Real Quantum Mechanics: Presentation

A draft of my talk at the upcoming 50th Anniversary of Journal of Structural Mechanics is now available for inspection:

• Structural Mechanics of the Atom.

Comments are welcome.

Modern Physicists and Sailing

Lubos Motl with his blog The Reference Frame prides himself to be a physicist, with special expertise in string theory. In his last post, he shows complete ignorance about the physics of sailing which puts him in the same league as the Stephen Hawking he is criticizing for being illiterate about basic physics of planetary climate.

How can it be that physicists of today, who are viewed by the physics community (like Hawking) or are viewing themselves (like Motl) as carriers of deepest insight into the deepest mysteries of physics, can be totally ignorant about basic simple physics?

PS Lubos accepts a comment from me on his post, a rare event, pointing to the new theory of sailing and flying I have developed with Johan Hoffman and Johan Jansson. It will be interesting to see if Lubos will read and learn, or if the material will be too difficult for him to grasp...

Inflated "Greenhouse Effect"

A new study by Nikolov and Zeller supports the idea presented by several climate skeptics including myself that global temperature is the result of a thermodynamic gravito-thermal effect setting a lapse rate (decrease of temperature with altitude) of about 6.5 C/km and an effect of radiation to outer space occuring from an altitude of about 5 km (on rough average). The study reported at length on WND is published in Environment Pollution and Climate Change:

• New Insights on the Physical Nature of the Atmospheric Greenhouse Effect Deduced from an Empirical Planetary Temperature Model.

The study shows that the basic postulate of CO2 alarmism of a "greenhouse effect" from radiation alone without the gravito-thermal effect, gives CO2 a much inflated role as control knob for global temperature: Warming of 3 C upon doubling of CO2 as a 10 fold inflation of a possible real effect of at most 0.3 C, so small that it cannnot be observed and distinguished from natural variations and thus practically zero.

Monckton as lukewarmer skeptic of course immediately jumps in and questions Nikolov and Zeller instead of acknowledging elements of truth in their analysis, thus effectively supporting CO2 alarmism rather than the opposite. Sorry to say, I have met the same type of reaction, from also Spencer and Curry...maybe skeptics need alarmism to have a role to play and thus readily spend lots of energy on internal fight...

Leibniz said that it is always more interesting/productive to seek what is right in what someone is saying, than what is wrong; it is always possible to find a fault, maybe a missing comma, without properly  understanding anything, while properly understanding what is right requires more intelligence and real insight. Stupid people can find errors, but only clever people can find possibilites.

China Daily News reports that, as an effect of CO2 alarmism, France plans to forbid the use of fossil fuel driven vehicles by 2040...if not earlier...China prepares for heavy demand in Europe of electrical cars charged by solar panels all made in China boosted by massive fossil fuel...

Life as Sexual Mind-Body System

Here is a simple reflection on the eternal mind-body problem:

The basic idea is that (at least higher forms of) living organisms consist of a mind-body system, where the mind carries a representation/model of the exterior + organism supported by sensory input from the body. Part of the mind appears as consciousness carried by sensations/feelings over basically a range from pain to pleasure. To be conscious thus basically is to experience pain or pleasure as hunger or sex, or more or less sublimated sensations from music, arts, poetry, science, sports,...

To give a robot life it is with this perspective necessary to give the robot the capacity of feeling pain and pleasure, with pain leading away from destruction and the ultimate of sexual pleasure driving reproduction. 

To give a robot life, it thus appears necessary to give the robot the capacity to helplessly fall in love and experience highest sexual pleasure together with one (or more) other robot(s) (of the same or opposite sex). Will this be possible? Is it desirable?

Another aspect on the role of experiencing pain (and pleasure): A tree is not equipped with a central nervous system capable of feeling pain, because it cannot move away from what causes the pain, or move closer to pleasure. In other words, our mind is coming along with our legs.

Compare: Why walking help us think.

Hawking, Venus, Trump and Modern Physics

Media reports the shocking news that

• STEPHEN HAWKING SAYS EARTH WILL BECOME AS HOT AS VENUS BECAUSE OF DONALD TRUMP'S PARIS ACCORD DECISION

Hawking is supposed to be one of the greatest now living physicists (the greatest?) with deep insights into the construction of the Universe comparable (or beyond?) to those of Einstein (and Newton of course).

But Hawking's statement shows an even more deep ignorance/illiteracy of basic elementary facts of physics: The surface of Venus is so much hotter (about 450 C) than that of the Earth (about 15 C) because the atmosphere is 100 times thicker and the atmospheric pressure 100 times higher, which by elementary thermodynamics comes with high temperature (since the atmosphere is also opaque). 

Hawking's statement shows that he does not understand basic physics and thermodynamics. It is then difficult to not ask the question if Hawking really better understands less basic facts of physics, such as physics of black holes as his specialty? 

How is it possible that a (the?) leading now living representative of modern physics shows a deep ignorance about basic physics? 

What does that say about the status of modern physics? What does that say about the progress of modern physics concerning the main current topics of multiversa, black holes, string theory...?

What do you say?

Or is Hawking deliberately misleading the general public because of some hidden political agenda?

Wind Energie Needs 100% Back Up

A new study shows that wind energy needs 100% back up from conventional power (coal, gas, nuclear, hydro) and delivers less than 20% of installed power over time.

The Weak Science behind CO2 Alarmism to be Exposed

Washington Post reports:

• EPA chief pushing governmentwide effort to question climate change science.

This means that the very weak scientific support of fossil fuel CO2 alarmism will finally be exposed to the world and the dooms day bubble will collapse. All poor people can now look forward to a brighter future with improved living conditions from cheap fossil fuel without dangerous climate impact:  New York Times reports that 1600 new coal plants are about to be built around the world.

Compare with this new frontier research discovery giving new perspective and insight into human condition and global warming.

Physics as Oscillating Systems

To get an overview to prepare entering into realQM it may be illuminating to recall that the mathematical model of a physical system which has permanence over time in the form of oscillations between two different states, typically takes the form:

• $i\dot\varphi + A\varphi = 0$      (1)

where $\varphi =\varphi_1 +i\varphi_2$ is a complex-valued function with $\varphi_1(x,t)$ and $\varphi_2(x,t)$ representing the different states being real-valued functions of a 3d space coordinate $x$ and a time coordinate $t$, with $i$ the imaginary unit and the dot signifying differentiation with respect to time, and $A\varphi \equiv A\varphi_1+iA\varphi_2$ with $A$ a symmetric operator acting on real-valued functions. We understand that (1) is a condensed complex-valued form of the following system on real-valued form:

• $\dot\varphi_1 =-A\varphi_2$, $\dot\varphi_2 = A\varphi_1$   (2)

where the oscillatory nature is exhibited: $\varphi_1$ changes with input from $A\varphi_2$ and $\varphi_2$ changes with input from $A\varphi_1$. We understand that there is nothing magical in the complex-valued form (1) as it is only shorthand for the real-valued system (2) simply expressing oscillation between two states.

With different operators $A$ the equation (1) (or system (2)) covers:

1. Physics (Harmonic oscillator): $A = identity$, $\varphi_2$ position, $\varphi_1$ velocity,
2. Electro-magnetics (Maxwell’s Equations): $A =\nabla\times$, $\varphi_2=E$ electrical field, $\varphi_1=B$ magnetic field,
3. Mechanics (Vibrating Elastic Plate): $A =\Delta$, $\varphi_2$ displacement velocity, $\varphi_1$ moment,
4. Chemistry (Foxes and Rabbits): $A=identity$, $\varphi_1$ and $\varphi_2$ species densities,
5. Quantum Mechanics (Schrödinger’s Equation): $A=H$ with $H$ Hamiltonian, $\varphi$ wave function.

We see that (1) encompasses the basic models of physics with quantum mechanics on the same footing as classical mechanics and electro-magnetics. We see oscillations between kinetic and potential/elastic energy, between species densities (foxes and rabbits), and in particular between electric and magnetic fields giving perspective on the oscillation between the real and imaginary parts of the wave function of quantum mechanics.

Hopefully, this can help to reduce the mystery of the complex form of Schrödinger's equation and give incentive to check out realQM.

The basic feature of (2) obtained by multiplication of the first equation by $\varphi_1$ (or $-\dot\varphi_2$) and the second by $\varphi_2$ (or $\dot\varphi_1$) and addition followed by integration in space, is conservation in time of

• $\int (\varphi_1^2+\varphi_2^2)dx$,
• $\int (\varphi_1A\varphi_1+\varphi_2A\varphi_2)dx$,

capturing oscillation between two states; when $\varphi_1$ is big $\varphi_2$ is small, and vice versa.

Inviscid fluid mechanics can also be formulated as (a generalisation of ) (2):

• $\dot v + \nabla p= 0$, $\dot p + \nabla\cdot v=0$ with $v$ velocity and $p$ pressure.

Popular Standard View of stdQM

Philip Ball is a writer of popular science and in his latest contribution in Aeon he propagates yet another time the standard view that quantum mechanics does not make sense, as vividly witnessed and acknowledged by all great physicists:

• Why, then, is it still so common to find talk of quantum mechanics defying logic and generally messing with reality? 
• We might have to out some of the blame on the Danish physicist Niels Bohr. He was probably the deepest thinker about the meaning of quantum theory among its founding pioneers, and his intuitions were usually right. 
• But during the 1920s and ’30s, Bohr drove a lasting wedge between the quantum and classical worlds. They operate according to quite different principles, he said, and we simply have to accept that. 

Ball then starts out to fix this major defect of modern physics, something all the great physicists failed to do:

• Now we have that theory. Not a complete one, mind you, and the partial version still doesn’t make the apparent strangeness of quantum rules go away. But it does enable us to see why those rules lead to the world we experience it allows us to move past the confounding either/or choice of Bohr’s complementarity. 
• The boundary between quantum and classical turns out not to be a chasm after all. A ball has a position, or a speed, or a mass. I can measure those things, and the things I measure are the properties of the ball. What more is there to say? 

Yes, there is more to say, and that is said as realQM.

Restart of Icarus Simulation AB

My consulting company Icarus Simulation AB together with Johan Jansson is now being restructured  to take on new challenges in computational simulation.

Icarus Simulation also offers unified reformed mathematics education from early school to advanced university level combining formal and computational mathematics into a basic tool of the computer age with wide areas of application.

Customers are welcome.