Quantum Resonance 4 - The Copenhagen Interpretation and its Consequences

In September 1927 at a meeting in Como, Italy, Niels Bohr presented his fairly philosophical Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. Bohr made it clear that measurement not only disturbs what is being measured, but on a quantum mechanical level DEFINES what is being measured. While that seems only a small step forward, it is so logical that it is very strange that Einstein remained utterly opposed to the interpretation, positioning it as a religious belief rather then a scientific thesis. When you get near or to the smallest energy quanta possible in this universe it is quite plausible that the process of measurement not only disturbs but more or less destroys the existence of what is being measured. As such it is plausible that all effects related to the measured entity disappear. What Einstein was so opposed to was the concept of probability required by quantum mechanics. A photon had a certain probability potential to be measurable (exist?) in a certain location with a certain energy (momentum). Once you interacted with it, that probability potential, which according to Einstein must represent valid information in any given location would disappear from the area of influence at once and this changes the state of a large volume of space faster than the speed of light.

This is clearly a problem when you want to see light as a wave packet that travels through space. It is even more strange when you want to see light as a point (no real size) particle shooting around. It seems quite obvious to me (and I hope to you) that both the light wave and the point particle should be seen as mathematical abstractions only that represent the energy being transferred between two larger entities. In the case of measurement the energy receiving entity is the measurement device! So quite clearly the measurement defines what is being measured. As you can only interact with one property of an entity to measure the other it explains Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle that one is unable to measure all aspects of a quantum at one time. I find that logical to the point of being obvious.

That raises the unpleasant question however is whether all energetic entities on a particle level are no more than abstract mathematical devices for energy interchange? At first it was assumed that light was the only entity that exhibited the wave/particle duality, despite the disturbing situation that all nuclear components followed Schrödinger’s wave form of quantum mechanics. The amazing next step was to take the probability wave into the nucleus to answer the question of what could cause the apparently spontaneous decay of atoms, as found by Madame Curie. The question is closely related to Einstein’s explanation of black body radiation, that led him to the quantum phenomenon of light. If nucleus particles would be held together by strong forces, there is no reason as to why they would suddenly let go and fall apart. There could be external sources of energy that push the nucleus over the edge of being stable but such outside influences apparently have to be quite violent. If we look however at the particles of a nucleus as a probability wave then it would also expand way beyond the principle boundaries of the atom. The particles could at some point in time have the probability to be outside the nucleus and thus the atom falls apart without any other external influence. It was the 24 year old Russian Gamow who first wrote a paper in which he used Schrödinger’s equations to explain alpha radiation in this form. He proposed that it allows the atom to fall apart spontaneously. The alpha particle leaves the atom through an unknown device! Today such activity is called quantum tunneling and is broadly observed and can be used in experiments with photons. The more energetic the particles the shorter the possibly tunnels are in average. There is however some small probability that even a proton might tunnel to the edge of the known universe.

Quantum mechanics cannot explain and does not try to as to why the spontaneous action happens. The probability wave is a POTENTIAL only and cannot be the CAUSE of the atom disintegrating or shedding an alpha particle. Quantum mechanics does not allow for the causality of classical physics. Once again that led to Einsteins opposition. Does however the Copenhagen interpretation not talk about the measurement being the CAUSE of what is being measured, correct? The photon or electron does no longer spontaneously travel trough empty space but it is caused to appear where and when the measuring device is put. Can someone tell me why that should be a measuring phenomenon only? The consequences of applying it to measurement only led to irrational ideas such as Wigner’s participatory universe that only comes into existence when being observed by a conscious entity. The most well known fable is that of Schrödinger’s cat that is in a state of being both dead and alive because we do not know when the spontaneous nuclear decay will trigger the cat’s death until we open the box to look at it. That is quite irrational and documents the problem well. In the other direction we have the multiverse theory that assumes that each potential from quantum probabilities leads to a new universe being created with a different future. The cat is alive in one and dead in the other universe. That is pure science fiction and in my book utter nonsense.

Einstein requested that quantum and classical physics had to accept complementarity, meaning that causal models had to be applicable in both. So what if that is the key error? It is always dangerous to question Einstein – the holy god of physics – but here I go. It seems to me that the main issue is with causality and locality, being measured in time and distance. Einstein had both deeply entrenched in his E=mc2 demanding his special and general relativity must be adhered to in all formulations and thesis. Some particle had to have a certain location and momentum at a certain time, even if we are unable to ascertain it relatively to other entities. But when two entities exchanged energy by being in the same location at the same time then causality must be observed. That was Einsteins own faith that he never wavered from. I propose that it is this unproven faith that kept the great thinker from discovering more intriguing properties of this universe.