I need some information

[CraigD]

To see that the standard interpretation of QM is incompatible with relativity, …

If “Why Relativity and QM are False” (an argument by owl that I took to assert “The theory of relativity is false, and the theory of quantum mechanics is false”) is rewritten to assert “the standard interpretation of QM is incompatible with the theory of relativity”, my synopsis of the argument,

1. Relativity prohibits instantaneous (infinitely fast) communication
   
2. Entangled particles appear to communicate instantaneously
   
3. Therefore “the theory of relativity is false”
   

, is rewritten to:

1. Relativity prohibits instantaneous (infinitely fast) communication
   
2. According to the standard interpretation of QM, entangled particles appear to communicate instantaneously
   
3. Therefore “the standard interpretation of QM is incompatible with relativity”
   

and my objections to the argument vanish.

 

In my perception, changing the conclusion of the argument from an impeachment of Relativity and/or QM to an impeachment a family of interpretations of QM is a profound and crucial change. The original argument implies to me (be that owl’s intention or not) that, as “false” theories, the well-verified predictions of Relativity and QM are incorrect. The rewritten argument implies, correctly IMHO, that the standard interpretation of QM (which I take to mean the Copenhagen interpretation, and similar interpretations, including the Bohm interpretation that rely on “wavefunction collapse”) is incorrect, or at least significantly incomplete.

 

IMHO, standard QM interpretations fail to adequately consider that we the “observers” so frequently given mystical significance in these interpretations, consists of ensembles of fundamental particles. Because of this failure, the very concretely observed phenomena of decoherence is not an truly objective phenomena, but a relic of the interpretation. I think more complete, and arguable more useful interpretations require that decoherence be viewed not as an objectively (or even “quantum metaphysically”) real phenomena, but a feature of the extent of the particle ensemble involved in the experiment. In the case that the ensemble is a complete system (perhaps the entire universe, perhaps a smaller “hard wall contained” system), its wavefunction never collapses, and the “artificial” collapse implied by sub-ensembles can be explained by a their wavefunctions, embedded within the complete systems.

 

Such QM interpretations are more counterintuitive and philosophically weirder than those popular today, and, from my acquaintance with the literature, less well developed even among specialists. It’s arguable that, being so intuitively unsatisfying, they will never be as popular as current ones. However, I’m convinced that the appeals to intuition of standard QM interpretations lead to paradoxical contradictions such as those owl describes, and that these contradictions can’t be resolved within the framework of standard interpretations. The predictions of Relativity and QM (those that are formally correct – it’s always possible to make a mistake in the formalism of these difficult theories resulting in wrong predictions) are, IMHO, correct and not incompatible (excluding predictions involving gravity, which has not been successfully included in standard QM).

[CraigD]

Here's one by Erik Lange: Proof of the Falsity of the Special Theory of Relativity It's too technical for me.

Because of it’s lack of either formal proof (although the paper claims to prove a fault in the derivation of the basis (a matrix) of for Minkowski space, it does not contain a true formal mathematical proof, but appeals to an intuitive interpretation of the meaning of an “event”) or practical example, I’m unable to make sense of Lang’s first analysis.

 

His second appears to hinge on the idea that by postulating a constant speed of light - the principle of Special Relativity – is circularly or arbitrarily defined, due in some way to the supposed impossibility of directly measuring velocity, another informal argument I’m unable to make much sense of. Given the many compelling experimental validations of SR, I’m somewhat mystified by arguments that such things as time, distance, and the speed of light cannot be measured.

 

What this argument has in common with many like it is a failure to appreciate that the theory of Relativity is in large part just a satisfying reduction to principles of predating mathematical formalism explaining experimentally obtained data (such as the Michelson Morley experiment and time dilation and other relativistic effects in spacecraft, such as in GPS satellites) that has allowed that formalism to be expanded and more widely understood. Relativity has utility, which, in practical terms, may be more important, and is almost certainly easier to define, than truth.

 

Paper’s like Lang’s suggest for “A thorough review of our physical paradigm appears to be necessary.” While such a review surely seems desirable (though a coherent description of what “our physical paradigm” means is somewhat problemed), I am puzzled by the efforts of Lang and others to reject useful theories like Relativity without proposing more useful extensions or replacements for them.

[ughaibu]

CraigD: Thanks. What puzzles me is the strength by which Einstein deniers and proponents express their views, I dont think it's very interesting as a philosophical question.

[owl]

If "Why Relativity and QM are False" [...] is rewritten to assert "the standard interpretation of QM is incompatible with the theory of relativity" [. . .] my objections to the argument vanish.

 

I noticed after I put that title on the piece (which is an old usenet message that I posted on my web site) that the title could be misleading. Although I think relativity and the standard (=Copenhagen) interpretation of QM are both false, I don't think all interpretations of QM are false. And I didn't really explain in that piece why I think relativity and the Copenhagen interpretation are both false; I only explained why I think they can't be both true. And I explained why I think relativity in particular can't be true, since non-locality is correct. I discuss what's wrong with the Copenhagen interpretation of QM in this other essay: home.sprynet.com/~owl1/qm.htm

 

In my perception, changing the conclusion of the argument from an impeachment of Relativity and/or QM to an impeachment a family of interpretations of QM is a profound and crucial change. The original argument implies to me (be that owl's intention or not) that, as "false" theories, the well-verified predictions of Relativity and QM are incorrect.

 

Oh, I didn't intend that. This is related to another issue mentioned on hypography: in my view, for a theory to be correct (true) is not merely for its empirical predictions to be accurate; rather, the theory must also give the correct explanation for those observed phenomena. When I say relativity is false, I don't mean that it doesn't predict the right observations. What I mean is that the theory behind why the observations are as they are is not right. Essentially, I think that the Lorentz transformation equations should be understood as describing objective physical changes that occur when objects move fast in absolute space. SR (special relativity) says instead that objects and events never have objective (absolute) lengths or durations, and that the Lorentz equations describe how the lengths of objects and durations of events vary relative to different reference frames.

 

The rewritten argument implies, correctly IMHO, that the standard interpretation of QM (which I take to mean the Copenhagen interpretation, and similar interpretations, including the Bohm interpretation that rely on "wavefunction collapse") is incorrect, or at least significantly incomplete.

 

Bohm's theory is actually a no-collapse theory, which is one of the reasons I like it. It has no collapses, it's compatible with determinism (but indeterministic versions of it are also possible), nothing is ever "indeterminate", and "observers" follow exactly the same rules as any other physical objects (they don't "create reality", etc.) However, Bohm's theory is nonlocal, in fact it's not (even) Lorentz invariant, so it entails that there is a preferred reference frame. So you have to give up relativity. I also discuss Bohm in the piece at: home.sprynet.com/~owl1/qm.htm

 

So overall my view is:

1. We should give up the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, because it uses the illogical idea of indeterminate states (not to be confused with indeterminism), and it implies that observers obey different laws from the rest of physical reality.
   
2. Bohm's theory is the best interpretation of QM (that I know of).
   
3. We should give up special relativity, because SR conflicts with nonlocality. We should accept nonlocality because of Bell's theorem.
   
4. Instead of SR, we should accept an alternate interpretation according to which the Lorentz transformations describe objective physical changes that result from absolute motion.
   

I'll say more about these things if people want.

IMHO, standard QM interpretations fail to adequately consider that we the "observers" so frequently given mystical significance in these interpretations, consists of ensembles of fundamental particles.

Yes, exactly. That's where I'm saying Bohm is superior--he allows an observer to be treated as just another bunch of particles. But you sound like you have some other interpretation in mind as the superior alternative to Copenhagen?

[owl]

CraigD: Thanks. What puzzles me is the strength by which Einstein deniers and proponents express their views, I dont think it's very interesting as a philosophical question.

 

Relativity is more philosophically important than you might think. The philosophical interest of relativity all comes from its denial of an absolute time order (it says that the order in which two events occurred in time is relative to a reference frame), and its refusal to accept a separation between space and time (space and time are merged into a single entity, "spacetime").

 

Here are some things that have been alleged to follow from special relativity:

1. That there is no free will.
   
2. That nothing can be in time without being in space.
   
3. As a result of (:), that popular forms of mind-body dualism must be false.
   
4. Similarly, that sense-data (in the philosophy of perception) do not exist.
   
5. That four-dimensionalism (& the doctrine of temporal parts) in metaphysics is correct.
   
6. That the past, present, and future are all equally real.
   
7. That human intuition is unreliable.
   

[ughaibu]

I see. Thanks.

[Erasmus00]

Rather than respond to older posts, I'll try to keep up with the general flow of the conversation.

 

We should give up the Copenhagen interpretation of QM, because it uses the illogical idea of indeterminate states (not to be confused with indeterminism), and it implies that observers obey different laws from the rest of physical reality.

 

I honestly think that, for the most part, the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics has been given up. Most practicing physicists don't really concern themselves with interpretations (the shut up and calculate interpretation) and those that do seem to have fallen into many-worlds or consistant histories interpretations.

 

Bohm's theory is the best interpretation of QM (that I know of).

 

Bohm's theory has one huge setback, which makes it practically useless. It can't be generalized to a quantum field theory (for obvious reasons, its very non-local). Given the incredible success of quantum field theories, Bohm's interpretation becomes very unappealing.

 

Are you familiar with Feynman's path integral formulation of quantum mechanics? I think that it is both the most satisfying formulation/interpretation of quantum mechanics, and has tremendous practical value, in that it can quite easily be generalized.

 

Instead of SR, we should accept an alternate interpretation according to which the Lorentz transformations describe objective physical changes that result from absolute motion.

 

This interpretation of the Lorentz transformation suffers from the same problems that Bohm's quantum mechanics does: it doesn't allow for further generalization. I think those interpretations that have more "truth" to them are likely to be those interpretations that allow the construction of new theories. Or at least the construction of new theories that yield correct predictions.

-Will

[Kriminal99]

hold on...

[owl]

Thanks for your message, Erasmus. I have little to say about the generalization of Bohm's theory. I suspect that, had Bohm's theory been the standard view for the last century, the physics community would have been working on it such that it would now be much more developed and there would now be Bohmian versions of (or alternatives to) quantum field theory. But now I'm just speculating.

 

Also, I tend to think of the problems facing Copenhagen as far worse: namely, I think Copenhagen is logically incoherent, so it should be considered ruled out from the start. I don't think many-worlds is incoherent, but it does strike me as crazy. :evil:

 

As I understand it, the path integral formulation is more of a method of calculating than an interpretation. I understand an "interpretation" of QM as a theory that explains what the underlying physical reality is, such that the quantum mechanical algorithms would work. Feynman doesn't try to answer that, does he?

 

As far as the "shut up and calculate" approach goes, well, if someone doesn't care about interpetations (as I gather most physicists don't), then I don't have anything to say to them. Interpretations are all I care about in this area.

 

This interpretation of the Lorentz transformation suffers from the same problems that Bohm's quantum mechanics does: it doesn't allow for further generalization.

 

I'm not sure I understand this (e.g., how you would want it to generalize). However, I will mention that a similar approach might be taken to general relativity also, that is, claiming that gravitation causes distortions in clocks and rods that make things look as though one were in a curved spacetime (even though spacetime is flat). You can get the same empirical predictions, so it becomes a philosophical question as to whether it's better to say something strange is happening to your measuring devices, or something strange is happening to space-time itself.

[Erasmus00]

As I understand it, the path integral formulation is more of a method of calculating than an interpretation. I understand an "interpretation" of QM as a theory that explains what the underlying physical reality is, such that the quantum mechanical algorithms would work. Feynman doesn't try to answer that, does he?

 

The path integral formulation is an entirely different mathematical algorithm, but entirely equivalent to the standard function space/operator methods of quantum mechanics. Many (myself included) think that the fundamental physics is the path integral, and that traditional quantum mechanics is just a useful mathematical result of the path integral formulation.

 

In this case, all the attempts to interpret the traditional mechanics are misguided, what needs to be interpreted is Feynman's formulation. I believe it lends itself readily to a fairly nice, though not perfect, physical interpretation.

 

In regards to relativity:

I'm not sure I understand this (e.g., how you would want it to generalize).

 

If you interpret the Lorentz transformation as something that happens to clocks and rods (perhaps as a result of electromagnetic effects, as Loretnz believed), then you have a nice set of transformations that apply to rods and clocks.

 

However, if you reduce (as Einstein did) the transformations to a simple fundamental postulate then you have a postulate to guide the formulation of new laws. The idea that the laws of physics should be the same in all inertial references frames is an incredibly powerful generator of new theories. Also, when quantized, these theories have proven the absolute best theories of nature we have.

 

As a side note, relativity really only needs the first postulate, the second can be shown as a consequence of the first. See N.David Mermin's paper "Relativity without Light."

 

However, I will mention that a similar approach might be taken to general relativity also, that is, claiming that gravitation causes distortions in clocks and rods that make things look as though one were in a curved spacetime (even though spacetime is flat).

 

You can, but you lose a lot of fairly nice results. Hilbert's approach to the stress energy tensor makes very little sense in a flat spacetime where rods and clocks change, and so you lose a nice interpretation of the meaning of Einstein's equation.

-Will

[Pyrotex]

... I’m somewhat mystified by arguments that such things as time, distance, and the speed of light cannot be measured.....

There is some truth to the statement that the speed of light cannot be measured.

 

Of course, it CAN be measured. We've been measuring it for decades. However, this always involves reflecting the beam of light back to its source. If you want any hope of accuracy, that is.

 

So, if you reflect the beam, then you must assume isotropy. That is, that the beam of light travels exactly the same speed in both directions. In any direction. There is no way to "prove" this, it must be assumed. Of course, it is common sense that it should be true, and everyone assumes it true. But this is the *sticking point* in the rigorous textbooks on Light. You can't really, really, really prove that you have measured the speed of light without assuming isotropy.

[HIENVN]

Hi,

 

The sum of the relative velocities of matter in space will not exceed the velocity of light or electromagnetic radiation which is c (3,00,000 Km/Sec). This is because of the structure of the universe/space and its composition.

 

 

-The structure of our universe is very simple, because it is just consist of matters and a space that is fulfilled by gravitational waves. And then the light should not be use to value the universe because it have not enough ability(the photon of Einstein) that need for the operation of the universe.

- The mechanics of universe (while quantum mechanics is the mechanics of matter and relativity theory is the mechanics of space-time) is very simple too. All action of matter in the universe must follow a single law (work as is a program) of the universe that gravitational waves are the means to control all matters.

[HIENVN]

Hi,

 

May be in some other universe which is disjoint from our universe the maximum velocity may (?) be greater than "c" or even less then "c". I don't know, this is only my hypothesis.

 

 

 

I think there is one universe only (our universe). We should be known some “universal walls’ that separate between other universe if really have some universe. The functions of “universal walls” are resistant, absorbable or emit gravitational waves; however, scientists around the world do not discover these “universal walls” yet. The discovery of “black holes” (absorb gravitational waves) is not enough to consider as is“universal walls!”

[Pyrotex]

-The structure of our universe is very simple, because it is just consist of matters and a space that is fulfilled by gravitational waves. And then the light should not be use to value the universe because it have not energy (the photon of Einstein) that need for the operation of the universe.....

We cannot and should not build a "theory" for the universe without FIRST making observations and doing experiments. We must first discover how matter, energy and light behave before we make theories. So, we first observe the operation of the universe. That comes first.

 

Once we know (some part of) the operation of the universe, THEN we can make a theory to explain what we observe.

 

We do observe that light is involved in the operation of the universe. We cannot make that go away by saying that "light does not have enough energy". Because, we observe that it does.

 

Maybe I have misunderstood what you said. Please say it again in different words.

[HIENVN]

Hi,

 

So there is no point in proving Einstein wrong because the speed of light is due to the structure of our universe/space.

 

Regards

 

-I would like to say “Einstein is wrong” because he used speed of light to establish his famous equation, E equals m times c-squared (energy equals mass times the velocity of light squared), while the light is not a presentation of the universe.

- Einstein was wrong before 1920 with his special relativity theory (1905) and general relativity theory (1915); however, Einstein was right when he introduced unified field theory since 1920 that nobody believes on this theory!

-A concept of gravitational waves since 1920 was different to his concept in 1916 about gravitational waves. Scientists around the world (about 50,000 scientists), L:Webmar1506New Scientist Breaking News - Thousands join hunt for gravitational waves.htm, are still hunting for gravitational waves on the earth because they believe on 1916’s Einstein’s prediction for gravitational waves that was based on 1915’s general relativity theory.

[HIENVN]

We cannot and should not build a "theory" for the universe without FIRST making observations and doing experiments. We must first discover how matter, energy and light behave before we make theories. So, we first observe the operation of the universe. That comes first.

 

Once we know (some part of) the operation of the universe, THEN we can make a theory to explain what we observe.

 

We do observe that light is involved in the operation of the universe. We cannot make that go away by saying that "light does not have enough energy". Because, we observe that it does.

 

Maybe I have misunderstood what you said. Please say it again in different words.

 

Thanks Pyrotex,

I will discuss with you in later, because I am busying to answer a lot of quotes of our members in this forum. My response to you may be slow because I don’t have time, my English skill is no good, and I must look for some documents before I answer anybody.

[HIENVN]

I hope I'm not alone in the opinion that subsiquent generations need to be protected from ubsubstantiated assertions, from people that apparently dont understand the science in the first place .

 

 

 

Hi Imaplanck,

Where is the first place in science?