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.

realQM: Helium Ground State -2.9036 = Success

Computation with realQM in spherical coordinates with azimuthal symmetry on a mesh with 200 points in radial direction and 100 in polar angle (on my iPad), gives the value -2.9036... (Hartree) for the ground state energy of Helium in good agreement the observed value and benchmark computations with stdQM (here and here):

• Pekeris (1959): -2.903724376    (best stdQM/Hylleraas with 1078 parameters)
• Koki (2009): -2.9042 (in supposedly better agreement with observation).

realQM offers a new model of the atom, which has a physical meaning in classical continuum mechanical terms and which is computable. The first test of realQM, beyond the one-electron Hydrogen atom where realQM coincides with the standard Schrödinger equation, is Helium with two electrons, and it seems that realQM passes this test successfully! The step from one to two is huge while the step from two to many may be smaller...so if realQM works for Helium, then...

Wikipedia gives the observed value −2.90338583(13) with reference:

• Kramida, A., Ralchenko, Yu., Reader, J., and NIST ASD Team. "NIST Atomic Spectra Database Ionization Energies Data". Gaithersburg, MD: NIST. 

The difference with Pekeris is significant: stdQM does not appear to fit better with observation than realQM...maybe less... Wikipedia handles the discrepancy by the following hand-waving:

• It should be noted that one needs to include relativistic and quantum electrodynamic corrections to get full agreement with experiment to spectroscopic accuracy.

PS1 1st ionisation energy as observed is supposed to be 0.903569881854.

PS2  Nakashima and Nakasuji reports -2.903 724 377 034 119 598 311 159 245 194 404 446 696 905 37 with 40 correct decimals, still different from observation -2.903385...

Trumps Reason to Withdraw from the Paris Accord

When President Trump declared that the US will pull out from the Paris Climate Accord, he did not repeat his earlier analysis that CO2 climate alarmism is a hoax without scientific support.

He could have done that on very good grounds, but he did not get into the question whether CO2 emissions from human activity is a real threat to the planet or not, which some climate skeptics regret.

Trump simply referred to the fact that even if all commitments of a Paris Accord where fully fulfilled, or more, the total effect according to the very dogmas of CO2 climate alarmism, would be at most 0.2 C reduction of global warming at the end of the century, that is zero effect. His logic was that it would be immoral to deliberately deny poor people access to cheap fossil fuel and keep them in poverty, if the effect on climate would be zero.

This shows the true dilemma of climate alarmism: If there is a real threat, then the planned measures to avoid catastrophe are totally inadequate and thus meaningless and then immoral by causing human suffering.  If there is no real threat, then the planned measures are even more meaningless and immoral.

This dilemma is covered up by main stream media selling climate alarmism, but comes out in the  true face of climate alarmism as expressed by Joachim Schellnhuber, climate advisor to Merkel and the Pope, asking for a "great transformation" of human civilisation. This is something completely different from buying an electrical car.  Think of that.

PS When Scott Pruitt as new Director of EPA and chief architect together with Mylon Ebell of Trumps CO2 agenda and decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord, was asked if he knew what  Trump was "thinking about climate",  Pruitt responded that frankly he did not know and that he had not discussed this question with Trump. To Pruitt and Ebell (and to the world) it is enough to know that their agenda is supported by Trump. This fits with Trump's decision to refrain from repeating his claim that climate alarmism is a "hoax" (which is impossible to prove), because the Paris Accord is meaningless, "hoax" or not.

Kutta Condition, Gods Finger and Secret of Flight

The New Theory Flight revealing the secret of flight (article1, article2, book and website) is now backed by new computations in realistic geometry to be presented next week at the High-Lift Prediction Workshop III.

At this historic moment, let me recall the The Old Theory of Flight by Kutta-Zhukovsky presented
around 1905, which is still the accepted text book explanation of the generation of lift by an airfoil.
The Old Theory states that an airfoil is capable of generating lift because it has a sharp trailing edge, which is supposed to force potential flow without lift separating on the upper surface of the wing to instead separate at the trailing edge and then generate lift by causing a redirection of the airflow, as illustrated in this generic text book figure illustrating the Kutta condition:  

The Old Theory contains two unphysical effects, which happen to balance and then miraculously give a physical result = lift. The two unphysical effects are:

1. The start is 2d potential flow without lift separating on top of the wing. 
2. By making the trailing edge sharp, the flow is forced to separate at trailing edge and then give lift. 

The New Theory shows that 2d flow is unphysical because real flow contains completely crucial 3d features.

To believe that real flow can be forced to separate at the trailing edge by making it sharp, is to give yourself access to the action of a God's finger of unlimited power.

In numerics you can play God and set the velocity zero wherever you want, but that is simulated virtual reality and not real physics. It is like putting a needle into a voodo doll believing it will have an effect on a real person. This is voodo-physics.

Yet, this is the text book explanation of lift. To test, ask your favourite aero-dynamicist:

1. Why do airfoils have sharp trailing edge? 
2. What happens if the trailing edge is not sharp but more or less rounded? 

After this experience, you will be more motivated to dig into the New Theory of Flight.

PS The book will now be updated to find an efficient publisher.

realQM Excited States

I have updated realQM with a section on

• Excited States

The interested reader will there find that realQM offers a natural way to model excitation of electrons in an outermost shell by replacing the electrons in inner shells and the kernel by an effective kernel of a certain radius and reduced charge, thus relating in principle excitation of all atoms to that of Hydrogen.

In realQM electron wave functions have local support and occupy different domains i space, which gives the model with an effective kernel a direct physical meaning, while in stdQM wave functions have global support and precise allocation of electrons to different shells is impossible.

Classical vs Quantum Physics According to Lubos

Lubos Motl as devoted soldier in the army of Bohr-Born-Heisenberg is preaching the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics and anybody raising any doubt will be subject to scorn, the most recent victim being Christopher Fuch as expressed in the post: Qbism: Fuch vs Bohr+Motl. Here is Lubos credo from the post:

• Classical physics allows you to assume that some things objectively exist. You may make true statements about the objects in Nature but there are underlying objects and all the true statements are just reflections of something that is out there.
• Quantum mechanics allows you to assign truth values or probabilities (a continuous version of the truth value) to propositions about Nature, too. However, you can no longer assume that the true statements that you may derive from quantum mechanics are reflections of the objective reality.
• That makes sense. Quantum mechanics is an analogy of mathematical logic that allows you to prove and derive new valid propositions out of some assumed ones, the axioms.

No Lubos, it does not make sense; if quantum mechanics is not a "reflection of the objective reality", then it is fantasy and nothing but fantasy, and then it is not science but only tragedy.

If you seek for a quantum mechanics as "a reflection of objective reality", then realQM may be what you are looking for. Try it out!

Schrödinger: Do Electrons Think?

Schrödinger's equation is the basic basic mathematical model of quantum mechanics. It was first formulated for the Hydrogen atom with one electron in terms of a wave function $\psi (x,t)$ depending on a 3d space coordinate $x$ and a time coordinate $t$, with $\vert\psi (x,t)\vert^2$ representing electron charge density at $(x,t)$. Schrödinger's equation expresses stationarity of an associated energy functional and the ground state is defined as the charge density of minimal energy.  

Since the agreement between model and observation was perfect for Hydrogen, Schrödinger's equation was greeted as the most stunning triumph of the human mind since Newton's law of gravitation.

The generalisation of Schrödinger's equation to atoms with $N > 1$ electrons presented itself
as a formal extension into a wave function $\psi (x_1,...,x_N)$ depending on $N$ 3d space coordinates $x_j$, altogether $3N$ space coordinates.  But such a multi-d wave function could no longer be interpreted as a charge density in physical 3d space,  only as the probability to find at any given time electron $j$ at position $x_j$ for $j=1,...,N,$ as if the electrons as particles were randomly jumping around. This was coined the Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr-Born-Heisenberg which took over the scene against heavy protests from Schrödinger and Einstein among others.

Schrödinger phrased his protest in many ways and in particular as the question do electrons think? Schrödinger argued that if electrons jump around randomly as in the Copenhagen Interpretation, then they cannot be viewed to think.  But if electrons instead in a deterministic way react upon forces so as to minimise energy, then they can be viewed to think in some sense. Schrödinger would thus give his answer as: Yes, electrons do think! as a protest to the randomness without thought of the Copenhagen Interpretation.

This connects to Descartes "I think and therefore I am (exist)". With the same logic for the electron, physical existence would be linked to thinking and so electrons do exist because they think and do not jump randomly without thought.

What do you think?          

New Web Site: Real Quantum Mechanics

I have launched a new web site describing a new approach to atom physics in terms of classical continuum mechanics in three space dimensions named realQM or

• Real Quantum Mechanics

also presented as a book in draft form. Take a look and see if you get encouraged to follow the further development of this project.

Programmering i Matematikämnet: Så Lite Som Möjligt?

Regeringen beslutade 090317 att med start ht17 programmering skall ingå som en del av matematikundervisningen i grundskola och gymnasium, se tidigare bloggpost.

För att detta skall bli verklighet fordras utveckling av nya läromedel och fortbildning av lärare.

För detta ändamål säger sig Skolverket vilja tillföra några moduler på Lärportalen i stil med de moduler som utformats för Matematiklyftet av bl a NCM i Göteborg.

Kommer detta att räcka? Det beror på målsättningen, som kan vara allt från (1) så lite som möjligt till (2) lite mera till (3) så mycket som vore befogat med tanke på Regeringens uppdrag.

Här kan vi förvänta oss stor uppslutning för (1) eftersom det finns starka krafter som vill behålla matematikundervisningen i sin traditionella form utan störande inslag av programmering. Med (1) förenklas ju uppgiften vad gäller nya läromedel och fortbildning avsevärt, då nästan inget behöver göras.

Eftersom ingen aktion har varit märkbar efter Regeringens beslut i mars och ht17 snart är här, så verkar det vara så att skolvärlden ställer in sig på (1). Men det var inte (1) Regeringen avsåg.

Jag har förslagit NCM att jag skulle kunna bidra med Matematik-IT som är i linje med (3). Vi får se om NCM tycker det vore bra eller om det är (1) som gäller även på NCM.

Vad gäller att sätta ett tak på nivå (1) för alla, som mycket väl kan bli verklighet, kan man säga att det inte vore i linje med Regeringens intentioner.  Nog borde det väl kunna få finnas alternativ i linje med (2) och (3) för de skolor/lärare som vill mer än (1)? Eller skulle det störa en princip om likformig skola?

PS Varken Svenska Matematikersamfundet eller Nationalkommitten för Matematik har uttryckt någon mening vad gäller Regeringens beslut om att förändra matematikundervisningen i skolan. Detta är i linje med tidigare hållning att inte befatta sig med skolmatematik, och i fall (1) behöver ju inte heller något sägas.