of the future is stored in the matter of the present to be time-released, instant by instant, into the future. We are doomed, it seems, to a predetermined future that we, in an advancing present, cannot change, no matter what.
We try to defeat this outcome. For example, we perform some nonsensical, spontaneous act--making faces or sticking out our tongues--thinking that we have done something at the spur of the moment that fate did not plan for us to do. Moments later, blushing, we realize that we have merely done what fate had in store for us all along. No escape seems possible. Yet, perhaps, a way out does exist.
In the Real World, time flows in only one direction--into the future. Matter changing its state creates time. If all matter were to remain in its present state, time would not exist. Within the Quantum World, no flow of time as we know it exists because, for short periods, time can jump in a random manner into either the past or the future. The boundary between the Real and the Quantum worlds is the quantum time span, which is the lifetime of a virtual elementary particle.
Suppose that, at a given moment, all matter in the universe were to remain in its same states for a period of one year, then continue on its way, changing states as before. That one-year suspension of change of states is meaningless. When no change in state occurs, time stands still. If this suspension were to occur, we wouldn't even detect it. To us, time would jump over that year or a billion years in an instant. How can time jump over itself? This is another temporal paradox.
Time is what we perceive it to be. A century is a long time for us because the quantum time span is relatively short in comparison. If it were ten times longer than it is, a particular thought process in our brains would take ten times longer to complete, and a century would seem like ten years to us. However, if the quantum time span were longer for our brains, it also would be longer for the whole universe, and, because everything would slow down, in essence, nothing would. Time could stop and start, accelerate or decelerate, and we--the whole universe--would not even know it.
At the beginning of the Renaissance, inquiry into the characteristics of the Real World became scientific and empirical. At first, only the naked eye made the observations--collecting the visible light that reflected from its target. Observers wanted to get closer to what they were investigating. They invented the optical microscope, which, as it became more sophisticated, enabled them to zoom in on and see the reflected photons from smaller and smaller targets.
The reason for looking at an entity is to see its physical characteristics--size, shape, color, position, velocity, and other distinctive attributes. This means that we must be able to see a relatively broad band of visible-light frequencies. However, if the dimensions of the entity are smaller than visible light's shortest wavelength--violet, we cannot see it by using an optical microscope.
We circumvent this problem by using invisible, electromagnetic radiation of shorter wavelength--ultraviolet. We cannot view with our naked eye an image formed by reflected ultraviolet light; however, by focusing the beam of photons onto an ultraviolet-sensitive sheet of film, we can view the image on the developed film. Yet, for the smallest objects, even short-wavelength electromagnetic radiation cannot capture their images.
The electron microscope uses a beam of electrons rather than photons. This electron beam can possess an effective wavelength that is a million times shorter than that possible with photons. However, to obtain this wavelength, we must accelerate the electrons to high velocities, which may disturb the tiny entity being observed such that capturing its image or gleaning information about it is impossible.
When we attempt to obtain the attributes of the smallest entities--the elementary particles--at some point, the readings become discontinuous. Smooth movement at a variety of speeds gives way to a vibration or jerking movement where particles disappear from our Real World to reappear a particular distance away after a particular delay. We have arrived at the boundary between the Real and Quantum Worlds.
The role of classical physics is to study the characteristics of the Real World. Surprisingly, equations that represent physical interactions in the Real World do not contain FUPCONs. These interactions exist between continuous, lumped phenomena; therefore, we can use any system of unit measures we please without introducing constants of proportionality.
Although classical physics does not use FUPCONs in its equations, it does use systemic constants. A systemic constant pertains to a physical system of a particular configuration and is integral to it. We cannot remove a systemic constant from an equation in classical physics by changing the system of unit measures as we can with FUPCONs in quantum physics. If the configuration of a system remains the same, the magnitudes of its systemic constants remain the same. However, if the configuration changes, its systemic constants also change because they are an integral part of the configuration.
Examples of systemic constants are: the acceleration of gravity, g, coefficients of friction, and oscillation constants such as for a spring, a pendulum, or an LC circuit. We use the symbol, k, to represent most of them. All of them remain constant with changes in dynamic input to the particular system. However, when the physical configuration of the system changes, the systemic constants acquire different magnitudes.
Conversely, FUPCONs can occur only in equations that represent physical phenomena that are discontinuous or quantized.
Upon first scrutiny, the Quantum World appears not to obey the laws of nature as we know them. This is because these laws apply to the continuous Real World. However, once we understand the laws of the discontinuous Quantum World, many of its paradoxes cease to exist.
Light and electricity appear to be continuous phenomena, yet, on the quantum level, they are discontinuous--being composed, respectively, of photons and electrons. In the Quantum World, continuity and determinism disappear. This discontinuous behavior on the part of elementary particles was first predicted by Niels Bohr in his model of the hydrogen atom, where bound electrons acquire only stepped, quantized attributes (see Bohr's Model of the Hydrogen Atom). Prodded by its environment in a random fashion, an elementary particle jumps from one state to another in all of its dimensions in accordance with the magnitude of each of its quantum attributes.
About two centuries ago, long before the discovery of the Quantum World, Thomas Young and George Airy, respectively, projected beams of light through slits and pinholes in a thin light barrier onto a screen beyond. Under some conditions, parallel lines or concentric rings of light appeared on the screen. Young interpreted the cause of the parallel lines to be wave interference. Later, Airy came to the same conclusion for his concentric rings of light. Neither one of them could have come to any other conclusion because the quantum nature of matter was unknown during their lifetimes. Thus was born what was later to become known as the particle-wave duality of matter culminating in the Copenhagen interpretation, the EPR paradox, and the Bell theorem. These concepts spawned the idea of the existence of parallel universes, superluminal signalling, nonlocality of cause and effect, and the creation of whole galaxies by just thinking about them. The discoveries exposed in this book show that quantized diffraction angles cause these phenomema, not wave interference.
We see the quantum effect of diffraction when a high-velocity particle diffracts off an edge of a slit or a pinhole in a thin light barrier to shine on a screen beyond. This edge, in any experiment, is made as fine and regular as is technologically possible, yet, because of physical limitations in accuracy tolerances on the quantum scale, it remains rough in comparison to the particle diffracting past it. If each particle could be made to hit the edge at the exact same spot every time, then the diffraction angle would always be the same. The experiment cannot control the edge roughness nor the aim of the particle this closely; therefore, each particle's trajectory changes by a random deflection angle. However, each particle does not diffract at a completely random angle, but, randomly, within a discontinuous quantization of the angles.
In essence, an elementary particle's diffraction past a slit or pinhole deflects its trajectory by an integral multiple of a quantized angle, which can only represent that particle's unitary attributes of length and time. However, once diffracted, if the particle is disturbed--such as an attempt to measure it--its trajectory changes by one or more quantized angles, but because this change can occur at a random location, the angle of the particle's new trajectory cannot be an integral multiple of its previous angle. This means that the point of destination is random and parallel lines or concentric rings will not appear on the destination screen.
When a double-slit apparatus possesses a particular physical configuration in harmony with the wavelength or momentum of the elementary particle, those particles that diffract past one slit focus on the destination screen in phase with those diffracting past the second slit. This reinforces the parallel-line phenomenon. In some configurations, covering one slit can decrease this reinforcement such that the parallel lines appear to vanish.
Perhaps, in the future, the wave-interference interpretation of the parallel-line and concentric-ring phenomena will be considered the astrolabe of the twentieth century.
In addition to diffraction, the same, quantum-angle phenomenon affects reflection and refraction, yet, because these phenomena deal with beams of particles with a broad front (plane "waves"), the effects of parallel-beam transmission hide them. Other reflection and refraction effects that we can attribute to the discontinuous, quantum nature of matter are: iridescence, diffraction gratings, partial reflection, and holograms.
Erwin Schrödinger's wave equations work well in predicting the probability of such-and-such phenomenon occurring with relation to effects such as reflection and refraction. However, the geometrical, physical relationships between the high-speed particles and the relatively immobile particles of which amorphous, transparent media consist (glass, water, oil) really explain what is occurring. To date, we cannot examine these relationships because the experimental apparatus necessary to do so is beyond the capability of current technology. We do not see measurement accuracy, which, of course, Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle limits, but to being able to set up an apparatus that is capable of taking the possible measurements in the first place.
This lack of advanced technology forces us to depend upon artificial devices to predict events under particular circumstances. Schrödinger's wave equation is one of these: a sort of modern-day astrolabe, sure to be replaced in the future. It mathematically explains what happens yet not why. More importantly, it only deals with probabilities not certitudes.
Let us take a macroscopic example, which clarifies the concepts of probability, certitude, and control--or lack of control--of events:
In the game of craps, probabilities predict that a particular side of a die will land face up after the die is thrown against the wall of a crap table to bounce back onto the surface of the table. A properly-milled die enables equal probability to each of the six sides, and, because only one side comes up at every toss of the die, that probability is one in six.
Why does the crap-table owner win in the long-run? First, he is aware of the various possibilities and their probabilities of occurrence. Second, he knows from experience that a mere human (super humans are not allowed to play the game) lacks the mental and physical abilities to control the throw of the die to cause a desired number to come up at will. Third, he makes the rules so that less than fifty percent of the throws pay off. These probabilities pertain to a multitude of a repeated event. Possibly, gambling halls deal unwittingly with a form of Schrödinger's wave equation.
Enter super humans and super crap tables. Super humans are capable of precise control of their actions down to the quantum level. After some practice, they know exactly how to throw a die six different ways to make the desired side always come up. The surfaces of the super crap tables do not deteriorate after each throw.
Certitudes replace probabilities through proper control. Conversely, if proper control is physically unattainable, such as is the case with ordinary humans, then random control, limited by the configuration of the system, takes effect. Obviously, a macroscopic system that begins in a specific configuration could acquire a desired later one provided that its sequence of actions were rigidly controlled.
Let us create a crap-game apparatus that is smaller and smaller. At some point, when the system is minuscule, we lose deterministic control. That point is reached when the quantization of the system's parameters does not allow a fine-enough control. For instance, a super human determines that the die needs two and one-half quantum units of force in a particular direction for the desired result. However, the allowable units of quantum force can be two or three but not two and one half. The super human loses control. At the quantum level, our deterministic world is no more. We are now in the same situation as that of the particle being diffracted past the edge of a slit or pin hole. The particle cannot change direction by fractions of quantum angles, which angles correspond to integral quantized amounts of velocity or acceleration.
Possibly, the Quantum World is opportunistic rather than fatalistic like the Real World. However, these quantum opportunities seem inaccessible to intelligence of the Real World and can be exploited only by the random manner of the Quantum World.
Because states of a quantum particle change randomly, all of its possible adjacent future states possess equal probability of occurring, and one state must and does occur. The particle's state may be stable and not be threatened by other elementary particles potentially vying for the same time-space location. Conversely, the state of another particle may be unstable such that it is forced to move on because of pressure from other particles.
In the long run, a particle tries all of the possible states. The question of whether a change of state in the quantum world succeeds or fails is not valid. If successful, the particle stays in that state a while longer or continues to change state in the same manner as before.
A "failed" change of state does not destroy the particle in question; it simply reverts to its previous state. On the quantum level, no difference exists between failure and success; these are macroscopic concepts. When a particle assumes its primitive state, in essence, time flows backward, a concept first used by Feynman so eloquently in his Feynman diagrams.
Each random quantum change of state for a particle is independent of the influence of adjacent particles until after the change occurs, at which time, they jolt the offending particle back to a state of less resistance.
If matter does not change state, time stops. If matter returns to its previous state, time flows backward. If matter acquires a new state, time flows forward.
An example may clarify the concept: A macroscopic job needs doing--but by using quantum rules. The job lasts for one quantum time span. Rather than taking the time to determine the best way to do the job and then doing it, the job progresses in a random manner. The result is bad; therefore, the job repeats itself in a random manner over and over again until its result is good. Of course, we would have fired and replaced a macroscopic worker long before, but, in the Quantum World, work can progress only randomly. This seems to be a waste of time--repeating a task indefinitely. However, in the Quantum World, the attributes of a quantum can exchange places within a quantum time span. In this manner, the random jobs do not occur in series but in parallel. Time reverses itself after each try, and, in the end, we lose no time. In the Real World, time cannot reverse itself because the sheer multitude of other particles changing state in a non-reversible interlocking manner disallows it.
The Real World is subject to quantum rules because, after all, even the largest assemblages of matter are fundamentally composed of elementary particles. Perhaps, the random activity on the quantum level saves us from a deterministic world.
Mutation and evolution of life are two aspects of randomness. Mutation occurs with random results and is the phenomenon that drives the evolution of life. The environment controls evolution, which is the result of a series of generational mutations in the particular direction that enables survival.
Throughout the evolution of life on earth, every child is genetically slightly different from its parents. The direction and quality that this change or mutation takes is random. However, the rate of mutational change may be a function of exposure to a particular quality and quantity of solar and cosmic radiation.
Over millions of years, mutation creates forms of life of every possible configuration regardless of whether or not it can survive its environment. If the trials of life are too challenging for a mutated being, it dies. Its kind dies. A species does not mutate in a particular direction; it mutates randomly into every conceivable configuration. If the mutation produces a being that can better survive its environment than its competitor can, it lives; otherwise, it dies. This phenomenon accounts for the existence of almost an endless variety of life forms on earth.
The similarity between the random changes of state in the Quantum World and the random mutation of life in the Real World is striking. Perhaps, without quantum discontinuity, mutation and evolution of life would be impossible.
| Title Page | Table of Contents | Preface | <<<< | >>>> | Appendixes | References | To Order This Book | WritWord Homepage |