From:
c.h.thompson
To: Physics
World
Cc: John
Notton
Subject:
"Great" theories
Date:
Wednesday, September 05, 2001 10:48 AM
The Editor
Physics
World
September
5, 2001
Dear Sir
I should
like to congratulate John Notton on his essay, "How to create and publish
a great theory" (Physics World, August 2001, p 56). If only it were not so true!
Was it
Einstein's relativity theories that he had in mind when he wrote: "While
'not proven false' is not necessarily the same thing as 'true', your theory
could nevertheless stand for a hundred years."? (See parts of http://www.aber.ac.uk/~cat/History/forgotten.htm.) Or was it maybe quantum theory? This is currently enjoying a dominant position,
yet one may well question its right! It
is perhaps not as well known as it should be that the whole idea of
"quantum entanglement " -- the weird connection supposed to exist
between quantum particles that have once interacted -- has only the status of "not proven false".
I have been
finding out the hard facts behind the Bell test (quantum entanglement)
experiments, looking back at the experimental reports and corresponding with
the people involved -- well, where
possible: many of the most interesting
have sadly
passed away. When it comes to it, there
is at least as much faith as hard fact.
Have they really been trying, in the spirit of Faraday, say, to find the
"true" explanation -- what really caused their results? As it turns out, there are known
"loopholes" [1 - 4] in the tests -- in other words, the tests they
use are not valid. In parallel with
these loopholes, there are moderately well known "local realist"
(i.e. genuine scientific) explanations available, not involving any conceptual
difficulties since they do not need to violate a valid Bell test. The dominant position of quantum theory has
so far ensured that knowledge of the alternatives has been kept effectively a
trade secret. What I and a number of
others regard as the only reasonable explanations do, it must be admitted,
involve a rather fundamental challenge -- they challenge the very existence of
the "photon" -- but we are not alone in this [5]. Something has gone wrong with a system that
has kept the alternatives so quiet.
To return
to some of Notton's other points, he is so right! For a new theory to have a chance these days it needs to involve
"a difficult mathematical form that is nearly impossible to visualize ...
this will discourage others from ...
discussing it in public." So much
for Faraday and his public lectures! I
personally think there is no good reason why the basic workings of the universe
should not be common knowledge. At the
very least, a stop should be put to the dissemination in the name of science of
mind-destroying notions such as "backwards time" or "multiple
universes".
I have
become convinced that what we need right now is a purely descriptive theory
with no maths, but I have found few followers.
I'm not saying you can't use maths, but it should be mainly for
practical applications, in which case it's likely to be just empirically
based. If maths is involved in the
basic model then it should be straightforward mathematical translation of
intuitive ideas that are already firmly stated.
Anyway, please
convey my thanks to Notton for making me smile. If anyone is interested in facts about the Bell tests or in my
view of the universe, do look at my web site.
Yours
sincerely
Caroline H
Thompson
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[1] Franck
Laloë, 'Do we really understand quantum mechanics? Strange correlations,
paradoxes and theorems', American Journal of
Physics 69, 655-701, June 2001
[2] Gisin,
N and B Gisin, "A local hidden variable model of quantum correlation
exploiting the detection loophole", Physics Letters A 260, 323-327 (1999);
http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9905018
[3] Thompson, C H, "The Tangled Methods of Quantum Entanglement
Experiments", Accountability in Research 6, 311-332 (1999)
[4]
Thompson. C H: "Subtraction of
``accidentals'' and the validity of Bell tests". Various versions submitted to Physical
Review Letters and Physical Review A and rejected, 1998-9. Accepted (February 2001) for publication in
Galilean Electrodynamics; http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9903066
[5] Lamb,
Willis E Jr., "Antiphoton", Applied Physics B 60, 77-84 (1995)
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