Robert Oerter, on page 83 of his book “The Theory of Almost Everything: The Standard Model, the Unsung Triumph of Modern Physics” said “Quantum mechanics has completely undermined the mechanistic view of the universe, by removing not one but two of its foundations. First, according to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, it is impossible, even in principle, to determine the exact position and velocity or momentum of each particle in your body. The best that can be done, even for a single particle, is to determine the quantum state of the particle, which necessarily leaves some uncertainty about its position, velocity or momentum. Second, the laws of physics are not deterministic but probabilistic: given the (quantum) state of your body, only the probabilities of different behaviors could be predicted.”

To a certain extent this is true however the same can be said for our inability to determine the exact position and momentum of many macroscopic objects in our environment.

For example in “reality” we can cannot determine or measure the exact position or momentum of the planets as they obit the sun because we do not have the ability, even with modern computers to calculate the gravitational effects all of the other objects in our universe, such as the planets or stars have on them.  In other words we can only determine their most probably macroscopic positions or momentum based on an incomplete set of initial conditions.  However we do not deny the mechanistic view of planetary science, in part because we can understand or determine the mechanism responsible for why they move the way they do and why we cannot determine their exact position or momentum though observations of the “reality” of our environment.  In others words because we define the measurements of their positions and momentum in terms of the “reality” or the ability to observe the conditions under which they interact we assume that they occupy a deterministic environment.

However the reason we view the quantum world as being non-mechanistic is in part because we cannot observe or understand a mechanism responsible for why the components of its environment interact the way they do.  Therefore we can only base its “reality” on our inability to measure the position or momentum of its components.  In others words we define it only in terms of measurements and not on observations of the conditions of responsible for those measurements.

Yet this is exactly how planetary scientists define the deterministic “reality” of planetary motion because as mentioned earlier, the influence other objects have on them makes it impossible to determine the exact position or momentum of a planet.

Some would say that this is not a valid comparison because we could at least, in theory refine our observations and computing power enough to be able to determine a planets initial conditions precisely enough to predict where it will be in the future.

But that still does not explain why modern science presently assumes that the motion of the planets is mechanistic on a microscopic scale when at the moment is it not.

As mentioned earlier the reason they feel justified in believing that it is, in part because they can define a mechanism in terms of a deterministic “reality” they can observed.

If it was not for this belief they would have to assume that environments the planets occupy fully agree with the non-mechanistic assumptions of quantum mechanics.

However one can define a mechanism in terms of the deterministic “reality” of our observable environment that would explain why the quantum mechanical world appears to be non-deterministic.

For example in the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?” Oct. 4, 2007 it was shown it is possible to understand the quantum mechanical properties of energy/mass by extrapolating the laws of classical resonance in a deterministic three-dimensional environment to a matter wave on a “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.

Briefly it showed the four conditions required for resonance to occur in a classical environment, an object, or substance with a natural frequency, a forcing function at the same frequency as the natural frequency, the lack of a damping frequency and the ability for the substance to oscillate spatial would be meet by a matter wave in four *spatial* dimensions.

The existence of four *spatial* dimensions would give a matter wave the ability to oscillate spatially on a “surface” between a third and fourth *spatial* dimensions thereby fulfilling one of the requirements for classical resonance to occur.

These oscillations would be caused by an event such as the decay of a subatomic particle or the shifting of an electron in an atomic orbital. This would force the “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension to oscillate with the frequency associated with the energy of that event.

The oscillations caused by such an event would serve as forcing function allowing a resonant system or “structure” to be established in four *spatial* dimensions.

Classical mechanics tells us the energy of a resonant system can only take on the discrete or quantized values associated with its resonant or a harmonic of its resonant frequency

Therefore the discrete or quantized energy of resonant systems in a continuous form of energy/mass would be responsible for the discrete quantized quantum mechanical properties of particles.

However, that does not explain how the boundaries of a particleâ€s resonant structure are defined.

In classical physics, a point on the two-dimensional surface of paper is confined to that surface.  However, that surface can oscillate up or down with respect to three-dimensional space.

Similarly an object occupying a volume of three-dimensional space would be confined to it however, it could, similar to the surface of the paper oscillate “up” or “down” with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.

The confinement of the “upward” and “downward” oscillations of a three-dimension volume with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension is what defines the geometric boundaries of the “box” containing the resonant system the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?” associated with a particle.

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle asserts that there a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be simultaneously known.

However, as mentioned earlier one can define a mechanistic “reality” for that environment in terms of the geometry of the four *spatial* dimensions because quantum mechanics mathematically defines the position and momentum of a particle in terms of one dimensional point.

Therefore according to the above concepts there would be an uncertainty in determining its exact position because that one dimensional point could be found any within the volume of the three-dimensional “box” mentioned above.

Similarly there would be an uncertainty in measuring its momentum, again because quantum mechanics defines it in terms of the movement of a one dimensional point.  Before one could determine a particle’s momentum one would have to know its exact position in the box at the “end” points were one measured its velocity.  However, as mentioned above that non-dimension point representing a particle could be found anywhere in the box containing the resonant structure that define a particle in the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?“  Therefore one could not determine its exact velocity and therefore its momentum because there will always be an uncertainty as to where in the box the non-dimensional point that represents a particle is relative to the dimensions of the “box” when a measurement is taken.

This shows that one can define a deterministic mechanism in terms of the “reality” of our observable environment responsible for the non-deterministic measurements associated with quantum mechanics.

In other words it  define a classical mechanismsf or Heisenberg uncertainty principle or why it is impossible, even in principle, to determine the exact position and velocity of each particle in your body.

As mentioned earlier we can cannot determine or measure the exact position or momentum of the planets as they obit the sun because we do not have the ability even with modern computers to calculate the gravitational effects all of the other objects such planet or stars in our universe have on them.  However we assume that they occupy mechanistic environment because we can define the measurements of their positions and momentum in terms of the “reality” or the ability to observe the conditions under which they interact.

We can and may never be able precisely measure the momentum and position of particle in a quantum environment however if we assume that the above mechanism is valid then one also has to assume that that environment is mechanistic for the same reasons we assume that the motion of the planets is mechanistic.

What should determines if an environment is mechanistic is not the fact that we can precisely measure the position or momentum of its component because if it was we could not consider the motion of the planets mechanistic because presently we cannot.  What determines if an environment is mechanistic is if we can define a valid mechanism in terms of our observable “reality” that can explain and predict why we measure what we do even if we cannot observe all of its components.

If we let our inability to make precise measurements of the position or momentum of the planets or particles define “reality” then we must assume that they do not exist however if we can use our “reality” to define a mechanism responsible for why we cannot precisely make those measurements then must we assume that the environments we are measuring are “real” even though it may be impossible to precisely measure the positions and momentum of their components. 

Later Jeff

Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2014

The post Should measurement define "reality" appeared first on Unifying Quantum and Relativistic Theories.

Unfortunately many physicists attempt to define reality based solely on what they measure and do not attempt to conceptually integrate those measurements into the realty we see around us.

One example can be found in Brian Clegg book Before the Big Bang: The Prehistory of Our Universe (p. 137) where he describes how Neils Bohr reacted when Heisenberg proposed his uncertainty principal.
“When Heisenberg first told his boss, Neils Bohr, about the uncertainty principle, he put it across in the form of an imaginary microscope. He described a particle as an electron passing through a make-believe ultra powerful microscope. We use light to examine the object, so a beam of photons (quantum particles just as the electron is) is constantly crashing into the electron. The result is that the electronâ€s path is changed. You canâ€t look at a quantum particle without changing things. Heisenberg is said to have been reduced to tears when Bohr ripped his idea to pieces. Heisenberg had assumed that until the microscope scanned the electron, the electron had an exact position and momentum. He thought it was the process of observing it that messed things up. But actually, Bohr pointed out, the uncertainty was more fundamental than that. There was no need to observe the electron for uncertainty to apply: it was inherent to the nature of a quantum particle.”

In other words Neils Bohr said that because we will never be able to observe an electron without changing it or its environment one must simply accept the fact that we will never be able to understand why it behaves the way it does in terms of the “reality” we see around us.

However the science of physics is defined as “the asking fundamental questions regarding how and why matter and energy interact while demanding the answers be validated by observations.

Yet this definition appears to conflict with Neils Bohr assertion that the uncertainty principal is inherent to the nature of a quantum particle because that immunizes it from such questions.

Additionally he said since it is true that uncertainty principal is inherent to the nature of the unseen world of a quantum particle “Everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real”.

Yet if one uses his philosophy that “reality” does not exist then the observations used to define that principal also cannot be real or exist because one cannot observe something that does not exist.  In other words the very arguments Neils Bohr uses to support his concept of the uncertainty principal leads to it invalidation.

However history has shown us that one of the advantages to defining the universe that we cannot and will never be able to see in terms of the “reality” of our observable environment is that it limits the ability of our imagination to create nonexistent or fantasy worlds to support them.

For example Einstein mathematically derived the force of gravity in terms of a curvature in a four dimensional space-time universe.  However even though he knew that he would never be able to physically observe how a time dimension interacts with the three spatial dimensions he attempted and succeeded in explaining how a curvature in a space-time environment can result in the force gravity by watching how a marble moved on a curved surface in our observable three dimensional universe.

In other words Einstein not only mathematically quantified the measurements of the force of gravity but he also provided a qualitative explanation of how it could act at distance by anchoring it to the observable properties of an object moving on a curved surface in three-dimensional environment.

This methodology is in sharp contrast to how Newton defined gravity in that he simply accepted the fact that he was able to accurately quantify it using the concept of action at a distance even though he was aware that it disagreed, as the following excerpt from a letter he wrote to Bentley with the “reality” he saw around him.

“It is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter without mutual contact…That gravity should be innate, inherent, and essential to matter, so that one body may act upon another at a distance through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything else, by and through which their action and force may be conveyed from one to another, is to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man who has in philosophical matters a competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it.

However Einstein’s unwillingness to accept action at a distance gave him the ability more accurately quantify gravity while providing an understanding of how it could act at a distance by aqs mentioned earlier anchoring it to the “reality” of our three-dimensional environment.  Additional it showed that Newton’s concept of absolute space and time only existed in the fantasy world of his imagination because according to Einstein gravity is caused by their variability.

This shows the power of attempting to understand the unobservable in terms of the observable by anchoring it to the “reality” of what we see around us and why we should be skeptical about accepting the validity of the uncertain principal based on Neils Bohr assertion that it is inherent to the nature of a quantum particle

However what is even more damaging to his ideology of blindly accepting a mathematical interpretation of the uncertainty principle, is that it is possible (much as Einstein did) to extrapolate the observable properties of our three dimensional environment to a quantum one as was done in the article “A classical interpretation of Heisenbergâ€s Uncertainty Principal” Dec. 1 2012 to explain and predict how and why it behaves the way it does.

However before we begin we must first reformulate Einstein space-time concept to their spatial equivalent.

(The reason will become obvious latter)

Einstein gave use the ability to do this when he used the constant velocity of light in the equation E=mc^2 to define the geometry properties of space-time because it provided a method of converting a unit of space-time he associated with energy to a unit of space he associated with mass.   Additionally because the velocity of light is constant he also defined a one to one quantitative and qualitative correspondence between his space-time universe and one made up of four *spatial* dimensions.

In other words by defining the geometric properties of a space-time universe in terms of mass/energy and the constant velocity of light he provided a qualitative and quantitative means of redefining his space-time universe as was done in the article “The “Relativity” of four spatial dimensions” in terms of geometry of only four *spatial* dimensions.

On advantage to doing this is that it gives one a different perspective on the “reality” of the quantum environment and the uncertainty principal in terms of the observable properties of our three dimensional universe.

For example the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?” Oct. 4, 2007 demonstrated it is possible to understand the quantum mechanical properties of energy/mass by extrapolating the laws of classical resonance in a three-dimensional environment to a matter wave on a “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.

Briefly it showed the four conditions required for resonance to occur in a classical environment, an object or substance with a natural frequency, a forcing function at the same frequency as the natural frequency, the lack of a damping frequency and the ability for the substance to oscillate spatial would be meet by a matter wave in four *spatial* dimensions.

The existence of four *spatial* dimensions would give a matter wave the ability to oscillate spatially on a “surface” between a third and fourth *spatial* dimensions thereby fulfilling one of the requirements for classical resonance to occur.

These oscillations would be caused by an event such as the decay of a subatomic particle or the shifting of an electron in an atomic orbital. This would force the “surface” of a three-dimensional space manifold with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension to oscillate with the frequency associated with the energy of that event.

The oscillations caused by such an event would serve as forcing function allowing a resonant system or “structure” to be established in four *spatial* dimensions.

Classical mechanics tells us the energy of a resonant system can only take on the discrete or quantized values associated with its resonant or a harmonic of its resonant frequency.

Therefore the discrete or quantized energy of resonant systems in a continuous field of four spatial dimensions could explain the discrete quantized quantum mechanical properties of particles.

However, it does not explain how the boundaries of a particleâ€s resonant structure are defined.

In classical physics, a point on the two-dimensional surface of paper is confined to that surface.  However, that surface can oscillate up or down with respect to three-dimensional space.

Similarly an object occupying a volume of three-dimensional space would be confined to it however, it could, similar to the surface of the paper oscillate “up” or “down” with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension.

The confinement of the “upward” and “downward” oscillations of a three-dimension volume with respect to a fourth *spatial* dimension is what defines the geometric boundaries of the “box” containing the resonant system the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?” associated with a particle and why quantum systems behave the way they do.

However not only using the properties of a fourth *spatial* dimension allow one to understand why energy/mass in our three-dimensional world in terms of our experiences but it can also be used to explain the uncertainty principle

For example in quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle asserts that there a fundamental limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be simultaneously known.

As mentioned earlier one can define a mechanism responsible of the uncertainty principal in terms the geometry of the four *spatial* dimensions because Quantum Mechanics mathematically defines the position and momentum of a particle in terms of non dimensional point.  This means there would be an uncertainty in determining its position because that point could be found anywhere within the volume of the “box” mentioned above.

Similarly there would be an uncertainty in measuring its momentum, again because quantum mechanics defines it in terms of a non dimensional point.  Therefore before one could determine a particle’s momentum one would have to know the exact position of the “end” points one uses to measure its velocity.  However, as mentioned above that non dimension point representing a particle could be found anywhere in the box containing the resonant structure that defined a particle in the article “Why is energy/mass quantized?“  Therefore one could not determine its exact velocity and momentum because there will always be an uncertainty as to where the non dimensional point representing a particle is in the box when the measurement was taken

The reason why one cannot simultaneously measure both with complete accuracy is because the act of measure its momentum or position requires one to access different segments the “box” containing particle.

For example if one wants to make the most accurate measurement possible of its momentum internal to the box one would have to measure the time it took for it to transverse a given segment of it.  However this means that one could not determine its position because it would be changing throughout the entire time that it took it to transverse that portion of the box.

However if one wanted to make the most accurate measurement possible of its position internal to the box it would have to be stationary with respect to the box’s geometry meaning that one could not determine its monument because it would not be moving.  Since these two measurements required one to access different segments of a particles geometry they are mutually exclusive. 

Therefore one cannot simultaneously measure a particle position x and momentum p with complete accuracy.

This defines why, in terms of the reality we see around us there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties of a particle, such as position x and momentum p, can be simultaneously known.

However it also tells us we should always attempt to conceptually integrate our theoretical models into the “reality” of what we “see” around us because it allows one to physically connect the abstract properties of a theoretical environment created by our imagination to the reality of the worlds they are describing thereby limiting its ability to create fantasy worlds such as the one Neils Bohr believed in to explain their theoretical models.

Later Jeff

Copyright Jeffrey O’Callaghan 2014

The post Should we let our imaginations define reality? appeared first on Unifying Quantum and Relativistic Theories.