Arthur Noll
Some say there is nothing interesting on the internet. But, I’ve found the thinking at this web site to be very interesting. It presents a simple theory by physicist, Lewis Little, that explains the strangeness in quantum mechanics, makes it all understandable. His theory brings back cause and effect, no need for semi mystical interpretations of what is happening with subatomic particles.
Subatomic particles behave both as waves and as particles. When electrons are shot at slots, (If you have the old style computer monitor, not the flat kind, it is shooting electrons, and the front is glowing from the hits the electrons make) the patterns they make behind the slots are composed of individual “hits”, like you would expect a particle to do, yet they are in concentrations that are characteristic of the way waves interfere with each other, if you had waves going through the slots. Like water waves. Ok, that is not so hard to imagine. One could assume that the masses of electrons affect each other, like the masses of molecules in waves of water. However, when you shoot only one electron at a time, the pattern is still the same. They don’t shoot straight, like a bullet, but go through the different slots, and hit the target in the same pattern of frequency as when all together the same wave like interference pattern. This is very strange. This experiment has been done over and over, and has been the classic mystery of quantum mechanics. How can this possibly be happening? If there is only one electron, with no other electrons to affect its path, where is the interference coming from? Why does it still behave like it was in a wave interference pattern? Is the electron actually somehow splitting and in two places at the same time, so the two parts affect each other like waves? What would make it do that? What about conservation of mass and energy? Are these laws being “ignored” ?
“Common” sense, says no, come on, it can’t be in two places at the same time. And yet, there are the experimental results. It has confounded people for years, prominent physicists say that they don’t understand it, and other similar problems in the subatomic world.
Ok, what Lewis Little has done, is say, what if the wave and the particle are separate things? What if really the target is emitting waves, and the particle is moved by these waves as it goes in the opposite direction? And this solves the problem. You don’t have to try and understand how the electron is in two places at the same time. The waves emitted by the target are moving the particles, making the particles follow the wave interference pattern. In his theory, everything emits these elemental waves, and photons and other small particles will be directed by them in reverse. What is the evidence for the existence of these waves? Basically, the evidence is the way the particles move.
As practical matter, aside from the issue of mystical happenings and religion, it simplifies the field of quantum mechanics tremendously. Kind of like going from an earth centered view of the solar system, to a sun centered one. The people doing the earth centered calculations were getting more and more complex in their calculations. They could still predict pretty well,where the planets would be, their model worked to a degree, but it was getting hopelessly complex to refine further. I think Lewis Little’s understanding could do a similar thing. Much of present QM is hopelessly complex, abstractions of abstractions. My understanding is that what has really worked is the empirical, statistical equations, not the complex mathematical theory, too difficult to use as a practical matter. I might say that the statistical, empirical, has been the emperor, a real thing, and the QM theories, the invisible clothes.
Thomas Kuhn, now deceased, wrote an interesting book called “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” where he goes over the way new thinking came about in the past. Basically, he saw that a theory works to an extent, but anomalies usually exist, and as time goes by, research trying to extend the theory gets more and more complex, hung up on the anomalous places it can’t cover, eventually makes the anomaly stick out. Someone comes up with a new theory that fixes the anomaly. But scientists have invested in learning the old, in the past they often kept faithful to it to the grave, and a new theory only totally takes over when the opposition dies off. What I’m seeing here fits that pattern. If you’ve spent years learning present QM theory, unless you are very unusual, you aren’t going to be thrilled by a theory that regulates much of it to the realm of earth centered science. You will call it weird, untenable. It threatens your livelihood.
Quantum mechanics is a little unusual in that the anomalies have stuck out from the beginning. But until Lewis Little, the theory to explain the anomalies has been missing, the best anyone could do was declare that the universe was a strange place, so get over it. Well, the universe is a strange place, and understanding quantum mechanics better doesn’t change that. I don’t see it ever being resolved “why” things are as they are. But that doesn’t mean I turn my back on whatever small understanding does come along, that explains “how”, things are.
Anyway, I found Lewis Little’s work to be very interesting, and think his name is going to end up in the company of Newton and Einstein.