The Quantum Particle Illusion

The following sections are included:

• Dedication
• Preface
• Contents

The statistical interpretation of the wavefunction, ψ, is due to Max Born who, in his 1954 Nobel prize acceptance speech, ascribed his inspiration for the statistical interpretation to an idea of Einstein’s. Here is the relevant quote from Born’s speech: “He had tried to make the duality of particles — light quanta or photons — and waves comprehensible by interpreting the square of the optical wave amplitudes as probability density for the occurrence of photons. This concept could at once be carried over to the ψ-function: |ψ|² ought to represent the probability density for electrons (or other particles)…”

The Schrödinger equation describes the wave nature of matter and Schrödinger’s approach had its origin in the works of Louis de Broglie, which will be discussed shortly. The solutions to this differential equation describe the motion of a particle and solving it gives the wavefunction ψ associated with the particle. The value of ψ is a function of the location in space and time chosen to evaluate it and the square of its modulus is conventionally interpreted to be a probability density which, when integrated over a volume, gives the probability of a particle being found in the volume of integration…

What is a particle? We all know that the concept of a particle comes from Democritus’ idea of atoms. His conception, and what today we would call Brownian motion, was related by Lucretius to the origin of all motion in his poem On the Nature of Things (50 B.C.E.)…

Problems with the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics result, as discussed above, from the attempts by Niels Bohr and other physicists such as Werner Heisenberg and Max Born in the 1920s to continue to employ the classical concept of a particle in the context of the quantum mechanics, and in particular, in interpreting the wavefunction, given experimental observations…

Quantum mechanically, motion consists of a series of localizations due to repeated interactions that, taken close to the limit of the continuum, yields a world line. If a force acts on a “particle”, its probability distribution is accordingly modified. This must also be true for macroscopic objects, although now the description is far more complicated by the structure of matter and associated surface physics. Given the reinterpretation of the wavefunction in Chapter 3, how this will affect the issue on motion is the subject of this chapter.

The conceptual elements that comprise the presentation below are based on well founded and accepted physical principles, but the way they are put together — as well as the view of commonly accepted forces and the resulting motion of macroscopic objects that emerges — is unusual. What will be shown is that classical motion can be identified with collective quantum mechanical motion. Not very surprising, but the conception of motion that emerges is somewhat counterintuitive. After all, we all know that the term ℏ/2m in the Schrödinger equation becomes ridiculously small for m corresponding to a macroscopic object.

The following sections are included:

• Appendix A Spacetime
  • Time and the Expansion of the Universe
  • The Asymmetry of Time
  • Thermodynamic Time
  • Time Asymmetry in Quantum Mechanics
  • Some Metaphysical Thoughts
• Appendix B Curved Spacetime: Illusory Particles?
  • Vacuum Fluctuations
  • The Unruh Effect
  • Hawking Radiation
  • The Underlying Physics of Hawking Radiation
  • Charge, Spacetime Geometry, and Effective Mass
  • Curvature in the Reissner–Nordström Solution
  • The Electric Field
  • Summary
• Appendix C The Vacuum and the Cosmological Constant Problem
  • Introduction
  • Vacuum Instability and Negative Energy States
  • QFT and Gauge Invariance
  • Solomon’s Redefinition of the Vacuum
  • Origin of the Inconsistencies in QFT and Summary