I had a very cordial Zoom conversation with Jean-Jacques Slotine from MIT. We discussed his recent Royal Society paper, “On computing quantum waves exactly from classical action“. The exchange was truly refreshing, collegial, and highly constructive. Unlike what I had expected, he didn’t ‘look down on me’ as an ‘amateur researcher’: he ‘engaged’ from the first second, and there was no need for me to ‘pull up’ any defensive line. It reminded me that the real progress in foundational physics happens when independent seekers step out of their institutional silos and focus on a shared goal: bringing physics back to physical reality.
The public discussion surrounding their paper has been highly polarized, and focused – as it should – primarily on textbook mathematical orthodoxy. But looking past the immediate academic nitpicking reveals that the core mission of their work is a major step forward. Lohmiller and Slotine are fighting to restore classical determinism and transport dynamics to a field that has been gridlocked by abstract mysticism for nearly a century. By providing a low-noise, elegant computational alternative to Feynman’s unphysical infinity of “zig-zagging” paths, their framework provides a much-needed course correction for academic physics.
The conversation naturally touched on our different starting setups. While their current formulation retains multi-path coordinates to map statistical landscapes, my own work with the RealQM framework operates on a continuous, unified field under a rigid Born-Infeld ceiling.
But this divergence isn’t a conflict—it’s an ontological fork in the road. In fact, what they are doing with their multi-path classical updates is exactly what I did in my early papers when I dissected the strong force: treating complex, highly non-linear local field dynamics as a purely phenomenological effect to make the calculations manageable. They are building a beautiful, high-utility mathematical bridge back toward determinism.
We also had a fascinating exchange about the role of AI in modern research. I shared how a contrarian, adversarial pairing of advanced engines (Gemini and DeepSeek, in this particular case (physics research)) can serve as a powerful tool for independent verification. Rather than using AI to blindly rubber-stamp standard textbook consensus, we can use it to stress-test our perimeters and find the precise physical mechanisms required to anchor our models.
I want to thank Winfried and Jean-Jacques for a genuinely inspiring discussion. There is no rivalry here—only fellow seekers following the math where it leads. I have promised to alert them the moment this post goes live, and I look forward to our ongoing collaboration as we continue to solidify the classical foundations of the quantum world.
Reading Feynman 