Monday, December 17

Physical Heresies (via Steven, with commentary):

The electron is the thing that’s wiggling, and the wave is the electron. It is its own medium.
The quantum world isn't necessarily microscopic, it's just different.
A 'photon' is not a particle but a field described by a wave function of the interaction of two atoms.
The quantum world is a world of waves, not particles. So we have to think of electron waves and proton waves and so on. Matter is “incoherent” when all its waves have a different wavelength, implying a different momentum. On the other hand, if you take a pure quantum system—the electrons in a superconducting magnet, or the atoms in a laser—they are all in phase with one another, and they demonstrate the wave nature of matter on a large scale. Then you can see quite visibly what matter is down at its heart.
The problem with reconciling gravitation and quantum mechanics comes from viewing matter as made up of point particles.
Quantum orthodoxy has led us to wrong conclusions about the fundamental nature of reality.

I'd really like some diagrams to go along with this. Maybe I need to get Mead's book.

I'm no physicist, but this stuff makes sense to me intuitively as plausible explanations. I like this guy's reasoning.

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