A Scientific Discovery?

Alice: So, Merlin, can you tell us why you think that modern science is a long way from explaining how the universe is the way that it is?

Merlin: Well, one can reasonably assume that modern physics is the science that should provide an understanding of the universe in general. And many physicists have been involved in attempts to develop a single unified theory of matter, energy and forces. Such a unified account has been called a theory of everything. Whereas I suggest that any such theoretical attempts could not reveal something fundamental and universal that’s missing from the present physics but that needs to be discovered and described in enough detail to gain a general understanding of the universe that includes life on Earth.

Bob: OK, so suppose we accept that there is this fundamental and universal something, couldn’t we think it rather extraordinary and improbable that it’s still missing after so much time and effort has been expended on research and theorising by so many intelligent people in the field of physics?

Merlin: Yes, you could indeed. But then I’d suggest that the means of clearly revealing this something - as much the most elusive of all natural causes and its effects - could also be thought quite extraordinary and improbable. So I say what’s essential for making this cause and effect discovery is the need to reach beyond both the conventional methods and the scope of a physics that assumes the known forces to be all the causes that act universally, and yet still give an account of what’s discovered that can be regarded as properly scientific, although only by examining together much and various natural evidence of where this further cause can be considered to act. So that only thus, I propose, can there be found a general explanation for how the universe is of a certain natural form that resists the action of all the forces.
Although as I’ve been able to develop an account of it so far, anyway, I’m not sure I could convince a physicist of the scientific validity of this discovery, partly because it needs further development while also conflict-ing with certain current theories that are now quite well developed.

Alice: Um, so are you saying there’s another universal force?

Merlin: Not necessarily what you’d call a force, I’d suggest. And that’s because you could think of any force as a cause that has a strength of effect where it in some way acts upon matter and energy by pulling or pushing objects. Whereas I say a central problem for this discovery is how to justify and describe enough details of an invisible cause where it can’t be said to possess the pull, push, attract or repel properties of a force.

Bob: Although prior to that, I would’ve thought, is the question of whether there could be any such cause at all.

Merlin: Well yes. So, by much careful experiment, measurement and mathematical calculation a great deal of evidence of various kinds has now been found and described of matter on the minute scale of its constituents that are called atoms and molecules and of their subatomic components, as well as the parts or quanta called photons of light and other energy that matter can radiate. While the conclusion can be that from none of this evidence could it be definitely shown that any invisible cause acts upon matter and energy in addition to the forces.
Yet suppose from the small scale findings there can be justified and developed a certain kind of hypothesis where appropriate means are used to describe and represent certain essential properties of this further cause from it’s effects. Then it’s found that only this hypothesis can provide clear reasons to consider that, where and how the same cause may act on a larger scale. Then a large amount of observable and detectable evidence can be examined together of where the cause can be considered to act on a larger scale, and by indicating how this supports the initial hypothesis.

Alice: So why would you say that a physicist hasn’t yet developed such a hypothesis?

Merlin: Ah well, I could suggest several reasons. But most crucially, I think, is the fact that this development needs to be so unlike any other theoretical account in physics, and , I’d say, could be thought so speculative by many physicists that, to construct the hypothesis in the first instance, you’d need to have quite strong prior reasons to believe that it could be clearly supported by large scale natural evidence. And I’d say a physicist would be hard put to find such prior reasons. Also, what’s more, I have to admit that the initial hypothesis cannot deduced or justified any new mathematical calculation or formula.
And then again, of course, there’s the whole history of the development of quantum physics that, since 1927, has been dominated by what’s called the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. While I propose that a detailed enough theoretical development that begins with this causal quantum hypothesis is the only way of finally demonstrating that the Copenhagen account of the unobservable behaviour of quantum objects is incorrect.

Bob: Ah right, so that sounds as though you’d claim it’s possible to finally solve the problem of particle/wave duality.

Merlin: I would indeed claim that, actually, and without creating a measurement problem. So the Copenhagen interpretation insists that the uncertainties of measurement and prediction plus the dual particle and wave nature of quantum objects means that, beyond any experimental results, quantum behaviour is indeterminate and has no cause. And so, in effect, it’s observation and measurement from the experimental results that determine the properties of quantum objects and their behaviour. Although the problem then arises as to exactly how observation and measurement can do this.
Whereas, essentially, I’m proposing that what needs to be generally explained is how the universe in general can be in it’s particular natural form as matter and the energy it radiates, and given the known action of the forces. While for such an explanation to be possible the assumption, to begin with, needs to be that the invisible behaviour of quantum objects is of a particular determinate form, and that there’s something distinct from all the forces that causes this to be so.
This initial causal assumption means that, so far, the closest to a true account of what occurs beyond the measurable results of quantum experiments needs to be what’s been called the de Broglie-Bohm inter-pretation of quantum mechanics. And one can note, in particular, that in this quantum account some details are described of an invisible cause that would act in addition to the forces, and which is called the quantum potential.

Alice: I have actually read a few popular books about quantum physics, so I know something of the Copenhagen interpretation. But I can’t remember reading much about this de Broglie-Bohm version.

Merlin: Well no, and that’s because in such books this causal interpretation is so often mentioned just in a paragraph - or not much more than a page or two, anyway. While I’d say it’s arguable that the reasons for this are more historical than scientific. So, in fact, because the de Broglie-Bohm account has been shown to be consistent with a wide enough range of experimental results and is not in conflict any experiment, just as in the case of the Copenhagen interpretation, this contrary account can’t be demonstrated to be incorrect from any quantum evidence.
Apart from the causal difference between these two interpretations is the fact that the Copenhagen conception views the behaviour of travelling quantum objects that can’t be observed or measured in any experiment to be such that it can’t be visualised. Whereas the de Broglie-Bohm account actually justifies a particular description of this invisible quantum behaviour as objects in motion, which therefore can and has been visualised.
The causal account has been called a hidden variables interpretation, which was developed by the physicist David Bohm and first published in 1952 as two scientific papers. Although the title de Broglie-Bohm derives from a conceptually similar interpretation that was developed by Louis de Broglie, which he called a pilot wave theory, and which he presented at the fifth Solvay Conference in Belgium in 1927. And, in fact, it was at this same conference that details of what was later to be called the Copenhagen interpretation were first made public by three key contributors to the devel-opment of the original quantum mechanics, and who won their argument at the expense of the pilot wave theory. Although a few years earlier De Broglie had played a key role in the theoretical development of quantum physics by indicating, for the first time, enough details of how matter particles should possess a wave property of behaviour similar to that of light.
So, essentially, the hidden variables accounts of both de Broglie and Bohm have in common the conception of travelling quantum objects being particles that are each accompanied by a laterally extended wave. While in certain experiments the quantum wave would steer each particle travelling in a beam to produce effects that are called interference and diffraction patterns. Although in these experiments what produces the patterns can only be observed as the particle-like impacts of quantum objects on a screen. But the use of very low intensity beams showed how these patterns could be produced as the objects hit the screen one at a time.

Bob: Well alright then, so you can say that if this hidden variables inter-pretation of quantum mechanics is correct then the quantum wave would act in addition to the forces as an invisible cause. But from what I know of the development of quantum mechanics and theory a physicist could insist that there are good scientific reasons why this hidden variables account isn’t mentioned much in the popular literature.
So it can be pointed out that a very detailed and successful quantum theory has been developed without the need for any alternative to an inde-terminate interpretation of quantum mechanics. Because this theory has explained a great many chemical, nuclear and other properties of matter, as well as properties of light, and x-rays, microwaves, radio waves, and other invisible electromagnetic radiation. And then you can consider how quant-um theory has predicted the results of further experiments and the existence of previously unknown particles, and has also been essential for the development of technologies that include all those that require transistors and lasers.

Merlin: Yes, none of that be denied, of course, nor the remarkable ingen-uity of many physicists in making all these developments possible. But then you can say that all this has been achieved by finding the appropriate means of measurement and mathematical calculation only from the direct evidence of quantum behaviour. So you can still insist that without any direct means of confirming it from the behaviour of matter or energy, you can’t demonstrate that an acausal indeterminate account of the unobserv-able quantum behaviour is correct. While the existence of a working determinate and causal alternative does mean that the Copenhagen account of what invisibly occurs beyond the experimental results could be wrong. That is, even if the causal interpretation indicates that quantum objects defy - or appear to defy - the known fundamental principles of the observable behaviour of matter and energy.
Also, there are still found to be large problems in constructing a unified theory of physics – or just of gravity and the electromagnetic, nuclear weak and strong forces - that can be confirmed by observation, and that’s based on what’s now called the standard model of quantum theory. And even after all its successes, some prominent physicists have still expressed doubts that a quantum mechanics is satisfactory or complete that can’t give a definite account of quantum behaviour that’s independent of the observer. Although, admittedly, nor have they recommended the de Broglie-Bohm account of quantum mechanics as a providing a possible solution to this theoretical limitation.
But actually, I propose that there are certain crucial limitations to this causal hidden variables interpretation itself. Because to construct the appropriate quantum hypothesis that I’m advocating, there’s a need to justify a description and visual representation of certain details of a cause that could produce the quantum wave in addition to those described of the quantum potential.
Although I’ve found that before tackling the causal problem of the quantum wave it’s best to consider a phenomenon that’s been called quantum entanglement. So there was no need to presume a causal interpretation to find that the quantum mechanics implies a unique kind of connection at a distance between pairs of quantum objects. This implication was pointed out in detail in 1935 in a paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, who insisted that, in reality, there could be no such connection that would be instantaneous and invariable at any distance between objects. At that time there was no experimental means of measuring such a connection at a long distance between quantum objects that have been described as being in entangled states.

My email: mo-wood(at)hotmail.co.uk