[Mr. Scientist]

I wouldn't be as bold as to suggest you cannot explain physics, if indeed it is the correct description of a photon. Physics is not easy to explain, whether it being a pet-theory or not.

[Vern]

I have to keep reminding myself what my goal is here in this forum. It is not to point out weaknesses in Quantum theory, and it is not to promote my pet concepts. It is simply to remind folks when common misconceptions are promoted. In this case it was the misconception that there is experimental evidence that quantum states occur at observation time. []

[Mr. Scientist]

Fair do's.

[Vern]

It would really be interesting if there was experimental evidence; maybe a last instant change in one of the states that is reflected in the other. I know that has been tried. All the attempts I know about failed.

[litespeed]

Vern - You wrote: "There is a cause for quantum phenomena just as there is a cause for uncertainty."

I agree. SOMETHING caused an individual Uranium atom to decay. We just do not know what the hell it is. Perhaps it is a simply some sort of harmonic in the electron field that works a bit like "The Buterfly" effect.

Personally, I have become increasingly convinced our four dimensional world is entangled with one, or probably several other "Dimensions". In our universe NOTHING transits from point A to point B through an infinite number of points. I am unaware of ANY motion that does not pop in and out of our universe according to the various Plank Units.

Perhaps our universe has time movement, but not particle movement. As time progresses paricles move in and out of a timeless 'holding' dimension producing an effect something like a motion picture.

[litespeed]

Vern

I have a couple of observations concerning Quantum Mechanics that may or may not be relevant.  First, the Drake Equation shows that entangled particles are not a local phenomena.  That means that entangled particle A and entangled particle B do not change polarity symultaneously because they were both 'programed' at the time of separation.

I see no possible way to explain this other then to accept some sort of extra dimensional involvement, that theoretically could communicate faster the the speed of light. I send a series of entangled particles in your direction, followed by a similar sequence of non entagle particles. You notice the diference, and work out some sort of Morse code with the senders. Almost instantaneously you have joined a universeal communications exchange.  Of course the signal SENT to you travels at light speed. The subsequent communications is instantaneous.

[Vern]

Personally, I have become increasingly convinced our four dimensional world is entangled with one, or probably several other "Dimensions". In our universe NOTHING transits from point A to point B through an infinite number of points. I am unaware of ANY motion that does not pop in and out of our universe according to the various Plank Units.

I think you're making a huge assumption here. I know of no experimental evidence that movement is quantized.

[Vern]

I see no possible way to explain this other then to accept some sort of extra dimensional involvement, that theoretically could communicate faster the the speed of light. I send a series of entangled particles in your direction, followed by a similar sequence of non entagle particles. You notice the diference, and work out some sort of Morse code with the senders. Almost instantaneously you have joined a universeal communications exchange.  Of course the signal SENT to you travels at light speed. The subsequent communications is instantaneous.

I have seen several attempts to show that this could happen. As far as I know they have all failed. I have never seen a proof for wave function collapse in the Copenhagen sense.

[litespeed]

Vern,

I agree it is a big leap. Howver, the Heisenberg Uncertanty priciple seems to support the notion. Further, I would like your discussion on Plank Units. IMHO, these seem to support a kind of granularity in our universe.  For instance, there is a minimum distance between A and B that can not be subdevided.  Similarly, Plank time seems to support a minimum unit of time that can not be subdevided.

Of course my understanding of Plank Units is very likely flawed.  However, I have actually seen explanations of the Big Bang that include things like Plank Zero is null, Plank Two is such and such proportion of the inflation etc etc.

My basic point is that it seems to me nothing in our universe EVER moves. It simply moves in and out of time.  Just me rambling....

[Vern]

I have not yet signed on to quantum units other than the quantum of light. That is because I have a speculative cause for How Come The Quantum that assigns the cause to a property of the photon. I guess when you dwell on a subject for a long time it kinda sets in your mind and makes it difficult to contemplate another scenario for the action in mind.

Quantum Phenomena:
How come the quantum then is because empty space has limits on the amount of electric and magnetic amplitude it can support. These limits cause Planck's constant. These limits therefore cause the quantum nature of the universe. We have not invented anything new for this realization. We just noticed the obvious cause for a well known effect. But we only noticed it because we looked for a cause for the quantum effect.

[thedoc]

Listen to the answer to this question on our podcast.

[Jarek Duda]

Heisenberg uncertainty principle restricts measurement capabilities, not what objectively happens there - I completely disagree with such explanation by eye shutting ...
Quantum phenomenas are much more subtle (like interference), for example we can make expansion around extremely small Planck's constant (semiclassical WKB approximation) and in zeroth order we start with the classical mechanics.
So there should be already a classical explanation of such brutal property like not falling against Coulomb attraction ... and indeed there is - it is enough to remind that electron is not only a charge, but has also very strong magnetic dipole moment - is tiny magnet. So if they would try to fall into each other, while placing reference frame in the electron, proton/nucleus is moving in magnetic field of electron - there appears perpendicular Lorentz force bending the trajectory, so even classically they would have to miss each other.

The complete Lagrangian including electron's magnetic dipole moment () looks like that ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fall_atomic_model ):

[yor_on]

Yeah, reading it I agree with homely physicist. You can't ignore the Pauli exclusion principle as that is what defined matter macroscopically. Although the Heisenberg exclusion principle is also important, but there depending on how far you want to take it. As a way of thinking or as a real property of the universe.

[Jarek Duda]

Schrodigner picture represents complex electron dynamics as a simple wavefunction - Pauli exclusion principle only says that there cannot be multiple repelling particles in the same dynamical state.
This principle doesn't need to be artificially included - it is already there in Schrodinger equation alone: if we don't treat electrons independently, but include their interaction - use with repulsive potential, such two-electron wavefuntion has to vanish on diagonal: when potential goes to infinity.
And this principle doesn't work for attracting particles, like electron-positon pair would just annihilate ... we cannot use Pauli principle in proton-electron case.

The Heisenberg principle, on the other hand, says that measurements influence the system - affect eventual additional measurements of noncommuting observables - it concerns only extremely subtle category of phenomenas: measurements (projections - not unitary!).
But atom "works" even without measurements - without applying Heisenberg principle ...

Quantum mechanics gave physicists universal answers when they don't understand: "it's quantum", "it's uncertainty" ... but maybe we can search for the real understanding, concrete answers ... understand the underlying dynamics (like in Couder's picture).

[yor_on]

Doesn't matter (ahem:) if they vanish meeting Jarek, well, as i see it
It's about each particle of rest mass craving a unique space-time position, not willingly sharing it with others. There is more to it naturally as with helium4 etc, but that's how I see it from a simplified definition. And without that principle matter should become chaotic as I think, and the chair might become?? (possibly Anti matter or matter, they are still  defined as rest mass, as I understands it.

And yeah, you hit a very delicate point there discussing HUP.

What is a 'observer'?
Does it need consciousness to be defined as such?
Or is it enough with something, interacting with something else?

[yor_on]

But there are some weird effects to it, thinking of it from the probability of finding a electron in a atom. The electron (in its orbital inside the atom) is from the point of probability 'smeared out' as I understands it. The measurement alone must then be the definition of 'where it is/was'

And that is not the exact same as defining a unique 'place' to/for each particle of rest mass. But macroscopically I find the Pauli exclusion principle to be what keeps us existent.

[evan_au]

The short answer is that a "proton and electron stuck together" does happen, in a neutron.

However, a neutron is unstable, and will break down in about 15 minutes, releasing an electron (beta particle) and proton, plus a ghost-like particle called a neutrino. This decay releases a lot of energy. So, a hydrogen atom (=proton+electron) is much more stable than a isolated neutron.

Neutrons can be stable, if they are combined into an atomic nucleus with protons in the right ratio. In this case, the strong nuclear force provides the binding force to keep the nucleus stable.

• Too many neutrons, and one could decay (releasing an electron, as described above)
• Too few neutrons, and an inner electron can be captured, forming a neutron, just as you asked
• There are other nuclear decay paths too; for more details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_nuclei

[Jarek Duda]

It's about each particle of rest mass craving a unique space-time position, not willingly sharing it with others. There is more to it naturally as with helium4 etc, but that's how I see it from a simplified definition. And without that principle matter should become chaotic as I think, and the chair might become?? (possibly Anti matter or matter, they are still  defined as rest mass, as I understands it.

But electron and positron do will to share the same position ... while electrons avoid themselves because of Coulomb repulsion itself, and protons similarly.
Just imagine two-electron wavefunction . It is extremely difficult to calculate it so usually they only consider energy corrections, but the wavefunction is also very different from for two noninteracting electrons because of the 1/|x-y| repulsive potential in this 3+3 dimensional space - it has infinite potential barrier on the diagonal: meaning electrons avoid themselves because of repulsion ("exclusion principle").

The only missing is understanding why against Coulomb attraction, electron doesn't fall into proton, but exclusion principle doesn't help for attracting particles (e.g. electron+proton->neutron).
And it doesn't have to - as I have written, it is enough to remember that electron is also relatively strong tiny magnet - it creates Lorentz force while trying to fall into proton - bending trajectory such that it will always miss.

About helium4 superfluid, shouldn't you rather say that they are bosons so these atoms should be all in the same quantum state?
But in fact it is just nonzero volume fluid ...
Quantum "smart sounding phrases" are great when you don't understand but need to say something ... but these are simplifications - bosons doesn't exactly choose the same state, exclusion of repulsive fermions is already there in Schrodinger equation ... we shouldn't be satisfied with such mystical answers, but need to get deeper ...

And yeah, you hit a very delicate point there discussing HUP.
What is a 'observer'?
Does it need consciousness to be defined as such?
Or is it enough with something, interacting with something else?

But I didn't want to - I have only pointed out that using it to explain why electron doesn't fall into nucleus is a nonsense...
Indeed "conscious?" observer seems to be extremely delicate point ... but he is made of the same atoms governed by the same physics, so extending the system to include him, the problem disappears ... and vanishes completely when we think of the whole universe as the system - the wavefunction of the universe. It no longer has an external observer, exterior to interact with, so there are no longer wavefunction collapses like measurements - we have unique objective unitary evolution.
And so we can consider objective physics to understand why the atom works - without external observers, measurements, Heisenberg principle ...

But there are some weird effects to it, thinking of it from the probability of finding a electron in a atom. The electron (in its orbital inside the atom) is from the point of probability 'smeared out' as I understands it. The measurement alone must then be the definition of 'where it is/was'.

This smearing tries to forget about the particle part of wave-particle duality. But now we can measure where exactly was the electron before leaving the orbital - here is such picture made by averaging positions of many single electrons:

So physically the electron was somewhere in the orbital in the moment of being stripped off - remain both wave and particle like Couder's droplets and wavefunction describes only its averaged position density and relative phases of its wave nature.

The short answer is that a "proton and electron stuck together" does happen, in a neutron.

Indeed ... and Pauli exclusion principle doesn't prevent such sticking together of two parts of matter
However, as you have written, because of strong interaction this state has much higher energy ... so what ground state hydrogen atom is, is just the lowest energetic state of electron-proton pair (excluding proton decay): electron cannot fall into the nucleus just because it would increase energy.

[lightarrow]

Part of the hydrogen electron's life *is* lived in the nucleus: its wavefunction square modulus is non-zero there; it has even the greatest value, there!
Infact ||² goes as e^-r where r is the electron distance from the nucleus' centre.

For example, look for R(r) here:
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/quantum/hydwf.html

and look at the first picture here:
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ruw/teach/237/shape.php
<<The radial solutions of the Schrödinger equation of the hydrogen atom, R(r), are plotted on the right. Each time the quantum number n increases, an additional node is created. At n=1, the radial function is all positive. Its maximum is at r=0, i.e. the point in space with the highest probability density of finding the electron is actually inside the nucleus! That is why the term probability density is used: As we move outward along the radius, the volume of a shell of equal thickness is getting larger and larger, thereby spreading out the probability over a larger volume. >>

[Jarek Duda]

Indeed the simplest Schrodinger equation leads to that the maximum of electron density is exactly where the proton is ... but this model is just one point charge in potential of another fixed point charge - greatly simplifies the real physics. In the real world electron being in the same place as proton would mean that they create neutron, but it would require relatively huge energy: 782keV.  So including strong force holding baryons together would rather remove this density maximum from the Schrödinger's ground state.

This simplest Schrödinger picture misses much more, like magnetic dipole moments, relativistic corrections, interaction with environment ... it is rather surprising that it works so well, especially as Nuclear shell model where they model this unbelievably complex internal structure of large nucleus with just a simple potential well.
Connecting with independence of environment behavior, which should be seen as thermal noise, we see how unbelievably strong this universality of Schrödinger's ground state is ...

... and indeed it should be - if we make "classical" thermodynamical considerations of corpuscular entities, it turns out that models based on the fundamental in statistical physics: maximal uncertainty principle - Maximal Entropy Random Walk, in opposite to standard "generic random walk" only approximating this principle, also leads to stationary probability density being exactly squares of coordinates of dominant eigenvector of corresponding Hamiltonian: the quantum ground state. Here is comparison of such "classical"(approximated) and "quantum"(corrected) random walks on defected lattice - the second has strong (Anderson's) localization properties: