# Wavefunctions, perspectives, reference frames, representations and symmetries

Ouff ! This title is quite a mouthful, isn’t it? 🙂 So… What’s the topic of the day? Well… In our previous posts, we developed a few key ideas in regard to a possible physical interpretation of the (elementary) wavefunction. It’s been an interesting excursion, and I summarized it in another pre-publication paper on the open arXiv.org site.

In my humble view, one of the toughest issues to deal with when thinking about geometric (or physical) interpretations of the wavefunction is the fact that a wavefunction does not seem to obey the classical 360° symmetry in space. In this post, I want to muse a bit about this and show that… Well… It does and it doesn’t. It’s got to do with what happens when you change from one representational base (or representation, tout court) to another which is… Well… Like changing the reference frame but, at the same time, it is also more than just a change of the reference frame—and so that explains the weird stuff (like that 720° symmetry of the amplitudes for spin-1/2 particles, for example).

I should warn you before you start reading: I’ll basically just pick up some statements from my paper (and previous posts) and develop some more thoughts on them. As a result, this post may not be very well structured. Hence, you may want to read the mentioned paper first.

### The reality of directions

Huh? The reality of directions? Yes. I warned you. This post may cause brain damage. 🙂 The whole argument revolves around a thought experiment—but one whose results have been verified in zillions of experiments in university student labs so… Well… We do not doubt the results and, therefore, we do not doubt the basic mathematical results: we just want to try to understand them better.

So what is the set-up? Well… In the illustration below (Feynman, III, 6-3), Feynman compares the physics of two situations involving rather special beam splitters. Feynman calls them modified or ‘improved’ Stern-Gerlach apparatuses. The apparatus basically splits and then re-combines the two new beams along the z-axis. It is also possible to block one of the beams, so we filter out only particles with their spin up or, alternatively, with their spin down. Spin (or angular momentum or the magnetic moment) as measured along the z-axis, of course—I should immediately add: we’re talking the z-axis of the apparatus here.

The two situations involve a different relative orientation of the apparatuses: in (a), the angle is 0°, while in (b) we have a (right-handed) rotation of 90° about the z-axis. He then proves—using geometry and logic only—that the probabilities and, therefore, the magnitudes of the amplitudes (denoted by C+ and C and C’+ and C’ in the S and T representation respectively) must be the same, but the amplitudes must have different phases, noting—in his typical style, mixing academic and colloquial language—that “there must be some way for a particle to tell that it has turned a corner in (b).”

The various interpretations of what actually happens here may shed some light on the heated discussions on the reality of the wavefunction—and of quantum states. In fact, I should note that Feynman’s argument revolves around quantum states. To be precise, the analysis is focused on two-state systems only, and the wavefunction—which captures a continuum of possible states, so to speak—is introduced only later. However, we may look at the amplitude for a particle to be in the up– or down-state as a wavefunction and, therefore (but do note that’s my humble opinion once more), the analysis is actually not all that different.

We know, from theory and experiment, that the amplitudes are different. For example, for the given difference in the relative orientation of the two apparatuses (90°), we know that the amplitudes are given by C’+ = ei∙φ/2C+ = e i∙π/4C+ and C’ = ei∙φ/2C+ = e i∙π/4C respectively (the amplitude to go from the down to the up state, or vice versa, is zero). Hence, yes, wenot the particle, Mr. Feynman!—know that, in (b), the electron has, effectively, turned a corner.

The more subtle question here is the following: is the reality of the particle in the two setups the same? Feynman, of course, stays away from such philosophical question. He just notes that, while “(a) and (b) are different”, “the probabilities are the same”. He refrains from making any statement on the particle itself: is or is it not the same? The common sense answer is obvious: of course, it is! The particle is the same, right? In (b), it just took a turn—so it is just going in some other direction. That’s all.

However, common sense is seldom a good guide when thinking about quantum-mechanical realities. Also, from a more philosophical point of view, one may argue that the reality of the particle is not the same: something might—or must—have happened to the electron because, when everything is said and done, the particle did take a turn in (b). It did not in (a). [Note that the difference between ‘might’ and ‘must’ in the previous phrase may well sum up the difference between a deterministic and a non-deterministic world view but… Well… This discussion is going to be way too philosophical already, so let’s refrain from inserting new language here.]

Let us think this through. The (a) and (b) set-up are, obviously, different but… Wait a minute… Nothing is obvious in quantum mechanics, right? How can we experimentally confirm that they are different?

Huh? I must be joking, right? You can see they are different, right? No. I am not joking. In physics, two things are different if we get different measurement results. [That’s a bit of a simplified view of the ontological point of view of mainstream physicists, but you will have to admit I am not far off.] So… Well… We can’t see those amplitudes and so… Well… If we measure the same thing—same probabilities, remember?—why are they different? Think of this: if we look at the two beam splitters as one single tube (an ST tube, we might say), then all we did in (b) was bend the tube. Pursuing the logic that says our particle is still the same even when it takes a turn, we could say the tube is still the same, despite us having wrenched it over a 90° corner.

Now, I am sure you think I’ve just gone nuts, but just try to stick with me a little bit longer. Feynman actually acknowledges the same: we need to experimentally prove (a) and (b) are different. He does so by getting third apparatus in (U), as shown below, whose relative orientation to T is the same in both (a) and (b), so there is no difference there.

Now, the axis of is not the z-axis: it is the x-axis in (a), and the y-axis in (b). So what? Well… I will quote Feynman here—not (only) because his words are more important than mine but also because every word matters here:

“The two apparatuses in (a) and (b) are, in fact, different, as we can see in the following way. Suppose that we put an apparatus in front of which produces a pure +x state. Such particles would be split into +z and −z into beams in S, but the two beams would be recombined to give a +x state again at P1—the exit of S. The same thing happens again in T. If we follow by a third apparatus U, whose axis is in the +x direction and, as shown in (a), all the particles would go into the + beam of U. Now imagine what happens if and are swung around together by 90° to the positions shown in (b). Again, the apparatus puts out just what it takes in, so the particles that enter are in a +state with respect to S, which is different. By symmetry, we would now expect only one-half of the particles to get through.”

I should note that (b) shows the apparatus wide open so… Well… I must assume that’s a mistake (and should alert the current editors of the Lectures to it): Feynman’s narrative tells us we should also imagine it with the minus channel shut. In that case, it should, effectively, filter approximately half of the particles out, while they all get through in (a). So that’s a measurement result which shows the direction, as we see it, makes a difference.

Now, Feynman would be very angry with me—because, as mentioned, he hates philosophers—but I’d say: this experiment proves that a direction is something real. Of course, the next philosophical question then is: what is a direction? I could answer this by pointing to the experiment above: a direction is something that alters the probabilities between the STU tube as set up in (a) versus the STU tube in (b). In fact—but, I admit, that would be pretty ridiculous—we could use the varying probabilities as we wrench this tube over varying angles to define an angle! But… Well… While that’s a perfectly logical argument, I agree it doesn’t sound very sensical.

OK. Next step. What follows may cause brain damage. 🙂 Please abandon all pre-conceived notions and definitions for a while and think through the following logic.

You know this stuff is about transformations of amplitudes (or wavefunctions), right? [And you also want to hear about those special 720° symmetry, right? No worries. We’ll get there.] So the questions all revolve around this: what happens to amplitudes (or the wavefunction) when we go from one reference frame—or representation, as it’s referred to in quantum mechanics—to another?

Well… I should immediately correct myself here: a reference frame and a representation are two different things. They are related but… Well… Different… Quite different. Not same-same but different. 🙂 I’ll explain why later. Let’s go for it.

Before talking representations, let us first think about what we really mean by changing the reference frame. To change it, we first need to answer the question: what is our reference frame? It is a mathematical notion, of course, but then it is also more than that: it is our reference frame. We use it to make measurements. That’s obvious, you’ll say, but let me make a more formal statement here:

The reference frame is given by (1) the geometry (or the shape, if that sounds easier to you) of the measurement apparatus (so that’s the experimental set-up) here) and (2) our perspective of it.

If we would want to sound academic, we might refer to Kant and other philosophers here, who told us—230 years ago—that the mathematical idea of a three-dimensional reference frame is grounded in our intuitive notions of up and down, and left and right. [If you doubt this, think about the necessity of the various right-hand rules and conventions that we cannot do without in math, and in physics.] But so we do not want to sound academic. Let us be practical. Just think about the following. The apparatus gives us two directions:

(1) The up direction, which we associate with the positive direction of the z-axis, and

(2) the direction of travel of our particle, which we associate with the positive direction of the y-axis.

Now, if we have two axes, then the third axis (the x-axis) will be given by the right-hand rule, right? So we may say the apparatus gives us the reference frame. Full stop. So… Well… Everything is relative? Is this reference frame relative? Are directions relative? That’s what you’ve been told, but think about this: relative to what? Here is where the object meets the subject. What’s relative? What’s absolute? Frankly, I’ve started to think that, in this particular situation, we should, perhaps, not use these two terms. I am not saying that our observation of what physically happens here gives these two directions any absolute character but… Well… You will have to admit they are more than just some mathematical construct: when everything is said and done, we will have to admit that these two directions are real. because… Well… They’re part of the reality that we are observing, right? And the third one… Well… That’s given by our perspective—by our right-hand rule, which is… Well… Our right-hand rule.

Of course, now you’ll say: if you think that ‘relative’ and ‘absolute’ are ambiguous terms and that we, therefore, may want to avoid them a bit more, then ‘real’ and its opposite (unreal?) are ambiguous terms too, right? Well… Maybe. What language would you suggest? 🙂 Just stick to the story for a while. I am not done yet. So… Yes… What is their reality? Let’s think about that in the next section.

### Perspectives, reference frames and symmetries

You’ve done some mental exercises already as you’ve been working your way through the previous section, but you’ll need to do plenty more. In fact, they may become physical exercise too: when I first thought about these things (symmetries and, more importantly, asymmetries in space), I found myself walking around the table with some asymmetrical everyday objects and papers with arrows and clocks and other stuff on it—effectively analyzing what right-hand screw, thumb or grip rules actually mean. 🙂

So… Well… I want you to distinguish—just for a while—between the notion of a reference frame (think of the xyz reference frame that comes with the apparatus) and your perspective on it. What’s our perspective on it? Well… You may be looking from the top, or from the side and, if from the side, from the left-hand side or the right-hand side—which, if you think about it, you can only define in terms of the various positive and negative directions of the various axes. 🙂 If you think this is getting ridiculous… Well… Don’t. Feynman himself doesn’t think this is ridiculous, because he starts his own “long and abstract side tour” on transformations with a very simple explanation of how the top and side view of the apparatus are related to the axes (i.e. the reference frame) that comes with it. You don’t believe me? This is the very first illustration of his Lecture on this:

He uses it to explain the apparatus (which we don’t do here because you’re supposed to already know how these (modified or improved) Stern-Gerlach apparatuses work). So let’s continue this story. Suppose that we are looking in the positive y-direction—so that’s the direction in which our particle is moving—then we might imagine how it would look like when we would make a 180° turn and look at the situation from the other side, so to speak. We do not change the reference frame (i.e. the orientation) of the apparatus here: we just change our perspective on it. Instead of seeing particles going away from us, into the apparatus, we now see particles coming towards us, out of the apparatus.

What happens—but that’s not scientific language, of course—is that left becomes right, and right becomes left. Top still is top, and bottom is bottom. We are looking now in the negative y-direction, and the positive direction of the x-axis—which pointed right when we were looking in the positive y-direction—now points left. I see you nodding your head now—because you’ve heard about parity inversions, mirror symmetries and what have you—and I hear you say: “That’s the mirror world, right?”

No. It is not. I wrote about this in another post: the world in the mirror is the world in the mirror. We don’t get a mirror image of an object by going around it and looking at its back side. I can’t dwell too much on this (just check that post, and another one who talks about the same), but so don’t try to connect it to the discussions on symmetry-breaking and what have you. Just stick to this story, which is about transformations of amplitudes (or wavefunctions). [If you really want to know—but I know this sounds counterintuitive—the mirror world doesn’t really switch left for right. Your reflection doesn’t do a 180 degree turn: it is just reversed front to back, with no rotation at all. It’s only your brain which mentally adds (or subtracts) the 180 degree turn that you assume must have happened from the observed front to back reversal. So the left to right reversal is only apparent. It’s a common misconception, and… Well… I’ll let you figure this out yourself. I need to move on.] Just note the following:

1. The xyz reference frame remains a valid right-handed reference frame. Of course it does: it comes with our beam splitter, and we can’t change its reality, right? We’re just looking at it from another angle. Our perspective on it has changed.
2. However, if we think of the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction describing the electrons that are going through our apparatus as perpendicular oscillations (as shown below)—a cosine and sine function respectively—then our change in perspective might, effectively, mess up our convention for measuring angles.

I am not saying it does. Not now, at least. I am just saying it might. It depends on the plane of the oscillation, as I’ll explain in a few moments. Think of this: we measure angles counterclockwise, right? As shown below… But… Well… If the thing below would be some funny clock going backwards—you’ve surely seen them in a bar or so, right?—then… Well… If they’d be transparent, and you’d go around them, you’d see them as going… Yes… Clockwise. 🙂 [This should remind you of a discussion on real versus pseudo-vectors, or polar versus axial vectors, but… Well… We don’t want to complicate the story here.]

Now, if we would assume this clock represents something real—and, of course, I am thinking of the elementary wavefunction eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ now—then… Well… Then it will look different when we go around it. When going around our backwards clock above and looking at it from… Well… The back, we’d describe it, naively, as… Well… Think! What’s your answer? Give me the formula! 🙂

[…]

We’d see it as eiθ = cos(−θ) + i·sin(−θ) = cosθ − i·sinθ, right? The hand of our clock now goes clockwise, so that’s the opposite direction of our convention for measuring angles. Hence, instead of eiθ, we write eiθ, right? So that’s the complex conjugate. So we’ve got a different image of the same thing here. Not good. Not good at all.

You’ll say: so what? We can fix this thing easily, right? You don’t need the convention for measuring angles or for the imaginary unit (i) here. This particle is moving, right? So if you’d want to look at the elementary wavefunction as some sort of circularly polarized beam (which, I admit, is very much what I would like to do, but its polarization is rather particular as I’ll explain in a minute), then you just need to define left- and right-handed angles as per the standard right-hand screw rule (illustrated below). To hell with the counterclockwise convention for measuring angles!

You are right. We could use the right-hand rule more consistently. We could, in fact, use it as an alternative convention for measuring angles: we could, effectively, measure them clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the direction of our particle. But… Well… The fact is: we don’t. We do not use that alternative convention when we talk about the wavefunction. Physicists do use the counterclockwise convention all of the time and just jot down these complex exponential functions and don’t realize that, if they are to represent something real, our perspective on the reference frame matters. To put it differently, the direction in which we are looking at things matters! Hence, the direction is not… Well… I am tempted to say… Not relative at all but then… Well… We wanted to avoid that term, right? 🙂

[…]

I guess that, by now, your brain may suffered from various short-circuits. If not, stick with me a while longer. Let us analyze how our wavefunction model might be impacted by this symmetry—or asymmetry, I should say.

### The flywheel model of an electron

In our previous posts, we offered a model that interprets the real and the imaginary part of the wavefunction as oscillations which each carry half of the total energy of the particle. These oscillations are perpendicular to each other, and the interplay between both is how energy propagates through spacetime. Let us recap the fundamental premises:

1. The dimension of the matter-wave field vector is force per unit mass (N/kg), as opposed to the force per unit charge (N/C) dimension of the electric field vector. This dimension is an acceleration (m/s2), which is the dimension of the gravitational field.
2. We assume this gravitational disturbance causes our electron (or a charged mass in general) to move about some center, combining linear and circular motion. This interpretation reconciles the wave-particle duality: fields interfere but if, at the same time, they do drive a pointlike particle, then we understand why, as Feynman puts it, “when you do find the electron some place, the entire charge is there.” Of course, we cannot prove anything here, but our elegant yet simple derivation of the Compton radius of an electron is… Well… Just nice. 🙂
3. Finally, and most importantly in the context of this discussion, we noted that, in light of the direction of the magnetic moment of an electron in an inhomogeneous magnetic field, the plane which circumscribes the circulatory motion of the electron should also comprise the direction of its linear motion. Hence, unlike an electromagnetic wave, the plane of the two-dimensional oscillation (so that’s the polarization plane, really) cannot be perpendicular to the direction of motion of our electron.

Let’s say some more about the latter point here. The illustrations below (one from Feynman, and the other is just open-source) show what we’re thinking of. The direction of the angular momentum (and the magnetic moment) of an electron—or, to be precise, its component as measured in the direction of the (inhomogeneous) magnetic field through which our electron is traveling—cannot be parallel to the direction of motion. On the contrary, it must be perpendicular to the direction of motion. In other words, if we imagine our electron as spinning around some center (see the illustration on the left-hand side), then the disk it circumscribes (i.e. the plane of the polarization) has to comprise the direction of motion.

Of course, we need to add another detail here. As my readers will know, we do not really have a precise direction of angular momentum in quantum physics. While there is no fully satisfactory explanation of this, the classical explanation—combined with the quantization hypothesis—goes a long way in explaining this: an object with an angular momentum J and a magnetic moment μ that is not exactly parallel to some magnetic field B, will not line up: it will precess—and, as mentioned, the quantization of angular momentum may well explain the rest. [Well… Maybe… We have detailed our attempts in this regard in various posts on this (just search for spin or angular momentum on this blog, and you’ll get a dozen posts or so), but these attempts are, admittedly, not fully satisfactory. Having said that, they do go a long way in relating angles to spin numbers.]

The thing is: we do assume our electron is spinning around. If we look from the up-direction only, then it will be spinning clockwise if its angular momentum is down (so its magnetic moment is up). Conversely, it will be spinning counterclockwise if its angular momentum is up. Let us take the up-state. So we have a top view of the apparatus, and we see something like this:I know you are laughing aloud now but think of your amusement as a nice reward for having stuck to the story so far. Thank you. 🙂 And, yes, do check it yourself by doing some drawings on your table or so, and then look at them from various directions as you walk around the table as—I am not ashamed to admit this—I did when thinking about this. So what do we get when we change the perspective? Let us walk around it, counterclockwise, let’s say, so we’re measuring our angle of rotation as some positive angle. Walking around it—in whatever direction, clockwise or counterclockwise—doesn’t change the counterclockwise direction of our… Well… That weird object that might—just might—represent an electron that has its spin up and that is traveling in the positive y-direction.

When we look in the direction of propagation (so that’s from left to right as you’re looking at this page), and we abstract away from its linear motion, then we could, vaguely, describe this by some wrenched eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ function, right? The x- and y-axes of the apparatus may be used to measure the cosine and sine components respectively.

Let us keep looking from the top but walk around it, rotating ourselves over a 180° angle so we’re looking in the negative y-direction now. As I explained in one of those posts on symmetries, our mind will want to switch to a new reference frame: we’ll keep the z-axis (up is up, and down is down), but we’ll want the positive direction of the x-axis to… Well… Point right. And we’ll want the y-axis to point away, rather than towards us. In short, we have a transformation of the reference frame here: z’zy’ = − y, and x’ = − x. Mind you, this is still a regular right-handed reference frame. [That’s the difference with a mirror image: a mirrored right-hand reference frame is no longer right-handed.] So, in our new reference frame, that we choose to coincide with our perspective, we will now describe the same thing as some −cosθ − i·sinθ = −eiθ function. Of course, −cosθ = cos(θ + π) and −sinθ = sin(θ + π) so we can write this as:

cosθ − i·sinθ = cos(θ + π) + i·sinθ = ei·(θ+π) = eiπ·eiθ = −eiθ.

Sweet ! But… Well… First note this is not the complex conjugate: eiθ = cosθ − i·sinθ ≠ −cosθ − i·sinθ = −eiθ. Why is that? Aren’t we looking at the same clock, but from the back? No. The plane of polarization is different. Our clock is more like those in Dali’s painting: it’s flat. 🙂 And, yes, let me lighten up the discussion with that painting here. 🙂 We need to have some fun while torturing our brain, right?

So, because we assume the plane of polarization is different, we get an −eiθ function instead of a eiθ function.

Let us now think about the ei·(θ+π) function. It’s the same as −eiθ but… Well… We walked around the z-axis taking a full 180° turn, right? So that’s π in radians. So that’s the phase shift here. Hey! Try the following now. Go back and walk around the apparatus once more, but let the reference frame rotate with us, as shown below. So we start left and look in the direction of propagation, and then we start moving about the z-axis (which points out of this page, toward you, as you are looking at this), let’s say by some small angle α. So we rotate the reference frame about the z-axis by α and… Well… Of course, our ei·θ now becomes an our ei·(θ+α) function, right? We’ve just derived the transformation coefficient for a rotation about the z-axis, didn’t we? It’s equal to ei·α, right? We get the transformed wavefunction in the new reference frame by multiplying the old one by ei·α, right? It’s equal to ei·α·ei·θ = ei·(θ+α), right?

Well…

[…]

No. The answer is: no. The transformation coefficient is not ei·α but ei·α/2. So we get an additional 1/2 factor in the phase shift.

Huh? Yes. That’s what it is: when we change the representation, by rotating our apparatus over some angle α about the z-axis, then we will, effectively, get a new wavefunction, which will differ from the old one by a phase shift that is equal to only half of the rotation angle only.

Huh? Yes. It’s even weirder than that. For a spin down electron, the transformation coefficient is ei·α/2, so we get an additional minus sign in the argument.

Huh? Yes.

I know you are terribly disappointed, but that’s how it is. That’s what hampers an easy geometric interpretation of the wavefunction. Paraphrasing Feynman, I’d say that, somehow, our electron not only knows whether or not it has taken a turn, but it also knows whether or not it is moving away from us or, conversely, towards us.

[…]

But… Hey! Wait a minute! That’s it, right?

What? Well… That’s it! The electron doesn’t know whether it’s moving away or towards us. That’s nonsense. But… Well… It’s like this:

Our ei·α coefficient describes a rotation of the reference frame. In contrast, the ei·α/2 and ei·α/2 coefficients describe what happens when we rotate the T apparatus! Now that is a very different proposition.

Right! You got it! Representations and reference frames are different things. Quite different, I’d say: representations are real, reference frames aren’t—but then you don’t like philosophical language, do you? 🙂 But think of it. When we just go about the z-axis, a full 180°, but we don’t touch that T-apparatus, we don’t change reality. When we were looking at the electron while standing left to the apparatus, we watched the electrons going in and moving away from us, and when we go about the z-axis, a full 180°, looking at it from the right-hand side, we see the electrons coming out, moving towards us. But it’s still the same reality. We simply change the reference frame—from xyz to x’y’z’ to be precise: we do not change the representation.

In contrast, when we rotate the apparatus over a full 180°, our electron now goes in the opposite direction. And whether that’s away or towards us, that doesn’t matter: it was going in one direction while traveling through S, and now it goes in the opposite direction—relative to the direction it was going in S, that is.

So what happens, really, when we change the representation, rather than the reference frame? Well… Let’s think about that. 🙂

### Quantum-mechanical weirdness?

The transformation matrix for the amplitude of a system to be in an up or down state (and, hence, presumably, for a wavefunction) for a rotation about the z-axis is the following one:

Feynman derives this matrix in a rather remarkable intellectual tour de force in the 6th of his Lectures on Quantum Mechanics. So that’s pretty early on. He’s actually worried about that himself, apparently, and warns his students that “This chapter is a rather long and abstract side tour, and it does not introduce any idea which we will not also come to by a different route in later chapters. You can, therefore, skip over it, and come back later if you are interested.”

Well… That’s how approached it. I skipped it, and didn’t worry about those transformations for quite a while. But… Well… You can’t avoid them. In some weird way, they are at the heart of the weirdness of quantum mechanics itself. Let us re-visit his argument. Feynman immediately gets that the whole transformation issue here is just a matter of finding an easy formula for that phase shift. Why? He doesn’t tell us. Lesser mortals like us must just assume that’s how the instinct of a genius works, right? 🙂 So… Well… Because he knows—from experiment—that the coefficient is ei·α/2 instead of ei·α, he just says the phase shift—which he denotes by λ—must be some proportional to the angle of rotation—which he denotes by φ rather than α (so as to avoid confusion with the Euler angle α). So he writes:

λ = m·φ

Initially, he also tries the obvious thing: m should be one, right? So λ = φ, right? Well… No. It can’t be. Feynman shows why that can’t be the case by adding a third apparatus once again, as shown below.

Let me quote him here, as I can’t explain it any better:

“Suppose T is rotated by 360°; then, clearly, it is right back at zero degrees, and we should have C’+ = C+ and C’C or, what is the same thing, ei·m·2π = 1. We get m = 1. [But no!] This argument is wrong! To see that it is, consider that is rotated by 180°. If m were equal to 1, we would have C’+ei·πC+ = −C+ and C’ei·πC = −C. [Feynman works with states here, instead of the wavefunction of the particle as a whole. I’ll come back to this.] However, this is just the original state all over again. Both amplitudes are just multiplied by 1 which gives back the original physical system. (It is again a case of a common phase change.) This means that if the angle between and is increased to 180°, the system would be indistinguishable from the zero-degree situation, and the particles would again go through the (+) state of the apparatus. At 180°, though, the (+) state of the apparatus is the (xstate of the original S apparatus. So a (+x) state would become a (x) state. But we have done nothing to change the original state; the answer is wrong. We cannot have m = 1. We must have the situation that a rotation by 360°, and no smaller angle reproduces the same physical state. This will happen if m = 1/2.”

The result, of course, is this weird 720° symmetry. While we get the same physics after a 360° rotation of the T apparatus, we do not get the same amplitudes. We get the opposite (complex) number: C’+ei·2π/2C+ = −C+ and C’ei·2π/2C = −C. That’s OK, because… Well… It’s a common phase shift, so it’s just like changing the origin of time. Nothing more. Nothing less. Same physics. Same reality. But… Well… C’+ ≠ −C+ and C’ ≠ −C, right? We only get our original amplitudes back if we rotate the T apparatus two times, so that’s by a full 720 degrees—as opposed to the 360° we’d expect.

Now, space is isotropic, right? So this 720° business doesn’t make sense, right?

Well… It does and it doesn’t. We shouldn’t dramatize the situation. What’s the actual difference between a complex number and its opposite? It’s like x or −x, or t and −t. I’ve said this a couple of times already again, and I’ll keep saying it many times more: Nature surely can’t be bothered by how we measure stuff, right? In the positive or the negative direction—that’s just our choice, right? Our convention. So… Well… It’s just like that −eiθ function we got when looking at the same experimental set-up from the other side: our eiθ and −eiθ functions did not describe a different reality. We just changed our perspective. The reference frame. As such, the reference frame isn’t real. The experimental set-up is. And—I know I will anger mainstream physicists with this—the representation is. Yes. Let me say it loud and clear here:

A different representation describes a different reality.

In contrast, a different perspective—or a different reference frame—does not.

### Conventions

While you might have had a lot of trouble going through all of the weird stuff above, the point is: it is not all that weird. We can understand quantum mechanics. And in a fairly intuitive way, really. It’s just that… Well… I think some of the conventions in physics hamper such understanding. Well… Let me be precise: one convention in particular, really. It’s that convention for measuring angles. Indeed, Mr. Leonhard Euler, back in the 18th century, might well be “the master of us all” (as Laplace is supposed to have said) but… Well… He couldn’t foresee how his omnipresent formula—eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ—would, one day, be used to represent something real: an electron, or any elementary particle, really. If he would have known, I am sure he would have noted what I am noting here: Nature can’t be bothered by our conventions. Hence, if eiθ represents something real, then eiθ must also represent something real. [Coz I admire this genius so much, I can’t resist the temptation. Here’s his portrait. He looks kinda funny here, doesn’t he? :-)]

Frankly, he would probably have understood quantum-mechanical theory as easily and instinctively as Dirac, I think, and I am pretty sure he would have noted—and, if he would have known about circularly polarized waves, probably agreed to—that alternative convention for measuring angles: we could, effectively, measure angles clockwise or counterclockwise depending on the direction of our particle—as opposed to Euler’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ counterclockwise convention. But so we did not adopt that alternative convention because… Well… We want to keep honoring Euler, I guess. 🙂

So… Well… If we’re going to keep honoring Euler by sticking to that ‘one-size-fits-all’ counterclockwise convention, then I do believe that eiθ and eiθ represent two different realities: spin up versus spin down.

Yes. In our geometric interpretation of the wavefunction, these are, effectively, two different spin directions. And… Well… These are real directions: we see something different when they go through a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. So it’s not just some convention to count things like 0, 1, 2, etcetera versus 0, −1, −2 etcetera. It’s the same story again: different but related mathematical notions are (often) related to different but related physical possibilities. So… Well… I think that’s what we’ve got here. Think of it. Mainstream quantum math treats all wavefunctions as right-handed but… Well… A particle with up spin is a different particle than one with down spin, right? And, again, Nature surely cannot be bothered about our convention of measuring phase angles clockwise or counterclockwise, right? So… Well… Kinda obvious, right? 🙂

Let me spell out my conclusions here:

1. The angular momentum can be positive or, alternatively, negative: J = +ħ/2 or −ħ/2. [Let me note that this is not obvious. Or less obvious than it seems, at first. In classical theory, you would expect an electron, or an atomic magnet, to line up with the field. Well… The Stern-Gerlach experiment shows they don’t: they keep their original orientation. Well… If the field is weak enough.]

2. Therefore, we would probably like to think that an actual particle—think of an electron, or whatever other particle you’d think of—comes in two variants: right-handed and left-handed. They will, therefore, either consist of (elementary) right-handed waves or, else, (elementary) left-handed waves. An elementary right-handed wave would be written as: ψ(θi= eiθi = ai·(cosθi + i·sinθi). In contrast, an elementary left-handed wave would be written as: ψ(θie−iθi = ai·(cosθii·sinθi). So that’s the complex conjugate.

So… Well… Yes, I think complex conjugates are not just some mathematical notion: I believe they represent something real. It’s the usual thing: Nature has shown us that (most) mathematical possibilities correspond to real physical situations so… Well… Here you go. It is really just like the left- or right-handed circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave: we can have both for the matter-wave too! [As for the differences—different polarization plane and dimensions and what have you—I’ve already summed those up, so I won’t repeat myself here.] The point is: if we have two different physical situations, we’ll want to have two different functions to describe it. Think of it like this: why would we have two—yes, I admit, two related—amplitudes to describe the up or down state of the same system, but only one wavefunction for it? You tell me.

[…]

Authors like me are looked down upon by the so-called professional class of physicists. The few who bothered to react to my attempts to make sense of Einstein’s basic intuition in regard to the nature of the wavefunction all said pretty much the same thing: “Whatever your geometric (or physical) interpretation of the wavefunction might be, it won’t be compatible with the isotropy of space. You cannot imagine an object with a 720° symmetry. That’s geometrically impossible.”

Well… Almost three years ago, I wrote the following on this blog: “As strange as it sounds, a spin-1/2 particle needs two full rotations (2×360°=720°) until it is again in the same state. Now, in regard to that particularity, you’ll often read something like: “There is nothing in our macroscopic world which has a symmetry like that.” Or, worse, “Common sense tells us that something like that cannot exist, that it simply is impossible.” [I won’t quote the site from which I took this quotes, because it is, in fact, the site of a very respectable  research center!] Bollocks! The Wikipedia article on spin has this wonderful animation: look at how the spirals flip between clockwise and counterclockwise orientations, and note that it’s only after spinning a full 720 degrees that this ‘point’ returns to its original configuration after spinning a full 720 degrees.

So… Well… I am still pursuing my original dream which is… Well… Let me re-phrase what I wrote back in January 2015:

Yes, we can actually imagine spin-1/2 particles, and we actually do not need all that much imagination!

In fact, I am tempted to think that I’ve found a pretty good representation or… Well… A pretty good image, I should say, because… Well… A representation is something real, remember? 🙂

Post scriptum (10 December 2017): Our flywheel model of an electron makes sense, but also leaves many unanswered questions. The most obvious one question, perhaps, is: why the up and down state only?

I am not so worried about that question, even if I can’t answer it right away because… Well… Our apparatus—the way we measure reality—is set up to measure the angular momentum (or the magnetic moment, to be precise) in one direction only. If our electron is captured by some harmonic (or non-harmonic?) oscillation in multiple dimensions, then it should not be all that difficult to show its magnetic moment is going to align, somehow, in the same or, alternatively, the opposite direction of the magnetic field it is forced to travel through.

Of course, the analysis for the spin up situation (magnetic moment down) is quite peculiar: if our electron is a mini-magnet, why would it not line up with the magnetic field? We understand the precession of a spinning top in a gravitational field, but… Hey… It’s actually not that different. Try to imagine some spinning top on the ceiling. 🙂 I am sure we can work out the math. 🙂 The electron must be some gyroscope, really: it won’t change direction. In other words, its magnetic moment won’t line up. It will precess, and it can do so in two directions, depending on its state. 🙂 […] At least, that’s why my instinct tells me. I admit I need to work out the math to convince you. 🙂

The second question is more important. If we just rotate the reference frame over 360°, we see the same thing: some rotating object which we, vaguely, describe by some e+i·θ function—to be precise, I should say: by some Fourier sum of such functions—or, if the rotation is in the other direction, by some ei·θ function (again, you should read: a Fourier sum of such functions). Now, the weird thing, as I tried to explain above is the following: if we rotate the object itself, over the same 360°, we get a different object: our ei·θ and ei·θ function (again: think of a Fourier sum, so that’s a wave packet, really) becomes a −e±i·θ thing. We get a minus sign in front of it. So what happened here? What’s the difference, really?

Well… I don’t know. It’s very deep. If I do nothing, and you keep watching me while turning around me, for a full 360°, then you’ll end up where you were when you started and, importantly, you’ll see the same thing. Exactly the same thing: if I was an e+i·θ wave packet, I am still an an e+i·θ wave packet now. Or if I was an ei·θ wave packet, then I am still an an ei·θ wave packet now. Easy. Logical. Obvious, right?

But so now we try something different: turn around, over a full 360° turn, and you stay where you are. When I am back where I was—looking at you again, so to speak—then… Well… I am not quite the same any more. Or… Well… Perhaps I am but you see me differently. If I was e+i·θ wave packet, then I’ve become a −e+i·θ wave packet now. Not hugely different but… Well… That minus sign matters, right? Or If I was wave packet built up from elementary a·ei·θ waves, then I’ve become a −ei·θ wave packet now. What happened?

It makes me think of the twin paradox in special relativity. We know it’s a paradox—so that’s an apparent contradiction only: we know which twin stayed on Earth and which one traveled because of the gravitational forces on the traveling twin. The one who stays on Earth does not experience any acceleration or deceleration. Is it the same here? I mean… The one who’s turning around must experience some force.

Can we relate this to the twin paradox? Maybe. Note that a minus sign in front of the e−±i·θ functions amounts a minus sign in front of both the sine and cosine components. So… Well… The negative of a sine and cosine is the sine and cosine but with a phase shift of 180°: −cosθ = cos(θ ± π) and −sinθ = sin(θ ± π). Now, adding or subtracting a common phase factor to/from the argument of the wavefunction amounts to changing the origin of time. So… Well… I do think the twin paradox and this rather weird business of 360° and 720° symmetries are, effectively, related. 🙂

# The reality of the wavefunction

If you haven’t read any of my previous posts on the geometry of the wavefunction (this link goes to the most recent one of them), then don’t attempt to read this one. It brings too much stuff together to be comprehensible. In fact, I am not even sure if I am going to understand what I write myself. 🙂 [OK. Poor joke. Acknowledged.]

Just to recap the essentials, I part ways with mainstream physicists in regard to the interpretation of the wavefunction. For mainstream physicists, the wavefunction is just some mathematical construct. Nothing real. Of course, I acknowledge mainstream physicists have very good reasons for that, but… Well… I believe that, if there is interference, or diffraction, then something must be interfering, or something must be diffracting. I won’t dwell on this because… Well… I have done that too many times already. My hypothesis is that the wavefunction is, in effect, a rotating field vector, so it’s just like the electric field vector of a (circularly polarized) electromagnetic wave (illustrated below).

Of course, it must be different, and it is. First, the (physical) dimension of the field vector of the matter-wave must be different. So what is it? Well… I am tempted to associate the real and imaginary component of the wavefunction with a force per unit mass (as opposed to the force per unit charge dimension of the electric field vector). Of course, the newton/kg dimension reduces to the dimension of acceleration (m/s2), so that’s the dimension of a gravitational field.

Second, I also am tempted to think that this gravitational disturbance causes an electron (or any matter-particle) to move about some center, and I believe it does so at the speed of light. In contrast, electromagnetic waves do not involve any mass: they’re just an oscillating field. Nothing more. Nothing less. Why would I believe there must still be some pointlike particle involved? Well… As Feynman puts it: “When you do find the electron some place, the entire charge is there.” (Feynman’s Lectures, III-21-4) So… Well… That’s why.

The third difference is one that I thought of only recently: the plane of the oscillation cannot be perpendicular to the direction of motion of our electron, because then we can’t explain the direction of its magnetic moment, which is either up or down when traveling through a Stern-Gerlach apparatus. I am more explicit on that in the mentioned post, so you may want to check there. 🙂

I wish I mastered the software to make animations such as the one above (for which I have to credit Wikipedia), but so I don’t. You’ll just have to imagine it. That’s great mental exercise, so… Well… Just try it. 🙂

Let’s now think about rotating reference frames and transformations. If the z-direction is the direction along which we measure the angular momentum (or the magnetic moment), then the up-direction will be the positive z-direction. We’ll also assume the y-direction is the direction of travel of our elementary particle—and let’s just consider an electron here so we’re more real. 🙂 So we’re in the reference frame that Feynman used to derive the transformation matrices for spin-1/2 particles (or for two-state systems in general). His ‘improved’ Stern-Gerlach apparatus—which I’ll refer to as a beam splitter—illustrates this geometry.

So I think the magnetic moment—or the angular momentum, really—comes from an oscillatory motion in the x– and y-directions. One is the real component (the cosine function) and the other is the imaginary component (the sine function), as illustrated below.

So the crucial difference with the animations above (which illustrate left- and a right-handed polarization respectively) is that we, somehow, need to imagine the circular motion is not in the xz-plane, but in the yz-plane. Now what happens if we change the reference frame?

Well… That depends on what you mean by changing the reference frame. Suppose we’re looking in the positive y-direction—so that’s the direction in which our particle is moving—, then we might imagine how it would look like when we would make a 180° turn and look at the situation from the other side, so to speak. Now, I did a post on that earlier this year, which you may want to re-read. When we’re looking at the same thing from the other side (from the back side, so to speak), we will want to use our familiar reference frame. So we will want to keep the z-axis as it is (pointing upwards), and we will also want to define the x– and y-axis using the familiar right-hand rule for defining a coordinate frame. So our new x-axis and our new y-axis will the same as the old x- and y-axes but with the sign reversed. In short, we’ll have the following mini-transformation: (1) z‘ = z, (2) x’ = −x, and (3) y’ = −y.

So… Well… If we’re effectively looking at something real that was moving along the y-axis, then it will now still be moving along the y’-axis, but in the negative direction. Hence, our elementary wavefunction eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ will transform into −cosθ − i·sinθ = −cosθ − i·sinθ = cosθ − i·sinθ. It’s the same wavefunction. We just… Well… We just changed our reference frame. We didn’t change reality.

Now you’ll cry wolf, of course, because we just went through all that transformational stuff in our last post. To be specific, we presented the following transformation matrix for a rotation along the z-axis:

Now, if φ is equal to 180° (so that’s π in radians), then these eiφ/2 and eiφ/2/√2 factors are equal to eiπ/2 = +i and eiπ/2 = −i respectively. Hence, our eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ becomes…

Hey ! Wait a minute ! We’re talking about two very different things here, right? The eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ is an elementary wavefunction which, we presume, describes some real-life particle—we talked about an electron with its spin in the up-direction—while these transformation matrices are to be applied to amplitudes describing… Well… Either an up– or a down-state, right?

Right. But… Well… Is it so different, really? Suppose our eiθ = cosθ + i·sinθ wavefunction describes an up-electron, then we still have to apply that eiφ/2 = eiπ/2 = +i factor, right? So we get a new wavefunction that will be equal to eiφ/2·eiθ = eiπ/2·eiθ = +i·eiθ = i·cosθ + i2·sinθ = sinθ − i·cosθ, right? So how can we reconcile that with the cosθ − i·sinθ function we thought we’d find?

We can’t. So… Well… Either my theory is wrong or… Well… Feynman can’t be wrong, can he? I mean… It’s not only Feynman here. We’re talking all mainstream physicists here, right?

Right. But think of it. Our electron in that thought experiment does, effectively, make a turn of 180°, so it is going in the other direction now ! That’s more than just… Well… Going around the apparatus and looking at stuff from the other side.

Hmm… Interesting. Let’s think about the difference between the sinθ − i·cosθ and cosθ − i·sinθ functions. First, note that they will give us the same probabilities: the square of the absolute value of both complex numbers is the same. [It’s equal to 1 because we didn’t bother to put a coefficient in front.] Secondly, we should note that the sine and cosine functions are essentially the same. They just differ by a phase factor: cosθ = sin(θ + π/2) and −sinθ = cos(θ + π/2). Let’s see what we can do with that. We can write the following, for example:

sinθ − i·cosθ = −cos(θ + π/2) − i·sin(θ + π/2) = −[cos(θ + π/2) + i·sin(θ + π/2)] = −ei·(θ + π/2)

Well… I guess that’s something at least ! The ei·θ and −ei·(θ + π/2) functions differ by a phase shift and a minus sign so… Well… That’s what it takes to reverse the direction of an electron. 🙂 Let us mull over that in the coming days. As I mentioned, these more philosophical topics are not easily exhausted. 🙂

# The geometry of the wavefunction, electron spin and the form factor

Our previous posts showed how a simple geometric interpretation of the elementary wavefunction yielded the (Compton scattering) radius of an elementary particle—for an electron, at least: for the proton, we only got the order of magnitude right—but then a proton is not an elementary particle. We got lots of other interesting equations as well… But… Well… When everything is said and done, it’s that equivalence between the E = m·a2·ω2 and E = m·c2 relations that we… Well… We need to be more specific about it.

Indeed, I’ve been ambiguous here and there—oscillating between various interpretations, so to speak. 🙂 In my own mind, I refer to my unanswered questions, or my ambiguous answers to them, as the form factor problem. So… Well… That explains the title of my post. But so… Well… I do want to be somewhat more conclusive in this post. So let’s go and see where we end up. 🙂

To help focus our mind, let us recall the metaphor of the V-2 perpetuum mobile, as illustrated below. With permanently closed valves, the air inside the cylinder compresses and decompresses as the pistons move up and down. It provides, therefore, a restoring force. As such, it will store potential energy, just like a spring, and the motion of the pistons will also reflect that of a mass on a spring: it is described by a sinusoidal function, with the zero point at the center of each cylinder. We can, therefore, think of the moving pistons as harmonic oscillators, just like mechanical springs. Of course, instead of two cylinders with pistons, one may also think of connecting two springs with a crankshaft, but then that’s not fancy enough for me. 🙂

At first sight, the analogy between our flywheel model of an electron and the V-twin engine seems to be complete: the 90 degree angle of our V-2 engine makes it possible to perfectly balance the pistons and we may, therefore, think of the flywheel as a (symmetric) rotating mass, whose angular momentum is given by the product of the angular frequency and the moment of inertia: L = ω·I. Of course, the moment of inertia (aka the angular mass) will depend on the form (or shape) of our flywheel:

1. I = m·a2 for a rotating point mass m or, what amounts to the same, for a circular hoop of mass m and radius a.
2. For a rotating (uniformly solid) disk, we must add a 1/2 factor: I = m·a2/2.

How can we relate those formulas to the E = m·a2·ω2 formula? The kinetic energy that is being stored in a flywheel is equal Ekinetic = I·ω2/2, so that is only half of the E = m·a2·ω2 product if we substitute I for I = m·a2. [For a disk, we get a factor 1/4, so that’s even worse!] However, our flywheel model of an electron incorporates potential energy too. In fact, the E = m·a2·ω2 formula just adds the (kinetic and potential) energy of two oscillators: we do not really consider the energy in the flywheel itself because… Well… The essence of our flywheel model of an electron is not the flywheel: the flywheel just transfers energy from one oscillator to the other, but so… Well… We don’t include it in our energy calculations. The essence of our model is that two-dimensional oscillation which drives the electron, and which is reflected in Einstein’s E = m·c2 formula. That two-dimensional oscillation—the a2·ω2 = c2 equation, really—tells us that the resonant (or natural) frequency of the fabric of spacetime is given by the speed of light—but measured in units of a. [If you don’t quite get this, re-write the a2·ω2 = c2 equation as ω = c/a: the radius of our electron appears as a natural distance unit here.]

Now, we were extremely happy with this interpretation not only because of the key results mentioned above, but also because it has lots of other nice consequences. Think of our probabilities as being proportional to energy densities, for example—and all of the other stuff I describe in my published paper on this. But there is even more on the horizon: a follower of this blog (a reader with an actual PhD in physics, for a change) sent me an article analyzing elementary particles as tiny black holes because… Well… If our electron is effectively spinning around, then its tangential velocity is equal to ω = c. Now, recent research suggest black holes are also spinning at (nearly) the speed of light. Interesting, right? However, in order to understand what she’s trying to tell me, I’ll first need to get a better grasp of general relativity, so I can relate what I’ve been writing here and in previous posts to the Schwarzschild radius and other stuff.

Let me get back to the lesson here. In the reference frame of our particle, the wavefunction really looks like the animation below: it has two components, and the amplitude of the two-dimensional oscillation is equal to a, which we calculated as = ħ·/(m·c) = 3.8616×10−13 m, so that’s the (reduced) Compton scattering radius of an electron.

In my original article on this, I used a more complicated argument involving the angular momentum formula, but I now prefer a more straightforward calculation:

c = a·ω = a·E/ħ = a·m·c2/ħ  ⇔ = ħ/(m·c)

The question is: what is that rotating arrow? I’ve been vague and not so vague on this. The thing is: I can’t prove anything in this regard. But my hypothesis is that it is, in effect, a rotating field vector, so it’s just like the electric field vector of a (circularly polarized) electromagnetic wave (illustrated below).

There are a number of crucial differences though:

1. The (physical) dimension of the field vector of the matter-wave is different: I associate the real and imaginary component of the wavefunction with a force per unit mass (as opposed to the force per unit charge dimension of the electric field vector). Of course, the newton/kg dimension reduces to the dimension of acceleration (m/s2), so that’s the dimension of a gravitational field.
2. I do believe this gravitational disturbance, so to speak, does cause an electron to move about some center, and I believe it does so at the speed of light. In contrast, electromagnetic waves do not involve any mass: they’re just an oscillating field. Nothing more. Nothing less. In contrast, as Feynman puts it: “When you do find the electron some place, the entire charge is there.” (Feynman’s Lectures, III-21-4)
3. The third difference is one that I thought of only recently: the plane of the oscillation cannot be perpendicular to the direction of motion of our electron, because then we can’t explain the direction of its magnetic moment, which is either up or down when traveling through a Stern-Gerlach apparatus.

I mentioned that in my previous post but, for your convenience, I’ll repeat what I wrote there. The basic idea here is illustrated below (credit for this illustration goes to another blogger on physics). As for the Stern-Gerlach experiment itself, let me refer you to a YouTube video from the Quantum Made Simple site.

The point is: the direction of the angular momentum (and the magnetic moment) of an electron—or, to be precise, its component as measured in the direction of the (inhomogeneous) magnetic field through which our electron is traveling—cannot be parallel to the direction of motion. On the contrary, it is perpendicular to the direction of motion. In other words, if we imagine our electron as spinning around some center, then the disk it circumscribes will comprise the direction of motion.

However, we need to add an interesting detail here. As you know, we don’t really have a precise direction of angular momentum in quantum physics. [If you don’t know this… Well… Just look at one of my many posts on spin and angular momentum in quantum physics.] Now, we’ve explored a number of hypotheses but, when everything is said and done, a rather classical explanation turns out to be the best: an object with an angular momentum J and a magnetic moment μ (I used bold-face because these are vector quantities) that is parallel to some magnetic field B, will not line up, as you’d expect a tiny magnet to do in a magnetic field—or not completely, at least: it will precess. I explained that in another post on quantum-mechanical spin, which I advise you to re-read if you want to appreciate the point that I am trying to make here. That post integrates some interesting formulas, and so one of the things on my ‘to do’ list is to prove that these formulas are, effectively, compatible with the electron model we’ve presented in this and previous posts.

Indeed, when one advances a hypothesis like this, it’s not enough to just sort of show that the general geometry of the situation makes sense: we also need to show the numbers come out alright. So… Well… Whatever we think our electron—or its wavefunction—might be, it needs to be compatible with stuff like the observed precession frequency of an electron in a magnetic field.

Our model also needs to be compatible with the transformation formulas for amplitudes. I’ve been talking about this for quite a while now, and so it’s about time I get going on that.

Last but not least, those articles that relate matter-particles to (quantum) gravity—such as the one I mentioned above—are intriguing too and, hence, whatever hypotheses I advance here, I’d better check them against those more advanced theories too, right? 🙂 Unfortunately, that’s going to take me a few more years of studying… But… Well… I still have many years ahead—I hope. 🙂

Post scriptum: It’s funny how one’s brain keeps working when sleeping. When I woke up this morning, I thought: “But it is that flywheel that matters, right? That’s the energy storage mechanism and also explains how photons possibly interact with electrons. The oscillators drive the flywheel but, without the flywheel, nothing is happening. It is really the transfer of energy—through the flywheel—which explains why our flywheel goes round and round.”

It may or may not be useful to remind ourselves of the math in this regard. The motion of our first oscillator is given by the cos(ω·t) = cosθ function (θ = ω·t), and its kinetic energy will be equal to sin2θ. Hence, the (instantaneous) change in kinetic energy at any point in time (as a function of the angle θ) is equal to: d(sin2θ)/dθ = 2∙sinθ∙d(sinθ)/dθ = 2∙sinθ∙cosθ. Now, the motion of the second oscillator (just look at that second piston going up and down in the V-2 engine) is given by the sinθ function, which is equal to cos(θ − π /2). Hence, its kinetic energy is equal to sin2(θ − π /2), and how it changes (as a function of θ again) is equal to 2∙sin(θ − π /2)∙cos(θ − π /2) = = −2∙cosθ∙sinθ = −2∙sinθ∙cosθ. So here we have our energy transfer: the flywheel organizes the borrowing and returning of energy, so to speak. That’s the crux of the matter.

So… Well… What if the relevant energy formula is E = m·a2·ω2/2 instead of E = m·a2·ω2? What are the implications? Well… We get a √2 factor in our formula for the radius a, as shown below.

Now that is not so nice. For the tangential velocity, we get a·ω = √2·c. This is also not so nice. How can we save our model? I am not sure, but here I am thinking of the mentioned precession—the wobbling of our flywheel in a magnetic field. Remember we may think of Jz—the angular momentum or, to be precise, its component in the z-direction (the direction in which we measure it—as the projection of the real angular momentum J. Let me insert Feynman’s illustration here again (Feynman’s Lectures, II-34-3), so you get what I am talking about.

Now, all depends on the angle (θ) between Jz and J, of course. We did a rather obscure post on these angles, but the formulas there come in handy now. Just click the link and review it if and when you’d want to understand the following formulas for the magnitude of the presumed actual momentum:In this particular case (spin-1/2 particles), j is equal to 1/2 (in units of ħ, of course). Hence, is equal to √0.75 ≈ 0.866. Elementary geometry then tells us cos(θ) = (1/2)/√(3/4) =  = 1/√3. Hence, θ ≈ 54.73561°. That’s a big angle—larger than the 45° angle we had secretly expected because… Well… The 45° angle has that √2 factor in it: cos(45°) = sin(45°) = 1/√2.

Hmm… As you can see, there is no easy fix here. Those damn 1/2 factors! They pop up everywhere, don’t they? 🙂 We’ll solve the puzzle. One day… But not today, I am afraid. I’ll call it the form factor problem… Because… Well… It sounds better than the 1/2 or √2 problem, right? 🙂

Note: If you’re into quantum math, you’ll note ħ/(m·c) is the reduced Compton scattering radius. The standard Compton scattering radius is equal to  = (2π·ħ)/(m·c) =  h/(m·c) = h/(m·c). It doesn’t solve the √2 problem. Sorry. The form factor problem. 🙂

To be honest, I finished my published paper on all of this with a suggestion that, perhaps, we should think of two circular oscillations, as opposed to linear ones. Think of a tiny ball, whose center of mass stays where it is, as depicted below. Any rotation – around any axis – will be some combination of a rotation around the two other axes. Hence, we may want to think of our two-dimensional oscillation as an oscillation of a polar and azimuthal angle. It’s just a thought but… Well… I am sure it’s going to keep me busy for a while. 🙂They are oscillations, still, so I am not thinking of two flywheels that keep going around in the same direction. No. More like a wobbling object on a spring. Something like the movement of a bobblehead on a spring perhaps. 🙂

# The speed of light as an angular velocity

Over the weekend, I worked on a revised version of my paper on a physical interpretation of the wavefunction. However, I forgot to add the final remarks on the speed of light as an angular velocity. I know… This post is for my faithful followers only. It is dense, but let me add the missing bits here:

Post scriptum (29 October): Einstein’s view on aether theories probably still holds true: “We may say that according to the general theory of relativity space is endowed with physical qualities; in this sense, therefore, there exists an aether. According to the general theory of relativity, space without aether is unthinkable – for in such space there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility of existence for standards of space and time (measuring-rods and clocks), nor therefore any space-time intervals in the physical sense. But this aether may not be thought of as endowed with the quality characteristic of ponderable media, as consisting of parts which may be tracked through time. The idea of motion may not be applied to it.”

The above quote is taken from the Wikipedia article on aether theories. The same article also quotes Robert Laughlin, the 1998 Nobel Laureate in Physics, who said this about aether in 2005: “It is ironic that Einstein’s most creative work, the general theory of relativity, should boil down to conceptualizing space as a medium when his original premise [in special relativity] was that no such medium existed. […] The word ‘aether’ has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. […]The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic aether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo.”

I really love this: a relativistic aether. My interpretation of the wavefunction is very consistent with that.

# A physical explanation for relativistic length contraction?

My last posts were all about a possible physical interpretation of the quantum-mechanical wavefunction. To be precise, we have been interpreting the wavefunction as a gravitational wave. In this interpretation, the real and imaginary component of the wavefunction get a physical dimension: force per unit mass (newton per kg). The inspiration here was the structural similarity between Coulomb’s and Newton’s force laws. They both look alike: it’s just that one gives us a force per unit charge (newton per coulomb), while the other gives us a force per unit mass.

So… Well… Many nice things came out of this – and I wrote about that at length – but last night I was thinking this interpretation may also offer an explanation of relativistic length contraction. Before we get there, let us re-visit our hypothesis.

The geometry of the wavefunction

The elementary wavefunction is written as:

ψ = a·ei(E·t − px)/ħa·cos(px/ħ – E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(px/ħ – E∙t/ħ)

Nature should not care about our conventions for measuring the phase angle clockwise or counterclockwise and, therefore, the ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħ function may also be permitted. We know that cos(θ) = cos(θ) and sinθ = sin(θ), so we can write:

ψ = a·ei(E·t − p∙x)/ħa·cos(E∙t/ħ – px/ħ) + i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ – px/ħ)

= a·cos(px/ħ – E∙t/ħ) i·a·sin(px/ħ – E∙t/ħ)

The vectors p and x are the the momentum and position vector respectively: p = (px, py, pz) and x = (x, y, z). However, if we assume there is no uncertainty about p – not about the direction nor the magnitude – then we may choose an x-axis which reflects the direction of p. As such, x = (x, y, z) reduces to (x, 0, 0), and px/ħ reduces to p∙x/ħ. This amounts to saying our particle is traveling along the x-axis or, if p = 0, that our particle is located somewhere on the x-axis. Hence, the analysis is one-dimensional only.

The geometry of the elementary wavefunction is illustrated below. The x-axis is the direction of propagation, and the y- and z-axes represent the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction respectively.

Note that, when applying the right-hand rule for the axes, the vertical axis is the y-axis, not the z-axis. Hence, we may associate the vertical axis with the cosine component, and the horizontal axis with the sine component. You can check this as follows: if the origin is the (x, t) = (0, 0) point, then cos(θ) = cos(0) = 1 and sin(θ) = sin(0) = 0. This is reflected in both illustrations, which show a left- and a right-handed wave respectively. We speculated this should correspond to the two possible values for the quantum-mechanical spin of the wave: +ħ/2 or −ħ/2. The cosine and sine components for the left-handed wave are shown below. Needless to say, the cosine and sine function are the same, except for a phase difference of π/2: sin(θ) = cos(θ − π/2).

As for the wave velocity, and its direction of propagation, we know that the (phase) velocity of any wave F(kx – ωt) is given by vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(p/ħ) = E/p. Of course, the momentum might also be in the negative x-direction, in which case k would be equal to -p and, therefore, we would get a negative phase velocity: vp = ω/k = E/p.

The de Broglie relations

E/ħ = ω gives the frequency in time (expressed in radians per second), while p/ħ = k gives us the wavenumber, or the frequency in space (expressed in radians per meter). Of course, we may write: f = ω/2π  and λ = 2π/k, which gives us the two de Broglie relations:

1. E = ħ∙ω = h∙f
2. p = ħ∙k = h/λ

The frequency in time is easy to interpret. The wavefunction of a particle with more energy, or more mass, will have a higher density in time than a particle with less energy.

In contrast, the second de Broglie relation is somewhat harder to interpret. According to the p = h/λ relation, the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum: λ = h/p. The velocity of a photon, or a (theoretical) particle with zero rest mass (m0 = 0), is c and, therefore, we find that p = mvv = mcc = m∙c (all of the energy is kinetic). Hence, we can write: p∙c = m∙c2 = E, which we may also write as: E/p = c. Hence, for a particle with zero rest mass, the wavelength can be written as:

λ = h/p = hc/E = h/mc

However, this is a limiting situation – applicable to photons only. Real-life matter-particles should have some mass[1] and, therefore, their velocity will never be c.[2]

Hence, if p goes to zero, then the wavelength becomes infinitely long: if p → 0 then λ → ∞. How should we interpret this inverse proportionality between λ and p? To answer this question, let us first see what this wavelength λ actually represents.

If we look at the ψ = a·cos(p∙x/ħ – E∙t/ħ) – i·a·sin(p∙x/ħ – E∙t/ħ) once more, and if we write p∙x/ħ as Δ, then we can look at p∙x/ħ as a phase factor, and so we will be interested to know for what x this phase factor Δ = p∙x/ħ will be equal to 2π. So we write:

Δ =p∙x/ħ = 2π ⇔ x = 2π∙ħ/p = h/p = λ

So now we get a meaningful interpretation for that wavelength. It is the distance between the crests (or the troughs) of the wave, so to speak, as illustrated below. Of course, this two-dimensional wave has no real crests or troughs: we measure crests and troughs against the y-axis here. Hence, our definition depend on the frame of reference.

Now we know what λ actually represents for our one-dimensional elementary wavefunction. Now, the time that is needed for one cycle is equal to T = 1/f = 2π·(ħ/E). Hence, we can now calculate the wave velocity:

v = λ/T = (h/p)/[2π·(ħ/E)] = E/p

Unsurprisingly, we just get the phase velocity that we had calculated already: v = vp = E/p. The question remains: what if p is zero? What if we are looking at some particle at rest? It is an intriguing question: we get an infinitely long wavelength, and an infinite wave velocity.

Now, re-writing the v = E/p as v = m∙c2/m∙vg  = cg, in which βg is the relative classical velocity[3] of our particle βg = vg/c) tells us that the phase velocities will effectively be superluminal (βg  < 1 so 1/ βg > 1), but what if βg approaches zero? The conclusion seems unavoidable: for a particle at rest, we only have a frequency in time, as the wavefunction reduces to:

ψ = a·e−i·E·t/ħ = a·cos(E∙t/ħ) – i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ)

How should we interpret this?

A physical interpretation of relativistic length contraction?

In my previous posts, we argued that the oscillations of the wavefunction pack energy. Because the energy of our particle is finite, the wave train cannot be infinitely long. If we assume some definite number of oscillations, then the string of oscillations will be shorter as λ decreases. Hence, the physical interpretation of the wavefunction that is offered here may explain relativistic length contraction.

🙂

Yep. Think about it. 🙂

[1] Even neutrinos have some (rest) mass. This was first confirmed by the US-Japan Super-Kamiokande collaboration in 1998. Neutrinos oscillate between three so-called flavors: electron neutrinos, muon neutrinos and tau neutrinos. Recent data suggests that the sum of their masses is less than a millionth of the rest mass of an electron. Hence, they propagate at speeds that are very near to the speed of light.

[2] Using the Lorentz factor (γ), we can write the relativistically correct formula for the kinetic energy as KE = E − E0 = mvc2 − m0c2 = m0γc2 − m0c2 = m0c2(γ − 1). As v approaches c, γ approaches infinity and, therefore, the kinetic energy would become infinite as well.

[3] Because our particle will be represented by a wave packet, i.e. a superimposition of elementary waves with different E and p, the classical velocity of the particle becomes the group velocity of the wave, which is why we denote it by vg.

# The geometry of the wavefunction (2)

This post further builds on the rather remarkable results we got in our previous posts. Let us start with the basics once again. The elementary wavefunction is written as:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħa·cos(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ)

Of course, Nature (or God, as Einstein would put it) does not care about our conventions for measuring an angle (i.e. the phase of our wavefunction) clockwise or counterclockwise and, therefore, the ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħ function is also permitted. We know that cos(θ) = cos(−θ) and sinθ = −sin(θ), so we can write:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − p∙x]/ħa·cos(E∙t/ħ − px/ħ) + i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ − px/ħ)

= a·cos(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ)

The vectors p and x are the momentum and position vector respectively: p = (px, py, pz) and x = (x, y, z). However, if we assume there is no uncertainty about p – not about the direction, and not about the magnitude – then the direction of p can be our x-axis. In this reference frame, x = (x, y, z) reduces to (x, 0, 0), and px/ħ reduces to p∙x/ħ. This amounts to saying our particle is traveling along the x-axis or, if p = 0, that our particle is located somewhere on the x-axis. So we have an analysis in one dimension only then, which facilitates our calculations. The geometry of the wavefunction is then as illustrated below. The x-axis is the direction of propagation, and the y- and z-axes represent the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction respectively.

Note that, when applying the right-hand rule for the axes, the vertical axis is the y-axis, not the z-axis. Hence, we may associate the vertical axis with the cosine component, and the horizontal axis with the sine component. [You can check this as follows: if the origin is the (x, t) = (0, 0) point, then cos(θ) = cos(0) = 1 and sin(θ) = sin(0) = 0. This is reflected in both illustrations, which show a left- and a right-handed wave respectively.]

Now, you will remember that we speculated the two polarizations (left- versus right-handed) should correspond to the two possible values for the quantum-mechanical spin of the wave (+ħ/2 or −ħ/2). We will come back to this at the end of this post. Just focus on the essentials first: the cosine and sine components for the left-handed wave are shown below. Look at it carefully and try to understand. Needless to say, the cosine and sine function are the same, except for a phase difference of π/2: sin(θ) = cos(θ − π/2).

As for the wave velocity, and its direction of propagation, we know that the (phase) velocity of any waveform F(kx − ωt) is given by vp = ω/k. In our case, we find that vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(p/ħ) = E/p. Of course, the momentum might also be in the negative x-direction, in which case k would be equal to −p and, therefore, we would get a negative phase velocity: vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(−p/ħ) = −E/p.

As you know, E/ħ = ω gives the frequency in time (expressed in radians per second), while p/ħ = k gives us the wavenumber, or the frequency in space (expressed in radians per meter). [If in doubt, check my post on essential wave math.] Now, you also know that f = ω/2π  and λ = 2π/k, which gives us the two de Broglie relations:

1. E = ħ∙ω = h∙f
2. p = ħ∙k = h/λ

The frequency in time (oscillations or radians per second) is easy to interpret. A particle will always have some mass and, therefore, some energy, and it is easy to appreciate the fact that the wavefunction of a particle with more energy (or more mass) will have a higher density in time than a particle with less energy.

However, the second de Broglie relation is somewhat harder to interpret. Note that the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum: λ = h/p. Hence, if p goes to zero, then the wavelength becomes infinitely long, so we write:

If p → 0 then λ → ∞.

For the limit situation, a particle with zero rest mass (m0 = 0), the velocity may be c and, therefore, we find that p = mvv = mcc = m∙c (all of the energy is kinetic) and, therefore, p∙c = m∙c2 = E, which we may also write as: E/p = c. Hence, for a particle with zero rest mass (m0 = 0), the wavelength can be written as:

λ = h/p = hc/E = h/mc

Of course, we are talking a photon here. We get the zero rest mass for a photon. In contrast, all matter-particles should have some mass[1] and, therefore, their velocity will never equal c.[2] The question remains: how should we interpret the inverse proportionality between λ and p?

Let us first see what this wavelength λ actually represents. If we look at the ψ = a·cos(p∙x/ħ − E∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(p∙x/ħ – E∙t/ħ) once more, and if we write p∙x/ħ as Δ, then we can look at p∙x/ħ as a phase factor, and so we will be interested to know for what x this phase factor Δ = p∙x/ħ will be equal to 2π. So we write:

Δ =p∙x/ħ = 2π ⇔ x = 2π∙ħ/p = h/p = λ

So now we get a meaningful interpretation for that wavelength. It is the distance between the crests (or the troughs) of the wave, so to speak, as illustrated below. Of course, this two-dimensional wave has no real crests or troughs: they depend on your frame of reference.

So now we know what λ actually represent for our one-dimensional elementary wavefunction. Now, the time that is needed for one cycle is equal to T = 1/f = 2π·(ħ/E). Hence, we can now calculate the wave velocity:

v = λ/T = (h/p)/[2π·(ħ/E)] = E/p

Unsurprisingly, we just get the phase velocity that we had calculated already: v = vp = E/p. It does not answer the question: what if p is zero? What if we are looking at some particle at rest? It is an intriguing question: we get an infinitely long wavelength, and an infinite phase velocity. Now, we know phase velocities can be superluminal, but they should not be infinite. So what does the mathematical inconsistency tell us? Do these infinitely long wavelengths and infinite wave velocities tell us that our particle has to move? Do they tell us our notion of a particle at rest is mathematically inconsistent?

Maybe. But maybe not. Perhaps the inconsistency just tells us our elementary wavefunction – or the concept of a precise energy, and a precise momentum – does not make sense. This is where the Uncertainty Principle comes in: stating that p = 0, implies zero uncertainty. Hence, the σp factor in the σp∙σx ≤ ħ/2 would be zero and, therefore, σp∙σx would be zero which, according to the Uncertainty Principle, it cannot be: it can be very small, but it cannot be zero.

It is interesting to note here that σp refers to the standard deviation from the mean, as illustrated below. Of course, the distribution may be or may not be normal – we don’t know – but a normal distribution makes intuitive sense, of course. Also, if we assume the mean is zero, then the uncertainty is basically about the direction in which our particle is moving, as the momentum might then be positive or negative.

The question of natural units may pop up. The Uncertainty Principle suggests a numerical value of the natural unit for momentum and distance that is equal to the square root of ħ/2, so that’s about 0.726×10−17 m for the distance unit and 0.726×10−17 N∙s for the momentum unit, as the product of both gives us ħ/2. To make this somewhat more real, we may note that 0.726×10−17 m is the attometer scale (1 am = 1×10−18 m), so that is very small but not unreasonably small.[3]

Hence, we need to superimpose a potentially infinite number of waves with energies and momenta centered on some mean value. It is only then that we get meaningful results. For example, the idea of a group velocity – which should correspond to the classical idea of the velocity of our particle – only makes sense in the context of wave packet. Indeed, the group velocity of a wave packet (vg) is calculated as follows:

vg = ∂ωi/∂ki = ∂(Ei/ħ)/∂(pi/ħ) = ∂(Ei)/∂(pi)

This assumes the existence of a dispersion relation which gives us ωi as a function of ki – what amounts to the same – Ei as a function of pi. How do we get that? Well… There are a few ways to go about it but one interesting way of doing it is to re-write Schrödinger’s equation as the following pair of equations[4]:

1. Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −[ħ/(2meff)]·Im(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·cos(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2meff)]·cos(kx − ωt)
2. Im(∂ψ/∂t) = [ħ/(2meff)]·Re(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·sin(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2meff)]·sin(kx − ωt)

These equations imply the following dispersion relation:

ω = ħ·k2/(2m)

Of course, we need to think about the subscripts now: we have ωi, ki, but… What about meff or, dropping the subscript, about m? Do we write it as mi? If so, what is it? Well… It is the equivalent mass of Ei obviously, and so we get it from the mass-energy equivalence relation: mi = Ei/c2. It is a fine point, but one most people forget about: they usually just write m. However, if there is uncertainty in the energy, then Einstein’s mass-energy relation tells us we must have some uncertainty in the (equivalent) mass too, and the two will, obviously, be related as follows: σm = σE/c2. We are tempted to do a few substitutions here. Let’s first check what we get when doing the mi = Ei/c2 substitution:

ωi = ħ·ki2/(2mi) = (1/2)∙ħ·ki2c2/Ei = (1/2)∙ħ·ki2c2/(ωi∙ħ) = (1/2)∙ħ·ki2c2i

⇔ ωi2/ki2 = c2/2 ⇔ ωi/ki = vp = c/2 !?

We get a very interesting but nonsensical condition for the dispersion relation here. I wonder what mistake I made. 😦

Let us try another substitution. The group velocity is what it is, right? It is the velocity of the group, so we can write: ki = p/ħ = mi ·vg. This gives us the following result:

ωi = ħ·(mi ·vg)2/(2mi) = ħ·mi·vg2/2

It is yet another interesting condition for the dispersion relation. Does it make any more sense? I am not so sure. That factor 1/2 troubles us. It only makes sense when we drop it. Now you will object that Schrödinger’s equation gives us the electron orbitals – and many other correct descriptions of quantum-mechanical stuff – so, surely, Schrödinger’s equation cannot be wrong. You’re right. It’s just that… Well… When we are splitting in up in two equations, as we are doing here, then we are looking at one of the two dimensions of the oscillation only and, therefore, it’s only half of the mass that counts. Complicated explanation but… Well… It should make sense, because the results that come out make sense. Think of it. So we write this:

• Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −(ħ/meffIm(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·cos(kx − ωt) = k2·(ħ/meff)·cos(kx − ωt)
• Im(∂ψ/∂t) = (ħ/meffRe(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·sin(kx − ωt) = k2·(ħ/meff)·sin(kx − ωt)

We then get the dispersion relation without that 1/2 factor:

ωi = ħ·ki2/mi

The mi = Ei/c2 substitution then gives us the result we sort of expected to see:

ωi = ħ·ki2/mi = ħ·ki2c2/Ei = ħ·ki2c2/(ωi∙ħ) ⇔ ωi/ki = vp = c

Likewise, the other calculation also looks more meaningful now:

ωi = ħ·(mi ·vg)2/mi = ħ·mi·vg2

Sweet ! 🙂

Let us put this aside for the moment and focus on something else. If you look at the illustrations above, you see we can sort of distinguish (1) a linear velocity – the speed with which those wave crests (or troughs) move – and (2) some kind of circular or tangential velocity – the velocity along the red contour line above. We’ll need the formula for a tangential velocity: vt = a∙ω.

Now, if λ is zero, then vt = a∙ω = a∙E/ħ is just all there is. We may double-check this as follows: the distance traveled in one period will be equal to 2πa, and the period of the oscillation is T = 2π·(ħ/E). Therefore, vt will, effectively, be equal to vt = 2πa/(2πħ/E) = a∙E/ħ. However, if λ is non-zero, then the distance traveled in one period will be equal to 2πa + λ. The period remains the same: T = 2π·(ħ/E). Hence, we can write:

For an electron, we did this weird calculation. We had an angular momentum formula (for an electron) which we equated with the real-life +ħ/2 or −ħ/2 values of its spin, and we got a numerical value for a. It was the Compton radius: the scattering radius for an electron. Let us write it out:

Using the right numbers, you’ll find the numerical value for a: 3.8616×10−13 m. But let us just substitute the formula itself here:

This is fascinating ! And we just calculated that vp is equal to c. For the elementary wavefunction, that is. Hence, we get this amazing result:

vt = 2c

This tangential velocity is twice the linear velocity !

Of course, the question is: what is the physical significance of this? I need to further look at this. Wave velocities are, essentially, mathematical concepts only: the wave propagates through space, but nothing else is really moving. However, the geometric implications are obviously quite interesting and, hence, need further exploration.

One conclusion stands out: all these results reinforce our interpretation of the speed of light as a property of the vacuum – or of the fabric of spacetime itself. 🙂

[1] Even neutrinos should have some (rest) mass. In fact, the mass of the known neutrino flavors was estimated to be smaller than 0.12 eV/c2. This mass combines the three known neutrino flavors.

[2] Using the Lorentz factor (γ), we can write the relativistically correct formula for the kinetic energy as KE = E − E0 = mvc2 − m0c2 = m0γc2 − m0c2 = m0c2(γ − 1). As v approaches c, γ approaches infinity and, therefore, the kinetic energy would become infinite as well.

[3] It is, of course, extremely small, but 1 am is the current sensitivity of the LIGO detector for gravitational waves. It is also thought of as the upper limit for the length of an electron, for quarks, and for fundamental strings in string theory. It is, in any case, 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times larger than the order of magnitude of the Planck length (1.616229(38)×10−35 m).

[4] The meff is the effective mass of the particle, which depends on the medium. For example, an electron traveling in a solid (a transistor, for example) will have a different effective mass than in an atom. In free space, we can drop the subscript and just write meff = m. As for the equations, they are easily derived from noting that two complex numbers a + i∙b and c + i∙d are equal if, and only if, their real and imaginary parts are the same. Now, the ∂ψ/∂t = i∙(ħ/meff)∙∇2ψ equation amounts to writing something like this: a + i∙b = i∙(c + i∙d). Now, remembering that i2 = −1, you can easily figure out that i∙(c + i∙d) = i∙c + i2∙d = − d + i∙c.

# The geometry of the wavefunction

My posts and article on the wavefunction as a gravitational wave are rather short on the exact geometry of the wavefunction, so let us explore that a bit here. By now, you know the formula for the elementary wavefunction by heart:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħa·cos(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ)

If we assume the momentum p is all in the x-direction, then the p and x vectors will have the same direction, and px/ħ reduces to p∙x/ħ. This amounts to saying our particle is traveling along the x-axis. The geometry of the wavefunction is illustrated below. The x-axis is the direction of propagation, and the y- and z-axes represent the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction respectively.

Note that, when applying the right-hand rule for the axes, the vertical axis is the y-axis, not the z-axis. Hence, we may associate the vertical axis with the cosine component, and the horizontal axis with the sine component. If the origin is the (x, t) = (0, 0) point, then cos(θ) = cos(0) = 1 and sin(θ) = sin(0) = 0. This is reflected in both illustrations, which show a left- and a right-handed wave respectively. I am convinced these correspond to the two possible values for the quantum-mechanical spin of the wave: +ħ/2 or −ħ/2. But… Well… Who am I? The cosine and sine components are shown below. Needless to say, the cosine and sine function are the same, except for a phase difference of π/2: sin(θ) = cos(θ − π/2)

Surely, Nature doesn’t care a hoot about our conventions for measuring the phase angle clockwise or counterclockwise and therefore, the ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħ function should, effectively, also be permitted. We know that cos(θ) = cos(θ) and sinθ = sin(θ), so we can write:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − p∙x]/ħa·cos(E∙t/ħ − p∙x/ħ) + i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ − p∙x/ħ)

= a·cos(p∙x/ħ − E∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(p∙x/ħ − E∙t/ħ)

E/ħ = ω gives the frequency in time (expressed in radians per second), while p/ħ = k gives us the wavenumber, or the frequency in space (expressed in radians per meter). Of course, we may write: f = ω/2π  and λ = 2π/k, which gives us the two de Broglie relations:

1. E = ħ∙ω = h∙f
2. p = ħ∙k = h/λ

The frequency in time is easy to interpret (a particle will always have some mass and, therefore, some energy), but the wavelength is inversely proportional to the momentum: λ = h/p. Hence, if p goes to zero, then the wavelength becomes infinitely long: if p → 0, then λ → ∞. For the limit situation, a particle with zero rest mass (m0 = 0), the velocity may be c and, therefore, we find that p = mvv = m∙c  and, therefore, p∙c = m∙c2 = E, which we may also write as: E/p = c. Hence, for a particle with zero rest mass, the wavelength can be written as:

λ = h/p = hc/E = h/mc

However, we argued that the physical dimension of the components of the wavefunction may be usefully expressed in N/kg units (force per unit mass), while the physical dimension of the electromagnetic wave are expressed in N/C (force per unit charge). This, in fact, explains the dichotomy between bosons (photons) and fermions (spin-1/2 particles). Hence, all matter-particles should have some mass.[1] But how we interpret the inverse proportionality between λ and p?

We should probably first ask ourselves what wavelength we are talking about. The wave only has a phase velocity here, which is equal to vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(p/ħ) = E/p. Of course, we know that, classically, the momentum will be equal to the group velocity times the mass: p = m·vg. However, when p is zero, we have a division by zero once more: if p → 0, then vp = E/p → ∞. Infinite wavelengths and infinite phase velocities probably tell us that our particle has to move: our notion of a particle at rest is mathematically inconsistent. If we associate this elementary wavefunction with some particle, and if we then imagine it to move, somehow, then we get an interesting relation between the group and the phase velocity:

vp = ω/k = E/p = E/(m·vg) = (m·c2)/(m·vg) = c2/vg

We can re-write this as vp·vg = c2, which reminds us of the relationship between the electric and magnetic constant (1/ε0)·(1/μ0) = c2. But what is the group velocity of the elementary wavefunction? Is it a meaningful concept?

The phase velocity is just the ratio of ω/k. In contrast, the group velocity is the derivative of ω with respect to k. So we need to write ω as a function of k. Can we do that even if we have only one wave? We do not have a wave packet here, right? Just some hypothetical building block of a real-life wavefunction, right? Right. So we should introduce uncertainty about E and p and build up the wave packet, right? Well… Yes. But let’s wait with that, and see how far we can go in our interpretation of this elementary wavefunction. Let’s first get that ω = ω(k) relation. You’ll remember we can write Schrödinger’s equation – the equation that describes the propagation mechanism for matter-waves – as the following pair of equations:

1. Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −[ħ/(2m)]·Im(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·cos(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2m)]·cos(kx − ωt)
2. Im(∂ψ/∂t) = [ħ/(2m)]·Re(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·sin(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2m)]·sin(kx − ωt)

This tells us that ω = ħ·k2/(2m). Therefore, we can calculate ∂ω/∂k as:

∂ω/∂k = ħ·k/m = p/m = vg

We learn nothing new. We are going round and round in circles here, and we always end up with a tautology: as soon as we have a non-zero momentum, we have a mathematical formula for the group velocity – but we don’t know what it represents – and a finite wavelength. In fact, using the p = ħ∙k = h/λ relation, we can write one as a function of the other:

λ = h/p = h/mvg ⇔ vg = h/mλ

What does this mean? It resembles the c = h/mλ relation we had for a particle with zero rest mass. Of course, it does: the λ = h/mc relation is, once again, a limit for vg going to c. By the way, it is interesting to note that the vp·vg = c2 relation implies that the phase velocity is always superluminal. That’ easy to see when you re-write the equation in terms of relative velocities: (vp/c)·(vg/c) = βphase·βgroup = 1. Hence, if βgroup < 1, then βphase > 1.

So what is the geometry, really? Let’s look at the ψ = a·cos(p∙x/ħ – E∙t/ħ) i·a·sin(p∙x/ħ – E∙t/ħ) formula once more. If we write p∙x/ħ as Δ, then we will be interested to know for what x this phase factor will be equal to 2π. So we write:

Δ =p∙x/ħ = 2π ⇔ x = 2π∙ħ/p = h/p = λ

So now we get a meaningful interpretation for that wavelength: it’s that distance between the crests of the wave, so to speak, as illustrated below.

Can we now find a meaningful (i.e. geometric) interpretation for the group and phase velocity? If you look at the illustration above, you see we can sort of distinguish (1) a linear velocity (the speed with which those wave crests move) and (2) some kind of circular or tangential velocity (the velocity along the red contour line above). We’ll probably need the formula for the tangential velocity: v = a∙ω. If p = 0 (so we have that weird infinitesimally long wavelength), then we have two velocities:

1. The tangential velocity around the a·ei·E·t  circle, so to speak, and that will just be equal to v = a∙ω = a∙E/ħ.
2. The red contour line sort of gets stretched out, like infinitely long, and the velocity becomes… What does it do? Does it go to ∞ , or to c?

Let’s think about this. For a particle at rest, we had this weird calculation. We had an angular momentum formula (for an electron) which we equated with the real-life +ħ/2 or −ħ/2 values of its spin. And so we got a numerical value for a. It was the Compton radius: the scattering radius for an electron. Let me copy it once again:

Just to bring this story a bit back to Earth, you should note the calculated value: = 3.8616×10−13 m. We did then another weird calculation. We said all of the energy of the electron had to be packed in this cylinder that might of might not be there. The point was: the energy is finite, so that elementary wavefunction cannot have an infinite length in space. Indeed, assuming that the energy was distributed uniformly, we jotted down this formula, which reflects the formula for the volume of a cylinder:

E = π·a2·l ⇔ = E/(π·a2)

Using the value we got for the Compton scattering radius (= 3.8616×10−13 m), we got an astronomical value for l. Let me write it out:

= (8.19×10−14)/(π·14.9×10−26) ≈ 0.175×1012 m

It is, literally, an astronomical value: 0.175×1012 m is 175 million kilometer, so that’s like the distance between the Sun and the Earth. We wrote, jokingly, that such space is too large to look for an electron and, hence, that we should really build a proper packet by making use of the Uncertainty Principle: allowing for uncertainty in the energy should, effectively, reduce the uncertainty in position.

But… Well… What if we use that value as the value for λ? We’d get that linear velocity, right? Let’s try it. The period is equal to T = T = 2π·(ħ/E) = h/E and λ = E/(π·a2), so we write:We can write this as a function of m and the and ħ constants only:

A weird formula but not necessarily nonsensical: we get a finite speed. Now, if the wavelength becomes somewhat less astronomical, we’ll get different values of course. I have a strange feeling that, with these formula, we should, somehow, be able to explain relativistic length contraction. But I will let you think about that as for now. Here I just wanted to show the geometry of the wavefunction a bit more in detail.

[1] The discussions on the mass of neutrinos are interesting in this regard. Scientists all felt the neutrino had to have some (rest) mass, so my instinct on this is theirs. In fact, only recently experimental confirmation came in, and the mass of the known neutrino flavors was estimated to be something like 0.12 eV/c2. This mass combines the three known neutrino flavors. To understand this number, you should note it is the same order of magnitude of the equivalent mass of low-energy photons, like infrared or microwave radiation.

# Wavefunctions as gravitational waves

This is the paper I always wanted to write. It is there now, and I think it is good – and that‘s an understatement. 🙂 It is probably best to download it as a pdf-file from the viXra.org site because this was a rather fast ‘copy and paste’ job from the Word version of the paper, so there may be issues with boldface notation (vector notation), italics and, most importantly, with formulas – which I, sadly, have to ‘snip’ into this WordPress blog, as they don’t have an easy copy function for mathematical formulas.

It’s great stuff. If you have been following my blog – and many of you have – you will want to digest this. 🙂

Abstract : This paper explores the implications of associating the components of the wavefunction with a physical dimension: force per unit mass – which is, of course, the dimension of acceleration (m/s2) and gravitational fields. The classical electromagnetic field equations for energy densities, the Poynting vector and spin angular momentum are then re-derived by substituting the electromagnetic N/C unit of field strength (mass per unit charge) by the new N/kg = m/s2 dimension.

The results are elegant and insightful. For example, the energy densities are proportional to the square of the absolute value of the wavefunction and, hence, to the probabilities, which establishes a physical normalization condition. Also, Schrödinger’s wave equation may then, effectively, be interpreted as a diffusion equation for energy, and the wavefunction itself can be interpreted as a propagating gravitational wave. Finally, as an added bonus, concepts such as the Compton scattering radius for a particle, spin angular momentum, and the boson-fermion dichotomy, can also be explained more intuitively.

While the approach offers a physical interpretation of the wavefunction, the author argues that the core of the Copenhagen interpretations revolves around the complementarity principle, which remains unchallenged because the interpretation of amplitude waves as traveling fields does not explain the particle nature of matter.

# Introduction

This is not another introduction to quantum mechanics. We assume the reader is already familiar with the key principles and, importantly, with the basic math. We offer an interpretation of wave mechanics. As such, we do not challenge the complementarity principle: the physical interpretation of the wavefunction that is offered here explains the wave nature of matter only. It explains diffraction and interference of amplitudes but it does not explain why a particle will hit the detector not as a wave but as a particle. Hence, the Copenhagen interpretation of the wavefunction remains relevant: we just push its boundaries.

The basic ideas in this paper stem from a simple observation: the geometric similarity between the quantum-mechanical wavefunctions and electromagnetic waves is remarkably similar. The components of both waves are orthogonal to the direction of propagation and to each other. Only the relative phase differs : the electric and magnetic field vectors (E and B) have the same phase. In contrast, the phase of the real and imaginary part of the (elementary) wavefunction (ψ = a·ei∙θ = a∙cosθ – a∙sinθ) differ by 90 degrees (π/2).[1] Pursuing the analogy, we explore the following question: if the oscillating electric and magnetic field vectors of an electromagnetic wave carry the energy that one associates with the wave, can we analyze the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction in a similar way?

We show the answer is positive and remarkably straightforward.  If the physical dimension of the electromagnetic field is expressed in newton per coulomb (force per unit charge), then the physical dimension of the components of the wavefunction may be associated with force per unit mass (newton per kg).[2] Of course, force over some distance is energy. The question then becomes: what is the energy concept here? Kinetic? Potential? Both?

The similarity between the energy of a (one-dimensional) linear oscillator (E = m·a2·ω2/2) and Einstein’s relativistic energy equation E = m∙c2 inspires us to interpret the energy as a two-dimensional oscillation of mass. To assist the reader, we construct a two-piston engine metaphor.[3] We then adapt the formula for the electromagnetic energy density to calculate the energy densities for the wave function. The results are elegant and intuitive: the energy densities are proportional to the square of the absolute value of the wavefunction and, hence, to the probabilities. Schrödinger’s wave equation may then, effectively, be interpreted as a diffusion equation for energy itself.

As an added bonus, concepts such as the Compton scattering radius for a particle and spin angular, as well as the boson-fermion dichotomy can be explained in a fully intuitive way.[4]

Of course, such interpretation is also an interpretation of the wavefunction itself, and the immediate reaction of the reader is predictable: the electric and magnetic field vectors are, somehow, to be looked at as real vectors. In contrast, the real and imaginary components of the wavefunction are not. However, this objection needs to be phrased more carefully. First, it may be noted that, in a classical analysis, the magnetic force is a pseudovector itself.[5] Second, a suitable choice of coordinates may make quantum-mechanical rotation matrices irrelevant.[6]

Therefore, the author is of the opinion that this little paper may provide some fresh perspective on the question, thereby further exploring Einstein’s basic sentiment in regard to quantum mechanics, which may be summarized as follows: there must be some physical explanation for the calculated probabilities.[7]

We will, therefore, start with Einstein’s relativistic energy equation (E = mc2) and wonder what it could possibly tell us.

# I. Energy as a two-dimensional oscillation of mass

The structural similarity between the relativistic energy formula, the formula for the total energy of an oscillator, and the kinetic energy of a moving body, is striking:

1. E = mc2
2. E = mω2/2
3. E = mv2/2

In these formulas, ω, v and c all describe some velocity.[8] Of course, there is the 1/2 factor in the E = mω2/2 formula[9], but that is exactly the point we are going to explore here: can we think of an oscillation in two dimensions, so it stores an amount of energy that is equal to E = 2·m·ω2/2 = m·ω2?

That is easy enough. Think, for example, of a V-2 engine with the pistons at a 90-degree angle, as illustrated below. The 90° angle makes it possible to perfectly balance the counterweight and the pistons, thereby ensuring smooth travel at all times. With permanently closed valves, the air inside the cylinder compresses and decompresses as the pistons move up and down and provides, therefore, a restoring force. As such, it will store potential energy, just like a spring, and the motion of the pistons will also reflect that of a mass on a spring. Hence, we can describe it by a sinusoidal function, with the zero point at the center of each cylinder. We can, therefore, think of the moving pistons as harmonic oscillators, just like mechanical springs.

Figure 1: Oscillations in two dimensions

If we assume there is no friction, we have a perpetuum mobile here. The compressed air and the rotating counterweight (which, combined with the crankshaft, acts as a flywheel[10]) store the potential energy. The moving masses of the pistons store the kinetic energy of the system.[11]

At this point, it is probably good to quickly review the relevant math. If the magnitude of the oscillation is equal to a, then the motion of the piston (or the mass on a spring) will be described by x = a·cos(ω·t + Δ).[12] Needless to say, Δ is just a phase factor which defines our t = 0 point, and ω is the natural angular frequency of our oscillator. Because of the 90° angle between the two cylinders, Δ would be 0 for one oscillator, and –π/2 for the other. Hence, the motion of one piston is given by x = a·cos(ω·t), while the motion of the other is given by x = a·cos(ω·t–π/2) = a·sin(ω·t).

The kinetic and potential energy of one oscillator (think of one piston or one spring only) can then be calculated as:

1. K.E. = T = m·v2/2 = (1/2)·m·ω2·a2·sin2(ω·t + Δ)
2. P.E. = U = k·x2/2 = (1/2)·k·a2·cos2(ω·t + Δ)

The coefficient k in the potential energy formula characterizes the restoring force: F = −k·x. From the dynamics involved, it is obvious that k must be equal to m·ω2. Hence, the total energy is equal to:

E = T + U = (1/2)· m·ω2·a2·[sin2(ω·t + Δ) + cos2(ω·t + Δ)] = m·a2·ω2/2

To facilitate the calculations, we will briefly assume k = m·ω2 and a are equal to 1. The motion of our first oscillator is given by the cos(ω·t) = cosθ function (θ = ω·t), and its kinetic energy will be equal to sin2θ. Hence, the (instantaneous) change in kinetic energy at any point in time will be equal to:

d(sin2θ)/dθ = 2∙sinθ∙d(sinθ)/dθ = 2∙sinθ∙cosθ

Let us look at the second oscillator now. Just think of the second piston going up and down in the V-2 engine. Its motion is given by the sinθ function, which is equal to cos(θ−π /2). Hence, its kinetic energy is equal to sin2(θ−π /2), and how it changes – as a function of θ – will be equal to:

2∙sin(θ−π /2)∙cos(θ−π /2) = = −2∙cosθ∙sinθ = −2∙sinθ∙cosθ

We have our perpetuum mobile! While transferring kinetic energy from one piston to the other, the crankshaft will rotate with a constant angular velocity: linear motion becomes circular motion, and vice versa, and the total energy that is stored in the system is T + U = ma2ω2.

We have a great metaphor here. Somehow, in this beautiful interplay between linear and circular motion, energy is borrowed from one place and then returns to the other, cycle after cycle. We know the wavefunction consist of a sine and a cosine: the cosine is the real component, and the sine is the imaginary component. Could they be equally real? Could each represent half of the total energy of our particle? Should we think of the c in our E = mc2 formula as an angular velocity?

These are sensible questions. Let us explore them.

# II. The wavefunction as a two-dimensional oscillation

The elementary wavefunction is written as:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħa·ei[E·t − px]/ħ = a·cos(px E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(px E∙t/ħ)

When considering a particle at rest (p = 0) this reduces to:

ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ = a·cos(E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ) = a·cos(E∙t/ħ) i·a·sin(E∙t/ħ)

Let us remind ourselves of the geometry involved, which is illustrated below. Note that the argument of the wavefunction rotates clockwise with time, while the mathematical convention for measuring the phase angle (ϕ) is counter-clockwise.

Figure 2: Euler’s formula

If we assume the momentum p is all in the x-direction, then the p and x vectors will have the same direction, and px/ħ reduces to p∙x/ħ. Most illustrations – such as the one below – will either freeze x or, else, t. Alternatively, one can google web animations varying both. The point is: we also have a two-dimensional oscillation here. These two dimensions are perpendicular to the direction of propagation of the wavefunction. For example, if the wavefunction propagates in the x-direction, then the oscillations are along the y– and z-axis, which we may refer to as the real and imaginary axis. Note how the phase difference between the cosine and the sine  – the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction – appear to give some spin to the whole. I will come back to this.

Figure 3: Geometric representation of the wavefunction

Hence, if we would say these oscillations carry half of the total energy of the particle, then we may refer to the real and imaginary energy of the particle respectively, and the interplay between the real and the imaginary part of the wavefunction may then describe how energy propagates through space over time.

Let us consider, once again, a particle at rest. Hence, p = 0 and the (elementary) wavefunction reduces to ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ. Hence, the angular velocity of both oscillations, at some point x, is given by ω = -E/ħ. Now, the energy of our particle includes all of the energy – kinetic, potential and rest energy – and is, therefore, equal to E = mc2.

Can we, somehow, relate this to the m·a2·ω2 energy formula for our V-2 perpetuum mobile? Our wavefunction has an amplitude too. Now, if the oscillations of the real and imaginary wavefunction store the energy of our particle, then their amplitude will surely matter. In fact, the energy of an oscillation is, in general, proportional to the square of the amplitude: E µ a2. We may, therefore, think that the a2 factor in the E = m·a2·ω2 energy will surely be relevant as well.

However, here is a complication: an actual particle is localized in space and can, therefore, not be represented by the elementary wavefunction. We must build a wave packet for that: a sum of wavefunctions, each with their own amplitude ak, and their own ωi = -Ei/ħ. Each of these wavefunctions will contribute some energy to the total energy of the wave packet. To calculate the contribution of each wave to the total, both ai as well as Ei will matter.

What is Ei? Ei varies around some average E, which we can associate with some average mass m: m = E/c2. The Uncertainty Principle kicks in here. The analysis becomes more complicated, but a formula such as the one below might make sense:We can re-write this as:What is the meaning of this equation? We may look at it as some sort of physical normalization condition when building up the Fourier sum. Of course, we should relate this to the mathematical normalization condition for the wavefunction. Our intuition tells us that the probabilities must be related to the energy densities, but how exactly? We will come back to this question in a moment. Let us first think some more about the enigma: what is mass?

Before we do so, let us quickly calculate the value of c2ħ2: it is about 1´1051 N2∙m4. Let us also do a dimensional analysis: the physical dimensions of the E = m·a2·ω2 equation make sense if we express m in kg, a in m, and ω in rad/s. We then get: [E] = kg∙m2/s2 = (N∙s2/m)∙m2/s2 = N∙m = J. The dimensions of the left- and right-hand side of the physical normalization condition is N3∙m5.

# III. What is mass?

We came up, playfully, with a meaningful interpretation for energy: it is a two-dimensional oscillation of mass. But what is mass? A new aether theory is, of course, not an option, but then what is it that is oscillating? To understand the physics behind equations, it is always good to do an analysis of the physical dimensions in the equation. Let us start with Einstein’s energy equation once again. If we want to look at mass, we should re-write it as m = E/c2:

[m] = [E/c2] = J/(m/s)2 = N·m∙s2/m2 = N·s2/m = kg

This is not very helpful. It only reminds us of Newton’s definition of a mass: mass is that what gets accelerated by a force. At this point, we may want to think of the physical significance of the absolute nature of the speed of light. Einstein’s E = mc2 equation implies we can write the ratio between the energy and the mass of any particle is always the same, so we can write, for example:This reminds us of the ω2= C1/L or ω2 = k/m of harmonic oscillators once again.[13] The key difference is that the ω2= C1/L and ω2 = k/m formulas introduce two or more degrees of freedom.[14] In contrast, c2= E/m for any particle, always. However, that is exactly the point: we can modulate the resistance, inductance and capacitance of electric circuits, and the stiffness of springs and the masses we put on them, but we live in one physical space only: our spacetime. Hence, the speed of light c emerges here as the defining property of spacetime – the resonant frequency, so to speak. We have no further degrees of freedom here.

The Planck-Einstein relation (for photons) and the de Broglie equation (for matter-particles) have an interesting feature: both imply that the energy of the oscillation is proportional to the frequency, with Planck’s constant as the constant of proportionality. Now, for one-dimensional oscillations – think of a guitar string, for example – we know the energy will be proportional to the square of the frequency. It is a remarkable observation: the two-dimensional matter-wave, or the electromagnetic wave, gives us two waves for the price of one, so to speak, each carrying half of the total energy of the oscillation but, as a result, we get a proportionality between E and f instead of between E and f2.

However, such reflections do not answer the fundamental question we started out with: what is mass? At this point, it is hard to go beyond the circular definition that is implied by Einstein’s formula: energy is a two-dimensional oscillation of mass, and mass packs energy, and c emerges us as the property of spacetime that defines how exactly.

When everything is said and done, this does not go beyond stating that mass is some scalar field. Now, a scalar field is, quite simply, some real number that we associate with a position in spacetime. The Higgs field is a scalar field but, of course, the theory behind it goes much beyond stating that we should think of mass as some scalar field. The fundamental question is: why and how does energy, or matter, condense into elementary particles? That is what the Higgs mechanism is about but, as this paper is exploratory only, we cannot even start explaining the basics of it.

What we can do, however, is look at the wave equation again (Schrödinger’s equation), as we can now analyze it as an energy diffusion equation.

# IV. Schrödinger’s equation as an energy diffusion equation

The interpretation of Schrödinger’s equation as a diffusion equation is straightforward. Feynman (Lectures, III-16-1) briefly summarizes it as follows:

“We can think of Schrödinger’s equation as describing the diffusion of the probability amplitude from one point to the next. […] But the imaginary coefficient in front of the derivative makes the behavior completely different from the ordinary diffusion such as you would have for a gas spreading out along a thin tube. Ordinary diffusion gives rise to real exponential solutions, whereas the solutions of Schrödinger’s equation are complex waves.”[17]

Let us review the basic math. For a particle moving in free space – with no external force fields acting on it – there is no potential (U = 0) and, therefore, the Uψ term disappears. Therefore, Schrödinger’s equation reduces to:

∂ψ(x, t)/∂t = i·(1/2)·(ħ/meff)·∇2ψ(x, t)

The ubiquitous diffusion equation in physics is:

∂φ(x, t)/∂t = D·∇2φ(x, t)

The structural similarity is obvious. The key difference between both equations is that the wave equation gives us two equations for the price of one. Indeed, because ψ is a complex-valued function, with a real and an imaginary part, we get the following equations[18]:

1. Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −(1/2)·(ħ/meffIm(∇2ψ)
2. Im(∂ψ/∂t) = (1/2)·(ħ/meffRe(∇2ψ)

These equations make us think of the equations for an electromagnetic wave in free space (no stationary charges or currents):

1. B/∂t = –∇×E
2. E/∂t = c2∇×B

The above equations effectively describe a propagation mechanism in spacetime, as illustrated below.

Figure 4: Propagation mechanisms

The Laplacian operator (∇2), when operating on a scalar quantity, gives us a flux density, i.e. something expressed per square meter (1/m2). In this case, it is operating on ψ(x, t), so what is the dimension of our wavefunction ψ(x, t)? To answer that question, we should analyze the diffusion constant in Schrödinger’s equation, i.e. the (1/2)·(ħ/meff) factor:

1. As a mathematical constant of proportionality, it will quantify the relationship between both derivatives (i.e. the time derivative and the Laplacian);
2. As a physical constant, it will ensure the physical dimensions on both sides of the equation are compatible.

Now, the ħ/meff factor is expressed in (N·m·s)/(N· s2/m) = m2/s. Hence, it does ensure the dimensions on both sides of the equation are, effectively, the same: ∂ψ/∂t is a time derivative and, therefore, its dimension is s1 while, as mentioned above, the dimension of ∇2ψ is m2. However, this does not solve our basic question: what is the dimension of the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction?

At this point, mainstream physicists will say: it does not have a physical dimension, and there is no geometric interpretation of Schrödinger’s equation. One may argue, effectively, that its argument, (px – E∙t)/ħ, is just a number and, therefore, that the real and imaginary part of ψ is also just some number.

To this, we may object that ħ may be looked as a mathematical scaling constant only. If we do that, then the argument of ψ will, effectively, be expressed in action units, i.e. in N·m·s. It then does make sense to also associate a physical dimension with the real and imaginary part of ψ. What could it be?

We may have a closer look at Maxwell’s equations for inspiration here. The electric field vector is expressed in newton (the unit of force) per unit of charge (coulomb). Now, there is something interesting here. The physical dimension of the magnetic field is N/C divided by m/s.[19] We may write B as the following vector cross-product: B = (1/c)∙ex×E, with ex the unit vector pointing in the x-direction (i.e. the direction of propagation of the wave). Hence, we may associate the (1/c)∙ex× operator, which amounts to a rotation by 90 degrees, with the s/m dimension. Now, multiplication by i also amounts to a rotation by 90° degrees. Hence, we may boldly write: B = (1/c)∙ex×E = (1/c)∙iE. This allows us to also geometrically interpret Schrödinger’s equation in the way we interpreted it above (see Figure 3).[20]

Still, we have not answered the question as to what the physical dimension of the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction should be. At this point, we may be inspired by the structural similarity between Newton’s and Coulomb’s force laws:Hence, if the electric field vector E is expressed in force per unit charge (N/C), then we may want to think of associating the real part of our wavefunction with a force per unit mass (N/kg). We can, of course, do a substitution here, because the mass unit (1 kg) is equivalent to 1 N·s2/m. Hence, our N/kg dimension becomes:

N/kg = N/(N·s2/m)= m/s2

What is this: m/s2? Is that the dimension of the a·cosθ term in the a·eiθ a·cosθ − i·a·sinθ wavefunction?

My answer is: why not? Think of it: m/s2 is the physical dimension of acceleration: the increase or decrease in velocity (m/s) per second. It ensures the wavefunction for any particle – matter-particles or particles with zero rest mass (photons) – and the associated wave equation (which has to be the same for all, as the spacetime we live in is one) are mutually consistent.

In this regard, we should think of how we would model a gravitational wave. The physical dimension would surely be the same: force per mass unit. It all makes sense: wavefunctions may, perhaps, be interpreted as traveling distortions of spacetime, i.e. as tiny gravitational waves.

# V. Energy densities and flows

Pursuing the geometric equivalence between the equations for an electromagnetic wave and Schrödinger’s equation, we can now, perhaps, see if there is an equivalent for the energy density. For an electromagnetic wave, we know that the energy density is given by the following formula:E and B are the electric and magnetic field vector respectively. The Poynting vector will give us the directional energy flux, i.e. the energy flow per unit area per unit time. We write:Needless to say, the ∙ operator is the divergence and, therefore, gives us the magnitude of a (vector) field’s source or sink at a given point. To be precise, the divergence gives us the volume density of the outward flux of a vector field from an infinitesimal volume around a given point. In this case, it gives us the volume density of the flux of S.

We can analyze the dimensions of the equation for the energy density as follows:

1. E is measured in newton per coulomb, so [EE] = [E2] = N2/C2.
2. B is measured in (N/C)/(m/s), so we get [BB] = [B2] = (N2/C2)·(s2/m2). However, the dimension of our c2 factor is (m2/s2) and so we’re also left with N2/C2.
3. The ϵ0 is the electric constant, aka as the vacuum permittivity. As a physical constant, it should ensure the dimensions on both sides of the equation work out, and they do: [ε0] = C2/(N·m2) and, therefore, if we multiply that with N2/C2, we find that is expressed in J/m3.[21]

Replacing the newton per coulomb unit (N/C) by the newton per kg unit (N/kg) in the formulas above should give us the equivalent of the energy density for the wavefunction. We just need to substitute ϵ0 for an equivalent constant. We may to give it a try. If the energy densities can be calculated – which are also mass densities, obviously – then the probabilities should be proportional to them.

Let us first see what we get for a photon, assuming the electromagnetic wave represents its wavefunction. Substituting B for (1/c)∙iE or for −(1/c)∙iE gives us the following result:Zero!? An unexpected result! Or not? We have no stationary charges and no currents: only an electromagnetic wave in free space. Hence, the local energy conservation principle needs to be respected at all points in space and in time. The geometry makes sense of the result: for an electromagnetic wave, the magnitudes of E and B reach their maximum, minimum and zero point simultaneously, as shown below.[22] This is because their phase is the same.

Figure 5: Electromagnetic wave: E and B

Should we expect a similar result for the energy densities that we would associate with the real and imaginary part of the matter-wave? For the matter-wave, we have a phase difference between a·cosθ and a·sinθ, which gives a different picture of the propagation of the wave (see Figure 3).[23] In fact, the geometry of the suggestion suggests some inherent spin, which is interesting. I will come back to this. Let us first guess those densities. Making abstraction of any scaling constants, we may write:We get what we hoped to get: the absolute square of our amplitude is, effectively, an energy density !

|ψ|2  = |a·ei∙E·t/ħ|2 = a2 = u

This is very deep. A photon has no rest mass, so it borrows and returns energy from empty space as it travels through it. In contrast, a matter-wave carries energy and, therefore, has some (rest) mass. It is therefore associated with an energy density, and this energy density gives us the probabilities. Of course, we need to fine-tune the analysis to account for the fact that we have a wave packet rather than a single wave, but that should be feasible.

As mentioned, the phase difference between the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction (a cosine and a sine function) appear to give some spin to our particle. We do not have this particularity for a photon. Of course, photons are bosons, i.e. spin-zero particles, while elementary matter-particles are fermions with spin-1/2. Hence, our geometric interpretation of the wavefunction suggests that, after all, there may be some more intuitive explanation of the fundamental dichotomy between bosons and fermions, which puzzled even Feynman:

“Why is it that particles with half-integral spin are Fermi particles, whereas particles with integral spin are Bose particles? We apologize for the fact that we cannot give you an elementary explanation. An explanation has been worked out by Pauli from complicated arguments of quantum field theory and relativity. He has shown that the two must necessarily go together, but we have not been able to find a way of reproducing his arguments on an elementary level. It appears to be one of the few places in physics where there is a rule which can be stated very simply, but for which no one has found a simple and easy explanation. The explanation is deep down in relativistic quantum mechanics. This probably means that we do not have a complete understanding of the fundamental principle involved.” (Feynman, Lectures, III-4-1)

The physical interpretation of the wavefunction, as presented here, may provide some better understanding of ‘the fundamental principle involved’: the physical dimension of the oscillation is just very different. That is all: it is force per unit charge for photons, and force per unit mass for matter-particles. We will examine the question of spin somewhat more carefully in section VII. Let us first examine the matter-wave some more.

# VI. Group and phase velocity of the matter-wave

The geometric representation of the matter-wave (see Figure 3) suggests a traveling wave and, yes, of course: the matter-wave effectively travels through space and time. But what is traveling, exactly? It is the pulse – or the signal – only: the phase velocity of the wave is just a mathematical concept and, even in our physical interpretation of the wavefunction, the same is true for the group velocity of our wave packet. The oscillation is two-dimensional, but perpendicular to the direction of travel of the wave. Hence, nothing actually moves with our particle.

Here, we should also reiterate that we did not answer the question as to what is oscillating up and down and/or sideways: we only associated a physical dimension with the components of the wavefunction – newton per kg (force per unit mass), to be precise. We were inspired to do so because of the physical dimension of the electric and magnetic field vectors (newton per coulomb, i.e. force per unit charge) we associate with electromagnetic waves which, for all practical purposes, we currently treat as the wavefunction for a photon. This made it possible to calculate the associated energy densities and a Poynting vector for energy dissipation. In addition, we showed that Schrödinger’s equation itself then becomes a diffusion equation for energy. However, let us now focus some more on the asymmetry which is introduced by the phase difference between the real and the imaginary part of the wavefunction. Look at the mathematical shape of the elementary wavefunction once again:

ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħa·ei[E·t − px]/ħ = a·cos(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(px/ħ − E∙t/ħ)

The minus sign in the argument of our sine and cosine function defines the direction of travel: an F(x−v∙t) wavefunction will always describe some wave that is traveling in the positive x-direction (with the wave velocity), while an F(x+v∙t) wavefunction will travel in the negative x-direction. For a geometric interpretation of the wavefunction in three dimensions, we need to agree on how to define i or, what amounts to the same, a convention on how to define clockwise and counterclockwise directions: if we look at a clock from the back, then its hand will be moving counterclockwise. So we need to establish the equivalent of the right-hand rule. However, let us not worry about that now. Let us focus on the interpretation. To ease the analysis, we’ll assume we’re looking at a particle at rest. Hence, p = 0, and the wavefunction reduces to:

ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ = a·cos(−E∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(−E0∙t/ħ) = a·cos(E0∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(E0∙t/ħ)

E0 is, of course, the rest mass of our particle and, now that we are here, we should probably wonder whose time we are talking about: is it our time, or is the proper time of our particle? Well… In this situation, we are both at rest so it does not matter: t is, effectively, the proper time so perhaps we should write it as t0. It does not matter. You can see what we expect to see: E0/ħ pops up as the natural frequency of our matter-particle: (E0/ħ)∙t = ω∙t. Remembering the ω = 2π·f = 2π/T and T = 1/formulas, we can associate a period and a frequency with this wave, using the ω = 2π·f = 2π/T. Noting that ħ = h/2π, we find the following:

T = 2π·(ħ/E0) = h/E0 ⇔ = E0/h = m0c2/h

This is interesting, because we can look at the period as a natural unit of time for our particle. What about the wavelength? That is tricky because we need to distinguish between group and phase velocity here. The group velocity (vg) should be zero here, because we assume our particle does not move. In contrast, the phase velocity is given by vp = λ·= (2π/k)·(ω/2π) = ω/k. In fact, we’ve got something funny here: the wavenumber k = p/ħ is zero, because we assume the particle is at rest, so p = 0. So we have a division by zero here, which is rather strange. What do we get assuming the particle is not at rest? We write:

vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(p/ħ) = E/p = E/(m·vg) = (m·c2)/(m·vg) = c2/vg

This is interesting: it establishes a reciprocal relation between the phase and the group velocity, with as a simple scaling constant. Indeed, the graph below shows the shape of the function does not change with the value of c, and we may also re-write the relation above as:

vp/= βp = c/vp = 1/βg = 1/(c/vp)

Figure 6: Reciprocal relation between phase and group velocity

We can also write the mentioned relationship as vp·vg = c2, which reminds us of the relationship between the electric and magnetic constant (1/ε0)·(1/μ0) = c2. This is interesting in light of the fact we can re-write this as (c·ε0)·(c·μ0) = 1, which shows electricity and magnetism are just two sides of the same coin, so to speak.[24]

Interesting, but how do we interpret the math? What about the implications of the zero value for wavenumber k = p/ħ. We would probably like to think it implies the elementary wavefunction should always be associated with some momentum, because the concept of zero momentum clearly leads to weird math: something times zero cannot be equal to c2! Such interpretation is also consistent with the Uncertainty Principle: if Δx·Δp ≥ ħ, then neither Δx nor Δp can be zero. In other words, the Uncertainty Principle tells us that the idea of a pointlike particle actually being at some specific point in time and in space does not make sense: it has to move. It tells us that our concept of dimensionless points in time and space are mathematical notions only. Actual particles – including photons – are always a bit spread out, so to speak, and – importantly – they have to move.

For a photon, this is self-evident. It has no rest mass, no rest energy, and, therefore, it is going to move at the speed of light itself. We write: p = m·c = m·c2/= E/c. Using the relationship above, we get:

vp = ω/k = (E/ħ)/(p/ħ) = E/p = c ⇒ vg = c2/vp = c2/c = c

This is good: we started out with some reflections on the matter-wave, but here we get an interpretation of the electromagnetic wave as a wavefunction for the photon. But let us get back to our matter-wave. In regard to our interpretation of a particle having to move, we should remind ourselves, once again, of the fact that an actual particle is always localized in space and that it can, therefore, not be represented by the elementary wavefunction ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħ or, for a particle at rest, the ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ function. We must build a wave packet for that: a sum of wavefunctions, each with their own amplitude ai, and their own ωi = −Ei/ħ. Indeed, in section II, we showed that each of these wavefunctions will contribute some energy to the total energy of the wave packet and that, to calculate the contribution of each wave to the total, both ai as well as Ei matter. This may or may not resolve the apparent paradox. Let us look at the group velocity.

To calculate a meaningful group velocity, we must assume the vg = ∂ωi/∂ki = ∂(Ei/ħ)/∂(pi/ħ) = ∂(Ei)/∂(pi) exists. So we must have some dispersion relation. How do we calculate it? We need to calculate ωi as a function of ki here, or Ei as a function of pi. How do we do that? Well… There are a few ways to go about it but one interesting way of doing it is to re-write Schrödinger’s equation as we did, i.e. by distinguishing the real and imaginary parts of the ∂ψ/∂t =i·[ħ/(2m)]·∇2ψ wave equation and, hence, re-write it as the following pair of two equations:

1. Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −[ħ/(2meff)]·Im(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·cos(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2meff)]·cos(kx − ωt)
2. Im(∂ψ/∂t) = [ħ/(2meff)]·Re(∇2ψ) ⇔ ω·sin(kx − ωt) = k2·[ħ/(2meff)]·sin(kx − ωt)

Both equations imply the following dispersion relation:

ω = ħ·k2/(2meff)

Of course, we need to think about the subscripts now: we have ωi, ki, but… What about meff or, dropping the subscript, m? Do we write it as mi? If so, what is it? Well… It is the equivalent mass of Ei obviously, and so we get it from the mass-energy equivalence relation: mi = Ei/c2. It is a fine point, but one most people forget about: they usually just write m. However, if there is uncertainty in the energy, then Einstein’s mass-energy relation tells us we must have some uncertainty in the (equivalent) mass too. Here, I should refer back to Section II: Ei varies around some average energy E and, therefore, the Uncertainty Principle kicks in.

# VII. Explaining spin

The elementary wavefunction vector – i.e. the vector sum of the real and imaginary component – rotates around the x-axis, which gives us the direction of propagation of the wave (see Figure 3). Its magnitude remains constant. In contrast, the magnitude of the electromagnetic vector – defined as the vector sum of the electric and magnetic field vectors – oscillates between zero and some maximum (see Figure 5).

We already mentioned that the rotation of the wavefunction vector appears to give some spin to the particle. Of course, a circularly polarized wave would also appear to have spin (think of the E and B vectors rotating around the direction of propagation – as opposed to oscillating up and down or sideways only). In fact, a circularly polarized light does carry angular momentum, as the equivalent mass of its energy may be thought of as rotating as well. But so here we are looking at a matter-wave.

The basic idea is the following: if we look at ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ as some real vector – as a two-dimensional oscillation of mass, to be precise – then we may associate its rotation around the direction of propagation with some torque. The illustration below reminds of the math here.

Figure 7: Torque and angular momentum vectors

A torque on some mass about a fixed axis gives it angular momentum, which we can write as the vector cross-product L = r×p or, perhaps easier for our purposes here as the product of an angular velocity (ω) and rotational inertia (I), aka as the moment of inertia or the angular mass. We write:

L = I·ω

Note we can write L and ω in boldface here because they are (axial) vectors. If we consider their magnitudes only, we write L = I·ω (no boldface). We can now do some calculations. Let us start with the angular velocity. In our previous posts, we showed that the period of the matter-wave is equal to T = 2π·(ħ/E0). Hence, the angular velocity must be equal to:

ω = 2π/[2π·(ħ/E0)] = E0

We also know the distance r, so that is the magnitude of r in the Lr×p vector cross-product: it is just a, so that is the magnitude of ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ. Now, the momentum (p) is the product of a linear velocity (v) – in this case, the tangential velocity – and some mass (m): p = m·v. If we switch to scalar instead of vector quantities, then the (tangential) velocity is given by v = r·ω. So now we only need to think about what we should use for m or, if we want to work with the angular velocity (ω), the angular mass (I). Here we need to make some assumption about the mass (or energy) distribution. Now, it may or may not sense to assume the energy in the oscillation – and, therefore, the mass – is distributed uniformly. In that case, we may use the formula for the angular mass of a solid cylinder: I = m·r2/2. If we keep the analysis non-relativistic, then m = m0. Of course, the energy-mass equivalence tells us that m0 = E0/c2. Hence, this is what we get:

L = I·ω = (m0·r2/2)·(E0/ħ) = (1/2)·a2·(E0/c2)·(E0/ħ) = a2·E02/(2·ħ·c2)

Does it make sense? Maybe. Maybe not. Let us do a dimensional analysis: that won’t check our logic, but it makes sure we made no mistakes when mapping mathematical and physical spaces. We have m2·J2 = m2·N2·m2 in the numerator and N·m·s·m2/s2 in the denominator. Hence, the dimensions work out: we get N·m·s as the dimension for L, which is, effectively, the physical dimension of angular momentum. It is also the action dimension, of course, and that cannot be a coincidence. Also note that the E = mc2 equation allows us to re-write it as:

L = a2·E02/(2·ħ·c2)

Of course, in quantum mechanics, we associate spin with the magnetic moment of a charged particle, not with its mass as such. Is there way to link the formula above to the one we have for the quantum-mechanical angular momentum, which is also measured in N·m·s units, and which can only take on one of two possible values: J = +ħ/2 and −ħ/2? It looks like a long shot, right? How do we go from (1/2)·a2·m02/ħ to ± (1/2)∙ħ? Let us do a numerical example. The energy of an electron is typically 0.510 MeV » 8.1871×10−14 N∙m, and a… What value should we take for a?

We have an obvious trio of candidates here: the Bohr radius, the classical electron radius (aka the Thompon scattering length), and the Compton scattering radius.

Let us start with the Bohr radius, so that is about 0.×10−10 N∙m. We get L = a2·E02/(2·ħ·c2) = 9.9×10−31 N∙m∙s. Now that is about 1.88×104 times ħ/2. That is a huge factor. The Bohr radius cannot be right: we are not looking at an electron in an orbital here. To show it does not make sense, we may want to double-check the analysis by doing the calculation in another way. We said each oscillation will always pack 6.626070040(81)×10−34 joule in energy. So our electron should pack about 1.24×10−20 oscillations. The angular momentum (L) we get when using the Bohr radius for a and the value of 6.626×10−34 joule for E0 and the Bohr radius is equal to 6.49×10−59 N∙m∙s. So that is the angular momentum per oscillation. When we multiply this with the number of oscillations (1.24×10−20), we get about 8.01×10−51 N∙m∙s, so that is a totally different number.

The classical electron radius is about 2.818×10−15 m. We get an L that is equal to about 2.81×10−39 N∙m∙s, so now it is a tiny fraction of ħ/2! Hence, this leads us nowhere. Let us go for our last chance to get a meaningful result! Let us use the Compton scattering length, so that is about 2.42631×10−12 m.

This gives us an L of 2.08×10−33 N∙m∙s, which is only 20 times ħ. This is not so bad, but it is good enough? Let us calculate it the other way around: what value should we take for a so as to ensure L = a2·E02/(2·ħ·c2) = ħ/2? Let us write it out:

In fact, this is the formula for the so-called reduced Compton wavelength. This is perfect. We found what we wanted to find. Substituting this value for a (you can calculate it: it is about 3.8616×10−33 m), we get what we should find:

This is a rather spectacular result, and one that would – a priori – support the interpretation of the wavefunction that is being suggested in this paper.

# VIII. The boson-fermion dichotomy

Let us do some more thinking on the boson-fermion dichotomy. Again, we should remind ourselves that an actual particle is localized in space and that it can, therefore, not be represented by the elementary wavefunction ψ = a·ei[E·t − px]/ħ or, for a particle at rest, the ψ = a·ei∙E·t/ħ function. We must build a wave packet for that: a sum of wavefunctions, each with their own amplitude ai, and their own ωi = −Ei/ħ. Each of these wavefunctions will contribute some energy to the total energy of the wave packet. Now, we can have another wild but logical theory about this.

Think of the apparent right-handedness of the elementary wavefunction: surely, Nature can’t be bothered about our convention of measuring phase angles clockwise or counterclockwise. Also, the angular momentum can be positive or negative: J = +ħ/2 or −ħ/2. Hence, we would probably like to think that an actual particle – think of an electron, or whatever other particle you’d think of – may consist of right-handed as well as left-handed elementary waves. To be precise, we may think they either consist of (elementary) right-handed waves or, else, of (elementary) left-handed waves. An elementary right-handed wave would be written as:

ψ(θi= ai·(cosθi + i·sinθi)

In contrast, an elementary left-handed wave would be written as:

ψ(θi= ai·(cosθii·sinθi)

How does that work out with the E0·t argument of our wavefunction? Position is position, and direction is direction, but time? Time has only one direction, but Nature surely does not care how we count time: counting like 1, 2, 3, etcetera or like −1, −2, −3, etcetera is just the same. If we count like 1, 2, 3, etcetera, then we write our wavefunction like:

ψ = a·cos(E0∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(E0∙t/ħ)

If we count time like −1, −2, −3, etcetera then we write it as:

ψ = a·cos(E0∙t/ħ) − i·a·sin(E0∙t/ħ)= a·cos(E0∙t/ħ) + i·a·sin(E0∙t/ħ)

Hence, it is just like the left- or right-handed circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave: we can have both for the matter-wave too! This, then, should explain why we can have either positive or negative quantum-mechanical spin (+ħ/2 or −ħ/2). It is the usual thing: we have two mathematical possibilities here, and so we must have two physical situations that correspond to it.

It is only natural. If we have left- and right-handed photons – or, generalizing, left- and right-handed bosons – then we should also have left- and right-handed fermions (electrons, protons, etcetera). Back to the dichotomy. The textbook analysis of the dichotomy between bosons and fermions may be epitomized by Richard Feynman’s Lecture on it (Feynman, III-4), which is confusing and – I would dare to say – even inconsistent: how are photons or electrons supposed to know that they need to interfere with a positive or a negative sign? They are not supposed to know anything: knowledge is part of our interpretation of whatever it is that is going on there.

Hence, it is probably best to keep it simple, and think of the dichotomy in terms of the different physical dimensions of the oscillation: newton per kg versus newton per coulomb. And then, of course, we should also note that matter-particles have a rest mass and, therefore, actually carry charge. Photons do not. But both are two-dimensional oscillations, and the point is: the so-called vacuum – and the rest mass of our particle (which is zero for the photon and non-zero for everything else) – give us the natural frequency for both oscillations, which is beautifully summed up in that remarkable equation for the group and phase velocity of the wavefunction, which applies to photons as well as matter-particles:

(vphase·c)·(vgroup·c) = 1 ⇔ vp·vg = c2

The final question then is: why are photons spin-zero particles? Well… We should first remind ourselves of the fact that they do have spin when circularly polarized.[25] Here we may think of the rotation of the equivalent mass of their energy. However, if they are linearly polarized, then there is no spin. Even for circularly polarized waves, the spin angular momentum of photons is a weird concept. If photons have no (rest) mass, then they cannot carry any charge. They should, therefore, not have any magnetic moment. Indeed, what I wrote above shows an explanation of quantum-mechanical spin requires both mass as well as charge.[26]

# IX. Concluding remarks

There are, of course, other ways to look at the matter – literally. For example, we can imagine two-dimensional oscillations as circular rather than linear oscillations. Think of a tiny ball, whose center of mass stays where it is, as depicted below. Any rotation – around any axis – will be some combination of a rotation around the two other axes. Hence, we may want to think of a two-dimensional oscillation as an oscillation of a polar and azimuthal angle.

Figure 8: Two-dimensional circular movement

The point of this paper is not to make any definite statements. That would be foolish. Its objective is just to challenge the simplistic mainstream viewpoint on the reality of the wavefunction. Stating that it is a mathematical construct only without physical significance amounts to saying it has no meaning at all. That is, clearly, a non-sustainable proposition.

The interpretation that is offered here looks at amplitude waves as traveling fields. Their physical dimension may be expressed in force per mass unit, as opposed to electromagnetic waves, whose amplitudes are expressed in force per (electric) charge unit. Also, the amplitudes of matter-waves incorporate a phase factor, but this may actually explain the rather enigmatic dichotomy between fermions and bosons and is, therefore, an added bonus.

The interpretation that is offered here has some advantages over other explanations, as it explains the how of diffraction and interference. However, while it offers a great explanation of the wave nature of matter, it does not explain its particle nature: while we think of the energy as being spread out, we will still observe electrons and photons as pointlike particles once they hit the detector. Why is it that a detector can sort of ‘hook’ the whole blob of energy, so to speak?

The interpretation of the wavefunction that is offered here does not explain this. Hence, the complementarity principle of the Copenhagen interpretation of the wavefunction surely remains relevant.

# Appendix 1: The de Broglie relations and energy

The 1/2 factor in Schrödinger’s equation is related to the concept of the effective mass (meff). It is easy to make the wrong calculations. For example, when playing with the famous de Broglie relations – aka as the matter-wave equations – one may be tempted to derive the following energy concept:

1. E = h·f and p = h/λ. Therefore, f = E/h and λ = p/h.
2. v = λ = (E/h)∙(p/h) = E/p
3. p = m·v. Therefore, E = v·p = m·v2

E = m·v2? This resembles the E = mc2 equation and, therefore, one may be enthused by the discovery, especially because the m·v2 also pops up when working with the Least Action Principle in classical mechanics, which states that the path that is followed by a particle will minimize the following integral:Now, we can choose any reference point for the potential energy but, to reflect the energy conservation law, we can select a reference point that ensures the sum of the kinetic and the potential energy is zero throughout the time interval. If the force field is uniform, then the integrand will, effectively, be equal to KE − PE = m·v2.[27]

However, that is classical mechanics and, therefore, not so relevant in the context of the de Broglie equations, and the apparent paradox should be solved by distinguishing between the group and the phase velocity of the matter wave.

# Appendix 2: The concept of the effective mass

The effective mass – as used in Schrödinger’s equation – is a rather enigmatic concept. To make sure we are making the right analysis here, I should start by noting you will usually see Schrödinger’s equation written as:This formulation includes a term with the potential energy (U). In free space (no potential), this term disappears, and the equation can be re-written as:

∂ψ(x, t)/∂t = i·(1/2)·(ħ/meff)·∇2ψ(x, t)

We just moved the i·ħ coefficient to the other side, noting that 1/i = –i. Now, in one-dimensional space, and assuming ψ is just the elementary wavefunction (so we substitute a·ei∙[E·t − p∙x]/ħ for ψ), this implies the following:

a·i·(E/ħ)·ei∙[E·t − p∙x]/ħ = −i·(ħ/2meffa·(p22 ei∙[E·t − p∙x]/ħ

⇔ E = p2/(2meff) ⇔ meff = m∙(v/c)2/2 = m∙β2/2

It is an ugly formula: it resembles the kinetic energy formula (K.E. = m∙v2/2) but it is, in fact, something completely different. The β2/2 factor ensures the effective mass is always a fraction of the mass itself. To get rid of the ugly 1/2 factor, we may re-define meff as two times the old meff (hence, meffNEW = 2∙meffOLD), as a result of which the formula will look somewhat better:

meff = m∙(v/c)2 = m∙β2

We know β varies between 0 and 1 and, therefore, meff will vary between 0 and m. Feynman drops the subscript, and just writes meff as m in his textbook (see Feynman, III-19). On the other hand, the electron mass as used is also the electron mass that is used to calculate the size of an atom (see Feynman, III-2-4). As such, the two mass concepts are, effectively, mutually compatible. It is confusing because the same mass is often defined as the mass of a stationary electron (see, for example, the article on it in the online Wikipedia encyclopedia[28]).

In the context of the derivation of the electron orbitals, we do have the potential energy term – which is the equivalent of a source term in a diffusion equation – and that may explain why the above-mentioned meff = m∙(v/c)2 = m∙β2 formula does not apply.

# References

This paper discusses general principles in physics only. Hence, references can be limited to references to physics textbooks only. For ease of reading, any reference to additional material has been limited to a more popular undergrad textbook that can be consulted online: Feynman’s Lectures on Physics (http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu). References are per volume, per chapter and per section. For example, Feynman III-19-3 refers to Volume III, Chapter 19, Section 3.

# Notes

[1] Of course, an actual particle is localized in space and can, therefore, not be represented by the elementary wavefunction ψ = a·ei∙θa·ei[E·t − px]/ħ = a·(cosθ i·a·sinθ). We must build a wave packet for that: a sum of wavefunctions, each with its own amplitude ak and its own argument θk = (Ek∙t – pkx)/ħ. This is dealt with in this paper as part of the discussion on the mathematical and physical interpretation of the normalization condition.

[2] The N/kg dimension immediately, and naturally, reduces to the dimension of acceleration (m/s2), thereby facilitating a direct interpretation in terms of Newton’s force law.

[3] In physics, a two-spring metaphor is more common. Hence, the pistons in the author’s perpetuum mobile may be replaced by springs.

[4] The author re-derives the equation for the Compton scattering radius in section VII of the paper.

[5] The magnetic force can be analyzed as a relativistic effect (see Feynman II-13-6). The dichotomy between the electric force as a polar vector and the magnetic force as an axial vector disappears in the relativistic four-vector representation of electromagnetism.

[6] For example, when using Schrödinger’s equation in a central field (think of the electron around a proton), the use of polar coordinates is recommended, as it ensures the symmetry of the Hamiltonian under all rotations (see Feynman III-19-3)

[7] This sentiment is usually summed up in the apocryphal quote: “God does not play dice.”The actual quote comes out of one of Einstein’s private letters to Cornelius Lanczos, another scientist who had also emigrated to the US. The full quote is as follows: “You are the only person I know who has the same attitude towards physics as I have: belief in the comprehension of reality through something basically simple and unified… It seems hard to sneak a look at God’s cards. But that He plays dice and uses ‘telepathic’ methods… is something that I cannot believe for a single moment.” (Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman, Albert Einstein, the Human Side: New Glimpses from His Archives, 1979)

[8] Of course, both are different velocities: ω is an angular velocity, while v is a linear velocity: ω is measured in radians per second, while v is measured in meter per second. However, the definition of a radian implies radians are measured in distance units. Hence, the physical dimensions are, effectively, the same. As for the formula for the total energy of an oscillator, we should actually write: E = m·a2∙ω2/2. The additional factor (a) is the (maximum) amplitude of the oscillator.

[9] We also have a 1/2 factor in the E = mv2/2 formula. Two remarks may be made here. First, it may be noted this is a non-relativistic formula and, more importantly, incorporates kinetic energy only. Using the Lorentz factor (γ), we can write the relativistically correct formula for the kinetic energy as K.E. = E − E0 = mvc2 − m0c2 = m0γc2 − m0c2 = m0c2(γ − 1). As for the exclusion of the potential energy, we may note that we may choose our reference point for the potential energy such that the kinetic and potential energy mirror each other. The energy concept that then emerges is the one that is used in the context of the Principle of Least Action: it equals E = mv2. Appendix 1 provides some notes on that.

[10] Instead of two cylinders with pistons, one may also think of connecting two springs with a crankshaft.

[11] It is interesting to note that we may look at the energy in the rotating flywheel as potential energy because it is energy that is associated with motion, albeit circular motion. In physics, one may associate a rotating object with kinetic energy using the rotational equivalent of mass and linear velocity, i.e. rotational inertia (I) and angular velocity ω. The kinetic energy of a rotating object is then given by K.E. = (1/2)·I·ω2.

[12] Because of the sideways motion of the connecting rods, the sinusoidal function will describe the linear motion only approximately, but you can easily imagine the idealized limit situation.

[13] The ω2= 1/LC formula gives us the natural or resonant frequency for a electric circuit consisting of a resistor (R), an inductor (L), and a capacitor (C). Writing the formula as ω2= C1/L introduces the concept of elastance, which is the equivalent of the mechanical stiffness (k) of a spring.

[14] The resistance in an electric circuit introduces a damping factor. When analyzing a mechanical spring, one may also want to introduce a drag coefficient. Both are usually defined as a fraction of the inertia, which is the mass for a spring and the inductance for an electric circuit. Hence, we would write the resistance for a spring as γm and as R = γL respectively.

[15] Photons are emitted by atomic oscillators: atoms going from one state (energy level) to another. Feynman (Lectures, I-33-3) shows us how to calculate the Q of these atomic oscillators: it is of the order of 108, which means the wave train will last about 10–8 seconds (to be precise, that is the time it takes for the radiation to die out by a factor 1/e). For example, for sodium light, the radiation will last about 3.2×10–8 seconds (this is the so-called decay time τ). Now, because the frequency of sodium light is some 500 THz (500×1012 oscillations per second), this makes for some 16 million oscillations. There is an interesting paradox here: the speed of light tells us that such wave train will have a length of about 9.6 m! How is that to be reconciled with the pointlike nature of a photon? The paradox can only be explained by relativistic length contraction: in an analysis like this, one need to distinguish the reference frame of the photon – riding along the wave as it is being emitted, so to speak – and our stationary reference frame, which is that of the emitting atom.

[16] This is a general result and is reflected in the K.E. = T = (1/2)·m·ω2·a2·sin2(ω·t + Δ) and the P.E. = U = k·x2/2 = (1/2)· m·ω2·a2·cos2(ω·t + Δ) formulas for the linear oscillator.

[17] Feynman further formalizes this in his Lecture on Superconductivity (Feynman, III-21-2), in which he refers to Schrödinger’s equation as the “equation for continuity of probabilities”. The analysis is centered on the local conservation of energy, which confirms the interpretation of Schrödinger’s equation as an energy diffusion equation.

[18] The meff is the effective mass of the particle, which depends on the medium. For example, an electron traveling in a solid (a transistor, for example) will have a different effective mass than in an atom. In free space, we can drop the subscript and just write meff = m. Appendix 2 provides some additional notes on the concept. As for the equations, they are easily derived from noting that two complex numbers a + i∙b and c + i∙d are equal if, and only if, their real and imaginary parts are the same. Now, the ∂ψ/∂t = i∙(ħ/meff)∙∇2ψ equation amounts to writing something like this: a + i∙b = i∙(c + i∙d). Now, remembering that i2 = −1, you can easily figure out that i∙(c + i∙d) = i∙c + i2∙d = − d + i∙c.

[19] The dimension of B is usually written as N/(m∙A), using the SI unit for current, i.e. the ampere (A). However, 1 C = 1 A∙s and, hence, 1 N/(m∙A) = 1 (N/C)/(m/s).

[20] Of course, multiplication with i amounts to a counterclockwise rotation. Hence, multiplication by –i also amounts to a rotation by 90 degrees, but clockwise. Now, to uniquely identify the clockwise and counterclockwise directions, we need to establish the equivalent of the right-hand rule for a proper geometric interpretation of Schrödinger’s equation in three-dimensional space: if we look at a clock from the back, then its hand will be moving counterclockwise. When writing B = (1/c)∙iE, we assume we are looking in the negative x-direction. If we are looking in the positive x-direction, we should write: B = -(1/c)∙iE. Of course, Nature does not care about our conventions. Hence, both should give the same results in calculations. We will show in a moment they do.

[21] In fact, when multiplying C2/(N·m2) with N2/C2, we get N/m2, but we can multiply this with 1 = m/m to get the desired result. It is significant that an energy density (joule per unit volume) can also be measured in newton (force per unit area.

[22] The illustration shows a linearly polarized wave, but the obtained result is general.

[23] The sine and cosine are essentially the same functions, except for the difference in the phase: sinθ = cos(θ−π /2).

[24] I must thank a physics blogger for re-writing the 1/(ε0·μ0) = c2 equation like this. See: http://reciprocal.systems/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=236 (retrieved on 29 September 2017).

[25] A circularly polarized electromagnetic wave may be analyzed as consisting of two perpendicular electromagnetic plane waves of equal amplitude and 90° difference in phase.

[26] Of course, the reader will now wonder: what about neutrons? How to explain neutron spin? Neutrons are neutral. That is correct, but neutrons are not elementary: they consist of (charged) quarks. Hence, neutron spin can (or should) be explained by the spin of the underlying quarks.

[27] We detailed the mathematical framework and detailed calculations in the following online article: https://readingfeynman.org/2017/09/15/the-principle-of-least-action-re-visited.

[28] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron_rest_mass (retrieved on 29 September 2017).

# Playing with amplitudes

Let’s play a bit with the stuff we found in our previous post. This is going to be unconventional, or experimental, if you want. The idea is to give you… Well… Some ideas. So you can play yourself. 🙂 Let’s go.

Let’s first look at Feynman’s (simplified) formula for the amplitude of a photon to go from point a to point b. If we identify point by the position vector r1 and point by the position vector r2, and using Dirac’s fancy bra-ket notation, then it’s written as:

So we have a vector dot product here: pr12 = |p|∙|r12|· cosθ = p∙r12·cosα. The angle here (α) is the angle between the and r12 vector. All good. Well… No. We’ve got a problem. When it comes to calculating probabilities, the α angle doesn’t matter: |ei·θ/r|2 = 1/r2. Hence, for the probability, we get: P = | 〈r2|r1〉 |2 = 1/r122. Always ! Now that’s strange. The θ = pr12/ħ argument gives us a different phase depending on the angle (α) between p and r12. But… Well… Think of it: cosα goes from 1 to 0 when α goes from 0 to ±90° and, of course, is negative when p and r12 have opposite directions but… Well… According to this formula, the probabilities do not depend on the direction of the momentum. That’s just weird, I think. Did Feynman, in his iconic Lectures, give us a meaningless formula?

Maybe. We may also note this function looks like the elementary wavefunction for any particle, which we wrote as:

ψ(x, t) = a·e−i∙θ = a·e−i(E∙t − px)/ħ= a·ei(E∙t)/ħ·ei(px)/ħ

The only difference is that the 〈r2|r1〉 sort of abstracts away from time, so… Well… Let’s get a feel for the quantities. Let’s think of a photon carrying some typical amount of energy. Hence, let’s talk visible light and, therefore, photons of a few eV only – say 5.625 eV = 5.625×1.6×10−19 J = 9×10−19 J. Hence, their momentum is equal to p = E/c = (9×10−19 N·m)/(3×105 m/s) = 3×10−24 N·s. That’s tiny but that’s only because newtons and seconds are enormous units at the (sub-)atomic scale. As for the distance, we may want to use the thickness of a playing card as a starter, as that’s what Young used when establishing the experimental fact of light interfering with itself. Now, playing cards in Young’s time were obviously rougher than those today, but let’s take the smaller distance: modern cards are as thin as 0.3 mm. Still, that distance is associated with a value of θ that is equal to 13.6 million. Hence, the density of our wavefunction is enormous at this scale, and it’s a bit of a miracle that Young could see any interference at all ! As shown in the table below, we only get meaningful values (remember: θ is a phase angle) when we go down to the nanometer scale (10−9 m) or, even better, the angstroms scale ((10−9 m).

So… Well… Again: what can we do with Feynman’s formula? Perhaps he didn’t give us a propagator function but something that is more general (read: more meaningful) at our (limited) level of knowledge. As I’ve been reading Feynman for quite a while now – like three or four years 🙂 – I think… Well… Yes. That’s it. Feynman wants us to think about it. 🙂 Are you joking again, Mr. Feynman? 🙂 So let’s assume the reasonable thing: let’s assume it gives us the amplitude to go from point a to point by the position vector along some path r. So, then, in line with what we wrote in our previous post, let’s say p·r (momentum over a distance) is the action (S) we’d associate with this particular path (r) and then see where we get. So let’s write the formula like this:

ψ = a·ei·θ = (1/rei·S = ei·p∙r/r

We’ll use an index to denote the various paths: r0 is the straight-line path and ri is any (other) path. Now, quantum mechanics tells us we should calculate this amplitude for every possible path. The illustration below shows the straight-line path and two nearby paths. So each of these paths is associated with some amount of action, which we measure in Planck units: θ = S/ħ

The time interval is given by = tr0/c, for all paths. Why is the time interval the same for all paths? Because we think of a photon going from some specific point in space and in time to some other specific point in space and in time. Indeed, when everything is said and done, we do think of light as traveling from point a to point at the speed of light (c). In fact, all of the weird stuff here is all about trying to explain how it does that. 🙂

Now, if we would think of the photon actually traveling along this or that path, then this implies its velocity along any of the nonlinear paths will be larger than c, which is OK. That’s just the weirdness of quantum mechanics, and you should actually not think of the photon actually traveling along one of these paths anyway although we’ll often put it that way. Think of something fuzzier, whatever that may be. 🙂

So the action is energy times time, or momentum times distance. Hence, the difference in action between two paths and j is given by:

δ= p·rj − p·ri = p·(rj − ri) = p·Δr

I’ll explain the δS < ħ/3 thing in a moment. Let’s first pause and think about the uncertainty and how we’re modeling it. We can effectively think of the variation in as some uncertainty in the action: δ= ΔS = p·Δr. However, if S is also equal to energy times time (= E·t), and we insist is the same for all paths, then we must have some uncertainty in the energy, right? Hence, we can write δas ΔS = ΔE·t. But, of course, E = E = m·c2 = p·c, so we will have an uncertainty in the momentum as well. Hence, the variation in should be written as:

δ= ΔS = Δp·Δr

That’s just logical thinking: if we, somehow, entertain the idea of a photon going from some specific point in spacetime to some other specific point in spacetime along various paths, then the variation, or uncertainty, in the action will effectively combine some uncertainty in the momentum and the distance. We can calculate Δp as ΔE/c, so we get the following:

δ= ΔS = Δp·Δr = ΔE·Δr/c = ΔE·Δt with ΔtΔr/c

So we have the two expressions for the Uncertainty Principle here: ΔS = Δp·Δr = ΔE·Δt. Just be careful with the interpretation of Δt: it’s just the equivalent of Δr. We just express the uncertainty in distance in seconds using the (absolute) speed of light. We are not changing our spacetime interval: we’re still looking at a photon going from to in seconds, exactly. Let’s now look at the δS < ħ/3 thing. If we’re adding two amplitudes (two arrows or vectors, so to speak) and we want the magnitude of the result to be larger than the magnitude of the two contributions, then the angle between them should be smaller than 120 degrees, so that’s 2π/3 rad. The illustration below shows how you can figure that out geometrically.Hence, if S0 is the action for r0, then S1 = S0 + ħ and S2 = S0 + 2·ħ are still good, but S3 = S0 + 3·ħ is not good. Why? Because the difference in the phase angles is Δθ = S1/ħ − S0/ħ = (S0 + ħ)/ħ − S0/ħ = 1 and Δθ = S2/ħ − S0/ħ = (S0 + 2·ħ)/ħ − S0/ħ = 2 respectively, so that’s 57.3° and 114.6° respectively and that’s, effectively, less than 120°. In contrast, for the next path, we find that Δθ = S3/ħ − S0/ħ = (S0 + 3·ħ)/ħ − S0/ħ = 3, so that’s 171.9°. So that amplitude gives us a negative contribution.

Let’s do some calculations using a spreadsheet. To simplify things, we will assume we measure everything (time, distance, force, mass, energy, action,…) in Planck units. Hence, we can simply write: Sn = S0 + n. Of course, = 1, 2,… etcetera, right? Well… Maybe not. We are measuring action in units of ħ, but do we actually think action comes in units of ħ? I am not sure. It would make sense, intuitively, but… Well… There’s uncertainty on the energy (E) and the momentum (p) of our photon, right? And how accurately can we measure the distance? So there’s some randomness everywhere. 😦 So let’s leave that question open as for now.

We will also assume that the phase angle for S0 is equal to 0 (or some multiple of 2π, if you want). That’s just a matter of choosing the origin of time. This makes it really easy: ΔSn = Sn − S0 = n, and the associated phase angle θn = Δθn is the same. In short, the amplitude for each path reduces to ψn = ei·n/r0. So we need to add these first and then calculate the magnitude, which we can then square to get a probability. Of course, there is also the issue of normalization (probabilities have to add up to one) but let’s tackle that later. For the calculations, we use Euler’s r·ei·θ = r·(cosθ + i·sinθ) = r·cosθ + i·r·sinθ formula. Needless to say, |r·ei·θ|2 = |r|2·|ei·θ|2 = |r|2·(cos2θ + sin2θ) = r. Finally, when adding complex numbers, we add the real and imaginary parts respectively, and we’ll denote the ψ0 + ψ1 +ψ2 + … sum as Ψ.

Now, we also need to see how our ΔS = Δp·Δr works out. We may want to assume that the uncertainty in p and in r will both be proportional to the overall uncertainty in the action. For example, we could try writing the following: ΔSn = Δpn·Δrn = n·Δp1·Δr1. It also makes sense that you may want Δpn and Δrn to be proportional to Δp1 and Δr1 respectively. Combining both, the assumption would be this:

Δpn = √n·Δpand Δrn = √n·Δr1

So now we just need to decide how we will distribute ΔS1 = ħ = 1 over Δp1 and Δr1 respectively. For example, if we’d assume Δp1 = 1, then Δr1 = ħ/Δp1 = 1/1 = 1. These are the calculations. I will let you analyze them. 🙂Well… We get a weird result. It reminds me of Feynman’s explanation of the partial reflection of light, shown below, but… Well… That doesn’t make much sense, does it?

Hmm… Maybe it does. 🙂 Look at the graph more carefully. The peaks sort of oscillate out so… Well… That might make sense… 🙂

Does it? Are we doing something wrong here? These amplitudes should reflect the ones that are reflected in those nice animations (like this one, for example, which is part of that’s part of the Wikipedia article on Feynman’s path integral formulation of quantum mechanics). So what’s wrong, if anything? Well… Our paths differ by some fixed amount of action, which doesn’t quite reflect the geometric approach that’s used in those animations. The graph below shows how the distance varies as a function of n

If we’d use a model in which the distance would increase linearly or, preferably, exponentially, then we’d get the result we want to get, right?

Well… Maybe. Let’s try it. Hmm… We need to think about the geometry here. Look at the triangle below. If is the straight-line path (r0), then ac could be one of the crooked paths (rn). To simplify, we’ll assume isosceles triangles, so equals c and, hence, rn = 2·a = 2·c. We will also assume the successive paths are separated by the same vertical distance (h = h1) right in the middle, so hb = hn = n·h1. It is then easy to show the following:This gives the following graph for rn = 10 and h= 0.01.

Is this the right step increase? Not sure. We can vary the values in our spreadsheet. Let’s first build it. The photon will have to travel faster in order to cover the extra distance in the same time, so its momentum will be higher. Let’s think about the velocity. Let’s start with the first path (= 1). In order to cover the extra distance Δr1, the velocity c1 must be equal to (r0 + Δr1)/= r0/+ Δr1/t = + Δr1/= c0 + Δr1/t. We can write c1 as c1 = c0 + Δc1, so Δc1 = Δr1/t. Now, the ratio of p1  and p0 will be equal to the ratio of c1 and c0 because p1/p= (mc1)/mc0) = c1/c0. Hence, we have the following formula for p1:

p1 = p0·c1/c0 = p0·(c0 + Δc1)/c0 = p0·[1 + Δr1/(c0·t) = p0·(1 + Δr1/r0)

For pn, the logic is the same, so we write:

pn = p0·cn/c0 = p0·(c0 + Δcn)/c0 = p0·[1 + Δrn/(c0·t) = p0·(1 + Δrn/r0)

Let’s do the calculations, and let’s use meaningful values, so the nanometer scale and actual values for Planck’s constant and the photon momentum. The results are shown below.

Pretty interesting. In fact, this looks really good. The probability first swings around wildly, because of these zones of constructive and destructive interference, but then stabilizes. [Of course, I would need to normalize the probabilities, but you get the idea, right?] So… Well… I think we get a very meaningful result with this model. Sweet ! 🙂 I’m lovin’ it ! 🙂 And, here you go, this is (part of) the calculation table, so you can see what I am doing. 🙂

The graphs below look even better: I just changed the h1/r0 ratio from 1/100 to 1/10. The probability stabilizes almost immediately. 🙂 So… Well… It’s not as fancy as the referenced animation, but I think the educational value of this thing here is at least as good ! 🙂

🙂 This is good stuff… 🙂

Post scriptum (19 September 2017): There is an obvious inconsistency in the model above, and in the calculations. We assume there is a path r1 = , r2, r2,etcetera, and then we calculate the action for it, and the amplitude, and then we add the amplitude to the sum. But, surely, we should count these paths twice, in two-dimensional space, that is. Think of the graph: we have positive and negative interference zones that are sort of layered around the straight-line path, as shown below.

In three-dimensional space, these lines become surfaces. Hence, rather than adding one arrow for every δ  having one contribution only, we may want to add… Well… In three-dimensional space, the formula for the surface around the straight-line path would probably look like π·hn·r1, right? Hmm… Interesting idea. I changed my spreadsheet to incorporate that idea, and I got the graph below. It’s a nonsensical result, because the probability does swing around, but it gradually spins out of control: it never stabilizes.That’s because we increase the weight of the paths that are further removed from the center. So… Well… We shouldn’t be doing that, I guess. 🙂 I’ll you look for the right formula, OK? Let me know when you found it. 🙂

# Some thoughts on the nature of reality

Some other comment on an article on my other blog, inspired me to structure some thoughts that are spread over various blog posts. What follows below, is probably the first draft of an article or a paper I plan to write. Or, who knows, I might re-write my two introductory books on quantum physics and publish a new edition soon. 🙂

## Physical dimensions and Uncertainty

The physical dimension of the quantum of action (h or ħ = h/2π) is force (expressed in newton) times distance (expressed in meter) times time (expressed in seconds): N·m·s. Now, you may think this N·m·s dimension is kinda hard to imagine. We can imagine its individual components, right? Force, distance and time. We know what they are. But the product of all three? What is it, really?

It shouldn’t be all that hard to imagine what it might be, right? The N·m·s unit is also the unit in which angular momentum is expressed – and you can sort of imagine what that is, right? Think of a spinning top, or a gyroscope. We may also think of the following:

1. [h] = N·m·s = (N·m)·s = [E]·[t]
2. [h] = N·m·s = (N·s)·m = [p]·[x]

Hence, the physical dimension of action is that of energy (E) multiplied by time (t) or, alternatively, that of momentum (p) times distance (x). To be precise, the second dimensional equation should be written as [h] = [p]·[x], because both the momentum and the distance traveled will be associated with some direction. It’s a moot point for the discussion at the moment, though. Let’s think about the first equation first: [h] = [E]·[t]. What does it mean?

Energy… Hmm… In real life, we are usually not interested in the energy of a system as such, but by the energy it can deliver, or absorb, per second. This is referred to as the power of a system, and it’s expressed in J/s, or watt. Power is also defined as the (time) rate at which work is done. Hmm… But so here we’re multiplying energy and time. So what’s that? After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we can sort of imagine the energy of an atomic bomb. We can also sort of imagine the power that’s being released by the Sun in light and other forms of radiation, which is about 385×1024 joule per second. But energy times time? What’s that?

I am not sure. If we think of the Sun as a huge reservoir of energy, then the physical dimension of action is just like having that reservoir of energy guaranteed for some time, regardless of how fast or how slow we use it. So, in short, it’s just like the Sun – or the Earth, or the Moon, or whatever object – just being there, for some definite amount of time. So, yes: some definite amount of mass or energy (E) for some definite amount of time (t).

Let’s bring the mass-energy equivalence formula in here: E = mc2. Hence, the physical dimension of action can also be written as [h] = [E]·[t] = [mc]2·[t] = (kg·m2/s2)·s = kg·m2/s. What does that say? Not all that much – for the time being, at least. We can get this [h] = kg·m2/s through some other substitution as well. A force of one newton will give a mass of 1 kg an acceleration of 1 m/s per second. Therefore, 1 N = 1 kg·m/s2 and, hence, the physical dimension of h, or the unit of angular momentum, may also be written as 1 N·m·s = 1 (kg·m/s2)·m·s = 1 kg·m2/s, i.e. the product of mass, velocity and distance.

Hmm… What can we do with that? Nothing much for the moment: our first reading of it is just that it reminds us of the definition of angular momentum – some mass with some velocity rotating around an axis. What about the distance? Oh… The distance here is just the distance from the axis, right? Right. But… Well… It’s like having some amount of linear momentum available over some distance – or in some space, right? That’s sufficiently significant as an interpretation for the moment, I’d think…

## Fundamental units

This makes one think about what units would be fundamental – and what units we’d consider as being derived. Formally, the newton is a derived unit in the metric system, as opposed to the units of mass, length and time (kg, m, s). Nevertheless, I personally like to think of force as being fundamental:  a force is what causes an object to deviate from its straight trajectory in spacetime. Hence, we may want to think of the quantum of action as representing three fundamental physical dimensions: (1) force, (2) time and (3) distance – or space. We may then look at energy and (linear) momentum as physical quantities combining (1) force and distance and (2) force and time respectively.

Let me write this out:

1. Force times length (think of a force that is acting on some object over some distance) is energy: 1 joule (J) = 1 newton·meter (N). Hence, we may think of the concept of energy as a projection of action in space only: we make abstraction of time. The physical dimension of the quantum of action should then be written as [h] = [E]·[t]. [Note the square brackets tell us we are looking at a dimensional equation only, so [t] is just the physical dimension of the time variable. It’s a bit confusing because I also use square brackets as parentheses.]
2. Conversely, the magnitude of linear momentum (p = m·v) is expressed in newton·seconds: 1 kg·m/s = 1 (kg·m/s2)·s = 1 N·s. Hence, we may think of (linear) momentum as a projection of action in time only: we make abstraction of its spatial dimension. Think of a force that is acting on some object during some time. The physical dimension of the quantum of action should then be written as [h] = [p]·[x]

Of course, a force that is acting on some object during some time, will usually also act on the same object over some distance but… Well… Just try, for once, to make abstraction of one of the two dimensions here: time or distance.

It is a difficult thing to do because, when everything is said and done, we don’t live in space or in time alone, but in spacetime and, hence, such abstractions are not easy. [Of course, now you’ll say that it’s easy to think of something that moves in time only: an object that is standing still does just that – but then we know movement is relative, so there is no such thing as an object that is standing still in space in an absolute sense: Hence, objects never stand still in spacetime.] In any case, we should try such abstractions, if only because of the principle of least action is so essential and deep in physics:

1. In classical physics, the path of some object in a force field will minimize the total action (which is usually written as S) along that path.
2. In quantum mechanics, the same action integral will give us various values S – each corresponding to a particular path – and each path (and, therefore, each value of S, really) will be associated with a probability amplitude that will be proportional to some constant times e−i·θ = ei·(S/ħ). Because ħ is so tiny, even a small change in S will give a completely different phase angle θ. Therefore, most amplitudes will cancel each other out as we take the sum of the amplitudes over all possible paths: only the paths that nearly give the same phase matter. In practice, these are the paths that are associated with a variation in S of an order of magnitude that is equal to ħ.

The paragraph above summarizes, in essence, Feynman’s path integral formulation of quantum mechanics. We may, therefore, think of the quantum of action expressing itself (1) in time only, (2) in space only, or – much more likely – (3) expressing itself in both dimensions at the same time. Hence, if the quantum of action gives us the order of magnitude of the uncertainty – think of writing something like S ± ħ, we may re-write our dimensional [ħ] = [E]·[t] and [ħ] = [p]·[x] equations as the uncertainty equations:

• ΔE·Δt = ħ
• Δp·Δx = ħ

You should note here that it is best to think of the uncertainty relations as a pair of equations, if only because you should also think of the concept of energy and momentum as representing different aspects of the same reality, as evidenced by the (relativistic) energy-momentum relation (E2 = p2c2 – m02c4). Also, as illustrated below, the actual path – or, to be more precise, what we might associate with the concept of the actual path – is likely to be some mix of Δx and Δt. If Δt is very small, then Δx will be very large. In order to move over such distance, our particle will require a larger energy, so ΔE will be large. Likewise, if Δt is very large, then Δx will be very small and, therefore, ΔE will be very small. You can also reason in terms of Δx, and talk about momentum rather than energy. You will arrive at the same conclusions: the ΔE·Δt = h and Δp·Δx = relations represent two aspects of the same reality – or, at the very least, what we might think of as reality.

Also think of the following: if ΔE·Δt = and Δp·Δx = h, then ΔE·Δt = Δp·Δx and, therefore, ΔE/Δp must be equal to Δx/Δt. Hence, the ratio of the uncertainty about x (the distance) and the uncertainty about t (the time) equals the ratio of the uncertainty about E (the energy) and the uncertainty about p (the momentum).

Of course, you will note that the actual uncertainty relations have a factor 1/2 in them. This may be explained by thinking of both negative as well as positive variations in space and in time.

We will obviously want to do some more thinking about those physical dimensions. The idea of a force implies the idea of some object – of some mass on which the force is acting. Hence, let’s think about the concept of mass now. But… Well… Mass and energy are supposed to be equivalent, right? So let’s look at the concept of energy too.

## Action, energy and mass

What is energy, really? In real life, we are usually not interested in the energy of a system as such, but by the energy it can deliver, or absorb, per second. This is referred to as the power of a system, and it’s expressed in J/s. However, in physics, we always talk energy – not power – so… Well… What is the energy of a system?

According to the de Broglie and Einstein – and so many other eminent physicists, of course – we should not only think of the kinetic energy of its parts, but also of their potential energy, and their rest energy, and – for an atomic system – we may add some internal energy, which may be binding energy, or excitation energy (think of a hydrogen atom in an excited state, for example). A lot of stuff. 🙂 But, obviously, Einstein’s mass-equivalence formula comes to mind here, and summarizes it all:

E = m·c2

The m in this formula refers to mass – not to meter, obviously. Stupid remark, of course… But… Well… What is energy, really? What is mass, really? What’s that equivalence between mass and energy, really?

I don’t have the definite answer to that question (otherwise I’d be famous), but… Well… I do think physicists and mathematicians should invest more in exploring some basic intuitions here. As I explained in several posts, it is very tempting to think of energy as some kind of two-dimensional oscillation of mass. A force over some distance will cause a mass to accelerate. This is reflected in the dimensional analysis:

[E] = [m]·[c2] = 1 kg·m2/s2 = 1 kg·m/s2·m = 1 N·m

The kg and m/sfactors make this abundantly clear: m/s2 is the physical dimension of acceleration: (the change in) velocity per time unit.

Other formulas now come to mind, such as the Planck-Einstein relation: E = h·f = ω·ħ. We could also write: E = h/T. Needless to say, T = 1/f is the period of the oscillation. So we could say, for example, that the energy of some particle times the period of the oscillation gives us Planck’s constant again. What does that mean? Perhaps it’s easier to think of it the other way around: E/f = h = 6.626070040(81)×10−34 J·s. Now, is the number of oscillations per second. Let’s write it as = n/s, so we get:

E/= E/(n/s) = E·s/n = 6.626070040(81)×10−34 J·s ⇔ E/= 6.626070040(81)×10−34 J

What an amazing result! Our wavicle – be it a photon or a matter-particle – will always pack 6.626070040(81)×10−34 joule in one oscillation, so that’s the numerical value of Planck’s constant which, of course, depends on our fundamental units (i.e. kg, meter, second, etcetera in the SI system).

Of course, the obvious question is: what’s one oscillation? If it’s a wave packet, the oscillations may not have the same amplitude, and we may also not be able to define an exact period. In fact, we should expect the amplitude and duration of each oscillation to be slightly different, shouldn’t we? And then…

Well… What’s an oscillation? We’re used to counting them: oscillations per second, so that’s per time unit. How many do we have in total? We wrote about that in our posts on the shape and size of a photon. We know photons are emitted by atomic oscillators – or, to put it simply, just atoms going from one energy level to another. Feynman calculated the Q of these atomic oscillators: it’s of the order of 10(see his Lectures, I-33-3: it’s a wonderfully simple exercise, and one that really shows his greatness as a physics teacher), so… Well… This wave train will last about 10–8 seconds (that’s the time it takes for the radiation to die out by a factor 1/e). To give a somewhat more precise example, for sodium light, which has a frequency of 500 THz (500×1012 oscillations per second) and a wavelength of 600 nm (600×10–9 meter), the radiation will lasts about 3.2×10–8 seconds. [In fact, that’s the time it takes for the radiation’s energy to die out by a factor 1/e, so(i.e. the so-called decay time τ), so the wavetrain will actually last longer, but so the amplitude becomes quite small after that time.] So… Well… That’s a very short time but… Still, taking into account the rather spectacular frequency (500 THz) of sodium light, that makes for some 16 million oscillations and, taking into the account the rather spectacular speed of light (3×10m/s), that makes for a wave train with a length of, roughly, 9.6 meter. Huh? 9.6 meter!? But a photon is supposed to be pointlike, isn’it it? It has no length, does it?

That’s where relativity helps us out: as I wrote in one of my posts, relativistic length contraction may explain the apparent paradox. Using the reference frame of the photon – so if we’d be traveling at speed c,’ riding’ with the photon, so to say, as it’s being emitted – then we’d ‘see’ the electromagnetic transient as it’s being radiated into space.

However, while we can associate some mass with the energy of the photon, none of what I wrote above explains what the (rest) mass of a matter-particle could possibly be. There is no real answer to that, I guess. You’ll think of the Higgs field now but… Then… Well. The Higgs field is a scalar field. Very simple: some number that’s associated with some position in spacetime. That doesn’t explain very much, does it? 😦 When everything is said and done, the scientists who, in 2013 only, got the Nobel Price for their theory on the Higgs mechanism, simply tell us mass is some number. That’s something we knew already, right? 🙂

## The reality of the wavefunction

The wavefunction is, obviously, a mathematical construct: a description of reality using a very specific language. What language? Mathematics, of course! Math may not be universal (aliens might not be able to decipher our mathematical models) but it’s pretty good as a global tool of communication, at least.

The real question is: is the description accurate? Does it match reality and, if it does, how good is the match? For example, the wavefunction for an electron in a hydrogen atom looks as follows:

ψ(r, t) = ei·(E/ħ)·t·f(r)

As I explained in previous posts (see, for example, my recent post on reality and perception), the f(r) function basically provides some envelope for the two-dimensional ei·θ = ei·(E/ħ)·t = cosθ + i·sinθ oscillation, with r = (x, y, z), θ = (E/ħ)·t = ω·t and ω = E/ħ. So it presumes the duration of each oscillation is some constant. Why? Well… Look at the formula: this thing has a constant frequency in time. It’s only the amplitude that is varying as a function of the r = (x, y, z) coordinates. 🙂 So… Well… If each oscillation is to always pack 6.626070040(81)×10−34 joule, but the amplitude of the oscillation varies from point to point, then… Well… We’ve got a problem. The wavefunction above is likely to be an approximation of reality only. 🙂 The associated energy is the same, but… Well… Reality is probably not the nice geometrical shape we associate with those wavefunctions.

In addition, we should think of the Uncertainty Principle: there must be some uncertainty in the energy of the photons when our hydrogen atom makes a transition from one energy level to another. But then… Well… If our photon packs something like 16 million oscillations, and the order of magnitude of the uncertainty is only of the order of h (or ħ = h/2π) which, as mentioned above, is the (average) energy of one oscillation only, then we don’t have much of a problem here, do we? 🙂

Post scriptum: In previous posts, we offered some analogies – or metaphors – to a two-dimensional oscillation (remember the V-2 engine?). Perhaps it’s all relatively simple. If we have some tiny little ball of mass – and its center of mass has to stay where it is – then any rotation – around any axis – will be some combination of a rotation around our x- and z-axis – as shown below. Two axes only. So we may want to think of a two-dimensional oscillation as an oscillation of the polar and azimuthal angle. 🙂

# Thinking again…

One of the comments on my other blog made me think I should, perhaps, write something on waves again. The animation below shows the elementary wavefunction ψ = a·eiθ = ψ = a·ei·θ  = a·ei(ω·t−k·x) = a·e(i/ħ)·(E·t−p·x) .We know this elementary wavefunction cannot represent a real-life particle. Indeed, the a·ei·θ function implies the probability of finding the particle – an electron, a photon, or whatever – would be equal to P(x, t) = |ψ(x, t)|2 = |a·e(i/ħ)·(E·t−p·x)|2 = |a|2·|e(i/ħ)·(E·t−p·x)|2 = |a|2·12= a2 everywhere. Hence, the particle would be everywhere – and, therefore, nowhere really. We need to localize the wave – or build a wave packet. We can do so by introducing uncertainty: we then add a potentially infinite number of these elementary wavefunctions with slightly different values for E and p, and various amplitudes a. Each of these amplitudes will then reflect the contribution to the composite wave, which – in three-dimensional space – we can write as:

ψ(r, t) = ei·(E/ħ)·t·f(r)

As I explained in previous posts (see, for example, my recent post on reality and perception), the f(r) function basically provides some envelope for the two-dimensional ei·θ = ei·(E/ħ)·t = cosθ + i·sinθ oscillation, with r = (x, y, z), θ = (E/ħ)·t = ω·t and ω = E/ħ.

Note that it looks like the wave propagates from left to right – in the positive direction of an axis which we may refer to as the x-axis. Also note this perception results from the fact that, naturally, we’d associate time with the rotation of that arrow at the center – i.e. with the motion in the illustration, while the spatial dimensions are just what they are: linear spatial dimensions. [This point is, perhaps, somewhat less self-evident than you may think at first.]

Now, the axis which points upwards is usually referred to as the z-axis, and the third and final axis – which points towards us – would then be the y-axis, obviously. Unfortunately, this definition would violate the so-called right-hand rule for defining a proper reference frame: the figures below shows the two possibilities – a left-handed and a right-handed reference frame – and it’s the right-handed reference (i.e. the illustration on the right) which we have to use in order to correctly define all directions, including the direction of rotation of the argument of the wavefunction.Hence, if we don’t change the direction of the y– and z-axes – so we keep defining the z-axis as the axis pointing upwards, and the y-axis as the axis pointing towards us – then the positive direction of the x-axis would actually be the direction from right to left, and we should say that the elementary wavefunction in the animation above seems to propagate in the negative x-direction. [Note that this left- or right-hand rule is quite astonishing: simply swapping the direction of one axis of a left-handed frame makes it right-handed, and vice versa.]

Note my language when I talk about the direction of propagation of our wave. I wrote: it looks like, or it seems to go in this or that direction. And I mean that: there is no real traveling here. At this point, you may want to review a post I wrote for my son, which explains the basic math behind waves, and in which I also explained the animation below.

Note how the peaks and troughs of this pulse seem to move leftwards, but the wave packet (or the group or the envelope of the wave—whatever you want to call it) moves to the right. The point is: the pulse itself doesn’t travel left or right. Think of the horizontal axis in the illustration above as an oscillating guitar string: each point on the string just moves up and down. Likewise, if our repeated pulse would represent a physical wave in water, for example, then the water just stays where it is: it just moves up and down. Likewise, if we shake up some rope, the rope is not going anywhere: we just started some motion that is traveling down the rope. In other words, the phase velocity is just a mathematical concept. The peaks and troughs that seem to be traveling are just mathematical points that are ‘traveling’ left or right. That’s why there’s no limit on the phase velocity: it can – and, according to quantum mechanics, actually will – exceed the speed of light. In contrast, the group velocity – which is the actual speed of the particle that is being represented by the wavefunction – may approach – or, in the case of a massless photon, will actually equal – the speed of light, but will never exceed it, and its direction will, obviously, have a physical significance as it is, effectively, the direction of travel of our particle – be it an electron, a photon (electromagnetic radiation), or whatever.

Hence, you should not think the spin of a particle – integer or half-integer – is somehow related to the direction of rotation of the argument of the elementary wavefunction. It isn’t: Nature doesn’t give a damn about our mathematical conventions, and that’s what the direction of rotation of the argument of that wavefunction is: just some mathematical convention. That’s why we write a·ei(ω·t−k·x) rather than a·ei(ω·t+k·x) or a·ei(ω·t−k·x): it’s just because of the right-hand rule for coordinate frames, and also because Euler defined the counter-clockwise direction as the positive direction of an angle. There’s nothing more to it.

OK. That’s obvious. Let me now return to my interpretation of Einstein’s E = m·c2 formula (see my previous posts on this). I noted that, in the reference frame of the particle itself (see my basics page), the elementary wavefunction a·e(i/ħ)·(E·t−p·x) reduces to a·e(i/ħ)·(E’·t’): the origin of the reference frame then coincides with (the center of) our particle itself, and the wavefunction only varies with the time in the inertial reference frame (i.e. the proper time t’), with the rest energy of the object (E’) as the time scale factor. How should we interpret this?

Well… Energy is force times distance, and force is defined as that what causes some mass to accelerate. To be precise, the newton – as the unit of force – is defined as the magnitude of a force which would cause a mass of one kg to accelerate with one meter per second per second. Per second per second. This is not a typo: 1 N corresponds to 1 kg times 1 m/s per second, i.e. 1 kg·m/s2. So… Because energy is force times distance, the unit of energy may be expressed in units of kg·m/s2·m, or kg·m2/s2, i.e. the unit of mass times the unit of velocity squared. To sum it all up:

1 J = 1 N·m = 1 kg·(m/s)2

This reflects the physical dimensions on both sides of the E = m·c2 formula again but… Well… How should we interpret this? Look at the animation below once more, and imagine the green dot is some tiny mass moving around the origin, in an equally tiny circle. We’ve got two oscillations here: each packing half of the total energy of… Well… Whatever it is that our elementary wavefunction might represent in reality – which we don’t know, of course.

Now, the blue and the red dot – i.e. the horizontal and vertical projection of the green dot – accelerate up and down. If we look carefully, we see these dots accelerate towards the zero point and, once they’ve crossed it, they decelerate, so as to allow for a reversal of direction: the blue dot goes up, and then down. Likewise, the red dot does the same. The interplay between the two oscillations, because of the 90° phase difference, is interesting: if the blue dot is at maximum speed (near or at the origin), the red dot reverses speed (its speed is, therefore, (almost) nil), and vice versa. The metaphor of our frictionless V-2 engine, our perpetuum mobile, comes to mind once more.

The question is: what’s going on, really?

My answer is: I don’t know. I do think that, somehow, energy should be thought of as some two-dimensional oscillation of something – something which we refer to as mass, but we didn’t define mass very clearly either. It also, somehow, combines linear and rotational motion. Each of the two dimensions packs half of the energy of the particle that is being represented by our wavefunction. It is, therefore, only logical that the physical unit of both is to be expressed as a force over some distance – which is, effectively, the physical dimension of energy – or the rotational equivalent of them: torque over some angle. Indeed, the analogy between linear and angular movement is obvious: the kinetic energy of a rotating object is equal to K.E. = (1/2)·I·ω2. In this formula, I is the rotational inertia – i.e. the rotational equivalent of mass – and ω is the angular velocity – i.e. the rotational equivalent of linear velocity. Noting that the (average) kinetic energy in any system must be equal to the (average) potential energy in the system, we can add both, so we get a formula which is structurally similar to the E = m·c2 formula. But is it the same? Is the effective mass of some object the sum of an almost infinite number of quanta that incorporate some kind of rotational motion? And – if we use the right units – is the angular velocity of these infinitesimally small rotations effectively equal to the speed of light?

I am not sure. Not at all, really. But, so far, I can’t think of any explanation of the wavefunction that would make more sense than this one. I just need to keep trying to find better ways to articulate or imagine what might be going on. 🙂 In this regard, I’d like to add a point – which may or may not be relevant. When I talked about that guitar string, or the water wave, and wrote that each point on the string – or each water drop – just moves up and down, we should think of the physicality of the situation: when the string oscillates, its length increases. So it’s only because our string is flexible that it can vibrate between the fixed points at its ends. For a rope that’s not flexible, the end points would need to move in and out with the oscillation. Look at the illustration below, for example: the two kids who are holding rope must come closer to each other, so as to provide the necessary space inside of the oscillation for the other kid. 🙂The next illustration – of how water waves actually propagate – is, perhaps, more relevant. Just think of a two-dimensional equivalent – and of the two oscillations as being transverse waves, as opposed to longitudinal. See how string theory starts making sense? 🙂

The most fundamental question remains the same: what is it, exactly, that is oscillating here? What is the field? It’s always some force on some charge – but what charge, exactly? Mass? What is it? Well… I don’t have the answer to that. It’s the same as asking: what is electric charge, really? So the question is: what’s the reality of mass, of electric charge, or whatever other charge that causes a force to act on it?

If you know, please let me know. 🙂

Post scriptum: The fact that we’re talking some two-dimensional oscillation here – think of a surface now – explains the probability formula: we need to square the absolute value of the amplitude to get it. And normalize, of course. Also note that, when normalizing, we’d expect to get some factor involving π somewhere, because we’re talking some circular surface – as opposed to a rectangular one. But I’ll let you figure that out. 🙂

# Re-visiting electron orbitals (III)

In my previous post, I mentioned that it was not so obvious (both from a physical as well as from a mathematical point of view) to write the wavefunction for electron orbitals – which we denoted as ψ(x, t), i.e. a function of two variables (or four: one time coordinate and three space coordinates) – as the product of two other functions in one variable only.

[…] OK. The above sentence is difficult to read. Let me write in math. 🙂 It is not so obvious to write ψ(x, t) as:

ψ(x, t) = ei·(E/ħ)·t·ψ(x)

As I mentioned before, the physicists’ use of the same symbol (ψ, psi) for both the ψ(x, t) and ψ(x) function is quite confusing – because the two functions are very different:

• ψ(x, t) is a complex-valued function of two (real) variables: x and t. Or four, I should say, because x = (x, y, z) – but it’s probably easier to think of x as one vector variable – a vector-valued argument, so to speak. And then t is, of course, just a scalar variable. So… Well… A function of two variables: the position in space (x), and time (t).
• In contrast, ψ(x) is a real-valued function of one (vector) variable only: x, so that’s the position in space only.

Now you should cry foul, of course: ψ(x) is not necessarily real-valued. It may be complex-valued. You’re right. You know the formula:Note the derivation of this formula involved a switch from Cartesian to polar coordinates here, so from = (x, y, z) to r = (r, θ, φ), and that the function is also a function of the two quantum numbers l and m now, i.e. the orbital angular momentum (l) and its z-component (m) respectively. In my previous post(s), I gave you the formulas for Yl,m(θ, φ) and Fl,m(r) respectively. Fl,m(r) was a real-valued function alright, but the Yl,m(θ, φ) had that ei·m·φ factor in it. So… Yes. You’re right: the Yl,m(θ, φ) function is real-valued if – and only if – m = 0, in which case ei·m·φ = 1. Let me copy the table from Feynman’s treatment of the topic once again:The Plm(cosθ) functions are the so-called (associated) Legendre polynomials, and the formula for these functions is rather horrible:Don’t worry about it too much: just note the Plm(cosθ) is a real-valued function. The point is the following:the ψ(x, t) is a complex-valued function because – and only because – we multiply a real-valued envelope function – which depends on position only – with ei·(E/ħ)·t·ei·m·φ = ei·[(E/ħ)·− m·φ].

[…]

Please read the above once again and – more importantly – think about it for a while. 🙂 You’ll have to agree with the following:

• As mentioned in my previous post, the ei·m·φ factor just gives us phase shift: just a re-set of our zero point for measuring time, so to speak, and the whole ei·[(E/ħ)·− m·φ] factor just disappears when we’re calculating probabilities.
• The envelope function gives us the basic amplitude – in the classical sense of the word: the maximum displacement from the zero value. And so it’s that ei·[(E/ħ)·− m·φ] that ensures the whole expression somehow captures the energy of the oscillation.

Let’s first look at the envelope function again. Let me copy the illustration for n = 5 and = 2 from Wikimedia Commons article. Note the symmetry planes:

• Any plane containing the z-axis is a symmetry plane – like a mirror in which we can reflect one half of the shape to get the other half. [Note that I am talking the shape only here. Forget about the colors for a while – as these reflect the complex phase of the wavefunction.]
• Likewise, the plane containing both the x– and the y-axis is a symmetry plane as well.

The first symmetry plane – or symmetry line, really (i.e. the z-axis) – should not surprise us, because the azimuthal angle φ is conspicuously absent in the formula for our envelope function if, as we are doing in this article here, we merge the ei·m·φ factor with the ei·(E/ħ)·t, so it’s just part and parcel of what the author of the illustrations above refers to as the ‘complex phase’ of our wavefunction. OK. Clear enough – I hope. 🙂 But why is the the xy-plane a symmetry plane too? We need to look at that monstrous formula for the Plm(cosθ) function here: just note the cosθ argument in it is being squared before it’s used in all of the other manipulation. Now, we know that cosθ = sin(π/2 − θ). So we can define some new angle – let’s just call it α – which is measured in the way we’re used to measuring angle, which is not from the z-axis but from the xy-plane. So we write: cosθ = sin(π/2 − θ) = sinα. The illustration below may or may not help you to see what we’re doing here.So… To make a long story short, we can substitute the cosθ argument in the Plm(cosθ) function for sinα = sin(π/2 − θ). Now, if the xy-plane is a symmetry plane, then we must find the same value for Plm(sinα) and Plm[sin(−α)]. Now, that’s not obvious, because sin(−α) = −sinα ≠ sinα. However, because the argument in that Plm(x) function is being squared before any other operation (like subtracting 1 and exponentiating the result), it is OK: [−sinα]2 = [sinα]sin2α. […] OK, I am sure the geeks amongst my readers will be able to explain this more rigorously. In fact, I hope they’ll have a look at it, because there’s also that dl+m/dxl+m operator, and so you should check what happens with the minus sign there. 🙂

[…] Well… By now, you’re probably totally lost, but the fact of the matter is that we’ve got a beautiful result here. Let me highlight the most significant results:

• definite energy state of a hydrogen atom (or of an electron orbiting around some nucleus, I should say) appears to us as some beautifully shaped orbital – an envelope function in three dimensions, really – which has the z-axis – i.e. the vertical axis – as a symmetry line and the xy-plane as a symmetry plane.
• The ei·[(E/ħ)·− m·φ] factor gives us the oscillation within the envelope function. As such, it’s this factor that, somehow, captures the energy of the oscillation.

It’s worth thinking about this. Look at the geometry of the situation again – as depicted below. We’re looking at the situation along the x-axis, in the direction of the origin, which is the nucleus of our atom.

The ei·m·φ factor just gives us phase shift: just a re-set of our zero point for measuring time, so to speak. Interesting, weird – but probably less relevant than the ei·[(E/ħ)·t factor, which gives us the two-dimensional oscillation that captures the energy of the state.

Now, the obvious question is: the oscillation of what, exactly? I am not quite sure but – as I explained in my Deep Blue page – the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction are really like the electric and magnetic field vector of an oscillating electromagnetic field (think of electromagnetic radiation – if that makes it easier). Hence, just like the electric and magnetic field vector represent some rapidly changing force on a unit charge, the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction must also represent some rapidly changing force on… Well… I am not quite sure on what though. The unit charge is usually defined as the charge of a proton – rather than an electron – but then forces act on some mass, right? And the mass of a proton is hugely different from the mass of an electron. The same electric (or magnetic) force will, therefore, give a hugely different acceleration to both.

So… Well… My guts instinct tells me the real and imaginary part of our wavefunction just represent, somehow, a rapidly changing force on some unit of mass, but then I am not sure how to define that unit right now (it’s probably not the kilogram!).

Now, there is another thing we should note here: we’re actually sort of de-constructing a rotation (look at the illustration above once again) in two linearly oscillating vectors – one along the z-axis and the other along the y-axis. Hence, in essence, we’re actually talking about something that’s spinning. In other words, we’re actually talking some torque around the x-axis. In what direction? I think that shouldn’t matter – that we can write E or −E, in other words, but… Well… I need to explore this further – as should you! 🙂

Let me just add one more note on the ei·m·φ factor. It sort of defines the geometry of the complex phase itself. Look at the illustration below. Click on it to enlarge it if necessary – or, better still, visit the magnificent Wikimedia Commons article from which I get these illustrations. These are the orbitals = 4 and = 3. Look at the red hues in particular – or the blue – whatever: focus on one color only, and see how how – for m = ±1, we’ve got one appearance of that color only. For m = ±1, the same color appears at two ends of the ‘tubes’ – or tori (plural of torus), I should say – just to sound more professional. 🙂 For m = ±2, the torus consists of three parts – or, in mathematical terms, we’d say the order of its rotational symmetry is equal to 3. Check that Wikimedia Commons article for higher values of and l: the shapes become very convoluted, but the observation holds. 🙂

Have fun thinking all of this through for yourself – and please do look at those symmetries in particular. 🙂

Post scriptum: You should do some thinking on whether or not these = ±1, ±2,…, ±orbitals are really different. As I mentioned above, a phase difference is just what it is: a re-set of the t = 0 point. Nothing more, nothing less. So… Well… As far as I am concerned, that’s not real difference, is it? 🙂 As with other stuff, I’ll let you think about this for yourself.

# Feynman’s Seminar on Superconductivity (1)

The ultimate challenge for students of Feynman’s iconic Lectures series is, of course, to understand his final one: A Seminar on Superconductivity. As he notes in his introduction to this formidably dense piece, the text does not present the detail of each and every step in the development and, therefore, we’re not supposed to immediately understand everything. As Feynman puts it: we should just believe (more or less) that things would come out if we would be able to go through each and every step. Well… Let’s see. Feynman throws a lot of stuff in here—including, I suspect, some stuff that may not be directly relevant, but that he sort of couldn’t insert into all of his other Lectures. So where do we start?

It took me one long maddening day to figure out the first formula:It says that the amplitude for a particle to go from to in a vector potential (think of a classical magnetic field) is the amplitude for the same particle to go from to b when there is no field (A = 0) multiplied by the exponential of the line integral of the vector potential times the electric charge divided by Planck’s constant. I stared at this for quite a while, but then I recognized the formula for the magnetic effect on an amplitude, which I described in my previous post, which tells us that a magnetic field will shift the phase of the amplitude of a particle with an amount equal to:

Hence, if we write 〈b|a〉 for A = 0 as 〈b|aA = 0 = C·eiθ, then 〈b|a〉 in A will, naturally, be equal to 〈b|a〉 in A = C·ei(θ+φ) = C·eiθ·eiφ = 〈b|aA = 0 ·eiφ, and so that explains it. 🙂 Alright… Next. Or… Well… Let us briefly re-examine the concept of the vector potential, because we’ll need it a lot. We introduced it in our post on magnetostatics. Let’s briefly re-cap the development there. In Maxwell’s set of equations, two out of the four equations give us the magnetic field: B = 0 and c2×B = j0. We noted the following in this regard:

1. The ∇B = 0 equation is true, always, unlike the ×E = 0 expression, which is true for electrostatics only (no moving charges). So the B = 0 equation says the divergence of B is zero, always.
2. The divergence of the curl of a vector field is always zero. Hence, if A is some vector field, then div(curl A) = •(×A) = 0, always.
3. We can now apply another theorem: if the divergence of a vector field, say D, is zero—so if D = 0—then will be the the curl of some other vector field C, so we can write: D = ×C.  Applying this to B = 0, we can write:

If B = 0, then there is an A such that B = ×A

So, in essence, we’re just re-defining the magnetic field (B) in terms of some other vector field. To be precise, we write it as the curl of some other vector field, which we refer to as the (magnetic) vector potential. The components of the magnetic field vector can then be re-written as:

We need to note an important point here: the equations above suggest that the components of B depend on position only. In other words, we assume static magnetic fields, so they do not change with time. That, in turn, assumes steady currents. We will want to extend the analysis to also include magnetodynamics. It complicates the analysis but… Well… Quantum mechanics is complicated. Let us remind ourselves here of Feynman’s re-formulation of Maxwell’s equations as a set of two equations (expressed in terms of the magnetic (vector) and the electric potential) only:

These equations are wave equations, as you can see by writing out the second equation:

It is a wave equation in three dimensions. Note that, even in regions where we do no have any charges or currents, we have non-zero solutions for φ and A. These non-zero solutions are, effectively, representing the electric and magnetic fields as they travel through free space. As Feynman notes, the advantage of re-writing Maxwell’s equations as we do above, is that the two new equations make it immediately apparent that we’re talking electromagnetic waves, really. As he notes, for many practical purposes, it will still be convenient to use the original equations in terms of E and B, but… Well… Not in quantum mechanics, it turns out. As Feynman puts it: “E and B are on the other side of the mountain we have climbed. Now we are ready to cross over to the other side of the peak. Things will look different—we are ready for some new and beautiful views.”

Well… Maybe. Appreciating those views, as part of our study of quantum mechanics, does take time and effort, unfortunately. 😦

### The Schrödinger equation in an electromagnetic field

Feynman then jots down Schrödinger’s equation for the same particle (with charge q) moving in an electromagnetic field that is characterized not only by the (scalar) potential Φ but also by a vector potential A:

Now where does that come from? We know the standard formula in an electric field, right? It’s the formula we used to find the energy states of electrons in a hydrogen atom:

i·ħ·∂ψ/∂t = −(1/2)·(ħ2/m)∇2ψ + V·ψ

Of course, it is easy to see that we replaced V by q·Φ, which makes sense: the potential of a charge in an electric field is the product of the charge (q) and the (electric) potential (Φ), because Φ is, obviously, the potential energy of the unit charge. It’s also easy to see we can re-write −ħ2·∇2ψ as [(ħ/i)·∇]·[(ħ/i)·∇]ψ because (1/i)·(1/i) = 1/i2 = 1/(−1) = −1. 🙂 Alright. So it’s just that −q·A term in the (ħ/i)∇ − q·A expression that we need to explain now.

Unfortunately, that explanation is not so easy. Feynman basically re-derives Schrödinger’s equation using his trade-mark historical argument – which did not include any magnetic field – with a vector potential. The re-derivation is rather annoying, and I didn’t have the courage to go through it myself, so you should – just like me – just believe Feynman when he says that, when there’s a vector potential – i.e. when there’s a magnetic field – then that (ħ/i)·∇ operator – which is the momentum operator– ought to be replaced by a new momentum operator:

So… Well… There we are… 🙂 So far, so good? Well… Maybe.

While, as mentioned, you won’t be interested in the mathematical argument, it is probably worthwhile to reproduce Feynman’s more intuitive explanation of why the operator above is what it is. In other words, let us try to understand that −qA term. Look at the following situation: we’ve got a solenoid here, and some current I is going through it so there’s a magnetic field B. Think of the dynamics while we turn on this flux. Maxwell’s second equation (∇×E = −∂B/∂t) tells us the line integral of E around a loop will be equal to the time rate of change of the magnetic flux through that loop. The ∇×E = −∂B/∂t equation is a differential equation, of course, so it doesn’t have the integral, but you get the idea—I hope.

Now, using the B = ×A equation we can re-write the ∇×E = −∂B/∂t as ∇×E = −∂(×A)/∂t. This allows us to write the following:

∇×E = −∂(×A)/∂t = −×(∂A/∂t) ⇔ E = −∂A/∂t

This is a remarkable expression. Note its derivation is based on the commutativity of the curl and time derivative operators, which is a property that can easily be explained: if we have a function in two variables—say x and t—then the order of the derivation doesn’t matter: we can first take the derivative with respect to and then to t or, alternatively, we can first take the time derivative and then do the ∂/∂x operation. So… Well… The curl is, effectively, a derivative with regard to the spatial variables. OK. So what? What’s the point?

Well… If we’d have some charge q, as shown in the illustration above, that would happen to be there as the flux is being switched on, it will experience a force which is equal to F = qE. We can now integrate this over the time interval (t) during which the flux is being built up to get the following:

0t F = ∫0t m·a = ∫0t m·dv/dt = m·vt= ∫0t q·E = −∫0t q·∂A/∂t = −q·At

Assuming v0 and Aare zero, we may drop the time subscript and simply write:

v = −q·A

The point is: during the build-up of the magnetic flux, our charge will pick up some (classical) momentum that is equal to p = m·v = −q·A. So… Well… That sort of explains the additional term in our new momentum operator.

Note: For some reason I don’t quite understand, Feynman introduces the weird concept of ‘dynamical momentum’, which he defines as the quantity m·v + q·A, so that quantity must be zero in the analysis above. I quickly googled to see why but didn’t invest too much time in the research here. It’s just… Well… A bit puzzling. I don’t really see the relevance of his point here: I am quite happy to go along with the new operator, as it’s rather obvious that introducing changing magnetic fields must, obviously, also have some impact on our wave equations—in classical as well as in quantum mechanics.

### Local conservation of probability

The title of this section in Feynman’s Lecture (yes, still the same Lecture – we’re not switching topics here) is the equation of continuity for probabilities. I find it brilliant, because it confirms my interpretation of the wave function as describing some kind of energy flow. Let me quote Feynman on his endeavor here:

“An important part of the Schrödinger equation for a single particle is the idea that the probability to find the particle at a position is given by the absolute square of the wave function. It is also characteristic of the quantum mechanics that probability is conserved in a local sense. When the probability of finding the electron somewhere decreases, while the probability of the electron being elsewhere increases (keeping the total probability unchanged), something must be going on in between. In other words, the electron has a continuity in the sense that if the probability decreases at one place and builds up at another place, there must be some kind of flow between. If you put a wall, for example, in the way, it will have an influence and the probabilities will not be the same. So the conservation of probability alone is not the complete statement of the conservation law, just as the conservation of energy alone is not as deep and important as the local conservation of energy. If energy is disappearing, there must be a flow of energy to correspond. In the same way, we would like to find a “current” of probability such that if there is any change in the probability density (the probability of being found in a unit volume), it can be considered as coming from an inflow or an outflow due to some current.”

This is it, really ! The wave function does represent some kind of energy flow – between a so-called ‘real’ and a so-called ‘imaginary’ space, which are to be defined in terms of directional versus rotational energy, as I try to point out – admittedly: more by appealing to intuition than to mathematical rigor – in that post of mine on the meaning of the wavefunction.

So what is the flow – or probability current as Feynman refers to it? Well… Here’s the formula:

Huh? Yes. Don’t worry too much about it right now. The essential point is to understand what this current – denoted by J – actually stands for:

So what’s next? Well… Nothing. I’ll actually refer you to Feynman now, because I can’t improve on how he explains how pairs of electrons start behaving when temperatures are low enough to render Boltzmann’s Law irrelevant: the kinetic energy that’s associated with temperature can no longer break up electron pairs if temperature comes close to the zero point.

Huh? What? Electron pairs? Electrons are not supposed to form pairs, are they? They carry the same charge and are, therefore, supposed to repel each other. Well… Yes and no. In my post on the electron orbitals in a hydrogen atom – which just presented Feynman’s presentation on the subject-matter in a, hopefully, somewhat more readable format – we calculated electron orbitals neglecting spin. In Feynman’s words:

“We make another approximation by forgetting that the electron has spin. […] The non-relativistic Schrödinger equation disregards magnetic effects. [However] Small magnetic effects [do] occur because, from the electron’s point-of-view, the proton is a circulating charge which produces a magnetic field. In this field the electron will have a different energy with its spin up than with it down. [Hence] The energy of the atom will be shifted a little bit from what we will calculate. We will ignore this small energy shift. Also we will imagine that the electron is just like a gyroscope moving around in space always keeping the same direction of spin. Since we will be considering a free atom in space the total angular momentum will be conserved. In our approximation we will assume that the angular momentum of the electron spin stays constant, so all the rest of the angular momentum of the atom—what is usually called “orbital” angular momentum—will also be conserved. To an excellent approximation the electron moves in the hydrogen atom like a particle without spin—the angular momentum of the motion is a constant.”

To an excellent approximation… But… Well… Electrons in a metal do form pairs, because they can give up energy in that way and, hence, they are more stable that way. Feynman does not go into the details here – I guess because that’s way beyond the undergrad level – but refers to the Bardeen-Coopers-Schrieffer (BCS) theory instead – the authors of which got a Nobel Prize in Physics in 1972 (that’s a decade or so after Feynman wrote this particular Lecture), so I must assume the theory is well accepted now. 🙂

Of course, you’ll shout now: Hey! Hydrogen is not a metal! Well… Think again: the latest breakthrough in physics is making hydrogen behave like a metal. 🙂 And I am really talking the latest breakthrough: Science just published the findings of this experiment last month! 🙂 🙂 In any case, we’re not talking hydrogen here but superconducting materials, to which – as far as we know – the BCS theory does apply.

So… Well… I am done. I just wanted to show you why it’s important to work your way through Feynman’s last Lecture because… Well… Quantum mechanics does explain everything – although the nitty-gritty of it (the Meissner effect, the London equation, flux quantization, etc.) are rather hard bullets to bite. 😦

Don’t give up ! I am struggling with the nitty-gritty too ! 🙂

# An interpretation of the wavefunction

This is my umpteenth post on the same topic. 😦 It is obvious that this search for a sensible interpretation is consuming me. Why? I am not sure. Studying physics is frustrating. As a leading physicist puts it:

“The teaching of quantum mechanics these days usually follows the same dogma: firstly, the student is told about the failure of classical physics at the beginning of the last century; secondly, the heroic confusions of the founding fathers are described and the student is given to understand that no humble undergraduate student could hope to actually understand quantum mechanics for himself; thirdly, a deus ex machina arrives in the form of a set of postulates (the Schrödinger equation, the collapse of the wavefunction, etc); fourthly, a bombardment of experimental verifications is given, so that the student cannot doubt that QM is correct; fifthly, the student learns how to solve the problems that will appear on the exam paper, hopefully with as little thought as possible.”

That’s obviously not the way we want to understand quantum mechanics. [With we, I mean, me, of course, and you, if you’re reading this blog.] Of course, that doesn’t mean I don’t believe Richard Feynman, one of the greatest physicists ever, when he tells us no one, including himself, understands physics quite the way we’d like to understand it. Such statements should not prevent us from trying harder. So let’s look for better metaphors. The animation below shows the two components of the archetypal wavefunction – a simple sine and cosine. They’re the same function actually, but their phases differ by 90 degrees (π/2).

It makes me think of a V-2 engine with the pistons at a 90-degree angle. Look at the illustration below, which I took from a rather simple article on cars and engines that has nothing to do with quantum mechanics. Think of the moving pistons as harmonic oscillators, like springs.

We will also think of the center of each cylinder as the zero point: think of that point as a point where – if we’re looking at one cylinder alone – the internal and external pressure balance each other, so the piston would not move… Well… If it weren’t for the other piston, because the second piston is not at the center when the first is. In fact, it is easy to verify and compare the following positions of both pistons, as well as the associated dynamics of the situation:

 Piston 1 Piston 2 Motion of Piston 1 Motion Piston 2 Top Center Compressed air will push piston down Piston moves down against external pressure Center Bottom Piston moves down against external pressure External air pressure will push piston up Bottom Center External air pressure will push piston up Piston moves further up and compresses the air Center Top Piston moves further up and compresses the air Compressed air will push piston down

When the pistons move, their linear motion will be described by a sinusoidal function: a sine or a cosine. In fact, the 90-degree V-2 configuration ensures that the linear motion of the two pistons will be exactly the same, except for a phase difference of 90 degrees. [Of course, because of the sideways motion of the connecting rods, our sine and cosine function describes the linear motion only approximately, but you can easily imagine the idealized limit situation. If not, check Feynman’s description of the harmonic oscillator.]

The question is: if we’d have a set-up like this, two springs – or two harmonic oscillators – attached to a shaft through a crank, would this really work as a perpetuum mobile? We obviously talk energy being transferred back and forth between the rotating shaft and the moving pistons… So… Well… Let’s model this: the total energy, potential and kinetic, in each harmonic oscillator is constant. Hence, the piston only delivers or receives kinetic energy from the rotating mass of the shaft.

Now, in physics, that’s a bit of an oxymoron: we don’t think of negative or positive kinetic (or potential) energy in the context of oscillators. We don’t think of the direction of energy. But… Well… If we’ve got two oscillators, our picture changes, and so we may have to adjust our thinking here.

Let me start by giving you an authoritative derivation of the various formulas involved here, taking the example of the physical spring as an oscillator—but the formulas are basically the same for any harmonic oscillator.

The first formula is a general description of the motion of our oscillator. The coefficient in front of the cosine function (a) is the maximum amplitude. Of course, you will also recognize ω0 as the natural frequency of the oscillator, and Δ as the phase factor, which takes into account our t = 0 point. In our case, for example, we have two oscillators with a phase difference equal to π/2 and, hence, Δ would be 0 for one oscillator, and –π/2 for the other. [The formula to apply here is sinθ = cos(θ – π/2).] Also note that we can equate our θ argument to ω0·t. Now, if = 1 (which is the case here), then these formulas simplify to:

1. K.E. = T = m·v2/2 = m·ω02·sin2(θ + Δ) = m·ω02·sin20·t + Δ)
2. P.E. = U = k·x2/2 = k·cos2(θ + Δ)

The coefficient k in the potential energy formula characterizes the force: F = −k·x. The minus sign reminds us our oscillator wants to return to the center point, so the force pulls back. From the dynamics involved, it is obvious that k must be equal to m·ω02., so that gives us the famous T + U = m·ω02/2 formula or, including once again, T + U = m·a2·ω02/2.

Now, if we normalize our functions by equating k to one (k = 1), then the motion of our first oscillator is given by the cosθ function, and its kinetic energy will be equal to sin2θ. Hence, the (instantaneous) change in kinetic energy at any point in time will be equal to:

d(sin2θ)/dθ = 2∙sinθ∙d(sinθ)/dt = 2∙sinθ∙cosθ

Let’s look at the second oscillator now. Just think of the second piston going up and down in our V-twin engine. Its motion is given by the sinθ function which, as mentioned above, is equal to cos(θ−π /2). Hence, its kinetic energy is equal to sin2(θ−π /2), and how it changes – as a function of θ – will be equal to:

2∙sin(θ−π /2)∙cos(θ−π /2) = = −2∙cosθ∙sinθ = −2∙sinθ∙cosθ

We have our perpetuum mobile! While transferring kinetic energy from one piston to the other, the rotating shaft moves at constant speed. Linear motion becomes circular motion, and vice versa, in a frictionless Universe. We have the metaphor we were looking for!

Somehow, in this beautiful interplay between linear and circular motion, energy is being borrowed from one place to another, and then returned. From what place to what place? I am not sure. We may call it the real and imaginary energy space respectively, but what does that mean? One thing is for sure, however: the interplay between the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction describes how energy propagates through space!

How exactly? Again, I am not sure. Energy is, obviously, mass in motion – as evidenced by the E = m·c2 equation, and it may not have any direction (when everything is said and done, it’s a scalar quantity without direction), but the energy in a linear motion is surely different from that in a circular motion, and our metaphor suggests we need to think somewhat more along those lines. Perhaps we will, one day, able to square this circle. 🙂

Schrödinger’s equation

Let’s analyze the interplay between the real and imaginary part of the wavefunction through an analysis of Schrödinger’s equation, which we write as:

i·ħ∙∂ψ/∂t = –(ħ2/2m)∙∇2ψ + V·ψ

We can do a quick dimensional analysis of both sides:

• [i·ħ∙∂ψ/∂t] = N∙m∙s/s = N∙m
• [–(ħ2/2m)∙∇2ψ] = N∙m3/m2 = N∙m
• [V·ψ] = N∙m

Note the dimension of the ‘diffusion’ constant ħ2/2m: [ħ2/2m] = N2∙m2∙s2/kg = N2∙m2∙s2/(N·s2/m) = N∙m3. Also note that, in order for the dimensions to come out alright, the dimension of V – the potential – must be that of energy. Hence, Feynman’s description of it as the potential energy – rather than the potential tout court – is somewhat confusing but correct: V must equal the potential energy of the electron. Hence, V is not the conventional (potential) energy of the unit charge (1 coulomb). Instead, the natural unit of charge is used here, i.e. the charge of the electron itself.

Now, Schrödinger’s equation – without the V·ψ term – can be written as the following pair of equations:

1. Re(∂ψ/∂t) = −(1/2)∙(ħ/m)∙Im(∇2ψ)
2. Im(∂ψ/∂t) = (1/2)∙(ħ/m)∙Re(∇2ψ)

This closely resembles the propagation mechanism of an electromagnetic wave as described by Maxwell’s equation for free space (i.e. a space with no charges), but E and B are vectors, not scalars. How do we get this result. Well… ψ is a complex function, which we can write as a + i∙b. Likewise, ∂ψ/∂t is a complex function, which we can write as c + i∙d, and ∇2ψ can then be written as e + i∙f. If we temporarily forget about the coefficients (ħ, ħ2/m and V), then Schrödinger’s equation – including V·ψ term – amounts to writing something like this:

i∙(c + i∙d) = –(e + i∙f) + (a + i∙b) ⇔ a + i∙b = i∙c − d + e+ i∙f  ⇔ a = −d + e and b = c + f

Hence, we can now write:

1. V∙Re(ψ) = −ħ∙Im(∂ψ/∂t) + (1/2)∙( ħ2/m)∙Re(∇2ψ)
2. V∙Im(ψ) = ħ∙Re(∂ψ/∂t) + (1/2)∙( ħ2/m)∙Im(∇2ψ)

This simplifies to the two equations above for V = 0, i.e. when there is no potential (electron in free space). Now we can bring the Re and Im operators into the brackets to get:

1. V∙Re(ψ) = −ħ∙∂Im (ψ)/∂t + (1/2)∙( ħ2/m)∙∇2Re(ψ)
2. V∙Im(ψ) = ħ∙∂Re(ψ)/∂t + (1/2)∙( ħ2/m)∙∇2Im(ψ)

This is very interesting, because we can re-write this using the quantum-mechanical energy operator H = –(ħ2/2m)∙∇2 + V· (note the multiplication sign after the V, which we do not have – for obvious reasons – for the –(ħ2/2m)∙∇2 expression):

1. H[Re (ψ)] = −ħ∙∂Im(ψ)/∂t
2. H[Im(ψ)] = ħ∙∂Re(ψ)/∂t

A dimensional analysis shows us both sides are, once again, expressed in N∙m. It’s a beautiful expression because – if we write the real and imaginary part of ψ as r∙cosθ and r∙sinθ, we get:

1. H[cosθ] = −ħ∙∂sinθ/∂t = E∙cosθ
2. H[sinθ] = ħ∙∂cosθ/∂t = E∙sinθ

Indeed, θ = (E∙t − px)/ħ and, hence, −ħ∙∂sinθ/∂t = ħ∙cosθ∙E/ħ = E∙cosθ and ħ∙∂cosθ/∂t = ħ∙sinθ∙E/ħ = E∙sinθ.  Now we can combine the two equations in one equation again and write:

H[r∙(cosθ + i∙sinθ)] = r∙(E∙cosθ + i∙sinθ) ⇔ H[ψ] = E∙ψ

The operator H – applied to the wavefunction – gives us the (scalar) product of the energy E and the wavefunction itself. Isn’t this strange?

Hmm… I need to further verify and explain this result… I’ll probably do so in yet another post on the same topic… 🙂

Post scriptum: The symmetry of our V-2 engine – or perpetuum mobile – is interesting: its cross-section has only one axis of symmetry. Hence, we may associate some angle with it, so as to define its orientation in the two-dimensional cross-sectional plane. Of course, the cross-sectional plane itself is at right angles to the crankshaft axis, which we may also associate with some angle in three-dimensional space. Hence, its geometry defines two orthogonal directions which, in turn, define a spherical coordinate system, as shown below.

We may, therefore, say that three-dimensional space is actually being implied by the geometry of our V-2 engine. Now that is interesting, isn’t it? 🙂

# All what you ever wanted to know about the photon wavefunction…

Post scriptum note added on 11 July 2016: This is one of the more speculative posts which led to my e-publication analyzing the wavefunction as an energy propagation. With the benefit of hindsight, I would recommend you to immediately read the more recent exposé on the matter that is being presented here, which you can find by clicking on the provided link.

Original post:

This post is, essentially, a continuation of my previous post, in which I juxtaposed the following images:

Both are the same, and then they’re not. The illustration on the right-hand side is a regular quantum-mechanical wavefunction, i.e. an amplitude wavefunction. You’ve seen that one before. In this case, the x-axis represents time, so we’re looking at the wavefunction at some particular point in space. ]You know we can just switch the dimensions and it would all look the same.] The illustration on the left-hand side looks similar, but it’s not an amplitude wavefunction. The animation shows how the electric field vector (E) of an electromagnetic wave travels through space. Its shape is the same. So it’s the same function. Is it also the same reality?

Yes and no. And I would say: more no than yes—in this case, at least. Note that the animation does not show the accompanying magnetic field vector (B). That vector is equally essential in the electromagnetic propagation mechanism according to Maxwell’s equations, which—let me remind you—are equal to:

1. B/∂t = –∇×E
2. E/∂t = ∇×B

In fact, I should write the second equation as ∂E/∂t = c2∇×B, but then I assume we measure time and distance in equivalent units, so c = 1.

You know that E and B are two aspects of one and the same thing: if we have one, then we have the other. To be precise, B is always orthogonal to in the direction that’s given by the right-hand rule for the following vector cross-product: B = ex×E, with ex the unit vector pointing in the x-direction (i.e. the direction of propagation). The reality behind is illustrated below for a linearly polarized electromagnetic wave.

The B = ex×E equation is equivalent to writing B= i·E, which is equivalent to:

B = i·E = ei(π/2)·ei(kx − ωt) = cos(kx − ωt + π/2) + i·sin(kx − ωt + π/2)

= −sin((kx − ωt) + i·cos(kx − ωt)

Now, E and B have only two components: Eand Ez, and Band Bz. That’s only because we’re looking at some ideal or elementary electromagnetic wave here but… Well… Let’s just go along with it. 🙂 It is then easy to prove that the equation above amounts to writing:

1. B= cos(kx − ωt + π/2) = −sin(kx − ωt) = −Ez
2. B= sin(kx − ωt + π/2) = cos(kx − ωt) = Ey

We should now think of Ey and Eas the real and imaginary part of some wavefunction, which we’ll denote as ψE = ei(kx − ωt). So we write:

E = (Ey, Ez) = Ey + i·E= cos(kx − ωt) + i∙sin(kx − ωt) = ReE) + i·ImE) = ψE = ei(kx − ωt)

What about B? We just do the same, so we write:

B = (By, Bz) = By + i·B= ψB = i·E = i·ψE = −sin(kx − ωt) + i∙sin(kx − ωt) = − ImE) + i·ReE)

Now we need to prove that ψE and ψB are regular wavefunctions, which amounts to proving Schrödinger’s equation, i.e. ∂ψ/∂t = i·(ħ/m)·∇2ψ, for both ψE and ψB. [Note I use the Schrödinger’s equation for a zero-mass spin-zero particle here, which uses the ħ/m factor rather than the ħ/(2m) factor.] To prove that ψE and ψB are regular wavefunctions, we should prove that:

1. Re(∂ψE/∂t) =  −(ħ/m)·Im(∇2ψE) and Im(∂ψE/∂t) = (ħ/m)·Re(∇2ψE), and
2. Re(∂ψB/∂t) =  −(ħ/m)·Im(∇2ψB) and Im(∂ψB/∂t) = (ħ/m)·Re(∇2ψB).

Let’s do the calculations for the second pair of equations. The time derivative on the left-hand side is equal to:

∂ψB/∂t = −iω·iei(kx − ωt) = ω·[cos(kx − ωt) + i·sin(kx − ωt)] = ω·cos(kx − ωt) + iω·sin(kx − ωt)

The second-order derivative on the right-hand side is equal to:

2ψ= ∂2ψB/∂x= i·k2·ei(kx − ωt) = k2·cos(kx − ωt) + i·k2·sin(kx − ωt)

So the two equations for ψare equivalent to writing:

1. Re(∂ψB/∂t) =   −(ħ/m)·Im(∇2ψB) ⇔ ω·cos(kx − ωt) = k2·(ħ/m)·cos(kx − ωt)
2. Im(∂ψB/∂t) = (ħ/m)·Re(∇2ψB) ⇔ ω·sin(kx − ωt) = k2·(ħ/m)·sin(kx − ωt)

So we see that both conditions are fulfilled if, and only if, ω = k2·(ħ/m).

Now, we also demonstrated in that post of mine that Maxwell’s equations imply the following:

1. ∂By/∂t = –(∇×E)y = ∂Ez/∂x = ∂[sin(kx − ωt)]/∂x = k·cos(kx − ωt) = k·Ey
2. ∂Bz/∂t = –(∇×E)z = – ∂Ey/∂x = – ∂[cos(kx − ωt)]/∂x = k·sin(kx − ωt) = k·Ez

Hence, using those B= −Eand B= Eequations above, we can also calculate these derivatives as:

1. ∂By/∂t = −∂Ez/∂t = −∂sin(kx − ωt)/∂t = ω·cos(kx − ωt) = ω·Ey
2. ∂Bz/∂t = ∂Ey/∂t = ∂cos(kx − ωt)/∂t = −ω·[−sin(kx − ωt)] = ω·Ez

In other words, Maxwell’s equations imply that ω = k, which is consistent with us measuring time and distance in equivalent units, so the phase velocity is  = 1 = ω/k.

So far, so good. We basically established that the propagation mechanism for an electromagnetic wave, as described by Maxwell’s equations, is fully coherent with the propagation mechanism—if we can call it like that—as described by Schrödinger’s equation. We also established the following equalities:

1. ω = k
2. ω = k2·(ħ/m)

The second of the two de Broglie equations tells us that k = p/ħ, so we can combine these two equations and re-write these two conditions as:

ω/k = 1 = k·(ħ/m) = (p/ħ)·(ħ/m) = p/m ⇔ p = m

What does this imply? The p here is the momentum: p = m·v, so this condition implies must be equal to 1 too, so the wave velocity is equal to the speed of light. Makes sense, because we actually are talking light here. 🙂 In addition, because it’s light, we also know E/p = = 1, so we have – once again – the general E = p = m equation, which we’ll need!

OK. Next. Let’s write the Schrödinger wave equation for both wavefunctions:

1. ∂ψE/∂t = i·(ħ/mE)·∇2ψE, and
2. ∂ψB/∂t = i·(ħ/mB)·∇2ψB.

Huh? What’s mE and mE? We should only associate one mass concept with our electromagnetic wave, shouldn’t we? Perhaps. I just want to be on the safe side now. Of course, if we distinguish mE and mB, we should probably also distinguish pE and pB, and EE and EB as well, right? Well… Yes. If we accept this line of reasoning, then the mass factor in Schrödinger’s equations is pretty much like the 1/c2 = μ0ε0 factor in Maxwell’s (1/c2)·∂E/∂t = ∇×B equation: the mass factor appears as a property of the medium, i.e. the vacuum here! [Just check my post on physical constants in case you wonder what I am trying to say here, in which I explain why and how defines the (properties of the) vacuum.]

To be consistent, we should also distinguish pE and pB, and EE and EB, and so we should write ψand ψB as:

1. ψE = ei(kEx − ωEt), and
2. ψB = ei(kBx − ωBt).

Huh? Yes. I know what you think: we’re talking one photon—or one electromagnetic wave—so there can be only one energy, one momentum and, hence, only one k, and one ω. Well… Yes and no. Of course, the following identities should hold: kE = kB and, likewise, ω= ωB. So… Yes. They’re the same: one k and one ω. But then… Well… Conceptually, the two k’s and ω’s are different. So we write:

1. pE = EE = mE, and
2. pB = EB = mB.

The obvious question is: can we just add them up to find the total energy and momentum of our photon? The answer is obviously positive: E = EE + EB, p = pE + pB and m = mE + mB.

Let’s check a few things now. How does it work for the phase and group velocity of ψand ψB? Simple:

1. vg = ∂ωE/∂kE = ∂[EE/ħ]/∂[pE/ħ] = ∂EE/∂pE = ∂pE/∂pE = 1
2. vp = ωE/kE = (EE/ħ)/(pE/ħ) = EE/pE = pE/pE = 1

So we’re fine, and you can check the result for ψby substituting the subscript E for B. To sum it all up, what we’ve got here is the following:

1. We can think of a photon having some energy that’s equal to E = p = m (assuming c = 1), but that energy would be split up in an electric and a magnetic wavefunction respectively: ψand ψB.
2. Schrödinger’s equation applies to both wavefunctions, but the E, p and m in those two wavefunctions are the same and not the same: their numerical value is the same (pE =EE = mE = pB =EB = mB), but they’re conceptually different. They must be: if not, we’d get a phase and group velocity for the wave that doesn’t make sense.

Of course, the phase and group velocity for the sum of the ψand ψwaves must also be equal to c. This is obviously the case, because we’re adding waves with the same phase and group velocity c, so there’s no issue with the dispersion relation.

So let’s insert those pE =EE = mE = pB =EB = mB values in the two wavefunctions. For ψE, we get:

ψ= ei[kEx − ωEt) ei[(pE/ħ)·x − (EE/ħ)·t]

You can do the calculation for ψyourself. Let’s simplify our life a little bit and assume we’re using Planck units, so ħ = 1, and so the wavefunction simplifies to ψei·(pE·x − EE·t). We can now add the components of E and B using the summation formulas for sines and cosines:

1. B+ Ey = cos(pB·x − EB·t + π/2) + cos(pE·x − EE·t) = 2·cos[(p·x − E·t + π/2)/2]·cos(π/4) = √2·cos(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4)

2. B+ Ez = sin(pB·x − EB·t+π/2) + sin(pE·x − EE·t) = 2·sin[(p·x − E·t + π/2)/2]·cos(π/4) = √2·sin(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4)

Interesting! We find a composite wavefunction for our photon which we can write as:

E + B = ψ+ ψ= E + i·E = √2·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4) = √2·ei(π/4)·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2) = √2·ei(π/4)·E

What a great result! It’s easy to double-check, because we can see the E + i·E = √2·ei(π/4)·formula implies that 1 + should equal √2·ei(π/4). Now that’s easy to prove, both geometrically (just do a drawing) or formally: √2·ei(π/4) = √2·cos(π/4) + i·sin(π/4ei(π/4) = (√2/√2) + i·(√2/√2) = 1 + i. We’re bang on! 🙂

We can double-check once more, because we should get the same from adding E and B = i·E, right? Let’s try:

E + B = E + i·E = cos(pE·x − EE·t) + i·sin(pE·x − EE·t) + i·cos(pE·x − EE·t) − sin(pE·x − EE·t)

= [cos(pE·x − EE·t) – sin(pE·x − EE·t)] + i·[sin(pE·x − EE·t) – cos(pE·x − EE·t)]

Indeed, we can see we’re going to obtain the same result, because the −sinθ in the real part of our composite wavefunction is equal to cos(θ+π/2), and the −cosθ in its imaginary part is equal to sin(θ+π/2). So the sum above is the same sum of cosines and sines that we did already.

So our electromagnetic wavefunction, i.e. the wavefunction for the photon, is equal to:

ψ = ψ+ ψ= √2·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4) = √2·ei(π/4)·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2)

What about the √2 factor in front, and the π/4 term in the argument itself? No sure. It must have something to do with the way the magnetic force works, which is not like the electric force. Indeed, remember the Lorentz formula: the force on some unit charge (q = 1) will be equal to F = E + v×B. So… Well… We’ve got another cross-product here and so the geometry of the situation is quite complicated: it’s not like adding two forces Fand Fto get some combined force F = Fand F2.

In any case, we need the energy, and we know that its proportional to the square of the amplitude, so… Well… We’re spot on: the square of the √2 factor in the √2·cos product and √2·sin product is 2, so that’s twice… Well… What? Hold on a minute! We’re actually taking the absolute square of the E + B = ψ+ ψ= E + i·E = √2·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4) wavefunction here. Is that legal? I must assume it is—although… Well… Yes. You’re right. We should do some more explaining here.

We know that we usually measure the energy as some definite integral, from t = 0 to some other point in time, or over the cycle of the oscillation. So what’s the cycle here? Our combined wavefunction can be written as √2·ei(p·x/2 − E·t/2 + π/4) = √2·ei(θ/2 + π/4), so a full cycle would correspond to θ going from 0 to 4π here, rather than from 0 to 2π. So that explains the √2 factor in front of our wave equation.

Bingo! If you were looking for an interpretation of the Planck energy and momentum, here it is. And, while everything that’s written above is not easy to understand, it’s close to the ‘intuitive’ understanding to quantum mechanics that we were looking for, isn’t it? The quantum-mechanical propagation model explains everything now. 🙂 I only need to show one more thing, and that’s the different behavior of bosons and fermions:

1. The amplitudes of identitical bosonic particles interfere with a positive sign, so we have Bose-Einstein statistics here. As Feynman writes it: (amplitude direct) + (amplitude exchanged).
2. The amplitudes of identical fermionic particles interfere with a negative sign, so we have Fermi-Dirac statistics here: (amplitude direct) − (amplitude exchanged).

I’ll think about it. I am sure it’s got something to do with that B= i·E formula or, to put it simply, with the fact that, when bosons are involved, we get two wavefunctions (ψand ψB) for the price of one. The reasoning should be something like this:

I. For a massless particle (i.e. a zero-mass fermion), our wavefunction is just ψ = ei(p·x − E·t). So we have no √2 or √2·ei(π/4) factor in front here. So we can just add any number of them – ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + … – and then take the absolute square of the amplitude to find a probability density, and we’re done.

II. For a photon (i.e. a zero-mass boson), our wavefunction is √2·ei(π/4)·ei(p·x − E·t)/2, which – let’s introduce a new symbol – we’ll denote by φ, so φ = √2·ei(π/4)·ei(p·x − E·t)/2. Now, if we add any number of these, we get a similar sum but with that √2·ei(π/4) factor in front, so we write: φ1 + φ2 + φ3 + … = √2·ei(π/4)·(ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + …). If we take the absolute square now, we’ll see the probability density will be equal to twice the density for the ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + … sum, because

|√2·ei(π/4)·(ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + …)|2 = |√2·ei(π/4)|2·|ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + …)|2 2·|ψ1 + ψ2 + ψ3 + …)|2

So… Well… I still need to connect this to Feynman’s (amplitude direct) ± (amplitude exchanged) formula, but I am sure it can be done.

Now, we haven’t tested the complete √2·ei(π/4)·ei(p·x − E·t)/2 wavefunction. Does it respect Schrödinger’s ∂ψ/∂t = i·(1/m)·∇2ψ or, including the 1/2 factor, the ∂ψ/∂t = i·[1/2m)]·∇2ψ equation? [Note we assume, once again, that ħ = 1, so we use Planck units once more.] Let’s see. We can calculate the derivatives as:

• ∂ψ/∂t = −√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2·(i·E/2)
• 2ψ = ∂2[√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2]/∂x= √2·ei(π/4)·∂[√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2·(i·p/2)]/∂x = −√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2·(p2/4)

So Schrödinger’s equation becomes:

i·√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2·(i·E/2) = −i·(1/m)·√2·ei(π/4)·ei∙[p·x − E·t]/2·(p2/4) ⇔ 1/2 = 1/4!?

That’s funny ! It doesn’t work ! The E and m and p2 are OK because we’ve got that E = m = p equation, but we’ve got problems with yet another factor 2. It only works when we use the 2/m coefficient in Schrödinger’s equation.

So… Well… There’s no choice. That’s what we’re going to do. The Schrödinger equation for the photon is ∂ψ/∂t = i·(2/m)·∇2ψ !

It’s a very subtle point. This is all great, and very fundamental stuff! Let’s now move on to Schrödinger’s actual equation, i.e. the ∂ψ/∂t = i·(ħ/2m)·∇2ψ equation.

Post scriptum on the Planck units:

If we measure time and distance in equivalent units, say seconds, we can re-write the quantum of action as:

1.0545718×10−34 N·m·s = (1.21×1044 N)·(1.6162×10−35 m)·(5.391×10−44 s)

⇔ (1.0545718×10−34/2.998×108) N·s2 = (1.21×1044 N)·(1.6162×10−35/2.998×108 s)(5.391×10−44 s)

⇔ (1.21×1044 N) = [(1.0545718×10−34/2.998×108)]/[(1.6162×10−35/2.998×108 s)(5.391×10−44 s)] N·s2/s2

You’ll say: what’s this? Well… Look at it. We’ve got a much easier formula for the Planck force—much easier than the standard formulas you’ll find on Wikipedia, for example. If we re-interpret the symbols ħ and so they denote the numerical value of the quantum of action and the speed of light in standard SI units (i.e. newton, meter and second)—so ħ and c become dimensionless, or mathematical constants only, rather than physical constants—then the formula above can be written as:

FP newton = (ħ/c)/[(lP/c)·tP] newton ⇔ FP = ħ/(lP·tP)

Just double-check it: 1.0545718×10−34/(1.6162×10−35·5.391×10−44) = 1.21×1044. Bingo!

You’ll say: what’s the point? The point is: our model is complete. We don’t need the other physical constants – i.e. the Coulomb, Boltzmann and gravitational constant – to calculate the Planck units we need, i.e. the Planck force, distance and time units. It all comes out of our elementary wavefunction! All we need to explain the Universe – or, let’s be more modest, quantum mechanics – is two numerical constants (c and ħ) and Euler’s formula (which uses π and e, of course). That’s it.

If you don’t think that’s a great result, then… Well… Then you’re not reading this. 🙂