John Bell in Memoriam: QM is a Dirty Theory

The book The Ghost in the Atom by Davies and Brown presents conversations with prominent physicists about The Mysteries of Quantum Physics. John Bell expresses the following views closely connecting to RealQM and Many-Minds Relativity MMR:

• Behind the apparent Lorentz invariance of the phenomena, there is a deeper level which is not Lorentz invariant.
• The idea that there is an aether (or many in MMR) is a perfectly coherent point of view. I think that the idea of the aether should be taught to students as a pedagogical device, because I find that there are lots of problems which are solved more easily by imagining the existence of an aether.
• One wants to be able to take a realistic view of the world, to talk about the world as if it is really there, even when it is not being observed. I do find it helpful, the idea that there is a real world there, and that our business is to try to find out about it, and that the technique for doing that is indeed to make models and to see how far we can go with them in accounting for the real world.
• I do believe there will be theories that are better than the ones we have, in that they describe more of the universe and connect more of it up.
• I think it is very probable that the solution to our problems will come through the back door; some person who is not addressing himself to these difficulties with which I am concerned will probably see the light. 
• An analogy that I like is that of the fly buzzing against a window when the door is open. It can be extremely useful to stand back from your problems and just wander about for a time, and it is quite possible that those of us who are somewhat fixated on these questions will not be those who see the way through.
• When I look at quantum mechanics I see that it's a dirty theory. The formulations of quantum mechanics that you find in the books involve dividing the world into an observer and an observed, and you are not told where that division comes. So you have a theory which is fundamentally ambiguous, but where the ambiguity involves decimal places remote from human abilities to test.

The sad reality is that John Bell is no longer real to serve as a voice of reason. But his thoughts are alive!

Stong Force Not Needed to Hold Nucleus Together

New popular science article on RealQM GitHub Gallery 

• Can electricity alone hold a nucleus together?

with affirmative answer. Read and comment! To get input check out RealQM Gallery.

To get perspective read: 

• The Defeat of Reason by Tim Maudlin Boston Review 2018
• What is Real by Adam Becker

RealQM is real. Who will make Boston Review aware of my article as follow up? I cannot suggest myself. Maudlin?

See also next post John Bell in Memoriam.

Proton-Electron Cosmology: Big from Small

RealQM opens a new perspective on large scale cosmology which is now further developed into the following scenario see also Gallery: 

1. Gravitational and electric potentials in 3D Euclidean space together get a small-scale fluctuation as primal seed.
2. By the inflating action of the Laplacian on small scales this generates a large small scale variation into positive and negative mass. Combined with a variation into positive and negative unit charge assumed to act only over positive mass with positive charge combining with large positive mass and negative charge combining with a small positive mass residual into net zero charge, this sets the stage on small scales.
3. The result is a small scale variation into positive and negative mass accompanied by a variation over positive mass into positive charge with large positive mass (protons) and negative charge combined with small positive mass (electrons). 
4. The small variation in mass with gravitational repulsion between mass of different sign generates large scale structures of positive mass (our Universe) against a background of negative mass without charge acting like dark energy, with a remaining small scale variation of charge over positive mass.  
5. This represents a universe created from a small scale fluctuation of gravitational and electric potentials over Euclidean 3D space, with an asymmetry created by letting only positive mass be attributed with varying charge, and negative mass supplying dark energy. 

If you take this seriously you will find a model which combines large scale gravitational structure with small scale atomic structure created from small scale fluctuations of gravitational and electric potential, thus something Big created from something Small, which is the only realistic possibility as concerns creation and as such is a form of miracle. 

On the other hand to create something Big from something possibly even Bigger, like in a Big Bang BB connects to triviality.   

Do you find that the above is pretentious? To attempt to say anything about cosmology? Yes, of course, but after all what could be the ingredients, other than gravitational and electric potentials in 3D space? Any idea? 

Big Bang is the standard answer, evidenced by in particular the perfect blackbody spectrum of CMB as  remnant of BB, but with the caveat that a perfect blackbody spectrum necessarily is man-made. 

RealQM vs DFT for Protein Folding

When presenting RealQM for publication in a computational/quantum chemistry journal I meet the argument that RealQM cannot compete with the superb accuracy of StdQM such as DFT developed over long time in million line codes demanding massive computational work on large clusters. It does not seem to matter that RealQM can compute the same thing in minutes on a laptop at maybe a bit lower accuracy. 

But computational work sets the real limit rather than accuracy. Here is a comparison of RealQM and DFT for protein folding: RealQM possible, DFT impossible. See Gallery: protein folding.

   

Electron-Proton Cosmology

It is possible to envision a Universe initiated by two Poisson equations: One for a gravitational potential with source consisting of fluctuation of mass into positive and negative, and another for an electric potential with source consisting of a fluctuation of charge into positive and negative.  The gravitational potential creates an attraction between mass of same sign and repulsion between mass of opposite sign, while the electric potential creates repulsion between charges of same sign and attraction between same charge. The result is large scale separation into regions of mass of same sign, combined with small scale charge with variable sign as protons and electrons. 

Most protons and electrons combine to form Hydrogen atoms with 1 proton as nucleus surrounded by a negative charge density as an electron. The remaining protons and electrons combine into deuteron nucleus D as 2 protons surrounding a small scale electron as core, leaving half of the electrons to combine with D to form 2H as deutron surrounded by large scale electron. 

The electrons not combined with proton to form H, thus split into two groups of equal number: small electrons inside D put there at high temperature and large electrons outside D at low temperature.

This is presented in more detail on Proton-Electron Cosmology. 

No Schrödinger Equation for the Nucleus

For the atom, the Schrödinger Equation is known: write down $Z$, let the electrons interact by Coulomb, and out come the orbitals, the periodic table, the spectra — fixed by a law, nothing to fit. The atom is the solution to the equation.

For the nucleus, there is no such equation. You can write $H\Psi=E\Psi$, but the nuclear force has no closed form — only fitted potentials, each a different model, none canonical. There's no central potential either (the nucleus is self-bound), so no  orbitals fall out — just a patchwork of effective models. And underneath it all isn't a Schrödinger problem at all, but QCD: nucleons and their "force" are merely emergent. For modern physicists asking for big money to a new accelerator to explore the nucleus, this is troublesome and root cause to the present crisis of particle physics. 

• Atom: fundamental equation known, but hard to solve.
• Nucleus: no fundamental equation known, nothing canonical to even attempt to solve. 

RealQM offers a Schrödinger equation for the atom/molecule computable on a laptop and RealNucleus offers a Schrödinger of similar form for the nucleus. Can that be of help to solve the crisis?

Popular Science Article: One World, Two Forces, All Scales = Real ToE

Here is a presentation of A Real Theory of Everything in a style of popular science with basic ideas but without mathematical formulas and codes. Take a look and give a comment. For details see ToE page and Gallery. 

RealNucleus submitted to Physics Essays: Standard Model Shaking?

The article Real Nucleus: Nuclear Binding as Dual Confinement without Strong and Weak Force to Physics Essays. The article shows that existence, binding energies and chemical reactions of atomic nuclei can be explained by Coulomb force between protons and electrons, thus without any reference to strong and weak nuclear forces.

The strong force was introduced to explain the existence of nuclei consisting of protons and neutrons by preventing collapse by proton repulsion, which is viewed to be impossible by the presence of neutral neutrons. 

If Coulomb is enough to explain existence of nuclei, then the main role for the strong force vanishes and the question arises if the strong force has any role at all, a question which carries over to the Standard Model with the strong force as fundamental pillar.   

RealNucleus postulates a nucleus to consist in basic form of a core/inner shell system of Z electrons surrounded by an outer shell system of 2Z protons with electrons and protons as non-overlapping unit charge densities of opposite signs but equal mass, interacting ting by Coulomb potentials. 

The mathematical model is thus exactly specified as well as the computation showing binding with energy in accordance with observations. The mathematics is thus fully clear and transparent. What can be questioned is the model as non-overlapping charges densities interacting by Coulomb potentials. But if this is indeed how real physics behaves (and why not?), then the Standard Model is shaking.

History Summary:

1. The nucleus discovered (1911–1919)
-Rutherford nuclear atom — α-scattering reveals a tiny massive charged core. E. Rutherford, "The Scattering of α and β Particles by Matter and the Structure of the Atom," Phil. Mag. 21, 669 (1911).

- The proton — disintegration of nitrogen yields hydrogen nuclei. E. Rutherford, Phil. Mag. 37, 581 (1919).

2. The proton–electron model (≈1920–1932)
The nucleus taken as A protons + (A−Z) electrons (charge Z, mass A). The reigning view through the 1920s — this is the historical picture RealNucleus revives. It foundered on three problems: the nitrogen spin–statistics anomaly, the uncertainty-principle confinement objection (an electron in ~fm gives momenta far above β energies), and nuclear magnetic moments of nuclear- not Bohr-magneton scale.

- Background and the model's difficulties are laid out in the era's review: H. A. Bethe & R. F. Bacher, "Nuclear Physics A: Stationary States of Nuclei," Rev. Mod. Phys. 8, 82 (1936) ("Bethe's Bible").

3. The neutron and the proton–neutron model (1932)
- Neutron discovered. J. Chadwick, Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A 136, 692 (1932). [already cited]

- Neutron as elementary constituent. D. Iwanenko, "The Neutron Hypothesis," Nature 129, 798 (1932).
- Proton–neutron model with exchange forces / isospin — the foundation of all modern structure theory. W. Heisenberg, "Über den Bau der Atomkerne. I," Z. Phys. 77, 1 (1932) (and parts II, III).

4. The two new forces (1934–1935)
- Weak interaction / β-decay theory — directly relevant to your new §6.3. E. Fermi, "Versuch einer Theorie der β-Strahlen. I," Z. Phys. 88, 161 (1934).

- Strong force / meson exchange. H. Yukawa, Proc. Phys.-Math. Soc. Japan 17, 48 (1935). [already cited]

5. The liquid-drop model (1928–1939)
Nucleus as an incompressible charged droplet — explains binding-energy systematics, fission.
- α-decay tunnelling (droplet precursor). G. Gamow, "Zur Quantentheorie des Atomkernes," Z. Phys. 51, 204 (1928).
- Semi-empirical mass formula. C. F. von Weizsäcker, "Zur Theorie der Kernmassen," Z. Phys. 96, 431 (1935).
- Fission. N. Bohr & J. A. Wheeler, "The Mechanism of Nuclear Fission," Phys. Rev. 56, 426 (1939).

6. The α-cluster model (1937–1938)
Nuclei built from α sub-units — the structural cousin you cite.
- J. A. Wheeler, "Molecular Viewpoints in Nuclear Structure," Phys. Rev. 52, 1083 (1937) (resonating-group).
- L. R. Hafstad & E. Teller, Phys. Rev. 54, 681 (1938). [already cited]

7. The shell model (1949)
Independent nucleons in a mean field + spin–orbit coupling; explains magic numbers. (Nobel 1963.)

- M. Goeppert Mayer, "On Closed Shells in Nuclei. II," Phys. Rev. 75, 1969 (1949).
- O. Haxel, J. H. D. Jensen, H. E. Suess, Phys. Rev. 75, 1766 (1949).

8. Collective and unified models (1950s–1970s)
- Collective (rotations/vibrations) unifying drop + shell. A. Bohr & B. R. Mottelson, Nuclear Structure, Vols. I (1969) & II (1975), Benjamin.
- Interacting Boson Model. A. Arima & F. Iachello, Phys. Rev. Lett. 35, 1069 (1975).

9. The QCD era and ab-initio nuclear theory (1990s–present)
Strong force as residual QCD; nucleons from quarks/gluons; predictive ab initio structure.
- Chiral effective field theory. S. Weinberg, Phys. Lett. B 251, 288 (1990); review E. Epelbaum, H.-W. Hammer, U.-G. Meißner, Rev. Mod. Phys. 81, 1773 (2009).
- Ab-initio methods (your natural benchmarks): GFMC — S. C. Pieper & R. B. Wiringa, Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 51, 53 (2001); no-core shell model — B. R. Barrett, P. Navrátil, J. P. Vary, Prog. Part. Nucl. Phys. 69, 131 (2013).

The through-line for your paper: the nucleus has been modelled as (proton+electron) → (proton+neutron) → droplet →α-clusters → shells → collective → QCD/ab-initio — and RealNucleus deliberately returns to stage 2, but recast as equal-mass Coulomb charge clouds, asking the same Coulomb packing to do the work the strong and weak forces were introduced for.

Is the Strong Nuclear Force Really Needed?

• For ninety years it has been a fixed point of physics that the atomic nucleus cannot be held together by electromagnetism. 
• The protons are all positively charged and repel; something else, a short-range strong force — mesons in Yukawa’s formulation, residual QCD today — must overcome that
• repulsion. 
• This force is one of the four fundamental interactions, and the whole of nuclear physicssince Chadwick’s neutron in 1932 rests on it. 
• To propose that a nucleus is bound by Coulomb forces alone, with no strong force at all, therefore looks not merely wrong but impossible: it is the textbook reason the strong force had to be invented

This is the intro to a new article extending RealQM from atoms to nuclei of atoms as RealNucleus showing that Coulomb forces suffice to keep a nucleus together.  This is realized by dual confinement between a core shell system of electrons surrounded by a shell system of protons, where the electrons keep the protons together, and the protons form a cage for the electrons. 

I agree with you that this seems impossible. That the strong force can be eliminated from a discussion about atomic nuclei? Yet this what mathematics shows to be true: Stable nuclei can form under only Coulomb potentials. There are are only two fundamental forces: Newton and Coulomb!

Take a look at the article and test the code realizing the math.

Help: How to understand that dual confinement between electrons and protons is possible? Start with H as 1 proton surrounded by 1 electron. Recall that the ion H- with an additional electron is a stable configuration. Conclude that 1p can bind 2e. Now switch roles of protons and electrons and conclude that 1e as core can bind 2p around. Generalize to the idea that Z electrons as core can bind 2Z protons around and so conclude that one part of the dual confinement may be possible. What remains is to see that the 2Z protons as a shell system surrounding a core of electrons can act as a form of cage keeping the electrons together despite mutual repulsion. Thus what seems like a miracle may not be miraculous.

A Real Theory of Everything — run it in your browser

• I've put up a single site tying together the last two volumes of Applied Mathematics: Body and Soul.
• The thesis is simple: physics as deterministic continuum mechanics in real 3D space, solved at finite precision — the precision Nature and any computer actually have. 
• Two scales, one mechanics: Large scale: Navier–Stokes with gravitation. The 2nd Law becomes real turbulent dissipation D ≥ 0 — no entropy, no statistics. 
• Atomic scale: a real Schrödinger equation for non-overlapping charge densities on physical 3D space — not a probability wave in 3N dimensions. 
• Two fundamental forces — gravitational (Newton) and electric (Coulomb/Maxwell) — and nothing else. This is where GR and QM stop being incompatible: both are Poisson potentials of one continuum mechanics in 3 space dimensions. 
• Every result is a self-contained browser simulation — Joule expansion, turbulence, cosmology, atoms, molecules, the periodic table. No installation. Open it and watch. 

PS Springer has rejected publication of the book Real Quantum Mechanics as Vol 6 in the Springer Body and Soul Applied Mathematics series, likewise Real Thermodynamics as Vol 5. Responsible editor Martin Peters, who edited Vol 1-4, refused to supply any motivation for the rejection against principles of open scientific discussion.  An article submitted to Springers Foundations of Physics met the same reception: No motivation, simply flat rejection. Is this the new norm in scientific publishing? Is it possible to reject a ms without any reason at all? Or by a reason that must be covered up? Is not only theoretical physics in a state of crisis, but also scientific publishing?