An extraordinarily naive question.

[Bill Taylor]

There seem to be a lot of questions in quantum physics that you're simply
"not allowed to ask". This may be one of them.


It seems that photons are NOT a primary phenomenon, but "merely" an artefact
of the wave function, the EM wave function anyway. That the WF has primary
reality, and the photons are "emergent phenomena" appearing as (sometimes)
particularly localizable solutions of their equations.
All interpretations seem to agree on this.

So then. One might say, might one(?), that when a very-low-intensity
photon emitter is switched on, the wave function goes out everywhere
it might do, (whether this is a pilot wave or a collection of single
universe photons or a probability wave or whatever), and that photons
follow occasionally and sporadically as blips in the wave function.
But (just in case our universe has one go off nearly immediately),
the wave function must go out *immediately* after the switch-on.

Does this make any sense so far?

And in particular, we might arrange the device so that it switches on then
off again almost instantaneously, with just enough time to send out only
one photon (at least quite often in our universe's trials), so that there
is (we might imagine) an almost "depthless" wavefront with a photon surfing
along on top of it?

Does this make any sense? It is a nice mental picture, but is it worth
anything as an explanation of what is going on "in reality"?

TIA for any help.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Taylor W.Taylor-R0Vytwd2P3aABuhS/***@public.gmane.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The nature of light is "?" .
The upper part denotes the wave aspect,
the lower part denotes the particle aspect.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------






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[Charles Goodwin]

----- Original Message -----

Post by Bill Taylor
It seems that photons are NOT a primary phenomenon, but "merely" an artefact
of the wave function, the EM wave function anyway. That the WF has primary
reality, and the photons are "emergent phenomena" appearing as (sometimes)
particularly localizable solutions of their equations.
All interpretations seem to agree on this.
So then. One might say, might one(?), that when a very-low-intensity
photon emitter is switched on, the wave function goes out everywhere
it might do, (whether this is a pilot wave or a collection of single
universe photons or a probability wave or whatever), and that photons
follow occasionally and sporadically as blips in the wave function.
But (just in case our universe has one go off nearly immediately),
the wave function must go out *immediately* after the switch-on.
Does this make any sense so far?
And in particular, we might arrange the device so that it switches on then
off again almost instantaneously, with just enough time to send out only
one photon (at least quite often in our universe's trials), so that there
is (we might imagine) an almost "depthless" wavefront with a photon surfing
along on top of it?
Does this make any sense? It is a nice mental picture, but is it worth
anything as an explanation of what is going on "in reality"?

You've answered yourself, surely? If photons aren't primary but only "exist"
(or rather get detected) when the WF interacts with something else, then
there is no photon available to surf on the WF. There is only the WF.

Charles





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[Matt King]

Hello Bill,

Post by Bill Taylor
There seem to be a lot of questions in quantum physics that you're simply
"not allowed to ask". This may be one of them.
It seems that photons are NOT a primary phenomenon, but "merely" an artefact
of the wave function, the EM wave function anyway. That the WF has primary
reality, and the photons are "emergent phenomena" appearing as (sometimes)
particularly localizable solutions of their equations.
All interpretations seem to agree on this.

I think that since the Copenhagen Interpretation, a lot has been
left open to interpretation that should have been nailed down. I think
the primary reason for this, IMHO, is that the good people at the Solvay
conference had to deal with wavefunction collapse without the benefit of
the MWI to explain this peculiar phenomenon. So, they were seeing this
beautiful equation, the Schroedinger Equation, which only seemed to
apply when you *weren't* observing the system. When you were, you had
to use the not-so-nice rules for wavefunction collapse to get out your
measurements.

I think it is this that led them *not* to ascribe primary reality to
the wavefunction, which has left its status in question ever since.

If, on the other hand, they had known about the MWI, I believe it is
reasonable to speculate that they would have been much happier to label
the wavefunction and SWE as the primary reality, and our interactions
with it (which lead to a particle picture of photons) as equally real,
but subjective.

Just my tuppenceworth.

Post by Bill Taylor
So then. One might say, might one(?), that when a very-low-intensity
photon emitter is switched on, the wave function goes out everywhere
it might do, (whether this is a pilot wave or a collection of single
universe photons or a probability wave or whatever), and that photons
follow occasionally and sporadically as blips in the wave function.
But (just in case our universe has one go off nearly immediately),
the wave function must go out *immediately* after the switch-on.

Yes, I would agree that the wavefunction goes out immediately after the
switch is flipped, even if no photons are observed by a particular
instance of you for some time later (though of course in the MWI,
photons are immediately observed somewhere in the spectrum of universes).

I'm not sure I'd describe the wavefunction as a pilot wave; this smacks
to me of local hidden variable theories of QM, which were disproved as a
class by the Aspect experiments.

Post by Bill Taylor
Does this make any sense so far?

Yes.

Post by Bill Taylor
And in particular, we might arrange the device so that it switches on then
off again almost instantaneously, with just enough time to send out only
one photon (at least quite often in our universe's trials), so that there
is (we might imagine) an almost "depthless" wavefront with a photon surfing
along on top of it?
Does this make any sense? It is a nice mental picture, but is it worth
anything as an explanation of what is going on "in reality"?

Yes this is fine, AFAIK. If you were to integrate the product of this
particular wavefunction with its complex conjugate (the probability
density operator) over all space you would find the answer to be exactly
one. This is the definition of a single-photon (or more generaly
single-particle) wavefunction.

Depending on the intensity of the source, this wavefunction might
actually be quite deep. Imagine a source that only emits one photon
every second (on average), for instance, that is turned on for one
second. Seeing as this is light, the wavefunction propagates outwards
at the speed of light, so this would result in a wavefunction with depth
3x10^8 meters, which is quite large!

Post by Bill Taylor
TIA for any help.

No problem - nothing controversial here, so far as I can tell. By the
way, if you find this helpful, I'd appreciate some feedback on my
experiment to disprove the Copenhagen Interpretation...

Hope this helps,

Matt.


------------------------------------------------------------------------

When God plays dice with the Universe, He throws every number at once...

------------------------------------------------------------------------






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[Bill Taylor]

Post by Matt King
If, on the other hand, they had known about the MWI, I believe it is
reasonable to speculate that they would have been much happier to label
the wavefunction and SWE as the primary reality, and our interactions
with it (which lead to a particle picture of photons) as equally real,
but subjective.

Sounds reasonable, except that I'm not so happy with that last use of
the word "subjective". Emergent, yes, but emergent is not necessarily
the same as subjective, nor need imply it.

For example, water waves are clearly an emergent property of the more
basically real water molecules, yet I'm sure no-one would consider
them "subjective"! Standing in the surf in front of a breaking one
should cure one of *that* particular fantasy!

For light waves and photons, the relation between the basic reality and
the emergent property is the other way round, (rather amusingly), but
both are equally real, objective, whatever-you-call-it. Is this not so?

Post by Matt King
Yes, I would agree that the wavefunction goes out immediately after
the switch is flipped, even if no photons are observed by a particular
instance of you for some time later (though of course in the MWI,
photons are immediately observed somewhere in the spectrum of universes).

Thanks for the confirmation. But given you imagine a wave going out
immediately, and each universe having one photon going out along it
somewhere, (or most of them - some may have two, or none etc), I'm a bit
puzzled by what you've got against my earlier picture I asked you to
consider, that we may as well (in a pictorial explanation) consider
the wave to BE the accumulation of photons. This would no longer
make the wave primary, but the photons primary and the wave emergent,
as in a water wave. But seemingly you set your face firmly against this.

Post by Matt King
I'm not sure I'd describe the wavefunction as a pilot wave;

Seems cool to me, if there is to BE a real wave at all.
Of course, as Charles Goodwin said:

] You've answered yourself, surely? If photons aren't primary but only "exist"
] (or rather get detected) when the WF interacts with something else, then
] there is no photon available to surf on the WF. There is only the WF.

Yes, but as photons (seemingly) "hold together" as they go along
the wave/function, like solitons, it doesn't really matter whether
we consider them as particles surfing on the wave (pilot wave), or as
blips in the wave itself (MWI). Both have the same effect, surely?

Post by Matt King
this smacks to me of local hidden variable theories of QM,

I agree there is a metaphysical similarity between the two.
But it may not be a real, physical, similarity.

Post by Matt King
which were disproved as a class by the Aspect experiments.

Agreed again. But as you know, it is my growing conviction that MWI
does *NOT* get around this problem! And as you seem to have asked me
for feedback on your other problem, may I remind you that you said you
would get around to looking at this for me. That was some time ago,
and I've heard nothing. I opine that you have left it aside, having
found it tougher than you expected at first. I further opine that
you will not, in fact, be able to do it, because it cannot be done,
in spite of constant and numerous claims that MWI accounts for EPR.

I have managed to get two of you to understand my query, and promise
to account for it to me, but you have both put it aside as being too
tricky "for now", having found (I presume) that a first quick look
did not yield the obvious solution at first expected.

Two failures, by list experts, and ignoring by the rest of the list,
including DD himself (who dismissed it without any attempt), leads me
to suspect that in this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence...
that MWI *cannot* account for EPR in local realistic pictorial terms.

........ ............ .........

Post by Matt King
Hope this helps, Matt.

Lots, thank you.

Post by Matt King
By the way, if you find this helpful, I'd appreciate some feedback
on my experiment to disprove the Copenhagen Interpretation...

Do I understand you correctly - are you asking *me* personally, to give
you my opinion? Surely not - you know I am not a physicist, and that
my understanding of these things is very naive and probably worthless.

However, just in case you *do* want my view, unlikely though that
may seem, let me just be sure I've got the scenario right.

:::::::::::::::::
You have a system where entangled pairs of photons will come out of
a central local zone, simultaneously, and in exactly opposite directions.

Unencumbered, they will make a typical blobby-looking pattern when
statistically accumulated on the left and right sides of the equipment.
Whereas run singly, they will always be in exactly opposite positions.

Now you put a double slit on only one side, and look at where they will land
(again statistically) on that (say left) side, and also look on the other,
unencumbered, right side; (after removing the cases where they landed on
the right but not on the left, due to the left of the pair being absorbed
by the double-slit framing material. I don't recall that your original
account mentioned this removal, but I presume you wish it to be done? )

Now; as I understand it, you think:

a) everyone will expect to see an interference pattern accumulate on the left;

b) CI-folk will expect to see an interference pattern on the right;

c) MWI-folk will expect to see no such on the right, just a blob as before.
:::::::::::::::::

Have I got your whole scenario expounded correctly here?
Or is something significantly wrong?

Do you still want my opinion, or can you guess it?


Anyway, many thanks for your reply:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Taylor W.Taylor-R0Vytwd2P3aABuhS/***@public.gmane.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They travel as waves but arrive as particles.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------






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[scerir]

Bill Taylor

Post by Bill Taylor
But as you know, it is my growing conviction that MWI
does *NOT* get around this problem!

I'm not a 'manyworlder' and I do not know anything
about how MWI can explain EPR. Actually I read,
years ago, a paper by Tipler, but I found it a bit
obscure, and - if I remember well - introducing concepts
taken from QFT, thus not purely quantum mechanical.

So, I'm free to elaborate my own (!) philosophy about how
MWI could, perhaps, "get around" the EPR (in the Bohm version,
EPR-B). As I'm not a 'manyworlder' I'll probably make
my huge mistakes here. (In example are density matrices
allowed in MWI? Because they are not exactly wavefunctions!
But I need density matrices here).

rho(1,2) = density matrix of the composite EPR-B system =
=(|1.up>|2.down>-|1.down>|2.up>)(<1.up|<2.down|-<1.down|<2.up|)

We can write the state of each entangled EPR-B sub-system (1,2)
of the composite system, as:
rho(1) = trace(2) rho(1,2) = |1.up><1.up|+|1.down><1.down|
rho(2) = trace(1) rho(1,2) = |2.up><2.up|+|2.down><2.down|
rho(1), rho(2) are the density matrices describing each sub-system.
The above is a general definition, and it means that
sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 are "improper mixed states".

Btw, look that for rho(1,2) the total angular momentum
operator has values = 0 for all spatial components,
since the two spins are "correlated", and they point to
opposite directions. Note also that this is not the case
of rho(1) and rho(2) because they are "improper mixed states",
with no definite values for angular momentum components.

Suppose now that an observer reads the pointer of an apparatus.2,
which measures sub-system.2 (an observable of this sub-system.2).
From the "universality" of QM, or from the "relative state"
formulation, also the observer and the apparatus.2 will be
"improper mixed states". But since sub-system.2 is "correlated"
with sub-system.1, the observer and the apparatus.2 will be also
"correlated" with sub-system.1.

#1. Now, when the observer reads the pointer of apparatus.2, and
finds that the observable of sub-system.2 is "spin up" he also
reads, or knows, that the observable of sub-system.1 is "spin down",
even if sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 are space-like separated.

#2. Or, when the observer reads the pointer of apparatus.2, and
finds that the observable of sub-system.2 is "spin down" he also
reads, or knows, that the observable of sub-system.1 is "spin up",
even if sub-system.1 and sub-system.2 are space-like separated.

Since subsystems + apparatus + observer are represented by "improper
mixed states", there is no need to assume any physical "collapse".

Thus we can postulate that both possibilities (#1. and #2. above)
can be real and actual, at the same time.

(Right? Wrong? Dunno!)





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[Matt King]

Hello Bill,

Post by Bill Taylor

Post by Matt King
If, on the other hand, they had known about the MWI, I believe it is
reasonable to speculate that they would have been much happier to label
the wavefunction and SWE as the primary reality, and our interactions
with it (which lead to a particle picture of photons) as equally real,
but subjective.

Sounds reasonable, except that I'm not so happy with that last use of
the word "subjective". Emergent, yes, but emergent is not necessarily
the same as subjective, nor need imply it.
For example, water waves are clearly an emergent property of the more
basically real water molecules, yet I'm sure no-one would consider
them "subjective"! Standing in the surf in front of a breaking one
should cure one of *that* particular fantasy!
For light waves and photons, the relation between the basic reality and
the emergent property is the other way round, (rather amusingly), but
both are equally real, objective, whatever-you-call-it. Is this not so?

Yes this is so, however the point I was trying to get at is that the
experience of particles is different for each of the observers arising
from interation with the wavefunction, and hence subjective.

Post by Bill Taylor

Post by Matt King
Yes, I would agree that the wavefunction goes out immediately after
the switch is flipped, even if no photons are observed by a particular
instance of you for some time later (though of course in the MWI,
photons are immediately observed somewhere in the spectrum of

universes).
Thanks for the confirmation. But given you imagine a wave going out
immediately, and each universe having one photon going out along it
somewhere, (or most of them - some may have two, or none etc), I'm a bit
puzzled by what you've got against my earlier picture I asked you to
consider, that we may as well (in a pictorial explanation) consider
the wave to BE the accumulation of photons. This would no longer
make the wave primary, but the photons primary and the wave emergent,
as in a water wave. But seemingly you set your face firmly against this.

We've had long discussions about this before, and I do not with to get
drawn in again, suffice to say that even when considering the wf to be a
sum of particle trajectories, you still have to ascribe wavelength etc.
to each of the individual particles in order to recover interference
phenomena from the whole.

So, if all your elementary bits have wave properties, why bother
deconstruct your wave into them in the first place?

For me this is just a matter of taste, not a fundamental point - if you
really want to see things this way, I don't know any physics that would
prevent you.

Post by Bill Taylor

Post by Matt King
I'm not sure I'd describe the wavefunction as a pilot wave;

Seems cool to me, if there is to BE a real wave at all.

Ah - the reason I don't like that term is that it smacks of local hidden
variable theories, which were disproved as a class by the Aspect experiment.

Post by Bill Taylor
] You've answered yourself, surely? If photons aren't primary but only "exist"
] (or rather get detected) when the WF interacts with something else, then
] there is no photon available to surf on the WF. There is only the WF.
Yes, but as photons (seemingly) "hold together" as they go along
the wave/function, like solitons, it doesn't really matter whether
we consider them as particles surfing on the wave (pilot wave), or as
blips in the wave itself (MWI). Both have the same effect, surely?

Post by Matt King
this smacks to me of local hidden variable theories of QM,

I agree there is a metaphysical similarity between the two.
But it may not be a real, physical, similarity.

OK, are you thinking of the wavefunction as some kind of wavy entitiy
that spreads out from the source, which the particles then follow? If
you are assuming that the particles really do have definite position and
velocity (i.e. are particles) all the time, then these are the hidden
variables which must go into construction of the pilot wave to recover
the quantum behaviour. Therefore the pilot wave picture is a local
hidden variable theory. Therefore it is wrong by the Aspect experiment.

Or did you have another kind of pilot wave in mind?

Post by Bill Taylor

Post by Matt King
which were disproved as a class by the Aspect experiments.

Agreed again. But as you know, it is my growing conviction that MWI
does *NOT* get around this problem! And as you seem to have asked me
for feedback on your other problem, may I remind you that you said you
would get around to looking at this for me. That was some time ago,
and I've heard nothing.

Sorry I've been busy.

Post by Bill Taylor
I opine that you have left it aside, having
found it tougher than you expected at first.

Well I guess you are entitled to your opinion - but it is flawed; I have
just been too busy to deal with this.

Post by Bill Taylor
I further opine that
you will not, in fact, be able to do it, because it cannot be done,
in spite of constant and numerous claims that MWI accounts for EPR.

Oh, Tipler did it already. Have a look at
http://xxx.lanl.gov/PS_cache/quant-ph/pdf/0003/0003146.pdf

Post by Bill Taylor
\I have managed to get two of you to understand my query, and promise
to account for it to me, but you have both put it aside as being too
tricky "for now", having found (I presume) that a first quick look
did not yield the obvious solution at first expected.

Actually I haven't had time to give it a first quick look even. This is
the one with the three coloured balls, right? I'll see if I can dig it out.

Post by Bill Taylor
Two failures, by list experts, and ignoring by the rest of the list,
including DD himself (who dismissed it without any attempt), leads me
to suspect that in this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence...
that MWI *cannot* account for EPR in local realistic pictorial terms.

Oh, I thought we'd already been through the EPR one together? The one
you asked me to look at was different, something you'd come up with IIRC.

Anyway, there's tonnes of math in the Tipler paper above. I'll reply to
your post on my experiment in a separate email.

Matt.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

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------------------------------------------------------------------------






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