Table Of Content’
The Atomic World Spooky? It Ain t Necessarily So!
Theo van Holten
The Atomic World Spooky?
’
It Ain t Necessarily So!
Emergent Quantum Mechanics, How
the Classical Laws of Nature Can Conspire
to Cause Quantum-Like Behaviour
Theo vanHolten
Hilversum
TheNetherlands
ISBN978-94-6239-233-5 ISBN978-94-6239-234-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.2991/978-94-6239-234-2
LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2016956171
©AtlantisPressandtheauthor(s)2017
Thisbook,oranypartsthereof,maynotbereproducedforcommercialpurposesinanyformorbyany
means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and
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Printedonacid-freepaper
For Max, Daan and Hugo
It ain’t necessarily so
It ain’t necessarily so
The t’ngs dat yo’ li’ble
To read in de Bible
It ain’t necessarily so.
Wadoo, zim bam, boodle-oo
Hoodle ah da wa da
Scatty wah!
Oh yeah!
(Sportin’Life in Porgy and Bess)
Flaptext
The world of atoms is strange. It is a world where—to paraphrase Einstein—
“der Alten würfelt”, where particles at the same time can be in different places,
whereparticlescommunicatefasterthanlightbytelepathic(“spooky”)contact,and
where “Schrödinger’s cat” can be dead and alive at the same time. Quantum
mechanics, the theory of this world, is magic.
Or is it? Recent discoveries showed that quantum-like behaviour is not solely
reservedtoatomicparticles.Tinydropletsofoilbouncingroundonafluidsurface
can also mimic the world of quantum mechanics. Macroscopic objects, described
by “normal” laws of nature, behave in a quantum-like way! For the layman—for
whomthemainpartofthisbookiswritten—thisisgoodnews.Iftheeverydaylaws
of nature can conspire to show up quantum-like phenomena, there is hope to form
mental pictures how the atomic world works.
Thispresentbooktakesthisdiscoveryonestepfurther.Ifelectrons—bywayof
a tentative working hypothesis—are modelled as vibrating droplets instead of the
usually assumed point objects, and if the classical laws of nature are applied, then
exactly the same behaviour as in quantum theory is found, quantitatively correct!
A reader, armed with just some basic knowledge of school physics, will thus be
able to see through the tricks of the great illusionist that nature is. No specialised
quantum theory nor magic is involved in the visualisations that may be obtained.
This book is almost formula-free and explains everything by using many sket-
chesanddiagrams.Themathematicalderivationsunderlyingthemaintextarekept
separate in an appendix. The mathematics may serve to convince the experts but
can be ignored by the general reader.
The author, a retired professor of Flight Mechanics and Propulsion at the Delft
University of Technology, by accident (serendipity?) stumbled on these exciting
conclusions. He chose to publish his findings in this mixed popular and scientific
form, because he found that interested laymen more often than professional
physicists feel the need to form visualisations of quantum phenomena and thereby
to better “understand” them. If professional physicists are interested, they are
invited to read the—peer-reviewed—formula appendix.
Theo van Holten
vii
Foreword
Every physicist knows that physics is broken. A hundred years on from Einstein’s
theory of general relativity in 1915, you just need to open any school textbook to
learnthatnobodyhasbeenabletomakehistheorycompatiblewiththeothergreat
theories of physics and quantum mechanics.
Asmallbandofrebelsbelievethattheanswerliesnotinretreatingtoevermore
complex mathematics or ever more complicated models—such as assuming mul-
tiple universes which can never be actually observed—but in revisiting the
foundations.
Progress has been made recently in emergent quantum mechanics.
Droplets bouncing on the surface of a vibrating tray of oil exhibit double-slit
diffraction,quantisedlevelsandtunnelling.Theyshowthatthenonlocalbehaviour
thoughttobeuniquetoquantummechanicsarisesincompletelyclassical systems.
Moreprogresshasbeenmadeinthefieldofanaloguegravity,whichfindssome
of the key equations of general relativity emerging from the so-called acoustic
metric of a compressible fluid.
Experimentalists create analogues of black holes in extremely cold quantum
liquids.
Nobodyhasafullanswerbutthereisgrowingconfidencethatwemightatleast
be starting to ask the right questions.
In this book, Theo van Holten tells of his work as one of a band of experts
workingontheseexcitingnewtheories.Heoffersafurthersteptowardsoneofthe
most important goals of science: understanding the deepest physical nature of the
world in which we live.
Prof. Ross Anderson FRS
Dr. Robert Brady
University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
Cambridge, UK
ix
Preface
To begin with a warning: the contents of this book may be controversial.
The readers the author had in mind when writing this book are interested
laymen, typically the kind of reader who searches bookshops for the latest
popular-scientific books on developments in cosmology, on recently found fun-
damentalparticles,orontheevermoremagicalfindingsofquantumphysics.These
readers presumably have some background of classical school physics (although
mostofitmayhavebeenforgotten).Itisthekindofreaderwhodoesnotliketobe
bothered with formulae or is even allergic to them, but who has the interest and
tenacity to read sentences twice if necessary. But complete novices in the matters
oftheatomicworldshouldbewarned:thestoriestoldinthisbookarenotthesame
asusuallyfoundinbooksaboutquantumphenomena.Thisbookdoesnotgivethe
conventional explanations. In order to read the usual stories, it is better to start in
one of the many other popular-scientific books.
Whatthenisthisbookabout?Thisbookcertainly doesnotpretendtocontaina
new theoryofquantummechanics, nordoesithavetheintention. Quantumtheory
initspresentformisanalmostperfecttooltocalculatethebehaviourofelementary
particles. But the theory is “strange”, it is not something that intuitively can be
understood.Whatthisbooktriestoaddarevisualisationsormentalpictures,closer
to the intuition, because they are based on classical physics. However, the mental
pictures in this book are not just half-baked analogies or metaphores, they are
solidlyfoundedonalargebodyofmathematicaltheory(forthediehards:thetheory
can be found in the appendix). This aspect makes this book different from other
popular-scientific books.
Readers who just want to get a “quick” (60 odd pages long) impression are
advisedtoreadthefirstchapterandmaystopthere.Thiswouldbesufficienttoget
anacquaintancewiththemainideas.Ifyoustillhavesomepatienceleft,youmight
wanttobrowsethroughChap.2andthelaterChaps.14and15too.Chapter2gives
amorecompletelistofstrangequantumphenomenathanChap.1.Chapter14then
goes through the entire list of quantum oddities again, together with the interpre-
tations suggested by the theory developed in this book. They are interpretations in
terms of everyday physics, intended to free quantum mechanics from its magical
xi
xii Preface
image and weirdness, and making everything more intuitively understandable.
Finally, the more speculative Chap. 15 is about the really big magic: telepathic
(“spooky”) contact between particles, particles that at the same time can be in
different places, “Schrödinger’s cat” and more.
Evenmoreefficient:peoplewhodonotneedarefresheraboutthecontributions
toquantumtheorybyPlanck,Einstein,Bohr,DeBroglieandSchrödingercanskip
thefirstpartofChap.1untilSect.1.9.Itwillsavethemsome25pagesofreading,
because thenew stuffbegins inSect. 1.9. Theremainder ofChap.1 givesa global
outline of the ideas developed by the author. It is a global outline, many more
details and the dotting of the i’s will be found in later chapters.
It is not strictly forbidden that professional physicists also read this book, but
they are less likely to feel a need for an understanding of quantum phenomena in
terms of classical laws of nature, since they are used to the strange aspects of
quantum mechanics and probably do not find them “strange” anymore. Many
professionals will asa first reaction even deny that it ispossible atall to“explain”
quantumtheoryintermsofclassicalphysics.Theywillprobablyconsiderthisbook
asheresy.However,iftheywanttoassesswhetherthestoriestoldinthisbookare
utter nonsense or whether they contain more truth than just fairy tales, they are
referred to the—peer-reviewed—mathematical appendix.
Let it serve as a warning for the general reader: this book will be controversial.
But form your own opinion. Hopefully you find it enjoyable reading anyway.
Hilversum, The Netherlands Theo van Holten
Acknowledgments
Duringthemanyyearsoftheorydevelopmentandwritingtheresultsintheformof
readableformula-freetext,therewasonepersonwhoallthistimeencouragedmeto
continue the work. This was my friend and ex-colleague Herman Schöyer, who
painstakingly went through all the formulae (now collected in the appendix)
and who was such an attentive reader of the main text that it has several times
caused—useful—setbacks of many months, when rethinking was required. He
was—sometimesincontrasttomyself—convincedthatthegeneralapproachofthe
research was right, and he thereby was to a large extent instrumental in the com-
pletionofthispresentbook.Alas,hediedbyheartfailure,tooearlytoseetheresult
in print. I dedicate this book to him.
Also many thanks go to a number of proof readers of (parts) of the main text.
They came from my own circle of family relations and other friends and
acquaintances. The intention was, to collect the opinions of potential readers,
widelyrangingfrompeoplewithoutanybackgroundinphysicstoeducatedlaymen
who are well read in the popular-scientific literature, as well as professionals not
easilyfrightenedbymathematics.Imaymentioninparticularbrothersandsistersof
mine (Jan van Holten, Saskia van Holten, Jan van Wijk), my wife Pia, my friend
Kees Kleinjan and my former Ph.D. student Dr. Jessica Holierhoek. Their com-
ments were very valuable and resulted in many, sometimes extensive, adaptations
of the original concepts.
Finally,thanksareduetotheeditorofthisbookMarkEligh,whobroughtmein
contact with some real experts in the field of emergent quantum physics, Ross
Anderson and Robert Brady (both working at the University of Cambridge,
England).Whenstartingtheresearch,Iwasnotawareofthebeautifulexperiments
by Couder et al. on bouncing droplets mimicking quantum phenomena. In the
original manuscript only brief mention was made of these experiments, after
HermanSchöyerhadbroughtanoverviewarticletomyattention.Thecommentsby
Anderson and Brady resulted in the addition of two new chapters discussing this
subject in more detail.
xiii
