Firstly, we need to recall that a quantum is a single unit of h. It is the smallest entity that exists, and it exists in everything. If we take this into account when reviewing the many instances of so-called quantum absurdity that are encountered during experiments performed on the very small, we may find the quantum or sub-atomic world makes far more sense and in fact could not be otherwise.

By adhering to the principles of structural electrodynamics mentioned earlier, we will endeavour to show that quantum mechanics is merely an extension of normal classical physics with the proviso that only whole wavelengths of the electromagnetic field can independently exist and that these fields have no edge or surface. With this in mind we hope to show with the following examples that the so-called weirdness and strange behaviour often associated with much of quantum mechanics evaporates and is absorbed into the more readily understood phenomena of real, natural physics. The two are simply different approaches science uses to describe and understand a more consistent and unified continuum.

The two-slit experiment

This is often taken as one of the main examples of an experiment that defines the difference between quantum and classical physics. Textbook after textbook and articles everywhere describe the setup and outcome of this experiment, then go on to say that of course, there is a gulf between the quantum and classical worlds and further, that the human mind is just not designed to comprehend quantum behaviour. It is something that only abstract mathematics can deal with. We will see if this is the case when viewed in the above light.

To begin with, let us look at the experiment.

This was originally performed by firing electrons, one at a time, through two very narrow and close slits and then on towards a screen where their place of impact could be recorded. It was found that after many repeats a horizontally banded pattern emerged on the screen, a lot like the interfere pattern we get with light photons in Youngs experiment that originally proved the wave nature of light.

However, in the case of electrons, we must ask how does a single electron interfere with itself when it is in fact a particle?

SED suggests this is because both electrons and photons are really and structurally a type of wave that can actually interfere with itself given the correct conditions. In the case of the electron, we have seen how SED proposes this wave is a special type of standing wave called a soliton that vibrates continuously yet holds its place in space and does not disperse. The theories of solitons are becoming better understood but we need to pursue them further with regard to electrons and other fundamental particles. We will find though that it is the unique structure of the roton that determines their behaviour.

As we have seen, this E-M wave that makes an electron is confined to move in the soliton over a certain path with a fixed size and other non-varying properties, virtually for ever. The waves are made from only electromagnetic fields that continually recreate themselves by turning into their opposite and always obey Maxwell’s equations. Their effect travels out through space, but they have no edge or surface. This is the key reason why the two-slit experiment appears so bizarre to many scientists. The fields of the electron extend well beyond itself, and the electron is only made from these fields anyway, for nothing else exists in the physical world other than E-M fields. All matter and energy is made from only them and their interactions.

When an electron passes through one slit, the space around it feels its presence, just like the proton does with electrons in an atom. Unlike what physics proposes in the standard model, the electron has a structure and is not an infinitely small point, nor has it a hard fixed edge with a trajectory that is a single sharp line. It actually creates one that is fuzzy and more blurred.

Provided the slits are close enough together, the passing electron’s effect is experienced by both, and these can go on to be a kind of source for secondary wavelets just like the Huygens-Fresnel principle of optics proposed in the 17th century for light. All waves require a volume of space in which to move. They can interfere and create Young’s interference patterns given the right circumstances. The two-slit experiment simply shows how waves of matter behave when moving through space.

A similar although not identical situation occurs with the wake of a boat moving through calm waters. It is interesting to note that the waves of the wake are actually solitons.

Quantum tunnelling

Quantum computing as well as microchip technology exploit this idea more and more as their output gets smaller and faster. The concept that things can pass an impenetrable barrier is generally unknown in our world. For we are more digitised and causal, while in the subtle world of the very small there is more analogue and possibility.

In quantum tunnelling a small, charged particle like an electron is sometimes able to pass through a high potential barrier, usually a voltage, when it should not have sufficient energy to do so. This behaviour is often statistically based, and the barrier needs to be quite thin or short lived. However, it is regularly observed and used in various applications relating to very small phenomena such as micro electrical circuitry.

The reason it can happen at all is because of the uncertainty principle and the fact that only tiny energies or momentum changes are involved. As we have seen, at angular momentum levels of h, which is an incredibly small number, its individual components like energy - time and momentum - distance can be slightly elastic provided they are reciprocal and always equal the same product or h. It is only their total that matters.

When an electron is moving due to an electric field, and it meets a voltage barrier, the impact or reaction is not exactly like a ball bouncing off a brick wall. In physics, impact is a measure of how long the two objects interact. With our electron this duration can be short or long depending on circumstances, and because h also equals energy times time, if the duration is very short the energy accessible or available during that brief moment can be quite large because of their fixed product. Large enough to pass through the high barrier in the short time available provided it is narrow enough. Hence, we say tunnelling, meaning to pass through something not normally allowed.

All things are possible in a quantum world that is rational and compressible, because after all, our world is one.

Quantum Entanglement

We begin this topic with the opening extract from an article in Wikipedia on this subject, here written in italics. It shows how current ideas in modern physics maintain a clear distinction between classical and quantum physics. This is not the opinion of SED which does agree though that entanglement is an important and fascinating fact worthy of further study.

Quantum entanglement is the phenomenon of a group of particles being generated, interacting, or sharing spatial proximity in such a way that the quantum state of each particle of the group cannot be described independently of the state of the others, including when the particles are separated by a large distance. The topic of quantum entanglement is at the heart of the disparity between classical physics and quantum physics: entanglement is a primary feature of quantum mechanics not present in classical mechanics. 

But what is entanglement in a concise, physical sense? In a simpler example it involves two particles (electrons) that are mutually connected through some event such that their overall or combined state is defined with a known specific value. This can be for instance their total spin or momentum, or some other property provided it is not an intrinsic one like charge, mass or frequency that cannot change for an individual particle.

One of the most common examples involves two particles that are produced by some process (e.g. decay of a single parent particle). If the spin before this production was zero, then it must also be zero afterwards because spin is always conserved. This means that the two daughter particles must have opposite spin but until an observation is made through experiment it is not possible to know which is up and which is down. This is the essence of entanglement: - the individual states are unknown, but their total or combined state is fixed and has a known value.

If both particles are undisturbed, they can separate and isolate from one another yet remain in this overall combined and entangled state no matter how far apart they become. In other words, they will always have opposite spin, and this is something not even God can change, provided the particles are not interfered with.

Somehow this simple fact has been buried in the mire of quantum strangeness. Being opposite means that if we measure one particle’s spin, then of course the other’s must also be known at that instant, no matter where it is.

It’s like tossing a coin and not looking at the result when it lands. Then later if you do look and see the top side is heads this means the other side is tails. This is not that remarkable and it’s not the looking that determines the outcome, it’s the way the coin was always made. Not a set of mysterious potential consequences but a single predefined unit.

Particle in a Box

This refers to the idea of a particle being confined to a small region of space in what is a kind if thought experiment that describes the wave-like aspect of particles. We don’t need a real box or particle. Theoretically, the barriers that restrain the particle are infinitely high and wide, so there is no need to consider quantum tunnelling at the edges or walls of the box. The particle is permanently held inside it in a small 3-D region, and it is its behaviour in the form of allowed energy levels or states that physicists are interested in.

Because of wave-particle duality, these energy levels are portrayed as different integral or half-integral wavelengths that the particle can maintain as its energy varies. The half integrals apply as we get reflections off the walls and the full wave travels sequentially in two directions. However, there must only be half or whole single wavelengths from one edge or wall to another, similar to guitar strings vibrating with single sustained notes when different frets are pressed and held. The frets and bridge form nodes for the strings to vibrate between and create monotone audible sounds that we hear as notes. The point here is that as the particle’s energy changes, only these certain wavelengths or frequencies are allowed and sustained. The particle’s energy states are therefore said to be quantised.

The concept of a particle in a box was useful in physics because it enabled students of quantum mechanics to become familiar with an application of Schrödinger's equation and the results it gave. It showed that particles behave like waves with properties that we can measure and predict. The particle’s energy levels were found to be quantised because of the boundary conditions imposed by the structure and size of the box. Schrödinger's equation enabled these values to be derived mathematically given the simpler initial conditions, just as they could also be for far more complex structures like an atom.

When we say energy levels we mean the possible states of existence the tiny wave-particle is able to be in with regard to the energy it can possess. In our larger world energy appears to be a continuum but in the sub-atomic realm it is not, because only whole wavelengths or integral frequencies are allowed there. Unfortunately, in common usage this has led to what is called quantum behaviour with the term quantum referring to a fixed amount and the implication that this is often a large or substantial quantity. Quite the opposite of what quantum physics originally referred to.

Nevertheless, the application of Schrödinger's equation to this example provided a real and useful account of how the quantum world works, albeit in what was initially seen as a somewhat strange and unusual way.

Schrödinger's cat

Of all the phenomena and hype surrounding quantum mechanics this is possibly the most well-known. Many books and articles have been written on this topic, some insisting that this is the essence of quantum weirdness.

It concerns another thought experiment about a cat that is trapped in a type of vessel with no escape. Inside the vessel there is a poisonous gas cannister that can be set-off or not depending on the outcome of the decay of a single atom of radio-active material which has a particular half-life. The probability of this happening is 50% during the time of the experiment. So, the concept behind this idea is that until someone opens the vessel to look inside, we have no way of knowing whether the poison has killed the cat or not. What is the state of the cat? Alive or dead.

How can the cat be in an unknown state of life and death until someone looks inside? Does this mean it can exist like that forever if unobserved by a human? How absurd. Surely the cat knows one way or the other.

Like Einstein who famously said, “Does the moon only exist when we look at it.” SED agrees and goes on to say what about life in the deepest dark trenches of the oceans. Using the above logic this means there is no normal life down there or even matter in the furthest regions of space if it is unobserved.

The problem with this type of logic is that whole idea fails to define what we mean by an observer and what is an observation. Later there is a section devoted to the question of what an observer is.

Concerning the state of the cat we simply say the atom has decayed or not and the universe knows which of the two events have occurred because nothing is totally isolated from everything else. All things are connected due to the interaction of E-M fields at the speed of light. Even a Faraday cage does not provide perfect shielding.

Pauli Exclusion Principle

This basically is about the fact that no two particles can have the same total set of quantum numbers. That is, they cannot be in exactly the same overall state according to the rules and measurements we make. This is only common sense for if they were they would have to be the same particle.

The rule of this principle is that they can nearly have the same set of quantum numbers other than spin. This must be opposite for two nearby particles. This is because each is a hemisphere and together they make a sphere which is a highly stable and independent shape. Unity and purpose in both structures. Pauli was not aware of this model or the roton that forms particles of matter. He only forecast its consequences using mathematics and theory.

The simple point is he realised how important that final state of a particle is when it exists in a magnetic field. Two possibilities exist: one up and one down. From one to the other is a comparatively low energy change when measured by our instruments compared to other types of states available such as its overall energy, because magnetic fields and their forces are far weaker than electric. Each change though is a state, and it counts on the quantum list.

In this Pauli was right. He was credited with saying that only two particles can exist in atomic orbitals, and they must have opposite spin, something with which SED completely concurs for obvious reasons.

Quantum Electrodynamics – QED [3]

This is taken from a book written by Richard P Feynman. He was a famous lecturer and writer of arguably one of the best university textbooks on physics. He also won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1965.

His highly influential book titled “QED – The Strange Theory of Light and Matter”, written in 1985, is adapted from his lectures on quantum electrodynamics. It is a short overview on what was then the current state of how quantum mechanics dealt with the way electrons and light interact, something that SED is particularly interested in. In that time there was a clear and obvious distinction between matter and energy and no model available that connected the two. He is also credited with introducing what are now called Feynman diagrams. These provided an alternative and simplified description of particle interactions, compared to the highly complex mathematical equations used previously.

In his book he discusses among other things the idea that a particle somehow travels all possible paths when moving from a source to a destination. If we hold on to this idea while keeping the concepts of phase and interference in mind it is possible to account for much of the behaviour of light and reflection. He says it is a simplification to think that only Newton’s ideas of equal angles of incidence and reflection apply in this case. He goes on to say that the fine structure constant is a measure of how much light and electrons interact and the probability that an electron will emit a photon but does not explain why this number has the exact value it has.

SED is significantly influenced by much of this, hence its name, but believes we can take science further if we reconsider classical physics and the power its ideas have in all of physics. Among the several replies and comments made in this book is a later section concerning the question of what an observer is and then discussing the concept of many paths available to a particle as it moves from A to B. It does this by using a classical approach.

In his book Feynman’s thoughts on electrodynamics (the study of the nature of light and matter) were written in a style that made it accessible to the modern science reader, despite it being a highly abstract and difficult subject. However, he still referred to it as a very strange topic like many other physicists still do. He also famously mentioned that anyone who said they understood quantum mechanics did not actually understand quantum mechanics.

Many of the new quantum ideas caused a great shock last century, just like digital thinking seems to influence much of our thinking today, but we need not be overwhelmed. It is only a current perspective and there will be many more.