Transcript In search of the secret will in matter

Where intuition leads, physics follows
presented by
Keka Chakraborty,
Pondicherry, India
November, 2009
14th
Light & Photon – Wave & Particle
Wave Theory
Quantum theory
Pattern
of
fringes:
The interference bands comes
from the variations of intensity, (I
∞ A2, square of the amplitude), of
the resultant wave at each point
on the screen.
The interference comes from
the variations in the
probability, P, of a photon
striking at different points on
the screen.
Role of
the
slits:
To act as two coherent sources of
the waves that interfere on the
screen.
To present two potential routes
by which a photon can pass
from the source to the screen.
How do we correlate?
• We say, N ∞ A2 (square of amplitude i.e. intensity, N is the
number of photons striking a particular point on the screen).
• So P ∞ A2 (= A12 + A22 + 2A1A2 cos ф)  where A is the
amplitude of the compound wave formed by their superpositions.
• If the probabilities are taken independently (if slits were open one
at a time) and summed up (P1+P2) then it would become two
diffraction patterns of two single slits (A12+A22) and would miss this
2A1A2cos ф.
Strange things are observed
• The interference pattern is maintained with a low power beam
shooting one photon at a time. (Later Feynman has repeated this experiment
with electrons producing the same results).
What are the possibilities?
• Photons split and become two and go through both the slits? (Answer is
“No”, it has been proved by a detector that emits a signal when struck by a photon, it is
found that those signals have the same intensity, also two detectors next to two slits
never simultaneously record the passing of a photon)
• Some photons pass through one slit and some through the other? – but
then Taylor’s experiment with one slit open at a time, created only two adjacent
overlapping single slit diffraction patterns. So, interference pattern is not merely the
sum of the distribution of the photons through two slits.
• Then, both slits were kept open and a detector was placed to detect,
which slit a particular photon is going through, the interference pattern is
broken!!! leaving the two single slit diffraction patterns alone.
So uncertainty (undetermined) of the path of the photon is accompanied by the
coherence of the two light sources (slits)??? The moment it is made certain – it
behaves the same as the incoherent and/or independent sources would behave.
Locality Paradox
• God does not play dice – says Einstein. In his
opinion, if photons actually exist, their motion should be
determinable.
• The quantum theory of light deals with light polarization
by assigning an intrinsic angular momentum or spin to the
photons. Photon spin can be of two types, parallel or antiparallel. Einstein says that, suppose a stationary particle
emits two photons, part, back-to-back, in opposite
directions. Per the conservation of angular momentum the
photons will spin in opposite directions, such that their
sum be zero. So if the spin of one is measured, the spin of
the other will be known too.
Locality Paradox (continued… 2)
 However, Copenhagen interpretation (Niels
Bohr) asserts that, each photon has an equal
probability of being in the parallel or antiparallel spin orientation. Light is unpolarized if we cannot determine its
polarization. But that does not mean that
un-polarized light have an equal mixture of
parallel-spin and anti-parallel-spin photons.
Being un-polarized is a property of each
photon in a beam of un-polarized light.
Locality Paradox (continued… 3)
 Therefore, when passing through a calcite crystal,
each photon has a 50% chance of emerging in one
or the other polarized beams. Just as we do not
know through which slit a photon passes in
Young's experiment - likewise, we cannot tell
whether a particular photon was emitted with its
spin in one orientation or another. All we can say is
that each photon has a 50% chance of being
polarized in one orientation or the other. When
the spin of one of the photons is actually
measured, it immediately determines the spin
orientation of both photons.
Locality Paradox (continued… 4)
 But what if the two photons had travelled some distance
from one another when the measurement was made? How
does the second photon come to know that a measurement
has been made and it has to spin according to that? This
issue became known as Locality Paradox.
 The instantaneous communication from a distance violates
special theory of relativity, as it had to travel faster than
light. (And what if there were two observers? What if
afterwards when the observers met, it is shown that the
second measurement happened before the first? What if
they never met??? Is Copenhagen interpretation depending
on the single observer notion?)
Locality Paradox (continued… 5)
 Many experiments of the kind suggested by
Einstein have been carried out ever since.
Their setup ruled out the possibility of any
link between the production of the photons
and the measurements made upon them or
that the detectors could have affected the
findings. After so many years - that spooky
Copenhagen interpretation still could not be
violated.
Symmetry and Asymmetry of Nature
 C-symmetry (matter/antimatter), P-
Symmetry (point reflection), T-symmetry
(Time reversal transformation symmetry ).
 CP-violation (weak forces, radioactive
decay) & T-violation (macroscopic violation by
second law of thermodynamics, a dynamic law of
nature; or black holes, due to the initial condition
of our universe)
Symmetry and Asymmetry of Nature (continued)
 CPT symmetry  The implication of CPT symmetry
is that a "mirror-image" of our universe — with all objects
having their positions reflected by an imaginary 3-D point
reflector, all momenta reversed (corresponding to a time
inversion) and with all matter replaced by antimatter
(corresponding to a charge inversion)— would evolve
under exactly our physical laws. The CPT transformation
turns our universe into its "mirror image" and vice versa.
CPT symmetry is recognized to be a fundamental property
of physical laws. In order to preserve this symmetry, every violation
of the combined symmetry of two of its components (such as CP) must
have a corresponding violation in the third component (such as T); in
fact, mathematically, these are the same thing. Thus violations in T
symmetry are often referred to as CP violations.
CPT-violation – Relativity violation in scales below nanometer
(space-time is not uniform in all directions). Space-time
has its inherent direction, sometimes referred to as
Relativity-violation-vector.
Even light could be nothing but the oscillations of these
background vectors.
An Overview (as seen by the presenter)
Mechanical/Relativistic Universe
Quantum/Dynamic Universe
Time and Space are that one Conscious-Being
viewing itself in extension, subjectively as Time,
objectively as Space…Sri Aurobindo (Life Divine)

Crazy Stuff
 Does Quantum theory suggest that what the observer will do in the
future defines what happens in the past? (John Wheeler)
 Balance between Quantum (probability based) information loss in
the opposite direction of light’s movement and Black hole
information loss in the direction of light’s movement…suggested by
Roger Penrose (Road to Reality)
 Even light could be nothing but the oscillations of the background
vectors !!!…modern scientists dealing with Relativity violation.
 Hawking radiation (evaporating black hole) & white hole, Vacuum
fluctuations…Stephen Hawking
 Dark matter , WIMPs (Weakly Interacting Massive Particles), MACHOs
(Massive Astrophysical Compact Halo Objects), Virtual Particles,
Trans-Planckian problem (particles emitted by black hole, if traced back to
the horizon, must have had an infinite frequency???)…
Interesting insights
 The common-sense idea that there is an objective reality out there all
the time is a fallacy. When reality and knowledge are entangled, the
question of when something becomes real cannot be answered
in a straightforward manner…Paul Davies (About Time)
 Relationship between mind and matter without reducing
one to nothing but a function or aspect of the other (such
reduction commonly takes the forms of materialism which reduces
mind, for example, to an 'epiphenomenon' having no real effect on
matter, and of idealism, which reduces matter to some kind of
thought, for example, in the mind of God) …David Bohm
 The essential feature of this idea (the notion of the enfolded or
implicate order) was that the whole universe is in some way
enfolded in everything and that each thing is enfolded in the
whole…David Bohm
Interesting insights continued
 Niels Bohr (1934, 1958) has made a very subtle analysis …, he
treats the entire process of observation as a single
phenomenon, which is a whole that is not further
analyzable. For Bohr, this implies that the mathematics of
the quantum theory is not capable of providing an
unambiguous (i.e. precisely definable) description of an
individual quantum process, but rather, that it is only an
algorithm yielding statistical predictions concerning the
possible results of an ensemble of experiments…David Bohm
 The implicate order is not static but basically dynamic in
nature, in a constant process of change and
development…David Bohm
 Physics should be limited to the description of the
correlations between perceptions…Niels Bohr
Lets take a look
 “God does not play dice”. – Why NOT? What compels us to
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


think – that God is an artist and not a player?
Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one (
Albert Einstein)…Who is under the illusion? Why?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...Carl Sagan
“Quantum theory suggests…What we will do in future
defines what happens in the past…” – Are we missing the
fact that we did measurements in the past too? In studies,
don’t we compare between past and future measurements?
Having two observers measuring twin photon’s movement,
is abstract – we are trying to prove matter’s incapacity to
present the property of coherence to some dream
characters who are also incoherent observers.
Lets take a look (continued…1)
 We assume that if we divide and fragment
matter, it will become simpler – but does it?
 What is the real difference between
information potentially active (quantum
probability) and actually active (caught by
us only through measurements???).
 Are we equating the word actuality as
becoming? Is this why time is something
we cannot go behind - psychologically?
Lets take a look (continued…2)
 A "systematic fault“ - it is everywhere and
nowhere… You may say "I see a problem here,
so I will bring my thoughts to bear on this
problem". But "my" thought is part of the
system. It has the same fault as the fault I'm
trying to look at, or a similar fault. Thought is
constantly creating problems that way and
then trying to solve them. But as it tries to solve
them it makes it worse because it doesn’t notice
that it's creating them, and the more it thinks,
the more problems it creates...David Bohm –
but what is the origin of this erring mind?
What is its purpose? Where/what is the
solution?
Time for a break?
 A friend and yet too great wholly to know,
 She walked in their front towards a greater light,
 Their leader and queen over their hearts and souls,
 One close to their bosoms, yet divine and far.
 Admiring and amazed they saw her stride
 Attempting with a godlike rush and leap
 Heights for their human stature too remote
 Or with a slow great many-sided toil
 Pushing towards aims they hardly could conceive;
 Yet forced to be the satellites of her sun
 They moved unable to forego her light,

…Sri Aurobindo (Savitri)
Sri Aurobindo (1)
 In a certain sense Matter is unreal and nonexistent; that is to say, our present knowledge, idea
and experience of Matter is not its truth, but
merely a phenomenon of particular relation
between our senses and the all-existence in which
we move.
 Matter is substance of the one Conscious-Being
phenomenally divided within itself by the action
of a universal Mind,¹ —a division which the
individual mind repeats and dwells in, but which
does not abrogate or at all diminish the unity of
Spirit or the unity of Energy or the real unity of
Matter.
Sri Aurobindo (2)
 earth-existence cannot be the result of the
human mind which is itself the result of
earth-existence.
 material substance, is the form in which
Mind acting through sense contacts the
Conscious Being of which it is itself a
movement of knowledge.
Sri Aurobindo (3)
 however brute and void of sense it seems to us, it is
yet, to the secret experience of the consciousness
hidden within it, delight of being offering itself to
this secret consciousness as object of sensation in
order to tempt that hidden godhead out of its
secrecy. Being manifest as substance, force of
Being cast into form, into a figured selfrepresentation of the secret self-consciousness,
delight offering itself to its own consciousness as
an object,— what is this but Sachchidananda?
Matter is Sachchidananda represented to His own
mental experience as a formal basis of objective
knowledge, action and delight of existence.
Sri Aurobindo (4)
 There are, quite certainly, other states even
of Matter itself; there is undoubtedly an
ascending series of the divine gradations of
substance; there is the possibility of the
material being transfiguring itself through
the acceptation of a higher law than its own
which is yet its own because it is always
there latent and potential in its own
secrecies.
Sri Aurobindo (5)
 We must judge of existence not by what we
mentally conceive, but by what we see to exist. And
the purest, freest form of insight into existence as
it is shows us nothing but movement. Two things
alone exist, movement in Space, movement in
Time, the former objective, the latter subjective.
Extension is real, duration is real, Space and Time
are real. Even if we can go behind extension in
Space and perceive it as a psychological
phenomenon, as an attempt of the mind to make
existence manageable by distributing the
indivisible whole in a conceptual Space, yet we
cannot go behind the movement of succession and
change in Time.
Sri Aurobindo (6)
 For that is the very stuff of our consciousness. We
are and the world is a movement that continually
progresses and increases by the inclusion of all the
successions of the past in a present which
represents itself to us as the beginning of all the
successions of the future,—a beginning, a present
that always eludes us because it is not, for it has
perished before it is born. What is, is the eternal,
indivisible succession of Time carrying on its
stream a progressive movement of consciousness
also indivisible.¹ Duration then, eternally
successive movement and change in Time, is the
sole absolute. Becoming is the only being.
Sri Aurobindo (7)
 In reality, this opposition of actual insight into being
to the conceptual fictions of the pure Reason is
fallacious. If indeed intuition in this matter were really
opposed to intelligence, we could not confidently
support a merely conceptual reasoning against
fundamental insight. But this appeal to intuitive
experience is incomplete. It is valid only so far as it
proceeds and it errs by stopping short of the integral
experience. So long as the intuition fixes itself only
upon that which we become, we see ourselves as a
continual progression of movement and change in
consciousness in the eternal succession of Time. We
are the river, the flame of the Buddhist illustration.
Sri Aurobindo (8)
 But there is a supreme experience and supreme
intuition by which we go back behind our surface
self and find that this becoming, change,
succession are only a mode of our being and that
there is that in us which is not involved at all in the
becoming. Not only can we have the intuition of
this that is stable and eternal in us, not only can we
have the glimpse of it in experience behind the veil
of continually fleeting becomings, but we can draw
back into it and live in it entirely, so effecting an
entire change in our external life, and in our
attitude, and in our action upon the movement of
the world.
Sri Aurobindo (9)
 And this stability in which we can so live is
precisely that which the pure Reason has
already given us, although it can be arrived
at without reasoning at all, without knowing
previously what it is,—it is pure existence,
eternal, infinite, indefinable, not affected by
the succession of Time, not involved in the
extension of Space, beyond form, quantity,
quality,—Self only and absolute.
Sri Aurobindo (10)
 The pure existent is then a fact and no mere
concept; it is the fundamental reality. But, let us
hasten to add, the movement, the energy, the
becoming are also a fact, also a reality. The
supreme intuition and its corresponding
experience may correct the other, may go beyond,
may suspend, but do not abolish it. We have
therefore two fundamental facts of pure existence
and of world-existence, a fact of Being, a fact of
Becoming. To deny one or the other is easy; to
recognise the facts of consciousness and find out
their relation is the true and fruitful wisdom.
Sri Aurobindo (11)
 Stability and movement, we must remember, are
only our psychological representations of the
Absolute, even as are oneness and multitude. The
Absolute is beyond stability and movement as it is
beyond unity and multiplicity. But it takes its
eternal poise in the one and the stable and whirls
round itself infinitely, inconceivably, securely in
the moving and multitudinous. World-existence is
the ecstatic dance of Shiva which multiplies the
body of the God numberlessly to the view: it leaves
that white existence precisely where and what it
was, ever is and ever will be; its sole absolute object
is the joy of the dancing.