[Physics] Why is a new beginning in physics necessary? *

[Ilja Schmelzer]

2016-12-13 14:23 GMT+01:00, Arend Lammertink <lamare at gmail.com>:
> On Sat, Dec 10, 2016 at 8:49 PM, Ilja Schmelzer
> Exactly.  Any new theory should at least predict the observations
> being made equally well as the existing theories.

>> Similarly, I think that those who do not know the SM have no starting
>> point for future development of physics.
>>
>
> I would say one does not necessarily need to understand the whole SM,
> but one does need to understand it's basic assumptions, it's "starting
> point".

Not clear enough.  Of course, I don't have to be able to compute the
experimental
results myself (all those scattering amplitudes and so on).

But I have to be able to recover, in some limit or some approximation,
the whole
theory.  Which includes/requires such things as the recovery of the
equations.  So,
to recover only some verbal ideas is far from being sufficient.

> For Quantum Mechanics, this "starting point" is Young's dual slit
> experiment, which established the wave-particle duality principle. So,
> if you understand that experiment and can find a better, more
> satisfactory explanation for that single experiment, you can in fact
> come to new foundation for Particle Physics, without having to
> understand or consider the whole particle model that has been
> developed upon the assumption that the currently accepted explanation
> for Young's experiment is correct.

Of course, if your point is to recover quantum mechanics, you don't have
to care about the details of particle theory, or QFT, which is only
one particular
example of a quantum theory.

But you have to recover all the mathematics of quantum theory.
That means wave functions, Schroedinger equations, operators to describe
probabilities of measurement results.  So, some diffuse verbal "understanding"
of some particular experiment is not sufficient.

> So, if you come up with a better explanation for Young's experiment,
> this should naturally extend all the way along the path particle
> physics has followed in it's considerations.

It may naturally extend, or not.  So you have to show, explicitly, that
it does.  A vague hope that it extends does not count.

> 2) There is sufficient experimental data available, which strongly
> suggests longitudinal dielectric waves are possible, and theoretical
> consideration suggest these would propagate at a speed of sqrt(3)
> times c.

This is a point were I prefer silence, simply because I'm not an
experimenter.  Note that the mainstream does not agree.  And the
mainstream claims that with the Maxwell equations everything is fine.

Not that I would think that it is completely impossible that the mainstream
fakes experimental evidence and suppresses outsiders in this domain too.
But I leave this to experimenters in this domain.  And, for my own research,
which is purely theoretical, I simply assume that what the mainstream claims
about experimental support for its theories is fine.

As the zero hypothesis.  Everything else needs additional confirmation.

> So, if option 2) is correct and we can develop a theory with which we
> can describe Young's experiment adequately by considering both
> longitudinal and transverse wave types to be present, then we should
> be able to reconsider the "wave function" currently used in particle
> physics and thus integrate the newly found knowledge in the standard
> particle physics model.
>
> In that case, however, we must also be able to explain at least
> Aspect's experiment, or at least be able to establish that Aspect's
> experiment is in fact inconclusive. So, that's what I did, too:
>
> http://www.tuks.nl/wiki/index.php/Main/QuestioningQuantumMechanics

Note that adding longitudinal waves to QFT, which can be done simply by
adding a small mass to the photon, would not change anything in the derivation
of the Bell inequalities.

> Let us first note that this model fundamentally describes a
> compressible aether, since each cell can move, rotate and stretch in
> different directions. However, this model also allows for "gauge
> freedom" and based on that freedom, one can define the plethora of
> imaginary fields currently used in the standard model in an attempt to
> re-connect the statistical and imaginary "wave function", needed to
> explain Young's experiment, to a base in physicality.

No.  The ether model and its connection with the fields of the standard
model of particle physics is not at all an attempt to explain or modify
quantum theory.   It takes quantum theory as it is, in agreement with
its minimal (Copenhagen) interpretation.

> However, i would argue that when you start out with an aetheric base,
> modeled as a lattice of elementary cells, whereby all parameters of
> each individual cell are deterministic, one does something wrong when
> one arrives at the conclusion that such a model exhibits "gauge"
> freedom.

You obtain gauge freedom in a natural way if your abilities to observe
reality is somehow restricted.

In my approach the "gauge freedom" is not a real freedom, the gauge
follows some natural equations of motion and is as well-defined in reality
as everything else.

We simply have restricted possibilities to check, by experiments,
how these gauge "degrees of freedom" really behave.  Such a human
inability to observe something which is really defined, by the fundamental
equation which we can only guess, is not problematic at all.

> In other words: IMHO a realistic and consistent aether theory should
> *not* exhibit gauge freedom.

In some sense, I agree and my theory is in agreement with this.

But the requirement to recover, in some approximation, the gauge
theories used today in the SM remains.

This is not that difficult.  If your theory does not have some symmetry,
so what?   An approximation can have a much greater symmetry.  Because
an approximation is also a simplification, and can throw away what
distinguishes some really different configurations, making these configurations
somehow symmetric.

In my ether theory, the gauge symmetry appears not on the lattice level.
It appears only in the large distance limit, where one can no longer see
the particular lattice and its distortions.