Relativity and Quantum Theory - How to Fit Them Together

Many people take the view that quantum theory is somehow weird or impossible, and why do they do this? Because the theory predicts that sometimes a particle will act like it's a wave, or conversely, a wave will act like a particle. This would seem to be a good reason to think of it as a weird theory. That is, until we look a bit closer at what is going on.

By the way, we should get rid of the unfortunate inference that people sometimes draw from the apparent weirdness of quantum theory: that because it is a bit strange, it is somehow all right to associate it with any weird speculation you feel like having. Before you know it, you have imported all kinds of stuff which properly belongs in the fairground or the travelling show.

Anyway, to summarise the situation of physics, or at least to try in a few words, we are used to the idea of energy travelling from one place to another as a wave form. Anyone who has been to the seaside will know about this. The energy of the sea is transmitted as waves. And what are they waves of? Why, of water, naturally. The water is what scientists call the medium of the waves. The waves cannot exist independently. This is important. To talk of a wave without it being a wave "of" something, is like asking what has happened to my fist when I open up my hand. Or, what is the sound of one hand clapping?

A long time ago, scientists found that light and heat and other forms of energy, like radio waves, exhibited wave-like properties. Or, in other words, properties that were best explained by thinking of them as waves. These forms of energy are called electromagnetic radiation. But they asked, what is the medium of these waves? The waves of the sea wave in water, sound is a wave in air, so...?

They came up with a substance called the "ether", a mysterious substance more subtle even than air, which necessarily had to exist even in a vacuum (to carry light waves across space). They tried for years to detect the ether, without success. But the ether HAD to exist, or what could the waves exist in?

Finally the famous experiment of Michelson and Morley proved beyond any doubt that the ether did not exist. A crisis ensued in the scientific community until Einstein, inspired in part by Michelson-Morley, published his theory of relativity. However, this in some ways made the crisis even worse. At around the same time, the quantum theory was being developed, which showed that electromagnetic radiation consisted of quanta, or bundles of energy, which in a way corresponded to the peaks and troughs of the waves, but instead of being continuous like waves, they were discrete (separate). In fact, in some situations, the behaviour of these quanta of energy was almost like that of particles.

Obviously this was a problem. How could energy be, at the same time, a wave AND a particle?

But it got worse. Some particles of matter were discovered that behaved exactly like energy bundles, and vice versa. Among the many problems this caused was that relativity predicted that matter cannot travel at the speed of light. But if you have a particle that behaves like it is light, you have a contradiction.

I've over-simplified this a lot, of course (because I don't really feel up to writing an entire book tonight) but essentially this is how it was. The two theories, relativity theory and quantum theory, while both true and complete universal theories, nevertheless contradict each other. Einstein, who had worked on the development of both of them, dreamed that one day they would be reconciled in a single Unified Theory, and he hoped to find it, but he never did.

Now to come to my point in writing this. Many people have become confused by experiments like the Double-Slit experiment (in a well-known film) into believing that the observer somehow has an influence on the outcome. This has led many to believe that all you need to do is wish for it, and you will have gold beyond your wildest dreams of avarice. They are encouraged by reports (for example, in this very blog right here) of Schrodinger's unfortunate Cat, where the observer decides the cat's fate.

These people are taking it all too simplistically. It just does not work like this. The true reason for the contradiction is much more to do with the inadequacy of the models, than with the observer choosing what they want to happen. Note well that Schrodinger, when he opens the box, is a necessary part of the experiment, but he does not CAUSE the cat to die or live.

Those who have read Hegel (maybe not many people, I suppose) will perhaps recognise in the opposition of the two theories the workings of the Dialectic, that mysterious truth of metaphysics, which inevitably will lead to the higher Synthesis in the course of time.

In the meantime, it's probably best to be patient, and ever so slightly sceptical, and to allow that, as yet, however it may seem, we actually know very little about the universe.

"It is better to confess you know nothing than to pretend you know everything."

No, I Haven't Lost It

I've been involved in a discussion about the law of attraction! Have I taken leave of my senses? Well maybe not quite yet. Let me tell you how it all started...

I did a post on this blog a little while ago called More Lives Than a Cat, which was a follow-up to an earlier post, The Doomsday Device. These two posts were intended to be an opportunity for me to examine some of the aspects of quantum theory and the scientific inferences and thought-experiments that arise from the theory.

Much of it was pretty weird, though it was, and this is the point, a scientific look at quantum theory. It isn't long before you find yourself talking about the role of the observer, and things like consciousness.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I noticed that the Adsense near the post had switched to an ad for quantum theory law of attraction. I was intrigued by this. So I went on to Blog Catalog and asked a general question about it. The discussion that came out of it was rather fascinating.

I still can't understand how anyone can say that quantum theory and law of attraction are in any way connected (it's a bit like saying that weather forecasting and fortune telling are connected) but the discussion gave me some ideas, which in turn led to some insights, which I'll tell you about in the next post. The insights are about science (not fortune telling!), or rather, about the philosophy of science.

More Lives Than A Cat? The Quantum Theory of Life

I was just reading about some things to do with quantum theory. The theory is way beyond my comprehension, but it gives rise to some interesting speculations and thought experiments, and those I CAN understand.

One of the thought experiments is about multi-dimensional universes. This is based on the idea of Schrodinger's Cat (see the Doomsday Device post). We say that the actual status of the cat is fixed by the observer, in other words, the consciousness of the observer CREATES the status of the cat. In a similar way, as you go through your day, your year, your life, you meet thousands and thousands of instances of having to make a choice. Do I go upstairs or downstairs? Do I take this job or stay in my old one? You have to decide which way to go, and whatever you decide, your consciousness follows the consequences of that decision.

It's a bit like the camera in a movie. Your consciousness, in a sense, CREATES the reality of what you see and experience. The other possible consequence is made to be non-existent because your consciousness has not followed it, has not MADE IT REAL. Up until the time when you make that choice, both of these separate realities have an equal chance of being real. They both have a probability existence, like the cat before you open the box. This gives rise to the idea of an infinite number of universes, branching off from each other, each one coming into existence each second or each millisecond as your consciousness makes the choice to observe it.

The idea of the Doomsday Device brings up another interesting idea. The Doomsday Device experiment tells us that the outcome which leads to no consciousness of any event just cannot happen, it would be impossible. This seems to indicate that there can be no such thing as death, at least as we understand it in its usual sense, because it would cause a PARADOX of having to be conscious of not being conscious, or being aware of having no awareness. So the logical conclusion is that, however things may appear to be, we are immortal, since every outcome of every branching probability is one which leads to conscious awareness. To life, in other words.

But how can this be, since we see and hear of death happening every day? Some have speculated that the event that we call death is the beginning of the event we call birth. They argue that your consciousness at the time of "death" immediately begins to have the experience of birth, and so life continues without a break. If you think this sounds a bit weird, just compare it with the paradox in the previous paragraph.

Some speculations come from this idea. What kind of life would this new one be? Some would speculate that it is the same life as before, but with the capacity to differ from the former one because consciousness may make different decisions at certain points, thus creating an entire different universe of experience. One can visualize this repeating itself endlessly over an infinite time, so that your consciousness eventually experiences everything possible. Under this model of the universe, or Universe of universes, life would not be dull.

Credit must here go to Nietzsche, who was probably the first to speculate on the idea of a cyclic model of conscious existence. But Nietzsche did not have the predictions of quantum theory at his disposal, so the best he could come up with was to say that when you repeated your lives over and over again eternally, each one was EXACTLY the same as all the others. A bleak prospect, and one that would indeed be dull.

A consequence of the consciousness-chooses-life philosophy is that, since you are immortal, it follows that you need have no fear. One imagines that if the idea became a widespread belief, there would be even more people taking up sports like sky-diving or drag-racing than there are at present.