The End of CO2 Alarmism

Myron Ebell has formed the new US policy on climate and energy as leader of the EPA transition team and now reveals that indeed Trump will do what he said on that issue. Listen:

• Climate sensitivity to CO2 emission vastly exaggerated.
• Climate industrial complex a very dangerous special interest.

And read about this historic press conference:

• Trump moves hands on Doomsday clock for the EPA and the Paris Climate Agreement
• DELINGPOLE: Trump’s Climate Plans Just Made the Media’s Heads Explode
• Donald Trump advisor and climate change denier Myron Ebell goes to Number 10
• US will change course on climate policy, says EPA's Myron Ebell 
• Trump's former EPA transition head has a 'message of hope' about how the government will dismantle environmental policies
• Climate skeptic advisor says Trump could pull out of Paris climate agreement in days
• Former Trump Official Says White House Will Back Out Of Paris Agreement Very Soon

The question is how long it will take before a complete global exodus from the Paris agreement will take place. It may go very quick, once the ball starts to roll...maybe in days...

Upcoming:

The Trump Administration and the Environment: A Reporter’s Primer Featuring Myron Ebell

Radiation as Superposition or Jumping?

This is a continuation of this post on understanding of atomic radiation of frequency $E_2-E_1$ as resonance of "superposition of two eigenstates" of different frequencies $E_2>E_1$ according to realQM.

In the standard view of the Copenhagen Interpretation by Bohr as stdQM, radiation is instead connected to the "jumping" of electrons between two energies/frequencies $E_2>E_2".

Which is more convincing: Superposition or jumping?

Superposition connects to linearity and realQM, while not linear (for more than one electron), may still show features of "near linearity" and thus allow understanding in the form of  "superposition", while realQM carries full non-linear dynamics.

On the other hand, "jumping" of electrons in stdQM either requires new physics, which is missing, or has no meaning at all.

This connects to the non-physical nature of the atom of stdQM discussed in a previous post presenting a contradiction in particular in the case of atomic radiation, where atoms are observed to interact with the physics of electro-magnetics and thus must be physical, because interaction between non-physics and physics is telekinesis or psychokinesis, which is viewed as pseudo-science:

String theory and multiversa are spin-offs of stdQM with the non-physical aspects driven to an extreme, and accordingly by many physicists viewed as pseudo-science.

PS In Quantum Theory at the Crossroads Reconsidering the Solvay Conference 1927 we read (p 132):

• In 1926, with the development of wave mechanics, Schrödinger saw a new possibility of conceiving a mechanism for radiation: the superposition of two waves would involve two frequencies and emitted radiation could be understood as some kind of "difference tone" (or beat).
• In his first paper on quantisation, Schrödinger states that this picture would "much more pleasing than the one of quantum jump".
• This idea is still the basis of today's semi-classical radiation theory (often used in quantum optics), that is, the determination of classical electromagnetic radiation from the current associated with a charge density proportional to $\vert\psi\vert^2$.
• The second paper refers to radiation only in passing.

Clearly, Schrödinger was heading in a fruitful direction, but he was stopped by Born, Bohr and Heisenberg.

Towards a Model of Atoms

In my search for a realistic atom model I have found the following pieces:

1. Atom in ground state as harmonic oscillator: 3d free boundary Schrödinger equation: realQM.
2. Radiating atom as harmonic oscillator with small Abraham-Lorentz damping: previous post and Mathematical Physics of Black Body Radiation.
3. Radiating atoms in collective resonance with exterior electromagnetic field with acoustic analog: Piano Secret   

which I hope to assemble into a model which can describe:

• ground states and excited states as solutions of a 3d free boundary Schrödinger equation 
• emission and absorption of light by collections of atoms in collective in phase resonance with an exterior electromagnetic field generated by oscillating atomic electric charge and associated Abraham-Lorentz damping.   

The key concepts entering into such a model describing in particular matter-light interaction, are:

• physical deterministic computable 3d continuum model of atom as kernel + electrons
• electrons as clouds of charge subject to Coulomb and compression forces
• no conceptual difference between micro and macro
• no probability, no multi-d 
• generalised harmonic oscillator
• small damping from Abraham-Lorentz force from oscillating electro charge
• near resonant forcing with half period phase shift
• collective phase coordination by resonance between many atoms and one exterior field. 

Note that matter-light interaction is the scope of Quantum Electro Dynamics or Quantum Field Theory, which are very difficult to understand and use.

What I seek is something which can be understood and which is useful. A model in the spirit of Schrödinger as a deterministic 3d multi-species continuum mechanical wave model of microscopic atoms interacting with macroscopic electromagnetics. I don't see that anything like that is available in the literature within the Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr or any of its clones...

Schrödinger passed away in 1961 after a life in opposition to Bohr since 1926 when his equation was hijacked, but his spirit lives...

...compare with the following trivial text book picture of atomic radiation in the spirit of Bohr:

The Radiating Atom

In the analysis on Computational Blackbody Radiation I used the following model of a harmonic oscillator of frequency $\omega$ with small damping $\gamma >0$ subject to near resonant forcing $f(t)$:

• $\ddot u+\omega^2u-\gamma\dddot u=f(t)$

with the following characteristic energy balance between outgoing and incoming energy:

• $\gamma\int\ddot u^2dt =\int f^2dt$

with integration over a time period and the dot signifying differentiation with respect to time $t$. 

An extension to Schrödingers equation written as a system of real-valued wave functions $\phi$ and $\psi$ may take the form

• $\dot\phi +H\psi -\gamma\dddot \psi = f(t)$            (1)
• $-\dot\psi +H\phi -\gamma\dddot \phi = g(t)$          (2)

where $H$ is a Hamiltonian, $f(t)$ and $g(t)$ represent near-resonant forcing, and $\gamma =\gamma (\dot \rho )\ge 0$ with $\gamma (0)=0$ and $\rho =\phi^2 +\psi^2$ is charge density.

This model carries the characteristics displayed of the model $\ddot\phi+H^2\phi =0$ as the 2nd order in time model obtained after eliminating $\psi$ in the case $\gamma =0$ as displayed in a previous post. 

In particular, multiplication of (1) by $\phi$ and (2) by $-\psi$ and addition gives conservation of charge if $f(t)\phi -g(t)\psi =0$ as a natural phase shift condition. 

Further, multiplication of (1) by $\dot\psi$ and (2) by $\dot\phi$ and addition gives a balance of total energy as inner energy plus radiated energy 

• $\int (\phi H\phi +\psi H\psi)dt +\gamma\int (\ddot\phi^2 +\ddot\psi^2)dt$

in terms of work of forcing.

Physical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics Needed

The standard text book Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics formed by Bohr is a not a realist physical theory about "what is", but instead an idealist/positivist non-physical probabilistic theory of "what we can know".

This has led modern physics into a black hole of endless fruitless speculations with the Many Worlds Interpretation by Everett as the absurd result of anyway seeking to give a physical meaning to the non-physical Copenhagen Interpretation.

Now, it is a fact that the microscopic world of atoms interacts with the macroscopic world we perceive as being real physical. If the microscopic world is declared to be non-real non-physical, then the interaction becomes a mystery. That real physics can interact with real physics is obvious, but to think of interaction between non-real and real physics makes you dizzy as expressed so well by Bohr:

• Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.
• Anyone who can contemplate quantum mechanics whit getting dizzy, hasn't understood it.

The emission spectrum of an atom shows that atom microscopics does interact with electromagnetic macroscopics. Physicists are paid to describe this interaction, but following Bohr this was and still is impossible, and the question is if the pay should continue...

In realQM atoms are real as composed of clouds of electric charge around a kernel and the emission spectrum is explained as the result of charge oscillation within atoms in resonance with exterior electromagnetic waves.

To keep being paid a physicist would say: Look, after all an atom is real as being composed of electron "particles orbiting" a kernel, and the non-real aspect is just that the physics is hidden to inspection and that we cannot know the whereabouts of these particles over time. So atoms are real but the nature of the reality is beyond human perception because you get dizzy when seeking to  understand.

In particular it is to Bohr inexplicable that electron particles orbiting a kernel of an atom in ground state do not radiate and allows the ground state to be stable.

In realQM the charge distribution of an atom in ground state does not change in time and thus is not source of radiation and the atom can remain stable. On the other hand the charge distribution of a superposition of ground and excited states does vary with time and thus may radiate at the beat frequency as the difference between excited and ground frequency.

To Bohr contact with the inner microscopic world of an atom from the macroscopic would take place at a moment of observation, but that leaves out the constant interaction between micro and macro-scopics taking place in radiation.

An atom in ground state is not radiating and the inner mechanics of the atom is closed to inspection.
For this case one could argue that Bohr's view could be upheld, since one would be free to describe the inner mechanics in many different ways, for example in terms of probabilities of electron particle configurations, all impossible to experimentally verify.

The relevant problem is then the radiating atom in interaction with an outer macroscopic world and here Bohr has little to say because he believes that interaction micro-macro takes place only at observation in the form of "collapse of the wave function".  

A real actuality of the inner mechanics of an atom may interact with an actual real outer world, with or without probability, but a probability of an inner particle mechanics of an atom cannot interact with an outer reality, and Bohr discards the first option...actualities can interact but not potentialities...

Let me sum up: The inner microscopics of a radiating atom interacts with outer macroscopics, and the interaction requires the microscopics to share physics with the macroscopics. This not the case in The Copenhagen Interpretation which thus must be false.   

   

Why Atomic Emission at Beat Frequencies Only?

An atom can emit radiation of frequency $\nu =E_2-E_1$ (with Planck's constant $h$ normalized to unity and allowing to replace energy by frequency) and $E_2>E_1$ are two frequencies as eigenvalues $E$ of a Hamiltonian $H$ with corresponding eigenfunction $\psi (x)$ depending on a space coordinate $x$ satisfying $H\psi =E\psi$ and corresponding wave function $\Psi (x,t)=\exp(iEt)\psi (x)$ satisfying Schrödingers wave equation

• $i\frac{\partial\Psi}{\partial t}+H\Psi =0$

and $t$ is a time variable.

Why is the emission spectrum generated by differences $E_2-E_1$ of frequencies of the Hamiltonian as "beat frequencies" and not the frequencies $E_2$ and $E_1$ themselves? Why does an atom interact/resonate with an electromagnetic field of beat frequency $E_2-E_1$, but not $E_2$ or $E_1$?

In particular, why is the ground state of smallest frequency stable by refusing electromagnetic resonance?  

This was the question confronting Bohr 1913 when trying to build a model of the atom in terms of classical mechanics terms. Bohr's answer was that "for some reason" only certain "electron orbits" with certain frequencies "are allowed" and that "for some reason" these electron orbits cannot resonate with an electromagnetic field, and then suggested that observed resonances at beat frequencies came from "electrons jumping between energy levels".  This was not convincing and prepared the revolution into quantum mechanics in 1926.

Real Quantum Mechanics realQM gives the following answer: The charge density $\vert\Psi (t,x)\vert^2=\psi^2(x)$ of a wave function $\Psi (x,t)=\exp(iEt)\psi (x)$ with $\psi (x)$ satisfying $H\psi =E\psi$, does not vary with time and as such does not radiate.

On the other hand the difference $\Psi =\Psi_2-\Psi_1$ between two wave functions $\Psi_1(x,t)=\exp(iE_1t)\psi_1(x)$ and $\Psi_2(x,t)=\exp(iE_2t)\psi_2(x)$ with $H\psi_1=E_1$ and
$H\psi_2=E_2\psi_2$, is a solution to Schrödinger's equation and can be written

• $\Psi (x,t)=\exp(iE_1t)(\exp(i(E_2-E_1)t)\psi_2(x)-\psi_1(x))$

with corresponding charge density

• $\vert\Psi (t,x)\vert^2 = \vert\exp(i(E_2-E_1)t)\psi_2(x)-\psi_1(x)\vert^2$

with a visible time variation in space scaling with $(E_2-E_1)$ and associated radiation of frequency $E_2-E_1$ as a beat frequency. 

Superposition of two eigenstates thus may radiate because the corresponding charge density varies in space with time, while pure eigenstates have charge densities which do not vary with time and thus do not radiate.

In realQM electrons are thought of as "clouds of charge" of density $\vert\Psi\vert^2$ with physical presence, which is not changing with time in pure eigenstates and thus does not radiate, while superpositions of eigenstates do vary with time and thus may radiate, because a charge oscillating at a certain frequency generates a electric field oscillating at the same frequency.

In standard quantum mechanics stdQM $\vert\Psi\vert^2$ is instead interpreted as probability of configuration of electrons as particles, which lacks physical meaning and as such does not appear to  allow an explanation of the non-radiation/resonance of pure eigenstates and radiation/resonance at beat frequencies. In stdQM electrons are nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and it is declared that speaking of electron (or charge) motion is nonsensical and then atom radiation remains as inexplicable as to Bohr in 1913.

So the revolution of classical mechanics into quantum mechanics driven by Bohr's question and unsuccessful answer, does not seem to present any real answer. Or does it?

PS I have already written about The Radiating Atom in a sequence of posts 1-11 with in particular 3: Resolution of Schrödinger's Enigma connecting to this post.

Ny Läroplan med Programmering på Regeringens Bord

SVT Nyheter i Gävleborg meddelar att den nya läroplanen med programmering som nytt studieämne nu ligger på Regeringens bord för beslut och att flera skolor i Gävle och Sandviken redan rivstartat och infört ämnet.

Snart måste övriga skolor följa efter. Mitt bidrag för att möta behovet av nya läromedel är Matematik-IT, färdigt att provas!

Is the Quantum World Really Inexplicable in Classical Terms?

Peter Holland describes in the opening statement of The Quantum Theory of Motion the state of the art of modern physics in the form of quantum mechanics, as follows:

• The quantum world is inexplicable in classical terms.
• The predictions pertaining to the interaction of matter and light embodied in Newton's laws of motion  and Maxwell's equations governing the propagation of electromagnetic fields, are in flat contradiction with the experimental facts at the microscopic scale.
• A key feature of quantum effects is their apparent indeterminism, that individual atomic events are unpredictable, uncontrollable and literally seem to have no cause.
• Regularities emerge onlywhen one considers a large ensemble of such events.
• This indeed is generally considered to constitute the heart of the conceptual problems posed by quantum phenomena, necessitating a fundamental revision of the deterministic classical world view.

No doubt this describes the predicament of modern physics and it is a sad story: It is nothing but a total collapse of rationality, and as far as I can understand, there are no compelling reasons to give up the core principles of classical continuum physics so well expressed in Maxwell's equations. 

If classical continuum physics is modified just a little by adding a new element of finite precision computation, then the apparent contradiction of the ultra-violet catastrophe of black-body radiation as the root of "quantization", can be circled and rationality maintained.  You can find these my arguments by browsing the labels to this post and the web sites Computational Black Body Radiation and The World as Computation with further development in the book Real Quantum Mechanics.

And so No, it may not be necessary to give up the deterministic classical world view when doing atom physics, the view which gave us Maxwell's equations and opened a new world of electro-magnetics connecting to atoms. It may suffice to modify the deterministic classical view just a little bit without losing anything to make it work also for atom physics.

After all, what can be more deterministic than the ground state of a Hydrogen atom?

Of course, this is not a message that is welcomed by physicists, who have been locked since 90 years into finding evidence that quantum mechanics is inexplicable, by inventing contradictions of concepts without physical reality. The root to such contradictions (like wave-particle duality) is the linear multi-d Schrödinger equation which is picked from the air as a formality without physics content, but just because of that being inexplicable. To advance, it seems that a new Schrödinger equation with physical meaning should be derived...

The question is how to generalise Schrödinger's equation for the Hydrogen atom with one electron, which works fine and can be understood, to Helium with two electrons and so on...The question is then how the two electrons of Helium find co-existence around the kernel. In Real Quantum Mechanics they split 3d space without overlap....like East and West of global politics or Germany...

Quantum Mechanics as Retreat to (German) Romantic Irrational Ideal

Quantum theory is widely held to resist any realist interpretation and to mark the advent of a ‘postmodern’ science characterised by paradox, uncertainty, and the limits of precise measurement. Keeping his own realist position in check, Christopher Norris provides a remarkably detailed and incisive account of the positions adopted by parties on both sides of this complex debate.

James Cushing gives in Bohmian Mechanics and Quantum Theory (1996): An Appraisal, an account of the rise to domination of the Born-Heisenberg-Bohr Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics:

• Today it is generally assumed that the success of quantum mechanics demands that we accept a world view in which physical processes at the most fundamental level are seen as being irreducibly and ineliminably indeterministic. 
• That is, one of the great watersheds in twentieth-century scientific thought is the "Copenhagen" insight that empirical evidence and logic are seen as necessarily implying an indeterministic picture of nature. 
• This is in marked contrast to any classical representation of a clockwork universe. 
• A causal program would have been a far less radical departure from the then-accepted framework of classical physics than was the so-called Copenhagen version of quantum mechanics that rapidly gained ascendancy by the late 1920s and has been all-but universally accepted ever since. 
• How could this happen? 
• It has been over twenty years now since the dramatic and controversial "Forman thesis" was advanced that acausality was embraced by German quantum physicists in the Weimar era as a reaction to the hostile intellectual and cultural environment that existed there prior to and during the formulation of modem quantum mechanics. 
• The goal was to establish a causal connection between this social intellectual milieu and the content of science, in this case quantum mechanics. 
• The general structure of this argument is the following. Causality for physicists in the early twentieth century "meant complete lawfulness of Nature, determinism [(i.e., event-by-event causality)]". 
• Such lawfulness was seen by scientists as absolutely essential for science to be a coherent enterprise. A scientific approach was also taken to be necessarily a rational one. 
• When, in the aftermath of the German defeat in World War I, science was held responsible (not only by its failure, but even more because of its spirit) for the sorry state of society, there was a reaction against rationalism and a return to a romantic, "irrational" ideal.

Yes, quantum mechanics (in its Copenhagen Interpretation forcefully advocated by Bohr under influence from the anti-realist positivist philosopher Höffding) was a product of German physics in the Weimar republic of the 1920s, by Heisenberg and Born. 

It seems reasonable to think that if the defeat of Germany in World War I was blamed on a failure of "rationality" and "realism", then a resort to "irrationality" and "anti-realism" would be rational in particular in Germany...and so quantum mechanics in its anti-realist form took over the scene as Germany rebuilt its power...

But maybe today Germany is less idealistic and anti-realistic  (although the Energiewende is romantic anti-realism) and so maybe also a more realistic quantum mechanics can be allowed to develop...without the standard "shut-up and calculate" suppression of discussion...

CONFERENCE: NATURE AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE IN GERMAN IDEALISM AND ROMANTICISM (SYDNEY, JUNE 15-17, 2015)

Quantum Mechanics as Classical Continuum Physics and Not Particle Mechanics

Planck (with eyes shut) presents Einstein with the Max Planck medal of the German Physical Society, 28 June 1929, in Berlin, as the highest award of the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, for Einstein's idea of light as particles, which Planck did not believe in (and did not want to see).

Modern physics in the form of quantum mechanics was born in 1900 when Planck in a desperate act introduced the idea of smallest packet of energy or quanta to explain black-body radiation followed up in 1905 by Einstein's equally desperate attempt to explain photo-electricity by viewing light as a stream of light particles of energy quanta $h\nu$ where $\nu$ is frequency and $h$ Planck's constant.

Yes, Einstein was desperate, because he was stuck as patent clerk in Bern and his academic career was going nowhere. Yes, Planck was also desperate because his role at the University of Berlin as the successor of the great Kirchhoff, was to explain blackbody radiation as the most urgent unsolved problem of physics and thereby demonstrate the scientific leadership of an emerging German Empire.

The "quantisation" into discrete smallest packets of energy and light  was against the wisdom of the continuum physics of the 19th century crowned by Maxwell's wave equations describing all of electro-magnetics as a system of partial differential equations over 3d-space as a continuum over real numbers as the ultimate triumph of the infinitesimal Calculus of Leibniz and Newton.

The "quantisation" of energy and light thus meant a partial retreat to the view of the early Greek atomists with the world ultimately built from indivisible particles or quanta and not waves, also named particle physics.

But the wave nature was kept in Schrödinger's linear multi-d equation as the basis of quantum mechanics, but then not in physical form as in Maxwell's equations, but as probability waves supposedly describing probabilities of particle configurations. The mixture was named wave-particle duality, which has been the subject of endless discussion after its introduction by Bohr.

Schrödinger never accepted a particle description and stuck to his original idea that waves are enough to explain atom physics. The trouble with this view was the multi-d aspect of Schrödinger's equation which could not be given a meaning/interpretation in terms of physical waves, like Maxwell's equations. This made Schrödinger's waves-are-enough idea impossible to defend and Schrödinger's equation was hijacked Bohr/Born/Heisenberg and twisted into a physical particle - probabilistic wave Copenhagen Interpretation as the textbook truth.

But blackbody radiation and the photoelectric effect can be explained by wave mechanics  without any form of particles in the form of Computational Blackbody Radiation with the new element being finite precision computation. 

The idea of a particle  is contradictory, as something with physical presence without physical dimension. Atom physics can make sense as wave mechanics but not as particle mechanics. It is important to remember that this was the view of Schrödinger when he formulated his wave equation in 1925 for the Hydrogen atom. What is needed is an extension of Schrödinger's equation to atoms with several electrons which has a physical meaning, maybe as Real Quantum Mechanics, and this is not the standard linear multi-d Schrödinger equation with solutions interpreted as probability distributions of particle configurations in the spirit of Born-Bohr-Heisenberg but not Schrödinger.

Recall that particle motion is also a contradictory concept, as shown in Zeno's paradox: At each instant of time the particle (Zeno's arrow) is still at a point in space, and thus cannot move to another point. On the other hand, wave motion as the translatory motion of a water wave across a water surface of water, is possible to explain as the result of (circular) transversal water oscillation without translation. Electro-magnetic waves are  propagating by transversal oscillation of electric-magnetic fields.

And do not believe that Zeno's paradox was ever solved. It expresses the truly contradictory nature of the concept of particle, which cannot be resolved. Ponder the following "explanation" on Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

• Think about it this way: time, as we said, is composed only of instants. No distance is traveled during any instant. So when does the arrow actually move? How does it get from one place to another at a later moment? 
• There's only one answer: the arrow gets from point X at time 1 to point Y at time 2 simply in virtue of being at successive intermediate points at successive intermediate times—the arrow never changes its position during an instant but only over intervals composed of instants, by the occupation of different positions at different times. 
• In Bergson's memorable words—which he thought expressed an absurdity—‘movement is composed of immobilities’ (1911, 308): getting from X to Y is a matter of occupying exactly one place in between at each instant (in the right order of course). 

As you understand, this is just nonsense:

Particles don't exist, and if they anyway are claimed to exist, they cannot move.

Waves do exist and can move.  It is not so difficult to understand!

Deconstruction of CO2 Alarmism Started

Directly after inauguration the White House web site changes to a new Energy Plan, where all of Obama's CO2 alarmism has been completely eliminated:

• Energy is an essential part of American life and a staple of the world economy. The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources, freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.
• For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry. President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.
• Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. 
• The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans.

Nothing about dangerous CO2! No limits on emission! Trump has listened to science! CO2 alarmism will be defunded and why not then also other forms of fake physics...

This is the first step to the Fall of IPCC and the Paris agreement and liberation of resources for the benefit of humanity, see phys.org.

The defunding of CO2 alarmism will now start, and then why not other forms of fake science?

PS1 Skepticism to CO2 alarmism expressed by Klimatrealisterna is now getting published in media in Norway, while in Sweden it is fully censored.  I have recently accepted an invitation to become a member of the scientific committee of this organisation (not yet visible on the web site).

PS2 Read Roy Spencer's analysis of the Trump Dump:

• As Bjorn Lomborg has recently estimated, efforts to “fight” global warming under the U.N.’s Paris Agreement could cost the world $100 Trillion in lost wealth by the end of this century. 
• That, I guarantee you, will lead to (preventable) deaths, due to poverty and all problems stemming from poverty.
• And for what gain? An unmeasurable decrease in further warming of maybe 0.1 deg. C at best (and that’s assuming climate sensitivity is high and that we are in for several deg. C of future warming — which I don’t). As someone who knows how temperatures trends are measured on the ground (I’ll bet none of the thermometer climate data “experts” passed NWS weather observer certification exams like I did) and by satellite (I’m the co-inventor), I can say that this level of future temperature reduction is unmeasurable by any system we have.

Bottomline: With plenty of energy, poverty can be eliminated. Unstopped CO2 alarmism will massively increase poverty with no gain whatsoever. Trump is the first state leader to understand that the Emperor of CO2 Alarmism is naked, and other leaders will now open their eyes to see the same thing...and skeptics may soon say mission complete...

See also The Beginning of the End of EPA.

The Origin of Fake Physics

Peter Woit on gives on Not Even Wrong a list of fake physics most of which can be traced back to the fake physics character of Schrödinger's linear multi-dimensional equation, as exposed in recent posts.

Woit's list of fake physics thus includes different fantasies of multiversa all originating from the multi-dimensional form of Schrödinger's equation giving each electron its own separate 3d space/universe to dwell in.

But the linear multi-d Schrödinger equation is a postulate of modern physics picked from out of the blue as a ready-made and as such like a religious dogma beyond human understanding and rationality.

Why modern physics has been driven into such an unscientific approach remains to be understood and exposed, and discussed...

The standard view is presented by David Gross as follows:

• Quantum mechanics emerged in 1900, when Planck first quantized the energy of radiating oscillators.
• Quantum mechanics is the most successful of all the frameworks that we have discovered to describe physical reality. It works, it makes sense, and it is hard to modify. 
• Quantum mechanics does make sense, although the transition, a hundred years ago, from classical to quantum reality was not easy. 
•  The freedom one has to choose among different, incompatible, frameworks does not influence reality—one gets the same answers for the same questions, no matter which framework one uses. 
• That is why one can simply “shut up and calculate.” Most of us do that most of te time. 
• By now...we have a completely coherent and consistent formulation of quantum mechanics that corresponds to what we actually do in predicting and describing experiments and observations in the real world. 
• For most of us there are no problems.
• Nonetheless, there are dissenting views. 

So, the message is that quantum mechanics works if you simply shut up and calculate and don't ask if it makes sense, as physicists are being taught to do, but here are dissenting views...

Note that the standard idea ventilated by Gross is that quantum mechanics somehow emerged from Planck's desperate trick of "quantisation" of blackbody radiation 1900 when taking on the mission of explaining the physics of radiation while avoiding the "ultra-violet catastrophe" believed to torpedo classical wave mechanics. Planck never believed that his trick had a physical meaning and in fact the trick is not needed because an explanation can be given within classical wave mechanics in the form of computational blackbody radiation with the ultraviolet catastrophe not showing up.

This is what Anthony Leggett, Nobel Laureate and speaker at the 90 Years of Quantum Mechanics Conference, Jan 23-26, 2017, says (in 1987):

• If one wishes to provoke a group of normally phlegmatic physicists into a state of high animation—indeed, in some cases strong emotion—there are few tactics better guaranteed to succeed than to introduce into the conversation the topic of the foundations of quantum mechanics, and more specifically the quantum measurement problem.
• I do not myself feel that any of the so-called solutions of the quantum measurement paradox currently on offer is in any way satisfactory.
• I am personally convinced that the problem of making a consistent and philosophically acceptable 'join' between the quantum formalism which has been so spectacularly successful at the atomic and subatomic level and the 'realistic' classical concepts we employ in everyday life can have no solution within our current conceptual framework; 
• We are still, after three hundred years, only at the beginning of a long journey along a path whose twists and turns promise to reveal vistas which at present are beyond our wildest imagination. 
• Personally, I see this as not a pessimistic, but a highly optimistic, conclusion. In intellectual endeavour, if nowhere else, it is surely better to travel hopefully than to arrive, and I would like to think that the generation of students now embarking on a career in physics, and their children and their children's children, will grapple with questions at least as intriguing and fundamental as those which fascinate us today—questions which, in all probability, their twentieth-century predecessors did not even have the language to pose.

The need of a revision, now 30 years later,  of the very foundations of quantum mechanics is even more clear, 90 years after conception. The starting point must be the wave mechanics of Schrödinger without particles, probabilities, multiversa, measurement paradox, particle-wave duality, complementarity and quantum jumps with atom microscopics described by the same continuum mathematics as the macroscopic world.

PS Is quantum computing fake physics or possible physics? Nobody knows since no quantum computer has yet been constructed. But the hype/hope is inflated: perhaps by the end of the year...

Shaky Basis of Quantum Mechanics

Schrödinger's equation! Where did we get that equation from? Nowhere. It is not possible to derive it from anything you know. It came out of the mind of Schrodinger.  (Richard P. Feynman)

In the final analysis, the quantum mechanical wave equation will be obtained by a postulate, whose justification is not that it has been deduced entirely from information already known experimentally (Eisberg and Resnick in Quantum Physics)

Schrödinger's equation as the basic mathematical model of quantum mechanics is obtained as follows:

Start with classical mechanics with a Hamiltonian of the following form for a system of $N$ interacting point particles of unit mass with positions $x_n(t)$ and momenta $p_n=\frac{dx_n}{dt}$ varying with time $t$ for $n=1,...N$:

• $H(x_1,...,x_N)=\frac{1}{2}\sum_{n=1}^Np_n^2+V(x_1,....,x_N)$     

where $V$ is a potential depending on the particle positions $x_n$, with the corresponding equations of motion

• $\frac{dp_n}{dt}=\frac{\partial V}{\partial x_n}$ for $n=1,...,N$.           (1)

Proceed by formally replacing momentum $p_n$ by the differential operator $-i\nabla_n$ where $\nabla_n$ is the gradient operator acting with respect to $x_n$ now viewed as the coordinates of three-dimensional space (and $i$ is the imaginary unit), to get the Hamiltonian 

• $H(x_1,...,x_N)=-\frac{1}{2}\sum_{n=1}^N\Delta_n +V(x_1,...,x_N)$

supposed to be acting on a wave function $\psi (x_1,...,x_N)$ depending on $N$ 3d coordinates $x_1,...,x_N$, where $\Delta_n$ is the Laplacian with respect to coordinate $x_n$.  Then postulate Schrödinger's equation with a vague reference to (1) as a linear multi-d equation of the form:

• $i\frac{\partial \psi}{\partial t}=H\psi$.         (2)

Schrödinger's equation thus results from inflating single points to full 3d spaces in a purely formal twist of classical mechanics by brutally changing the meaning of $x_n$ from point to full 3d space and then twisting (1) as well. The inflation gives a wave function which depends on $3N$ space coordinates and as such has no physicality and is way beyond computability.

The inflation corresponds to a shift from actual position, which may be of interest, to possible position (which can be anywhere), which has no interest. 

The inflation from point to full 3d space has become the trade mark of modern physics as expressed in Schrödinger's multi-d linear equation, with endless speculation without conclusion about the possible physics of the inflation and the meaning of (2). 

The formality and lack of physicality of the inflation of course should have sent Schrödinger's multi-d linear equation (2) to the waste-bin from start, but it didn't happen with the argument that even if the physics of the equation was beyond rationale, predictions from the equation always (yes, always!!) agree with observation. The lack of scientific logic was thus acknowledged from start, but it was taken for granted that anyway the equation describes physics very accurately. If a prediction from computation with Schrödinger's equation does not compare well with observation, there must be something wrong with the computation or comparison, never with the equation itself...

But solutions of Schrödinger's multi-d equation cannot be computed in any generality and thus claims of general validity has no real ground. It is simply a postulate/axiom and as such true by assumption as a tautology which can only be true.

The main attempts to give the inflation of classical mechanics into Schrödinger's multi-d linear equation a meaning, are:

• Copenhagen Interpretation CI (probabilistic)
• Many World Interpretation MWI (infinitely many parallel universa in certain contact) 
• Pilot-Wave (Bohm) 

with no one explanation gathering clear acceptance.   In particular,  Schrödinger did not like these interpretations of his equation and dreamed of a different version in 3d with physical "anschaulich" meaning, but did not find it...

In the CI the possibilities become an actualities by observation, while in MWI all possibilities are viewed as actualities and in Bohmian mechanics the pilot wave represents the possibilities with a particle somehow carried by the wave representing actuality...all very strange...        

     

Many Worlds Interpretation vs Double Slit Experiment

When I ask David Deutsch what his basic motivation is to believe that the Many Worlds Interpretation MWI of the multi-d linear Schrödinger equation describes real physics, I get the response that it is in particular the single electron double slit experiment, which he claims is difficult to explain otherwise.

But is this so difficult to explain assuming that electrons are always waves and never particles? I don't think so. Here is my argument:

In the single electron double slit experiment a screen displays an interference pattern created by a signal passing through a double slit, even with the input so weak that the interference pattern is created dot by dot as if being hit by a stream of single electron particles.

This is presented as a mystery, by arguing that an electron particle must chose one of the slits to pass through, and doing so cannot create an interference pattern because that can only arise if the single electron is a wave freely passing through both slits. So the experiment cannot be explained which gives evidence that quantum mechanics is a mystery, and since it is a mystery anything is possible, like MWI.

But there is no mystery if following Schrödinger we understand that electrons are always waves and never particles, and that the fact that the effect on the screen of an incoming wave on may be a dot somewhere on the screen triggered by local perturbations. A dot as effect does not require the cause to be dot-like.

It is thus possible to understand the single electron double slit experiment under the assumption that electrons are always wave-like and always pass through both slits and thus can create an interference pattern, in accordance with the original objective of Schrödinger to describe electrons as waves, and then physical waves and not probability waves as in the Copenhagen Interpretation as another form of MWI.

The trouble with quantum mechanics is the multi-d linear Schrödinger equation which describes probability waves or many worlds waves, which are not physical waves. The challenge is to formulate a Schrödinger equation which describes physical waves, that is to reach the objective of Schrödinger, which may possibly be done with something like realQM...

Ironically, Schrödinger's equation for just one electron is a physical wave equation, and so if anything can be explained by that equation it is the single electron double slit experiment and its mystery then evaporates...

PS The fact that putting a detector at one of the slits destroys the interference pattern, is also understandable with the electron as wave, since a detector may affect a wave and thus may destroy the subtle interference behind the pattern.

David Deutsch on Quantum Reality

David Deutsch is a proponent of Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation MWI of quantum mechanics under a strong conviction that (from Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory and Reality, Oxford Press 2010):

• Science can only be explanation: asserting what is there in reality.
• The only purpose of formalism, predictions, and interpretation is to express explanatory theories about what is there in reality, not merely predictions about human perceptions.
• Restricting science to the latter would be arbitrary and intolerably parochial.

These convictions forces Deutsch into claiming that the multiverse of MWI is reality, which many physicists find hard to believe, including me. 

But I share the view of Deutsch that science is explanation of what is there in reality (in opposition to the Copenhagen Interpretation disregarding reality), and this is the starting point of realQM.

Concerning the development and practice of quantum mechanics Deutsch says:

• It is assumed that in order to discover the true quantum-dynamical equations of the world, you have to enact a certain ritual. 
• First you have to invent a theory that you know to be false, using a traditional formalism and laws that were refuted a century ago. 
• Then you subject this theory to a formal process known as quantization (which for these purposes includes renormalization). 
• And that’s supposed to be your quantum theory: a classical ghost in a tacked-on quantum shell. 
• In other words, the true explanation of the world is supposed to be obtained by the mechanical transformation of a false theory, without any new explanation being added. 
• This is almost magical thinking. 
• How far could Newtonian physics have been developed if everyone had taken for granted that there had to be a ghost of Kepler in every Newtonian theory—that the only valid solutions of Newtonian equations were those based on conic sections, because Kepler’s Laws had those. And because the early successes of Newtonian theory had them too? 

Yes, quantum mechanics (based on Schrödinger's linear multi-d equation)  is ritual, formality and magical thinking, and that is not what science is supposed to be.

The logic about Schrödinger's linear multi-d equation then is:

1. Interpretations must be made to give the equation a meaning. 
2. All interpretations are basically equivalent.
3. One interpretation is MWI.
4. MWI is absurd non-physics.
5. Linear multi-d Schrödinger equation does not describe physics.

Is Quantum Computing Possible?

• .....may or may not be mystery as to what the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I'm an old enough man that I haven't got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it. And therefore, some of the younger students ... you know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm note sure there's no real problem. 
• So that's why I like to investigate things. So I know that quantum mechanics seem to involve probability--and I therefore want to talk about simulating probability. (Feynman asking himself about a possibility of quantum computing in 1982)

The idea of quantum computing originates from a 1982 speculation by Feynman followed up by Deutsch on the possibility of designing a quantum computer supposedly making use of the quantum states of subatomic particles to process and store information. The hope was that quantum computing would allow certain computations, such as factoring a large natural number into prime factors, which are impossible on a classical digital computer.

A quantum computer would be able to crack encryption based on prime factorisation and thus upset the banking system and the world. In the hands of terrorists it would be a dangerous weapon...and so do we have to be afraid of quantum computing?

Not yet in any case! Quantum computing is still a speculation and nothing like any real quantum computer cracking encryption has been constructed up to date, 35 years later. But the hopes are still high...although so far the top result is factorisation of 15 into 3 x 5...(...in 2012, the factorization of 21 was achieved, setting the record for the largest number factored with Shor's algorithm...)

But what is the reason behind the hopes? The origin is the special form of Schrödinger's equation as the basic mathematical model of the atomic world viewed as a quantum world fundamentally different from the macroscopic world of our lives and the classical computer, in terms of a wave function

• $\psi (x_1,...,x_N,t)$ 

depending on $N$ three-dimensional spatial coordinates $x_1$,...,$x_N$ (and time $t$) for a system of $N$ quantum particles such as an atom with $N$ electrons. Such a wave function thus depends on $3N$ spatial variables of $N$ different versions of $R^3$ as three-dimensional Euclidean space.

The multi-dimensional wave function $\psi (x_1,...,x_N,t)$ is to be compared with a classical field variable like density $\rho (x,t)$ depending on a single 3d spatial variable $x\in R^3$. The wave function $\psi (x_1,...,x_N,t)$ depends on $N$ different copies of $R^3$, while for $\rho (x,t)$ there is only one copy, and that is the copy we are living in.

In the Many Worlds Interpretation MWI of Schrödinger's equation the $N$ different copies of $R^3$ are given existence as parallel universes or multiversa, while our experience still must be restricted to just one of them, with the other as distant shadows.

The wave function $\psi (x_1,...,x_N,t)$ thus has an immense richness through its contact with multiversa, and the idea of quantum computing is to somehow use this immense richness by sending a computational task to multiversa for processing and then bringing back the result to our single universe for inspection.

It would be like sending a piece of information to an immense cloud for complex computational processing and then bringing it back for inspection. But for this to work the cloud must exist in some form and be accessible.

Quantum computing is thus closely related to MWI and the reality of a quantum computer would seem to depend on a reality of multiversa. The alternative to MWI and multiversa is the probabilistic Copenhagen Interpretation CI, but that does not make things more clear or hopeful.

But what is the reason behind MWI and multiversa? The only reason is the multi-dimensional aspect of Schrödinger's equation, but Schrödinger's equation is a man-made ad hoc variation of the equations of motion of classical mechanics obtained by a purely formal procedure of representing momentum $p$ by a multi-dimensional gradient differential operator as $p=i\nabla$ thus formally replacing $p^2$ by the action on $\psi$ by a multi-dimensional Laplacian $-\Delta =-\sum_j\Delta_j$ with $\Delta_j$ the Laplacian with respect to $x_j$, thus acting with respect to all the $x_j$ for $j=1,...,N$.

But by formally replacing $p$ by $i\nabla$ is just a formality without physical reason, and it is from this formality that MWI and multiversa arise and then also the hopes of quantum computing.  Is there then reason to believe that the multi-dimensional $-\Delta\psi$ has a physical meaning, or does it rather represent some form of Kabbalism or scripture interpretation?

My view is that multiversa and quantum computing based on a multi-dimensional Schrödinger equation based on a formality, is far-fetched irrational dreaming, that Feynman's feeling of a real problem sensed something important,  and this is my reason for exploration of realQM based on a new version of Schrödinger's equation in physical three-dimensional space.

PS1 One may argue that if MWI is absurd, which many think, then CI is also absurd, which many think, since both are interpretations of one an the same multi-dimensional Schrödinger equation, and the conclusion would then be that if all interpretations are absurd, then so is what is being interpreted, right? Even more reason for realQM and less hope for quantum computing...

PS2 MWI was formulated by Hugh Everett III in his 1956 thesis with Wheeler. Many years later, Everett laughingly recounted to Misner, in a tape-recorded conversation at a cocktail party in May 1977, that he came up with his many-worlds idea in 1954 "after a slosh or two of sherry", when he, Misner, and Aage Petersen (Bohr’s assistant) were thinking up "ridiculous things about the implications of quantum mechanics". (see Many Worlds? Everett, Quantum Theory and Reality, Oxford University Press)

PS3 To get a glimpse of the mind-boggling complexity of $3N$-dimensional space, think of the big leaps form 1d to 2d and from 2d to 3d, and then imagine the leap to the 6d of the two electrons of Helium with $N=2$ as the simplest of all atoms beyond Hydrogen with $N=1$. In this perspective a single Helium atom as quantum computer could be imagined to have the computational power of a laptop. Yes, many dimensions and many worlds are mind-boggling, and as such maybe just phantasy.

The Quantum Manifesto Contradiction

The Quantum Manifesto calls upon Member States and the European Commission to launch a €1 billion Flagship-scale Initiative in Quantum Technology, preparing for a start in 2018 within the European H2020 research and innovation framework programme.

The scientific basis of the Manifesto is: 

• With quantum theory now fully established, we are required to look at the world in a fundamentally new way: objects can be in different states at the same time (superposition) and can be deeply connected without any direct physical interaction (entanglement).

The idea is that superposition and entanglement will open capabilities beyond imagination:

• This initiative aims to place Europe at the forefront of the second quantum revolution now unfolding worldwide, bringing transformative advances to science, industry and society. It will create new commercial opportunities addressing global challenges, provide strategic capabilities for security and seed as yet unimagined capabilities for the future. As is now happening around the world, developing Europe’s capabilities in quantum technologies will create a new knowledge-based industrial ecosystem, leading to long-term economic, scientific and societal benefits. It will result in a more sustainable, more productive, more entrepreneurial and more secure European Union.
• Quantum computers are expected to be able to solve, in a few minutes, problems that are unsolvable by the supercomputers of today and tomorrow.

But from where comes the idea that the quantum world is a world of superposition and entanglement? Is it based on observation? No, it is not, because the quantum world is not open to such inspection.  

Instead it comes from theory in the form of a mathematical model named Schrödinger's equation, which is linear and thus allows superposition, and which includes Coulombic forces of attraction and repulsion as forms of instant (spooky) action at distance thus expressing entanglement. 

But Schrödinger's equation is an ad hoc man-made theoretical mathematical model resulting from a purely formal twist of classical mechanics, for which a  deeper scientific rationale is lacking.  Even worse, Schrödinger's equation for an atom with $N$ electrons involves $3N$ space dimensions, which makes computational solution impossible even with $N$ very small.  Accordingly, the Manifesto does not allocate a single penny for solution of Schrödinger's equation, which is nowhere mentioned in the Manifesto. Note that the quantum simulators of the grand plan shown above are not digital solvers of Schrödinger's equation, but Q

• can be viewed as analogue versions of quantum computers, specially dedicated to reproducing the behaviour of materials at very low temperatures, where quantum phenomena arise and give rise to extraordinary properties. Their main advantage over all-purpose quantum computers is that quantum simulators do not require complete control of each individual component, and thus are simpler to build. 
• Several platforms for quantum simulators are under development, including ultracold atoms in optical la ices, trapped ions, arrays of superconducting qubits or of quantum dots and photons. In fact, the rst prototypes have already been able to perform simulations beyond what is possible with current supercomputers, although only for some particular problems.

The Quantum Manifesto is thus based on a mathematical model in the form of a multi-dimensional Schrödinger equation suggesting superposition and entanglement, from which the inventive physicist is able to imagine yet unimagined capabilities, while the model itself  is considered to be useless for real exploration of possibilities, because not even a quantum computer can be imagined to solve the equation.  This is yet another expression of quantum contradiction.

Recall that the objective of RealQM is to find a new version of Schrödinger's equation which is computable and can be used for endless digital exploration of the analog quantum world.

See also Quantum Europe May 2017.

Update of realQM and The Trouble of Quantum Mechanics

I have made an update of realQM as start for the New Year! More updates will follow...

The update contains more computational results (and citations) and includes corrections of some misprints.

The recent book by Bricmont Making Sense of Quantum Mechanics reviews the confusion concerning the meaning of quantum mechanics, which is still after 100 years deeply troubling the prime achievement of modern physics. As only salvation Bricmont brings out the pilot-wave of Bohm from the wardrobe of dismissed theories, seemingly forgetting that it once was put there for good reasons. The net result of the book is thus that quantum mechanics in its present shape does not make sense...which gives me motivation to pursue realQM...and maybe someone else sharing the understanding that science must make sense...see earlier post on Bricmont's book ...

Yes, the trouble of making sense of quantum mechanics is of concern to physicists today, as expressed in the article The Trouble with Quantum Mechanics in the January 2017 issue of The New York Review of Books by Steven Weinberg, sending the following message to the world of science ultimately based on quantum mechanics:

• The development of quantum mechanics in the first decades of the twentieth century came as a shock to many physicists. Today, despite the great successes of quantum mechanics, arguments continue about its meaning, and its future. 
• I’m not as sure as I once was about the future of quantum mechanics. It is a bad sign that those physicists today who are most comfortable with quantum mechanics do not agree with one another about what it all means. 
• What then must be done about the shortcomings of quantum mechanics? One reasonable response is contained in the legendary advice to inquiring students: “Shut up and calculate!” There is no argument about how to use quantum mechanics, only how to describe what it means, so perhaps the problem is merely one of words. 
• On the other hand, the problems of understanding measurement in the present form of quantum mechanics may be warning us that the theory needs modification. 
• The goal in inventing a new theory is to make this happen not by giving measurement any special status in the laws of physics, but as part of what in the post-quantum theory would be the ordinary processes of physics.
• Unfortunately, these ideas about modifications of quantum mechanics are not only speculative but also vague, and we have no idea how big we should expect the corrections to quantum mechanics to be. Regarding not only this issue, but more generally the future of quantum mechanics, I have to echo Viola in Twelfth Night: “O time, thou must untangle this, not I.” 

Weinberg thus gives little hope that fixing the trouble with quantum mechanics will be possible by human intervention, and so the very origin of the trouble, the multi-dimensional linear Schrödinger equation invented by Schrödinger, must be questioned and then questioned seriously (as was done by Schrödinger propelling him away from the paradigm of quantum mechanics), and not as now simply be accepted as a God-given fact beyond question. This is the starting point of realQM.

Of course Lubos Motl, as an ardent believer in the Copenhagen Interpretation, whatever it may be, does not understand the crackpot troubles/worries of Weinberg.

As an expression of the interest in quantum mechanics still today, you may want to browse the upcoming Conference on 90 Years of Quantum Mechanics presented as:

• This conference celebrates this magnificent journey that started 90 years ago. Quantum physics mechanics has during this period developed in leaps and bounds and this conference will be devoted to the progress of quantum mechanics since then. It aims to show how universal quantum mechanics is penetrating all of basic physics. Another aim of the conference is to highlight how quantum mechanics is at the heart of most modern science applications and technology.  ago

Note the "leaps and bounds" which may be the troubles Weinberg is referring to...