Tim Maudlin: Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics

This is follow up of the previous post on formalistic vs realistic physics.

Tim Maudlin is a realist philosopher of quantum physics in the following sense declared in the Introduction to Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory (interview here):

• A physical theory should clearly and forthrightly address two fundamental questions: what there is, and what it does. 
• The answer to the first question is provided by the ontology of the theory, and the answer to the second by its dynamics. 
• The ontology should have a sharp mathematical description, and the dynamics should be implemented by precise equations describing how the ontology will, or might, evolve.

Maudlin then proceeds to describe three theories (Collapse, Many-Worlds and Pilot Wave theories) which meet these demands, starting with a declaration that the Copenhagen Interpretation does not.

Maudlin does not like the term "realist", "realistic" or the opposite, claiming that "physical theories" are neither "realist" or the opposite, but the above declaration I think qualifies him to be a realist like Schrödinger rather than formalist like Born-Heisenberg. 

The question is then if the three above theories really satisfy the demands given. Already the fact that there is more than one theory raises questions, if there is only one reality. If not, then Many-Worlds comes in, but that ontology is very shaky. Collapse Theory and Pilot Wave Theory concern the One-World we are part of and build on a multi-dimensional Schrödinger Equation SE. The trouble with SE is that multi-dimensionality is way beyond the three dimensions of the observable world and so has been given no physical meaning at all,  or as last straw a statistical meaning as somehow describing different possibilities rather than realities. To replace what is with a wide range of possibilities and to argue that realism is not destroyed, requires a bit of good work and it is not clear that Maudlin succeeds. Note that he prepares for success by offering might evolve as alternative to will evolve, thus opening to statistics and the Copenhagen Interpretation he does not like...

In any case, the multi-dimensionality of SE in its standard form as the basis for both Collapse and Pilot Wave theories is the root trouble when seeking a description of what is and what it does. RealQM offers an alternative in 3d meeting these descriptions. 

Let me ask Maudlin to take a look at RealQM to see if his demands are satisfied in this case keeping the strict will evolve and not just might evolve.

Realists vs Formalists: Modern Physics vs Mathematics

In the 1930s two main battles were shaping (quantum) physics and mathematics into our time, between realists and formalists with the following main actors:

• Physics formalists: Bohr-Born-Heisenberg.
• Physics realists: Schrödinger-Einstein.
• Mathematics formalist: Hilbert.
• Mathematics realist: Brouwer. 

The outcome of the battles were opposite. In physics Bohr-Born-Heisenberg took over completely and kicked out Schrödinger-Einstein. In mathematics Hilbert was defeated by Brouwer assisted by Gödel and Turing. 

Thus formalism took over physics and realism took over mathematics, opposite to the natural idea of (classical) physics as connected to reality and mathematics to formality. Very surprising and strange.

Mathematics as realism of constructivism/computing is today booming with AI the remarkable reality of Large Language Models LLM.

Physics as formalism is today in a state of deep crisis detached from reality back to medieval scholastics about interpretations of formalistic quantum mechanics without conclusion. 

Is it possible to bring back realism into quantum physics, not by another interpretation of the given formalism, but by replacing the formalism by realism? Maybe, in any case Real Quantum Mechanics RealQM is an attempt to do so. Why not take a look?

A position as realist is comfortable: There is a reality out there independent of any observation. The objective of physics is to describe this reality in constructive mathematical terms allowing computational simulation and comparison with observation. Reality cannot be "weird". 

A position as formalist is awkward: If there is no reality corresponding to the formalism, it is just a game. It is thus necessary to somehow connect formality to reality, but starting as formality, the connecting physics to be invented may come out as "weird", which is how Feynman-Bohr were selling quantum mechanics and then very successfully because "weird physics" suited media.

The formalists took over quantum physics because the basic model of quantum mechanics in the form of the multi-dimensional Schrödinger Equation SE was not derived from only assumptions about physical reality, but also included an element referred to as "kinetic energy" obtained as an analog of classical kinetic energy $\frac{p^2}{m}$ with $p=mv$ momentum with $m$ mass and $v$ velocity, by simply replacing the quantity $p$ by the differential operator $i\nabla$. Black magic formalism with a new form of "kinetic energy" without connection to motion! 

RealQM is based on a different SE where the "kinetic energy" appears as a "compression energy" of realistic classical mechanics. 

Since the multi-dimensional SE was accepted as fallen from the sky without origin in physics, it became impossible to question SE on objective physical grounds and the debate fell apart into endless quarrel about interpretations. 

To take a step out of the crisis it necessary to question the multi-d SE and seek to find a formulation based in physics and not in pure formalism. Ok?

Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality: Harvey Brown

Harvey Brown is a philosopher of physics with a realist approach developed in his book Quantum Paradoxes and Physical Reality starting with the following basic questions of modern physics:

1. Do the basic entities of atomic physics, such as electrons, photons, and so on, actually exist independently of the observations performed by physicists?
2. If the answer to the previous question is positive, is it possible to comprehend the structure of atomic objects and the evolution of atomic processes, in the sense of forming spacetime images somehow in correspondence with their reality?
3. Should one formulate physical laws in such a way that one or several causes are given for all observed effects?

Harvey maps positive answers to opponents of quantum mechanics:

• Ehrenfest, Planck, Einstein, Schrödinger and de Broglie, 

and negative to defenders of quantum mechanics: 

• Sommerfeld, Born, Bohr, Pauli, Heisenberg, Jordan, and Dirac. 

Basically a split between realists and formalists.

The situation today is that the formalist attitude is completely dominating, and that a realist attitude is shown only by a few realist philosophers of physics such as Tim Maudlin and Harvey Brown himself. 

To the realist camp I can add RealQM with positive answers to 1-3. It may be that positive realist answers tmay help progress better than negative formalist.

Tribute to Einstein as Icon of Modern Physics

After his death Einstein was chosen as the icon of modern physics as the creator of both the Special Theory of Relativity SR (1905) and the General Theory of Relativity GR (1915) forming the foundation of modern physics together with Quantum Mechanics QM in the form of Schrödinger's Equation SE (1925) without SR/GR. 

This looks great, but looking closer we find that (i) GR and QM are incompatible, and (ii) SR and QM/SE do not connect, which is a root cause to the present crisis of modern physics. 

To at least save something Dirac (1928) invented an SR relativistic model to replace SE named Dirac's Equation DE.  

Both SE and DE are multi-dimensional models without physical meaning invented on formalistic grounds and are uncomputable without drastic dimensional reduction with unknown effects. In any case SE/DE are the basic models of QM. 

As a tribute to Einstein and to create some form of unity between SR/GR and QM, physicist have decided to attribute relativistic effects not only to fast moving trains but also to the inner workings of an atom although nothing there is actually moving. 

So it is claimed that: 

• The single electron of a Hydrogen atom has an effective velocity $v\approx 0.0073\times c\approx 2.19\times 10^3$ km/s.
• A first shell electron of Gold has a effective velocity $v\approx 0.58\times c\approx 1.73\times 10^5$ km/s with $c$ the speed of light $c$. Very fast indeed! Relativistic effects must be added!

The very high speed of the 1st shell electrons of Gold is then used to explain observed electron structure of Gold, which does not fit with SE without SR. Very useful.

But how is it possible that the inner electrons of Gold move with a speed close to the speed of light, when in fact the electron charge distribution does not move at all?

Of course this does not make sense and let us then seek the origin of this strange idea. It comes from the formalistic derivation of SE where classical kinetic energy $m\frac{v^2}{2}=\frac{p^2}{2m}$ with $p=mv$ momentum, $m$ mass and $v$ velocity is formally replaced by

• $KE=\frac{1}{2m}\int\vert\nabla\psi (x)\vert^2dx$  

where $\psi (x)$ is a wave function depending on a 3d space variable $x$. The formal connection is thus:

1. Replace momentum $p=mv$ by the operator $i\nabla$.
2. Connect KE to $\frac{1}{2m}p^2=\frac{1}{2}mv^2$ thus connect KE to "effective velocity" $v$. 
3. Claim that the effective velocity of inner electrons of Gold is close to the speed of light.
4. Conclude that Gold carries large relativistic effects and explain observations as the result of increase of relativistic mass of inner electrons.

Here 1 is the key: Pure formalism as a form of voodoo physics is used to attribute relativistic effects in the inner working of an atom as if charges are moving with speed close to the speed of light with then a time scale of about $10^{-21}$ s or frequency $10^{21}$ in the range of gamma rays. It is hard to believe this to be any reality at all.

You may compare with RealQM directly based on real physics without relativity including an analysis of weak reactivity of Gold.

The big trouble with SE is that a derivation based on physics is missing. The derivation is based on identification of classical momentum $p=mv$ with the operator $i\nabla$ as pure formalism without physics. 

The further step to attribute relativistic effects also comes from this identification connecting $\nabla\psi (x)$ to velocity $v$ coming out as being very large suggesting presence of relativistic effects inside atoms. 

So all this can be seen as a tribute to an Einstein, who never accepted QM in its standard multi-dimensional non-physical form as one of the many paradoxes of modern physics behind the crisis.

Lorentz long before 1905 noted the fact that a wave equation in space-time coordinates $(x,t)$ formally reads the same under a certain simple linear transformation into new coordinates $(x^\prime , t^\prime )$ later named Lorentz transformation LT. Lorentz very carefully remarked that there was no underlying physics for this invariance and that accordingly the new primed coordinates $(x^\prime , t^\prime )$ had no physical meaning as space-time coordinates. 

Einstein as patent clerk in Bern must have met this idea and picked it up to rebrand it as Lorentz invariance now giving the transformed primed coordinates $(x^\prime , t^\prime )$ a physical meaning in direct confrontation with Lorentz, which became the trade mark of SR identified with LT with physicial meaning. 

Relativistic velocities in atoms thus have a doubly questionable physical nature: (i) SE is formally without physics connected to SR by connecting $p=mv$ to $i\nabla$, and (ii) SR is born from Lorentz invariance without physics. 

Special Relativity vs Newton

Continued conversation with chatGPT as expressing the view of many physicists, opens to the following insights (impossible to derive from a discussion with any single real physicist):

• The two basic postulates of SR (1. physical laws and 2. speed of light the same in all inertial systems) contain no real physics open to experimental testing and in particular are not sufficient to derive the Lorentz Transformation LT as expression of Lorentz invariance.
• The Lorentz transformation requires additional assumptions of unclear physical nature. 
• Simply adding LT as a postulate eliminates the role of the two basic postulates and makes SR into a prescription to be followed by observers with no clear connection to a real physics which does not care about time dilation, space contraction and relativistic mass as the core values of SR. This makes SR into a formal card game without physics as discussed in the previous post.

This is the situation facing a modern physicist: 

1. SR as theory without physical content as logical consequence of two basic postulates without physical content.
2. SR as LT as command to observers without clear connection to physics.

The reaction can only be silence: no discussion. This is how Einstein handled the situation by not commenting further on SR after early 1920s. 

The great achievement of Einstein, although counted as negative as concerns his Nobel Prize in 1921, is today viewed to be that he showed that Newton's mechanics is not correct physics and so has to be corrected into Einstein's relativistic mechanics according to SR. In short Newton is not Lorentz invariant. 

But Newton's mechanics is compatible with SR reduced to its basic postulates: Postulate 1 is fulfilled with Galilean invariance and Postulate 2 as well since Newton does not speak about light.

The great thing with chatGPT is that the discussion is open and that chatGPT mostly follows strict logic and when that is forgotten is ready to return.   

The greatest tragedy of modern physics is probably that Newton was dismissed in a modern world still based on Newton. 

Einstein asked: Newton, forgive me. He then speaks for all modern physicists.

Special Relativity as Command Physics

Here is the conclusion of chatGPT after a discussion about Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity SR:  

• SR is closed because it isn’t a theory of physics in the sense of describing processes. It’s a kinematic rule system — compact, rigid, like a card game with set rules. Once learned, there’s nothing left to develop internally.
• Physicists almost never argue about SR itself. It’s treated as settled background structure. 

Let us check it is true that SR is not a theory about physics. We then first inspect the Postulates used by Einstein to derive SR:

• Postulate 1: Laws of physics take the same form in all inertial systems.
• Postulate 2: The speed of light is the same in all inertial systems.

Postulate 1 describes no specific physics. Postulate 1 commands physics to behave in a certain way, which is preposterous. Postulate 2 speaks about speed of light without specification with again a command of invariance. 

We thus cannot find any specific physics in the Postulates of SR, and conclude that SR as the set of logical conclusions from the Postulates, does not describe any specific physics. It is empty of specific physics. If it contains physics it must have been sneaked in outside the Postulates, and that could be anything.

SR appears as a closed theory where there is nothing more to learn. A research proposal to further investigate SR as theory will certainly be turned down. 

We compare with Newton's mechanics and Maxwell's electro-magnetics based on Postulates with physical content like Newton's inverse square law of gravitation and Faraday's and Ampere's laws. These are not closed theories in the same sense as SR and research proposals would not automatically be turned down.

Another sign that SR is like a closed card game: If you try to discuss SR with a physicist you will get no response other than a comment that there is nothing to discuss because everything is settled and the details of the resolutions of the many paradoxes of SR are irrelevant. 

Now the fact is that SR is viewed to be foundational for modern physics with far-reaching consequences in all sorts of applications. But we have seen clear indications that SR is not a theory about real physics, but a closed card game outside real physics. If this is really the truth, then there is much work to be done to free modern physics from a theory commanding physics how to behave (Postulates 1+2), while in true science it is real physics which commands theory.

Of course none of the above is anything a modern physicist would be willing to discuss. Case closed. The crisis of modern physics has nothing to do with SR.

If as layman your are still curious, take a look at Many-Minds Relativity offering an alternative to SR based Postulates with physical meaning, fun to read!

Einstein: God does not play dice.

Bohr: Einstein, don't tell God what to do!

Modern Physics as Strange Physics as Crisis Physics

Modern physics is in a state of crisis, and we conclude from Leibniz' Principle of Sufficient Reason that the crisis must have some background. Modern physics can be described as being strange as compared to classical physics being rational with the shift taking place in the beginning of the 20th century.  

Strangeness was first introduced into modern physics by Einstein in 1905 in his Special Theory of Relativity SR presenting strange effects of time dilation, space contraction and relativistic mass leaving classical physicists aghast from solid experience of Newton's and Maxwell's physics.

Einstein based SR on the following Postulates

• Physical laws take the same form in all inertial coordinate systems.
• The speed of light is the same in all inertial coordinate systems. 

From these two Postulates Einstein derived the Lorentz transformation between space-time coordinates $(x,t)$ and $(x^\prime , t^\prime )$ of two inertial coordinate systems moving with respect to each other. Einstein then derived the strange effects of time dilation, space contraction and relativistic form of Newton's Law with relativistic mass.

To derive the Lorentz transformation (already derived by Lorentz without giving it any physical meaning) Einstein's started considering the following "thought experiment":

• Two light pulses are emitted by two light sources flashing at coordinate $(0,0)$ of two moving inertial systems in which the resulting light pulses are described by $x=t$ and $x^\prime =t^\prime $ in each system.  (TE) 

In this experiment Einstein thought of a "flash" to be an event described by the coordinates $(0,0)$ without any real physics attached to the event. The idea of "event" without physics uniquely described by a space-time coordinate like $(0,0)$ was new as subject of the "thought experiment".

Having formulated TE in his thought, Einstein then argued:

1. The two light pulses are the same light pulse since the "flash event" = $(0,0)$ is the same in both systems.
2. Since the light pulses are the same light pulse, only viewed in two different inertial systems, there must be a relation between the coordinates, which shows to be the Lorentz transformation.     

The key is here 1. Is it correct to conclude that the pulses are the same because the light sources happen to coincide in space when they flash? If they happened to flash at different points nobody would expect them to be the same.

Of course not, if you replace "thought experiment" by physical experiment. A physical flash has duration in space and time in a coordinate system attached to the flashing device. If two flashing devices moving with respects to each other happen to both flash when they meet, it does not mean that they give the same flash and so cannot be connected by a Lorentz transformation.

Einstein's conclusion that the light signals are the same light signal described in two different coordinate systems, is thus without physical meaning. It is then not strange at all that Einstein can derive strange new effects which are "thought effects" and not "physical effects".

A correct conclusion of Einstein's experiment as real experiment can be inspected as Many-Minds Relativity which is not strange at all.

The strangeness of modern physics as root to its crisis was thus introduced by Einstein in SR as a thought experiment without real physics only strange physics. Of course all sorts of "strange thoughts" should be viewed with suspicion in particular in science. A reasonable thought is not strange. Physics must reasonable to exist. The step from black magic to science was taken using reason as guiding principle. There is no reason to go back to strange magic fostered by strange thoughts.

But the strangeness of SR was soon overpowered by General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics into strange physics "nobody understands" according to famous leading modern physicist Richard Feynman.

 

New SI Standard: Why Homage to Einstein?

This is a follow up to the previous post on origins to the present crisis of modern physics going back to (i) Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity SR and (ii) Einstein's heuristic explanation of the law of photoelectricity $K+W=h\nu$ connecting kinetic energy $K$ of ejected electrons modified by $W$ as energy preparing ejection, with the energy $h\nu$ of an incoming photon as a light particle representing a wave with frequency $\nu$ and $h$ is Planck's constant.  

Here (i) introduced the idea of space-time without the classical separation of space as carrier of simultaneous existence and time as change of spatial existence, which had worked so well in Newton's mechanics and Maxwell's electro-magnetics of in particular light. 

In (ii) Einstein stepped away from Maxwell's description of light as an electro-magnetic wave back into Newton's idea of light as a stream of particles, now called photons carrying the energy of a Planck quanta $h\nu$. Very heuristic and very simplistic. In any case (ii) gave Einstein the Nobel Prize in 1921 with a motivation stating that this was despite SR as if that carried negative value. 

After his death 1955 Einstein was lifted to be the icon of modern physics as something wonderful full of mystery and power, although he was considered the be senile already at early scientific life from not understanding quantum mechanics. 

The New SI Standard of 2019 gives homage to Einstein by changing the unit of length scale from meter to lightsecond measured by a clock. The length of a material rod, which can then be used as material reference meter stick, is thus measured by counting the time it takes for a light signal to go from one end to the other and back again using a clock at one end. Spatial distance is so measured by a clock as if time and space have similar nature, in perfect agreement with SR. '

The old standard with a reference meter stick was thus replaced with a new standard, where the length of a reference material meter stick is to be determined by 2-way travel time of light. Nothing wrong with that. Just an easier way to decide reference meter sticks around the world than to go to Paris for calibration.

But the change was a signal that Newton's mechanics was now replaced with Einstein's SR mechanics coming with all sorts of funny effects of time dilation and space contraction worthy of being new and modern. 

But that also made physics very much more complicated than Newton's physics for material reference meter sticks keeping their length under motion with constant speed allowing different observers to easily agree on spatial distances. But in SR different observers moving with different velocities have to measure different lengths and time intervals and agreement requires careful coordination.  

Nevertheless SR insists that an object has a definite unique intrinsic length just as in Newtonian mechanics (and  also a unique rest mass). 

In all cases of practical interest Newtonian mechanics is used, because SR is too narrow and the extension to General Relativity GR is very complicated. 

Newtonian mechanics is thus unchanged under the New SI Standard the only change being specification of a reference length determined by two-way light speed set to a fixed value making the constancy of light speed into a definition and not empiric fact. It is up to experimental testing to see how well this works in practice, if different observers cannot agree to use a common spatial coordinate system as the natural thing to do for directly coordinated observations in which case there is no funny time dilation and space contraction. 

Of course there are issues even using a single common coordinate system, Earth based or fixed star based, when both observers and objects are moving even with high speeds, but they can be sorted out amd then without SR saying nothing in the case of just one common system. 

The New SI Standard is used to sell SR pointing to the fact that duration in time is used to measure length as if space can be traded for time. Further, the constancy of the speed of light as Postulate 2 of SR can now be guaranteed by definition and then sold as empirical evidence of SR. 

If you find reason to be critical to SR as real physics, you will have a hard time convincing a real physicist (or chatGPT collecting the opinion of many real physicists) that something is fishy. In particular you will be confronted with the New SI Standard as evidence that SR is real physics and not just shades of real physics. And of course referring to Einstein as the icon of modern physics, heavily questioned during his life time, but sanctified after. 

The trouble with SR is that Schrödinger's equation as the basic model of Quantum Mechanics QM, is non-relativistic/incompatible with SR and that Dirac's equations claimed to be a relativistic form is very difficult to use for atoms. Newtonian mechanics is perfectly compatible with Schrödinger's equation and Maxwell's equation together forming a Unified Field Model, which Einstein tried to formulate the second half of his life but failed to find because he was too heavily invested in SR and GR, 

    

Crisis of Modern Physics: Split Realism vs Formalism

The crisis of modern physics witnessed by many manifests itself in a split between academic departments:

• Physics: Instrumentalism/formalism/epistemology (what we can say).
• Philosophy: Realism (what is).

A realist philosopher is not welcome at a physics department, and what would an instrumentalist physicist do at a philosophy department?

A split between physics and philosophy of physics indicates that something is fundamentally wrong, and that comes out as a crisis. What is then fundamentally wrong?

Let us search the root of trouble in the formation of modern physics in the beginning of the 20th century in the new fields of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity SR and Quantum Mechanics QM. 

Both SR and QM express instrumentalism and formalism as being focussed on measurement assuming a certain formal structure (Lorentz invariance and Hilbert space structure) where the real nature of physics is left open because it is believed to be hidden to inspection. The focus is thus on epistemology as what a physicist can measure and report (to motivate public funding). This is the physics performed at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva. Very expensive with real physics hidden in a blip on a screen. 

But the question of what physics is as ontology of reality remains, and paradoxically that is what philosophers of physics outside physics departments focus on (Reichenbach, Bell, Maudlin, Brown).  

So is there any hope to get out of the crisis by joining departments of physics and philosophy of physics into one?

Can SR and QM be reformulated into theories about reality, which start from real physics instead of formalism? 

Any theory about reality must start from some fundamental reality expressed in Postulates of the theory. If the Postulates carry no physics, a theory based on the Postulates using logic cannot carry any physics. 

The Postulates of SR are 

1. Physical laws are Lorentz invariant.
2. Speed of light is to be measured by physicists according to SI standard to give exactly the value 299,792,458 metres per second.
   

We see that the Postulates of SR are like commands to be followed by physicists but say nothing precise about any physics. Therefore SR does not say anything about physics, unless physics somehow is added to the Postulates. And that is what Einstein did by using a "thought experiment" to conclude that two light signals viewed by two observers in fact are the same and so must connect by a Lorentz transformation. But the conclusion of the same had no physical basis and so was picked from the sky suddenly adding physics to the Postulates, but then physics without reality. 

The Postulates of QM were formalised by the mathematician von Neumann into a set of abstract axioms:

1. State space: A system corresponds to a Hilbert space. States are rays (or density operators) in it.
2. Observables: Physical quantities are self-adjoint operators on the Hilbert space.
3. Measurements: Outcomes are eigenvalues; probabilities are given by the Born rule.
4. Dynamics: Time evolution is unitary, governed by the Schrödinger equation.

We see that 1-3 are like commands to quantum physicists, without concern to real physics. Von Neumann did this during the heydays of Hilbert's formalism in the 1930s, which however soon died because of Gödel.

Altogether, we see that SR and QM are not realist theories starting from what is as ontology, but have clear qualities of formalism/epistemology as what we can say. The trouble with formalism is that there is no reality to decide and so the discussion can continue forever like in medieval scholastics. 

My contributions to a realist restart are: 

• Many-Minds Relativity MMR 
• Real Quantum Mechanics RealQM

MMR starts from a reality where different observers use different coordinate systems and seeks what agreement can reached. 

RealQM starts from a classical realist continuum model of systems of charge densities in shared 3d Euclidean space interacting by Coulomb potentials as a new type of Schrödinger equation. 

Both MMR and RealQM represent realism as what is and so express unification of physics and philosophy of physics.  

Here are three steps to formalism away from realism:

• Planck introduces smallest quanta $h\nu$ in 1900.
• Einstein introduces photon as quanta of light $h\nu$ in 1905.
• Heisenberg introduces QM as matrix mechanics in 1925.

In 1927 Schrödinger left QM because realism or "Anschaulichkeit" was lacking. Schrödinger's equation for the Hydrogen atom is a realist model, but for atoms with more than one electron it is a formalist model without physics. 

The development in mathematics was the opposite with constructive computational mathematics taking over when Hilbert's formalism collapsed in the 1930s. RealQM and MMR follows the constructive path.

 

Atmosphere as Air Conditioner Keeping Earth Temperature Constant

My journey into climate science started in 2010 with this analysis of black body radiation leading to an analysis of the atmosphere of the Earth as a form of air conditioner keeping the Earth surface mean temperature stable under varying mean heating from the Sun. My work was published as two chapters of the (ground-breaking) book Slaying the Sky Dragon - Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory:

• Computational Blackbody Radiation
• Basic Thermodynamics of the Atmosphere.

The basic idea is that incoming energy to the Earth surface at 288 K of about 160 W/m2 from the Sun is transported to the mid troposphere at an altitude of 5 Km at 255 K by a combination of H20 thermodynamics with phase change (evaporation/condensation) with a minor contribution of radiation, for radiation to outer space at 0 K. The variation of incoming energy to the surface can depend on varying cloud cover. This is the scenario in tropical zones receiving most of the energy with sunny mornings followed by thunderstorms in the afternoon.

An increase of incoming energy to the surface is counterbalanced by more intense H2O thermodynamics keeping temperatures constant. Radiation then takes a passive role as constant under constant temperature. 

This is like an air conditioner keeping a stable room temperature of 15 C with constant outside temperature 0 C under variable interior heating of the room e g depending of number of people in the room. 

It also connects to boiling of water on a stove keeping a stable boiling temperature of 100 C under varying energy input from the stove, with more vigorous boiling with phase change responding to increasing input.  

The Sky Dragon analysis above from 2010 was written after a very quick introduction to the so called Greenhouse Effect, but I think it captures aspects valid also today. 

Tropical climate: Raising hot humid air in the morning releasing heat to the atmosphere by condensation effectively transporting  heat energy from surface to atmosphere as a cooling air conditioner.

Boiling water kept at 100 C under heating from stove by evaporation.

The simplest model consists of heat conduction through a wall of thickness 1 with heat conductivity $\kappa $ and temperature $T(x)$ varying linearly from $T_0=1$ at $x=0$ and $T_1=0$ at $x=1$ with heat flux $Q=\kappa \frac{dT}{dx}=\kappa$. Increasing $Q$ is balanced by increase of $\kappa$ without changing $T(x)$ an increase of more vigorous thermodynamics or boiling.