Dear Sofia,

We know that detectors do not lie. They always record what really happened. On the other hand, a theory might be flowed and misinforming. Your interesting experiment, like the double-slit type experiments, is puzzling to quantum theory.

You can look for a possible explanation to the results of your experiment by applying the reasoning of my recently proposed Information Relativity theory. A brief explanation of the theory, and its application of the double slit experiment is described in the following paper in press.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/310844720_A_relativistic_model_of_matter-wave_duality_explains_the_results_of_the_double-slit_experiment

Ramzi Suleiman

Conference Paper A relativistic model of matter-wave duality explains the res...

Dear Ramzi,

First of all "Hello, from K. Motzkin!"

Now, I read your article - thanks for recommending it. But, as you comment by yourself, the explanation of the double-slit experiment is, conceptually, Bohmian.

Well, let me tell you something that probably isn't new to you: Bohm's mechanics was proved to clash with the experiment. You are probably aware of P. Ghose's experiment, implemented by Brida. I know that people argue on it, but I wrote by myself a version of this experiment, version to which I don't see that one can bring the objections brought to Ghose's version.

Though, the hardest argument against whatever mechanics based on particles guided by a guiding wave, is Hardy's paradox. I explained it at avery simple level for the RG users

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318446904_Hardy%27s_paradox_made_simple_-_what_we_infer_from_it

Hardy's paradox is, unfortunately, a HARD argument against empty waves, particles guided by de Broglie-Bohm guiding wave, and similar theories.

THIS is why I placed my present question, for inviting people to use their creativity and propose solutions. I subscribe to the statement in your article that

==> "reality, as we experience it, does not exist until it is measured".

I already told a user on RG that, in my opinion, the set of concepts we are using at present aren't fit for describing what travels in our apparatuses BEFORE the measurement. But, of course, one doesn't explain a phenomenon by saying what it is NOT. One should say what YES is. You see, my particular impression is that, despite the fact that in each trial only one of the wave-packets produces a detection, NONE of the wave-packets is void. I repeat, the detector stops even wave-packets which don't produce a recording. So, I believe that they don't lie, that there is a reason which impedes them to make a recording in each trial for all three wave-packets.

With my best regards,

Sofia

Article Hardy’s paradox made simple – what we infer from it?

Beam splitting experiments make more sense in the frame of action, that is the frame of the moving particles and waves. That is the only frame in which all the laws must apply. Other frames like the laboratory or a detector array might or might not observe something rational.

In the same way energy and momentum are only strictly conserved in the frame of action, because the spatially distributed sequence of events is not conserved in every coordinate transformation for a different set of observers.

Jerry, what you mean by "frame of action"? The laws of physics apply in any frame of coordinates, they are just covariant. As to conservation laws, they are respected in any frame of coordinates. Of course, if a system has a couple of parts, and the energy of each part in measured in a different frame, that doesn't mean that the energy conservation doesn't hold, it means that the calculus is incorrect

But I fail to see what you want to say in connection with my problem. The three wave-packets hit the same detector. The three hit events are not spatially distributed events, they occur at the same position in space. They are time-like separated events, as one can see from the figure.

The question is how could it be that the detector sees the first wave-packet, stops it, but sometimes doesn't report it.

Best regards!

@Sofia

You wrote:"..that the detector S stops the wave-packets ψ1 and ψ2 , therefore it sees them."

No, it doesn't see them, simply because they are not present. They didn't enter the detector. The fact is we cannot know if all the three packets are present, or which one of them enters the detector before the detector tells us.  We are dealing with probabilities, therefore we cannot state that ALL three packets are present. We can only say what is the probability for a specific packet to be present in wave function. Just one is present, and that is what detector shows. Detector doesn't stop anything that is not recorded.

The only property that is 'measured' is the occurrence of an interaction; in this case between the original source event (emission) and the particular detector event.

Everything 'in-between' is a theory such as the propagation of fictional intermediaries, such as photons or psi waves, to "produce" local-interactions at the various detectors.  All these are redundant by replacing their theories with a simple Far-Action theory (a la Newton).

So, it's rarely facts but always interpretations. 

@Sofia

A question for you is: From the picture we can infer that only |y> beam enters C3 detector. However, only the |x> beam, as you said, exits the C3. Is that right? Is that what you are saying?

@ֲSofia,

Nice that we are neighbors :)

I shall read your reply letter and recommended article. In fact, I have not studied your design carefully, which I'll try to do soon. 

Meanwhile, I would like to point out that my matter-wave model differs in more than one way from the de Broglie-Bohm model. Most importantly, it does not have a problem in explaining the dual-wave collapse at its interaction with the apparatus. If you look more carefully at my model (see Figure 1 in the paper) you will notice that when a particle hits a body (e.g., an observation screen) and decelerates, several things are predicted to happen: (1) the corpuscular matter will shrink back, (2) it will retains its Newtonian energy, (3) the wave will diminish, giving its energy back to the corpuscular particle.

The similarity I mentioned with the de Broglie wave lies only in the fact that both models suggest that the particle and its (physical) dual wave co-exist together.

Also, it is worth mentioning that in my theory when a particle is emitted by its source with a relativistic velocity, it is already in the form of matter and an accompanying wave.

Best regards,

Ramzi

Dear @Ramzi,

Again hello!

I looked at your article and I saw what you explain, including the recommendations in your last comment. In reply, I challenge you to try to explain the anomaly with the detector C3 - please look at my comment just above this one. Can you explain how could it be that the detector C3 stops a wave-packet without reporting it?

You see, some people may suggest that C3 stops part of the wave-function but not the particle. In that case, I can refer them to my article with Hardy's paradox. That paradox is a lethal blow on the ENTIRE class of theories suggesting particles and trajectories.

It's very useful to read that article of mine. To give you some idea of the proportion of the problem, after Hardy published his article, there was a debate of cca. 10 years between Shimony, Unruh, and other brilliant minds, on how to solve the paradox. But NOTHING helped. First of all, the paradox implies that one cannot build continuous trajectories. But there are also other hard consequences, which block additional trials to get rid of the collapse postulate.

You see, in my trial (maybe doomed to failure) to understand how works the wave-function and the collapse, what I do is bringing together whatever piece of information we have, and compare the consequences. When somebody proposes a model for a phenomenon, he does the same, confronts his model with whatever else we know. This is why I suggest you to read that article and see which answer can you give vis-a-vis the paradox. Unfortunately, NOBODY succeeded until now.

With best regards,

Sofia 

Dear Sofia,

No, we don't have an anomaly. We have quantum mechanics which is an anomaly by itself. No, it's not obvious that |y> beam is stopped in C3 . It is possible that |x> beam exits from C3 , although only |y> beam enters in it, as we believe it does.

I have a couple of questions:

1.) What will happen if we put an additional detector C4 on the upper path, together with C3 on lower path?

2.) What will happen if we put both, C3 and C4 on the same path, upper or lower?

Dear @Vladimir,

How did you come to an |x> beam exiting C3? Does QM says such a thing?

Also, why do you want to put a C4 on the upper path, or 2 detectors on each path? What are your reasons? Anyway, QM tells you clearly what would happen in such situations, it's TRIVIAL QM formalism, you don't need me for that.

Dear Sofia,

If nothing comes out of detector C3, as it shouldn't, and nothing is recorded by it, although it should, then you have an inefficient detector. It is not up to quantum mechanics. As for your questions, I remind that it is you who reported "an anomaly". It is you who has to present detailed results which show that TRIVIAL QM formalism is not sastisfied.

No, @Vladimir,

I don't have to begin to modify my experiment and place detectors in all the possible combinations of positions. I consider a modification only if I see a reason.

For introducing the modifications you asked, it's you who has to explain what is your thought behind the questioned modification. Next, we take QM as correct, therefore you can tell me what you expect to get by such a modification and what you find questionable about that result, i.e. if the QM result of such a modification seems to you strange.

Now, I close this argument, I don't like this discussion. I am a very busy person.

About C3 being inefficient, NO, we consider it ideal. In our thought-experiments we frequently consider the detectors ideal. The QM gives us a prediction, and the QM predictions were never proved false. But the prediction is strange, so, it invites search for an explanation.

Well, this is whatever I can say!

Dear Sofia,

You wrote:".. we consider it ideal. ". Well, we could consider whatever we like to. We know that real detectors are not ideal.

But, I agree with you when you say you don't like this discussion, so I won't bother you anymore.

Arguing about detector efficiency is futile. It is trivial, and well-known that in ideal experiments we consider the simplest cases for avoiding complications in calculi. One of the most frequent assumptions done for avoiding such complication is assuming the detectors ideal. Of course, and trivially, we do this simplification when the issue studied is not the detector itself.

Also, a detector should report what it sees, without falsifying. It can't be that a y-polarized beam enters a detector, and the detector emits an x-polarized meam. A detector is not a polarization rotator.

If these matters are not clear to somebody, I recommend reading about detectors and their role in experiments. 

Dear Sofia,

There are no ideal experiments, although you can imagine and phantasize whatever you wish. And THAT is trivial. You have a problem with the simplest things pertaining to science.

I end this discussion.

Vladimir, I require from you politeness, or NEVER appear anymore at the sites of my questions. The procedure of ideal experiments is extremely common in theoretical physics, extrapolation from high efficiency detectors to 100% detectors is common whenever small errors don't have consequences in the conclusions.

With this, I end paying attention to your comments. I appreciate KNOWLEDGE, not impoliteness.

Sofia: Thought Experiments are an attempt to return to Plato's Ideal Forms that never change.  They include the bogus notion that mathematics is changeless, so these ideas only work in the heads of intellectuals were ideal conditions prevail.

This blocked progress in understanding reality for almost 2,000 years until Galileo bravely ignored the Academic Orthodoxy and started making empirical experiments. 

Physics is an empirical science; that's how we make REAL progress; not through the deductive methods of mathematics.  Hertz discovered the photo-electric effect while Einstein invented his photon concept as ONE possible explanation. 

Herb,

I don't agree with you. Which bogus? Which Plato? We have to make clear what we talk about.

Thought experiments are experiments stripped down from any technical subtilities, they deal with conceptual issue. Such an experiment has the purpose to tell us of a certain effect, not to describe the technicality. Please read von Neumann's proofs, or Bell's inequality. Did they deal with how to flip polarization, ot get high collimation, etc.? No! Experimental reports about the IMPLEMENTATION of a thought experiment, describe the technical details.

When I speak of ideal detectors, in practice the experimenters work with high efficiency detectors, s.t. the errors are so small that can be ignored in calculi. That's all.

In experiments on quantum mechanics DO THE DETECTORS LIE TO US?

In experiments involving micro particles do we need to be sensitive to our relationship as macro bodies to the detector's relationship to what they have been set up to detect?

Sofia: please don't be silly - there is only one Plato we refer to. 

You need to study rhetoric to see how the game is played; Einstein knew but you are too young. 

Herb,

I don't admit such expressions as "silly". You saw how evolved my talk with Vladimir. As to the rest of your comment, I see that partly you didn't understand what I said, and partly you just ignored.

Also, which rhetoric? Do you claim that I baffle you? Do you also claim that Einstein baffled the world? That's what you understand from the theory of relativity? By the way, this theory was widely proven and it's widely applied.

However, if this is what you are able to understand, and if this is your style to speak with people, I am sorry, but I stop the dialogue with you NOW! 

Dear Sophist:

Rhetoric is the art of persuasion.  Einstein's "Thought Experiments" were a regression to Sophist techniques used in ancient Athens, as you might have learned if your education had expanded beyond your narrow technical specialty (nuclear weapons?).   These verbal techniques unfortunately migrated into our courts but stalled progress in science for 2000 years.  Thought Experiments CONFIRM the assumptions of the presenter, whereas real (empirical) experiments surprise the scientist with either new results or demonstrated failure; these NEVER occur with Thought-Experiments, as I said.  

Perhaps, Sophia you should seek a career in Law? 

Herb,

Maybe you LEAVE MY THREAD!

Insults are not proofs in physics, they only show that the one who uses them doesn't have the arguments to support his opinions, "violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" (Isac Asimov).

RG is not for insults! Besides that, as I said, NO REACTION!

WOW, Sofia - I never guessed you shared my low opinion of lawyers.  Maybe, we have more in common than you suspect.

PS These threads are a public Resource and NOT a capitalist private property of the one who launches them.  Capitalism has done plenty to destroy the world, don't help it. 

PPS  Where did I imply violence? - the guess that you work with nukes? 

Dear Sofia,

as I see it, you enrich quantum mechanics with privat features and you should not be surprised by finding problems with them. In my view your three wave packets represent a time-dependend one-particle state and the detector, when activated for a certain time window, sees the the part of the state which during the active time passes the sensitive area (or volume) of this detector. Here, 'part of a state' is defined as the result of applying a  projection operator (built from the spectral resolution of the position operator) to the state. This picture, which could easily be transformed into a computersimulation, would for each selected activation time window of S give the probabilty for finding the particle. This is exactly what could be measured in the given situation and I see now open question.   What did I miss ?

@Ulrich,

What you missed are the beam-splitters. The three wave packets are depicted at the same time, they are not the same wave-packet at three times.

@Sofia,

I interpreted the three wave packets in just the same way as you do. My time-dependence referred to the common travel of the packets toward detector S. What I tried to point out is that a 'three peak structure' of a time-dependent one-particle wave function is nothing that enters the 'inner workings' of quantum mechanics in a way that differs from the treatment of a single peak wave function. The three peaks give rise to individual quantum states only after interaction with a device which in state space acts as a projector. Also a single peak wave function can be separated into three peaks, with a higher technical effort, though. The presence of such a device changes the experimental arrangement (which is a clever one in my eyes) into a different one. If you think in terms of a computer simulation it is clear that getting hold of any of the three peaks needs a function to be applied to the state of the particle which moves towards detector S. Also here: this function call makes the program a different one.   

Ulrich,

I am not sure whether we speak of the same thing.

==> " is nothing that enters the 'inner workings' of quantum mechanics in a way that differs from the treatment of a single peak wave function.  . . .   Also a single peak wave function can be separated into three peaks, with a higher technical effort, though."

I don't know what is a "single peak wave-function". In my experiment I don't have "peak wave-packets" and I am not interested in the technique of separating single peaks into more peaks.

I don't enrich the QM, my experiment is trivial: a single-particle wave-packet which illuminates a beam-splitter. Beam-splitters are trivial devices in QM. The beam-splitter separates from the single wave-packet, two wave-packets. Then, one of the wave-packets is split by an additional beam-splitter into two wave-packets. In total, in each trial of the experiment there are 3 wave-packets in the apparatus. By a simple system of mittors, the three wave-packets are brought onto the same track that end up in the detector. Thus, the wave-packets inpinge on the detector one after the other.

All these things are clearly explained in the text of the question. The question is whether the detector sees only the wave-packet that it reports, OR, it sees the other wave-packets too, but doesn't report them.

==> "The presence of such a device changes the experimental arrangement"

I am interested to get answers to my question, not to something else than my question, neither to change my experiment. If somebody wishes to discuss another experiment, he may place a suitable question of his own.

Sofia,

===> Consider now a trial in which ψ3 produces a detection.

My understanding is that this sentence does not make sense in pure quantum mechanics (i.e. one which is not enriched by --- as I formulated --- privat features).

What quantum mechanics says about the situation is that the ideal detector S will register one particle with certainty and that the instant of detection (which is rather well defined for a photomultiplier-detector) falls in either of the three time windows determined by the movement of your three wave packets and does so with the probablities you give. If detection falls into the time-window of the third packet it can't fall into the window of the first or second packet (which are disjoint by design) and I see no way of making sense of your statement that this is associated with packets 1 and 2 being stopped somehow. You seem to think of the three packets as separate physical entities which they arn't. The detector sees Ψ and not ψ1, ψ2, and ψ3  seperately (it can't analyze arithmetic expressions). What it does see is a characteristic three-modal distribution of the possible time-points of detection. In selecting one of these time-points it in a sense ignores or 'stops' all other components, even most of those in ψ3.

I have to admit that I didn't consult the work of Vaidman and Elitzur. It would be nice if you could point out what stopping ψ1, ψ2 would mean according to these authors.

@Ulrich,

I don't belong to the cathegory "shup up and calculate"! You say, about the trial in which ψ3 produces a detection

==> "My understanding is that this sentence does not make sense in pure quantum mechanics (i.e. one which is not enriched by --- as I formulated --- privat features) . . . . . .  I see no way of making sense of your statement that this is associated with packets 1 and 2 being stopped somehow."

If you don't see, I do see. QM predicts that if ψ1 and ψ2 didn't produce a response in the (ideal) detector S, one can place after S any number of additional detectors, S', S", etc. ψ1 and ψ2 won't produce a detection in these detectors too. The question is WHY? Which assumption can we make? That the detectors don't see them?

Now, please be kind and don't explain me the QM formalism. First, I suppose this formalism WELL-KNOWN, second, there isn't "shut up and calculate" here. 

Sofia,

I know of no reasonably effective photo-detection process which would not absorb an impinging photon, independent of whether it creates a click or not. So, as far as I see it, you can place behind any photodedector any number of additional photodetectors without changing anything relevant. 

Therefore, what you state as a prediction of QM:

==> "QM predicts that if ψ1 and ψ2 didn't produce a response in the (ideal) detector S, one can place after S any number of additional detectors, S', S", etc. ψ1 and ψ2 won't produce a detection in these detectors too."

is trivially satisfied and thus doesn't ask for a "WHY". It also doesn't help me to understand which observable behavior of your nice system you would like to reason and to ask about.

Our exchange of notes so far certainly shows that we were not particularly effective in understanding each other. One way to impove on this could be that you give details to the behavior of S (i.e. on how its signal depends on ψ) as you assume it.

@Ulrich,

do we have a language problem here?

==> "I know of no reasonably effective photo-detection process which would not absorb an impinging photon, independent of whether it creates a click or not."

I am speaking of ideal detectors. An ideal detector, by definition, is not meant merely to absorb any photon, but to report any photon. If the detector is absorbing, then it should also absorb any photon.

I said it repeatedly but you remain outside of that. What QM says it not enough. QM says that if ψ3 is reported, then ψ1 and ψ2  won't be reported. But ψ1 and ψ2 do also impinge on the ideal detector S. Why aren't they reported, that's the question.

My question goes beyond QM, and asks what our reason can propose as an explanation to this strange fact. For instance, somebody spoke of "empty waves". Another user, of "many worlds". I saw somewhere the idea of "ergodicity". 

You see, each above proposal has a flaw. So, any other idea?

Sofia, 

I was not aware of your intent to go beyond QM. I see your troubles strongly related with the well-known 'which way ?' - experiments which leave us with the un-intuitive fact that a particle --- according to its wave function --- may propagate along multiple paths, but what can be observed is always a particle in one place.

My idea (you ask for ideas) is that we have to take for granted a architecture of reality in which there are two levels:

1. silent deterministic evolution of unobservable degrees of freedom (e.g. probability amplitudes distributed in space, i.e. wave functions)

2. observable, documentable, events which reflect somehow the unobservable degrees of freedom.

It may help intuition to look for such bi-level architectures elsewhere.

Two examples come to my mind: 1. Computers with CPU-processes as the 'wave function level' and writing to the hard disk as observable level.  2. Writing an scientific article: thoughts on the 'wave function level'  and written words on the observable level. In both examples one identyfies an inner reason for the existing of the second level: In the writing example: If thoughts become complex and involved one has to 'write them down' not to get stuck. In the computer  example: if intermediate CPU-created objects (e.g. matrices) become too large to be entirely hold in RAM we have to write them partially to HD. Formulated more generally: processes on the first level, by their very nature would perpetually go on if not a limitation of resources would  stop and restart them from time to time.  

Dear Ulrich,

I am glad that you understood what actually I ask. Indeed, I invite people to be creative and propose solutions there where the formalisms known to us can't offer explanations anymore.

Now, about your proposals, I would ask you not to suggest complicated things, e.g. computers, because the nature IS NOT a computer, it works in the ANALOG mode, NOT DIGITAL.

==> "silent deterministic evolution of unobservable degrees of freedom (e.g. probability amplitudes distributed in space, i.e. wave functions)"

Do you have in mind "empty waves"? It seems to me that this idea stands, essentially, behind your examples. It's a terribly appealing idea, but quarrels with the relativity. You see, "full waves" have to follow a continuous paths, because a "particle" (or whatever is that thing that triggers a detection), cannot jump from one region of the space to another region, distant and discontinued from the first one. Now, continuous trajectories clash with the relativity. I invite you very much to read my article "Hardy’s paradox made simple – what we infer from it?", and you'll see the clash,

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318446904_Hardy%27s_paradox_made_simple_-_what_we_infer_from_it

The literature is full with proposals of how to solve my question, however, all the proposals FALL in face of the impossibility of continuous trajectories. This is why I insistently invite prople to read my article above, for convincing themselves. So, my question is, essentially, an invitation to creativity.

I would tell you more, but I am against telling many things at once. It's a bad procedure, all the more that my question is a hard question.

With kind regards!

Article Hardy’s paradox made simple – what we infer from it?

Dear Sofia,

we better don't try to understand each other any more. Actually I don't understand what actually you asked and I have little hope that there are practicable ways to change this.

So I leave this thread and wish you good luck with your ideas. 

Dear Ulrich,

I regret that I didn't succeed to make myself clearer. You see, it's research-gate here. I am coming with the hardest possible questions. I am aware how difficult they are.

With best regards from me!

It's hard to believe, but the answer seems to be positive. When the wave-function consists in a couple of space-separated wave-packets, the detectors absorb the wave-packets, but only one of them reports a detection. See the proof in

"An analysis of the " wave-function reduction " postulate – whether the reduction happens indeed, or not".

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320173746_An_analysis_of_the_wave-function_reduction_postulate_-_whether_the_reduction_happens_indeed_or_not

Deleted research item The research item mentioned here has been deleted