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SUPERPOSITION
AGAIN
by
Miles Mathis
First
posted April 15, 2009
I
recently received a question from a reader, concerning my
superposition
paper:
I've
studied your paper (on superposition) and it made sense to me.
However, there are other cases of superposition that are
available that do not require measurement of x,y spins of
electrons. For example this video at youtube* shows a well-known
experiment of superposition using beam-splitters and mirrors.
Although I'm personally skeptical of "same particle in
multiple places at the same time" argument, I'm struggling
to come up with a better explanation. So here is my question: how
would you explain this particular superposition experiment? Is it
really the same photon in multiple places?
What
this reader is talking about is an experiment where a light beam
is split, mirrored symmetrically, then split again (see diagram
above). Detectors are set up at the second split, and we have
another big and spooky “mystery”. The magicians at youtube
claim this is because the same photon goes both paths and
interferes with itself.
This is a similar question to the
one I solved in the first paper, but here the magicians vary the
setup to fool the audience. When I say “magicians” I am not
just being sardonic. This really is a case of prestidigitation,
like a shell game. The fake physicists misdirect your eye, and by
the end of it you can't say where the photon is or why it is
there. Just as almost no one, no matter how smart they are, can
tell what the trick is in a good magic trick, almost no one can
sort through all the misdirection and fast talk of the current
superposition patter.
First of all, to solve this, we
don't have to “measure” spins of electrons or photons. We
just have to give
the particles wavelengths, and
the standard model already does this. The magicians at youtube do
this, and they even try to prove double existence by manipulating
wavelengths (in a very sloppy manner). But they don't define the
wavelengths carefully enough. This forces them to solve the
problem by proposing the impossible. It does not bother them to
propose the impossible: in fact, they enjoy being magicians. They
enjoy performing miracles and dumbfounding the audience.
But
let's solve it with mechanics instead. We know that the first
beam splitter S1 splits 50/50, since if we move the detectors up
to S1, the detectors tell us this directly. The second splitter
S2 is exactly like the first, so we should expect the detectors
at the end to give us the same 50/50 split (we are told). Instead
we find all the photons at D2. Big mystery.
At youtube
they explain it in this way. If we fire the photons one at a
time, the photon takes both paths and interferes with itself,
keeping it from reaching D1. The problem with this answer is not
just that the same photon travels both paths, although you would
think that would be enough to disqualify the answer. The other
problem is that if the single photon has interfered with itself,
how does it reach D2? We have a detection at D2, remember? The
standard answer is that the interference only happens with the
half of the photons that pass straight through the splitter on
path B. The half that are split are turned directly into D2.
So, if a photon on path B passes straight through S2, it
interferes with itself, and doesn't go to D1. If a photon on path
B is turned, it doesn't need to interfere with itself, and it
goes to D2. If a photon on path A is going to be turned at S2, it
interferes with itself and does not go to D1. If it goes straight
through S2, it does not interfere with itself, and goes into D2.
That is the magic answer.
Not only is that answer much
more complex than it needs to be, it is contradictory. Along path
A, the interference takes place on the near side of the splitter.
The photon on the A path does not go straight through the
splitter: it waits for its twin to go through the splitter on
path B, and only then is the interference completed. But if the
photon is moving on path B, it goes through the splitter and then
interferes with itself. The interference takes place on the A
side of the
splitter both times. Not only are the paths not symmetrical,
there is no way to explain how the photons know whether they are
the primary photons or the twins. In other words, the youtube
magicians haven't explained why the interference always takes
place on the A side of S2. Why doesn't the interference ever take
place on the B side of S2, after the photon on path A has passed
straight through S2?
Also, you can see that they need the
single photon to take both paths every time, just in case it is
needed. This is what the sum-over proposition of Feynman means.
Every photon takes every possible path, then we do the math at
the end, to cancel wavelengths and decide where particles will be
detected. But if that is the case, why aren't the twin particles
detected when the detectors are at S1? In other words, once they
explain the action of the splitter and photons at S2, they have
to go back and see if it works at S1. We have the proposal that
all photons take both paths. If they are on both paths, why did
the detectors at S1 find a 50/50 split? Why do detectors detect
primary particles but not twins?
This explanation wants
the photon to take both paths in the second case, where the
detectors are at S2, but it doesn't want the photon to take both
paths when the detectors are at S1. If the photon is on both
paths, then both detectors at S1 should detect all the photons.
Yes, logically, we should detect 100% more photons than are
emitted, since we would be detecting both the particles and their
twins.
So the current magical explanation not only wants
us to believe that the photon takes both paths, it wants us to
believe it is on the path and not on the path. It is on the path
when we want it there to interfere with itself, but it is not on
the path when we don't need it to interfere. The current
explanation is not one miracle, it is two miracles stacked.
The
funny part is that the youtube magicians tell you the right
answer, but then deflect you from noticing it is sufficient,
without interference. They admit that each turning will shift the
wave ¼ wavelength. If the wave passes straight through a
splitter, it is not shifted. So, in order to reach D1, the wave
is either shifted three times on path A, or one time on path B.
To reach D2, the wave is shifted 2 times on either path. This
tells us immediately that the experiment prefers even shifts. We
should then seek to explain this without interference or doubled
particles.
The splitter, that we expected to work the
same way in both positions, is not working the same way in both
positions. At S1, it is letting half the particles pass straight
through. At S2, it is letting all the particles on path A pass
and none of the particles on path B. Why?
The answer is
even simpler than my answer to the detectors-in-sequence problem
of my first paper. As in that paper, the first splitter is acting
as a polarizer. It is sorting the photons coming from the
emitter. All the photons going on path A have the same
orientation, and the same for B. They are on the path they are on
because they reacted the same to the material in S1. The photons
on path A are all equivalent in orientation to eachother, but
they are opposite in orientation to the photons on path B.
This
means the splitter at S1 is dealing with a different incoming
group than the splitter at S2, and we should not
expect the splitter to act the
same in the two places. The first problem, therefore, is our
expectation
that they should act the same.
The magicians tell us that the logical expectation is that the
splitter should act the same in both places, but that is false.
It is either a lie or a very big and obvious mistake.
The
splitter at S1 is receiving one group of mixed photons, from one
direction. The splitter at S2 is receiving two groups of
polarized photons, from two directions, and each group is
opposite the other group.
Let
us show this in more detail, but still very simply. Let us say
photons can either be spinning around a vertical axis or a
horizontal axis, relative to the first splitter. In other words,
if we simplify the photon into a circle, it is either spinning
along a 1-3 axis or a 2-4 axis. All our emitted photons are
either 1-3 or 2-4. If they are 2-4, the splitter lets them pass
straight through along path B, without deflection. If they are
1-3, the splitter deflects them along path A. But in deflecting
them, the splitter turns them ¼ turn, as the magicians on
youtube tell us as they read from the internet. This means that
the number 2 is leading on both paths. When the particles are
turned by the mirrors, they each shift ¼ turn, so that the
number 4 is then leading on both paths. The mirrors are opposite
in orientation themselves, so we turn the B particle clockwise
but the A particle counter-clockwise. But on path A, the particle
is still spinning on the 1 axis, and on path B, the particle is
still spinning on the 2 axis. So the particles approach the
splitter at S2 as shown in the diagram.
The
particles on both paths are now reversed from their original
orientations, as you can see. So the splitter reacts to them in
the opposite way, turning the B particle and letting the A
particle pass.
All the particles on A are the same, so
the splitter reads them the same way, letting all of them pass.
All the particles on B are the same, so the splitter reads them
the same way, turning all of them. Very simple. Not mysterious at
all.
Not only is there a mechanical explanation, the
explanation is quite quick and transparent, yielding to very
simple diagrams. We don't need any interference or doubled
particles or multiple paths. The youtube video tells us that the
only way to explain loss of detection at D1 is by interference,
but I have just shown that is false. The expert on the video also
tells you to trust him, but that is very bad advice. Never trust
anyone, least of all a scientist. Science is not about trust, it
is about a logical and physical explanation.
Of course,
this once again destroys the Copenhagen Interpretation and 90
years of physics. Quantum physicists have been assuring us that
this couldn't be done. They have assured us that no logical
answer could be given, and that no diagrams could be drawn. I
have given them and drawn them, as you can see with your own
eyes.
Some will complain that my explanation requires
spin, whereas the current theory gives the photon a wave, not a
spin. My answer is that it doesn't matter one way or the other. I
believe the photon is spinning, and have shown theoretical and
physical proof of it elsewhere,
but my explanation here doesn't require you to believe it. The
spin in this explanation simply allows me to show the wave more
easily. The standard explanation of superposition comes from
Feynman, and it is likely these youtube people are reading
something by Feynman off the internet as they make their film.
Well, Feynman also invented a thing called the shrink-and-turn
method, which I pull
apart in another paper. To illustrate the wave, Feynman uses
little clocks, much like I have here. That is, he draws a circle
with numbers on it and lets that stand for the wave as the photon
travels. He doesn't call it a wave, true, but it works just like
my wave here. His method works precisely because it mirrors my
mechanics here. Well, take the little circles above as waves if
you like, rather than spins. Spins create waves in a direct
manner, so they are great for illustrating waves even if you
don't like spins. If you don't want to assign the waves to spins,
fine with me. Assign them to wobbles or leaps or hiccups or to
nothing. I don't care. The point is, I solved the problem with
diagrams, mechanically, without interference, without ghost
particles, without multiple paths, without spooky forces, and
without mystification or magic.
And finally, as a bonus, I
give you the fact that the current explanation of superposition,
using light interfering with itself, contradicts the current
explanation of the Sagnac Effect. Wikipedia admits that the
Sagnac interference math is the same both before and after
Relativity. Classical physics made the same predictions as
post-classical physics, regarding this effect. And, since the
Sagnac Effect already had a satisfactory explanation and math
before quantum physics, it didn't require the sort of
explanations that have been devised for superposition. This
despite the fact that the two experiments have much in common, as
you see, using mirrors and beam splitters (a half-silvered mirror
is a sort of splitter) and square circuits. The reason this
contradicts the Sagnac Effect is that, to be consistent, we have
to take the quantum explanation into that experiment as well. We
can't have light interfering with itself in some cases and not
interfering with itself in other similar cases, just to suit
sloppy theorists. If light takes all possible paths, why doesn't
it do so in the Sagnac experiment? If we let light take both
paths in the Sagnac experiment, we immediately ruin our math and
our explanation. Instead of getting light where we need it, we
get light where we don't need it. We have too much light on both
paths, and the result is either a total cancellation or a big
mess. This is the problem with so many of the current
jerry-rigged theories: they are very problem specific, and the
magicians just hope you don't try to universalize them, and apply
them to similar problems. Because if you do, you find out that
they are completely ad
hoc, and
therefore physically false.
To read more on this, you may
go to my paper on
entanglement, where I analyze and solve the problem, using a
hint from Feynman and my quantum spin equations.
More
recently, I have blown apart the CHSH
Bell tests, unveiling the terrible mathematical cheat at the
heart of these experiments. This leaves entanglement in
tatters.
Addendum, July 2011: I was asked by a reader why
I didn't set up some experiments to prove my theory here, and my
answer was that it is unnecessary. The experiments have all been
done already, they just haven't been interpreted correctly. As a
further example, we have what is called a quantum eraser, by
which interference patterns can be "added back" into an
experiment that has "lost" them. This is done by a
further polarization or turning of the photons by 45o.
But of course anyone who has understood my argument here will
realize that the quantum eraser is more obvious proof of my
mechanics. Once we give the photons real spins, we can explain
all these experiments without that much effort. To see what I
mean, you may want to watch this
other video at youtube, where the speaker Ron Garret talks of
polarizing individual photons, of up and down photons, and so on.
Of course this begs a very big question he never answers or even
addresses: How
can photons that are point particles in the gauge math, with no
extension and no mass, be differentiated? What
is up about them, or down about them? How is the polarizer
sorting them, especially when they are traveling one by one? In
this way, we are reminded that polarization itself is a proof of
my mechanics. A point particle cannot be polarized.
I
will be told that it is the wave that is polarized, not the
particle, but that is just dodging the begged question one more
time. Neither the old quantum mechanics nor any of the updates
ever bother to tell us how point particles with no radius can
create waves, or move in a wave motion. My mechanics explains it,
but my mechanics requires a photon with a radius, and with
several stacked spins. Without them, mainstream physicists can
only rush by this basic question. I have already told you why
they do this in about a hundred papers: they are hiding behind
the math. If they bring the mechanics back to the front, and let
you see all these existing questions in a full light, their
famous math begins to melt. Ron Garret calls the squared
amplitude in the wave equation a hack, but all the math is hacked
from top to bottom, as I have shown.
Again, the thing to
take from this addendum is that polarization and superposition
are both proof of real photon spin. To create quantum erasers and
things like that, each individual photon must have a wavelength.
I repeat, not just the wave front, or the wave packet, but each
individual photon.
This must mean that the polarizers are working upon individual
photons, not on wave fronts or fields of photons. And for that to
be possible, each photon must have a radius. A photon with no
mass and no radius is undifferentiable. In other words, there is
no way for a polarizer or other detector or filter to know one
photon from another. You cannot tell one point from another. And
this means that photons must have mass and radius. And this means
that the math of QED, as we know it, comes tumbling down. Ron
Garret thinks he deserves a Nobel Prize for noticing that
entanglement is a measurement, but he fails to notice that QED
needs more than a tweak. It needs a complete overhaul, from the
baseboards up. We have to throw out all the math and all the
theory and start over from the beginning.
For more on
this question, you may now read my paper on Polarizers
in Sequence.
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpQABLRCU_0
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