Ten Things that are wrong with Quantum Mechanics and modern physics in General:
Ever since Rutherford was able to demonstrate experimentally the probable physical construction of the atom, as a small but heavy nucleus, around which lighter, negatively charged electrons orbited and Niels Bohr was able to further improve upon the idea. Physics has been becoming more arcane and dislocated from reality with each problem that had to be solved. Obviously there is nothing wrong with such a development provided that it meets with criteria for acceptable physical phenomena. Unfortunately much of the foundations that modern Physics is built upon is extremely shaky. Here are 10 facts that most people would find unacceptable in modern Quantum Mechanics and by extension in modern physics:
1)Perhaps the biggest fault that can be found with Quantum Mechanics is that Quantum Mechanics is without doubt the biggest hoarder in scientific history! The person who never throws away a single newspaper and stacks them up till they fill every room up to the roof has nothing on Quantum Mechanics!
Yet even this process of hoarding is quite selective, anything, even the most outrageous notion that has once been associated with Quantum Mechanics, is enshrined and given unlimited legitimacy. In trying to accommodate all these esoteric ideas Quantum Mechanics has passed from being a science which explains physical phenomena to one that describes arcane philosophies that have little use for ‘reality’ but depend on complicated mathematical constructions to explain the world and the Universe. The point here is to decide what is acceptable to reason and what is not.
From this point OF view many of the problems arising out of Quantum Mechanics is because it is an outdated and archaic science based on ideas put forward as solutions to problems that are almost a century old, many of which have since been satisfactorily solved using modern day technology. One of the by-products of using arcane and esoteric solutions, mathematical or otherwise, as a substitute for quantifiable empirical solutions as Quantum Mechanics has done, is that it results in an accretion of proliferating errors that soon cloud the very issues that an attempt is being made to explain or resolve. It also leads to a bloated theory.
2. In the beginning Quantum mechanics had become so entangled with itself in trying to explain the physical characteristics of an atom that it had resulted in highly esoteric formulas that resemble the supernatural or psychic more than any reasonable scientific hypotheses. Yet amazingly, probably as a result of the highly esoteric mathematics that it employs, Quantum Mechanics has managed to effectively silence any opposition and to maintain its position at the forefront of physics.
3.The first, practically insurmountable problem faced by physicists of the early twentieth century, were the direct result of the discovery of the electron and the structure of the atom. The early twentieth century was a period of exploding scientific knowledge. J.J. Thomson had discovered the electron and had documented many of its properties, Robert Millikan and Harvey Fletcher had determined the electron’s charge (
Where:
r = classical radius of electron
a= acceleration of electron in its orbit under coulomb forces.
c=speed of light
t = time
The only conclusion that can be drawn from this result is that atoms and hence matter should not exist ! However since atoms did obviously exist, it followed that there must be some flaw in reasoning and an explanation for why electrons did not spiral into the nucleus. The answer that Quantum mechanics hit upon was that all sub-atomic particles were part wave and part particle or the theory of wave/particle duality in short.
Since a wave is non-localised, it follows that the problem of the electron spiraling into the nucleus did not arise, since it was no longer a particle that was radiating and losing energy but a wave. In actual fact this is a simplification, since the electron even in wave form has to be accelerating, it should continue to raidiate away energy ! Neils Bohr’s explanation was that in certain orbitals the electron does not radiate and never in the ground state, which is the orbital closest to the nucleus. If time is taken to think about this statement, someone is sure to ask: “Why not?” The explanation that Bohr gave was that the ground state was the lowest energy level and the electron therefore could not radiate, this is obviously a false statement since the ground state is not the lowest energy level.
4. Today with the almost incomprehensible developments that have been made in technology, it has been established in what is known as the ‘Lamb Shift’ that electrons are continuously emitting and absorbing ‘virtual photons’ as they orbit the nucleus. This has been experimentally verified and it explains why the electron does not ‘fall’ into the nucleus since it is constantly both emitting and absorbing energy. By this exchange of energy the electron is able to maintain its equilibrium. ‘Virtual photons’ are similar to real photons except that their interactions take place over a very short time period. Thus according to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle:
Thus the Lamb Shift offers a perfectly logical explanation for the fact that the electron does not spiral into the nucleus and it does so using what amounts to classical physics, thereby dispensing with the need for wave-particle duality. Yet Quantum Mechanics has stubbornly continues to support the wave –particle duality in spite of the fact that it was created to explain ‘why’ or rather ‘how’ matter in the form of atoms was able to exist. Thus even though a perfectly valid explanation has been found that does not require esoteric reasoning such as wave-particle duality, the wave-particle duality has not been abandoned. Stubbornness would probably rate high on the list of ten things that are wrong with Quantum Mechanics: Bohr developed his ‘complementarity principle’ in 1927. He asserted that some mutually exclusive views of nature could both be true, just not at the same time. His prime example was the wave-particle duality. In any given experiment, light (or an electron) could be one or another, but never both. A hundred years ago no-one could have predicted that sound could be given the attributes of a solid particle. It was possible to focus certain frequencies of sound in such a way that the resulting sound wave could shatter stone. In the medical process known as lipotripsy, sound waves are used to shatter kidney stones. A particle works in a similar way by hitting the object (the stone) with enough force to cause it to break along its weaker zones.
The particle like attributes of sound waves as used in lipotripsy offer a possible explanation of how a photon can be simultaneously both a wave and a particle possessing the properties of each. This view of light as wave/particle would not only resolve many issues but also the fundamental one of why i] Planck’s constant exists in the first place ! Yet this explanation, that photons might
- The ‘complementarity’ model and the mutually exclusive properties of particle and wave imposed on light were not the only problems that wave/particle duality posed. There was also the problem of Schrodinger’s wave equation. Schrödinger came up with the “wave packet” to represent the electron. An electron appears to be a particle. But the waves would disperse. A multi-dimensional space was required. Helium required a 6-dimensional space, lithium got 9 dimensions and uranium needed 276. Try as he might, there was no way for Schrodinger to prevent this dispersal of the wave packet. Since it was made up of waves that varied in wave-length and frequency, as the wave packet travelled through space, it would soon spread out as individual waves moved at different velocities. An almost instantaneous coming together, a localization at one point in space would have to take place every time an electron was detected as a particle. Secondly when attempts were made to apply the wave equation to helium and other atoms, Schrodinger’s vision of the reality that lay beneath his mathematics disappeared into an abstract multi-dimensional space that was impossible to visualize.
The wave function of an electron encodes everything there is to know about its single three dimensional wave. Yet the wave function for the two electrons of the helium atom could not be interpreted as two three dimensional waves existing in ordinary three dimensional space. Instead the mathematics pointed to a single wave inhabiting a strange six-dimensional space. In each move across the periodic table from one element to the next, the number of electrons increased by one and an additional three dimensions were required. Schrodinger was never able to come to terms with the fact that his construct did not represent ‘reality’. Yet the question remained how could a system that required so many dimensions, the three dimensions we live in are hard enough to explain, represent how the atom behaved? Is a system requiring 276 dimensions acceptable to a physical explanation at any level ? Most probably not, yet it has been accepted for almost a hundred years ! At this point Max Born put an end to the discussion by claiming that the waves did not have a physical existence but that they were probability waves. This still gave rise to problems because each of these probability waves represented the possibility location of an electron and it was only when it was located that the wave would collapse and the position of the electron be known. I think it is clear that the Quantum Mechanic explanations were highly convoluted and not very realistic. Quantum Mechanics is essentially a statistical science, it holds the view that ‘there is no description of reality’…………
On the subject of the multiple Dimensions arising from Schrodinger’s equation Max Born had this to say:
“ We have two possibilities. Either we use waves in space of more than three dimensions…………..or we remain in three dimensional space, but give up the simple picture of the wave amplitude as an ordinary physical magnitude , and replace it with a purely mathematical concept into which we cannot enter.”
- Wave/particle duality also called for light to be disembodied during its passage from one point to another. Can a seemingly solid particle like an electron or a neutron be in two places at once ? Again is this acceptable to most people ? Apparently it is. Even though our senses might tell us something different.
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Again take the fact that Quantum Mechanics claims that a ‘photon’ will travel for ever, with its energy intact until it is absorbed by an electron in an atom that crosses its path. Yet close observation shows that light obeys the inverse square law, which means that the intensity of light will be diminished inversely to the square of its distance from the source. If the intensity of light is reduced how can it fit in with the statement that a photon will travel for ever till it is absorbed?
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The question is are there any other such glaring anomalies in Quantum Mechanics, it turns out that there are. In a branch of Quantum Mechanics known as Quantum Electrodynamics, which in brief tries to explain Maxwell’s propagation of electromagnetic waves in terms of quanta or particles, a process called quantisation is used in which disparities numbering in the region of
In 1801 Thomas Young devised an experiment called the Double Slit Experiment that showed that light had all the characteristics of a wave. Only waves undergo diffraction and interference. The Experiment is illustrated below:
Thomas Young’s Double Slit experiment seemed to contradict newton’s experiments with light that indicated that light was a particle. With the coming of Quantum Mechanics the Double Slit experiment was refined to allow for individual photons to pass through the slits, an amazing phenomenon was seen. When both slits were open even though the ’single’ photon would have to pass through one of the slits over time an interference pattern was built up. When only one slit was open a diffraction pattern was built up over time. This seemed to imply that (a) either the photon knew that the other slit was open OR (b) the photon itself split up and followed multiple paths in order to pass through both slits at once, both ideas support the wave like property of particles. The experiment was repeated using electrons, neutrons and alpha particles always with the same results, an interference pattern when both slits were open and a diffraction pattern when only one slit was open! Obviously to the proponents of Quantum Mechanics this was the ultimate proof off wave particle duality. BUT hold on for detractors of Quantum Mechanics this experiment was the ultimate proof of something else. Look at the Diagram below:
In this version of the experiment it is assumed that an undetectable Aether exists, undetectable to the human sense but very apparent to micro particles. Since the Aether exists everywhere, when both slits are open it will travel through both slits and manifest as an interference pattern. If single particles are now released they will follow as illustrated in the diagram above the path of the interference pattern created by the Aether. When only one slit is open the aether will make a diffraction pattern and this is what the micro particles will show. Thus the Double Slit Experiment can be taken as the ultimate proof of the existence of an Aether !
10. The Gestalt Aether Theory holds that the whole of the Universe exists in a sea of virtual photons. These photons originated at the time of the Big Bang, when the whole of the Universe was filled with light. The photons instead of being absorbed, simply lost energy until they became shells of their previous selves. Their very low energy, on the order of
The properties of the Aether consisting of ‘virtual photons’ are as follows:
- The Aether is colourless
- The Aether is tasteless
- The Aether is odourless
- The Aether is formless
- The Aether exists everywhere, throughout the Universe.
- The Aether consists of ‘virtual photons of extremely low energies that satisfy the condition
- Because of its low energy the Aether can pass through matter as if it did not exist, no matter will interact with the Aether because of its extreme low energy.
- The ‘virtual photons’ of the Aether are normally randomly oriented, however when a real photon is emitted, the ‘virtual photons’ of the Aether line up in the direction of propagation of the real photon, forming a line whose ends rest on infinity.
- Because of the ‘capacitor’ or ‘condensor’ like construction of the photon, it is able to convet its energy intact along the line of aligned ‘virtual photons’ of the Aether.
- The Aether allows the ‘real photon to travel at the speed light in a vacuum, light cannot travel faster or slower in a vacuum, its speed is constant and does not comply with Galilean transformations.
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