Reference: Spacetime 5: A New Model of Atom
The section Outline of Schrodinger’s Theory from Eddington’s book, “The Nature of the Physical World,” provides a wonderful description of Schrodinger’s model that may be compared to the Disturbance theory.
According to Schrödinger there is a sub-aether, which is rippling at a very high frequency. These ripples converge and coalesce to generate disturbed areas in space that act as discrete particles, such as, electrons.
This is very much in line with the Disturbance theory, except that Schrödinger’s sub-aether is identified as space. The ripples in space result in a frequency spectrum that spans from undisturbed space of zero frequency at the lower end to extremely high frequencies at the upper end that collapse into mass. The very high frequency ripples of Schrödinger’s model are identified as the gamma ray region of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In Schrödinger’s model the velocity of ripples varies with wavelength or period. Those of shorter period travel faster. The speed may also be modified by local conditions, which may be compared to field of force.
In Disturbance theory, the speed of propagation is meaningless in subatomic regions where the constitution of space and time itself is changing because of relativistic effects, though space/time maintains a constant ratio ‘c’. The monitoring variable, therefore, is not speed but frequency.
The stormy regions of Schrödinger’s model are high frequency regions that are viewed as particles. In the Disturbance model they are viewed as 3-D “whirlpools” existing in a low frequency background. The high frequency gradients defining them influence the surrounding low frequency region.
The Schrödinger’s Equation is based on the idea of conservation of energy. The terms of the Schrödinger equation can be interpreted as total energy of the system, equal to the system kinetic energy plus the system potential energy. This equation is solved for the motion of sub-atomic particles. Frequency is recognized as the energy of the particle, and it provides the relationship between period and energy per the h rule. The motion of the Schrödinger’s particle is represented by the group-velocity and not the wave-velocity.
In Disturbance theory, the 3-D whirlpools are not viewed as particles. Instead they are made up of spherical shells. Frequency is associated with the excitation energy of these shells. Each cycle of this frequency has an energy equal to the Planck’s constant h. The excitation energy for these shells is represented by the frequency of light absorbed or emitted, and not by the high frequency that make up the shells.
The Schrödinger’s model defines the point location of the subatomic particle by a probability distribution function. This is not necessary for the shell represention of the model in Disturbance theory. The shells are made up of high frequency waves. They do not constitute a point particle. The only particle is the nucleus of the atom where extremely high frequency waves collapse as mass.
The Schrödinger’s equation was successfully solved for the emission of light from a hydrogen atom. The nucleus was represented by a “field of force” (potential energy) that influenced the motion of the electron (kinetic energy). The solution was a discrete set of frequencies that described the possible states of the electron. It agreed with Bohr’s quantized energy levels. It even provided the energy levels observed, which could not be predicted from the Bohr’s model. It was a considerable advance to have determined these energies by a wave-theory instead of by an inexplicable mathematical rule.
Eddington says, “It would be difficult to think of the electron as having two energies (i.e. being in two Bohr orbits) simultaneously; but there is nothing to prevent waves of two different frequencies being simultaneously present in the sub-aether. Thus the wave-theory allows us easily to picture a condition which the classical theory could only describe in paradoxical terms.” Light emitted from an atom is the difference between two energy levels of the electron. This is viewed in Schrödinger’s theory as the “beat” produced by two waves that are close to each other in frequency as in heterodyning.
This places the particle model of electron in doubt. This problem is not there in the Disturbance theory where light emission may be explained as “beats” produced by two adjacent oscillating shells.
Schrödinger assumes a wave function ψ in sub-aether as an elementary indefinable of the wave-theory. The probability that the particle or electron is within a given region is interpreted as being proportional to ψ2 in that region.
In Disturbance theory, the atomic structure consists of shells whose frequencies are in the gamma range. These frequencies increase as one moves closer to the center of the atom. These “shells” oscillate when excited. Localization occurs only in terms of the shell that is oscillating. Two closely resonating shells have “beats”that appear as light absorbed or emitted.
An oscillating shell may represent an electron inside the atom. As shells oscillate in succession, the electron may appear to move. The concept of “probability” in Schrödinger’s model may thus be given a meaning through Disturbance theory.
The “shells” increase in frequency as they get closer to the center until they “collapse” to form the nucleus. In a nucleus, these shells are so close together that they approach the classical definition of a particle.
The picture of electron as a classical particle is much less proper compared to the nucleus. This lack of propriety is expressed indirectly by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
Schrödinger’s sub-aether requires six-dimensions to describe two electrons within an atom, thus the sub-aether does not exist in physical space. There is no such problem with the model per Disturbance theory, which does not require additional dimensions to describe two electrons.
Summary
The sub-aether of Schrödinger is an arbitray concept that is not consistent with real space. It becomes complex very rapidly as more electrons are considered. There is no sub-aether. There is simply the physical space. Disturbances in this space are adequately described by the broad electromagnetic spectrum. Schrödinger’s very high frequencies of sub-aether are better described by the gamma range of the electromagnetic spectrum.
In reality, there is no electron, as a particle, possible within the atom that can assume two different energies simultaneously. Instead of particles there are cascading spherical shells in the atom with frequencies in the gamma range. These frequencies increase toward the center of atom. Instead of electrons there are oscillating shells. When oscillating, some adjacent shells produce lower frequency “beats”, which appear as light absorbed or emitted by the atom.
There are no electrons as particles in atom. There are only high frequency shells that respond to excitation.
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Comments
This work has been a long time coming but worth the wait. Good job.
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Thank you. I am slowly working my way through what happened about a century ago.
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I surely admire your diligence and stamina.
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It is a challenge and a lot of fun.
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I have been looking at the idea of collapse and realized that with regard to physics, I don’t know what it means.
The collapse of an ocean wave or of a building is a dissipation of potential energy into kinetic energy thereby “collapse.” (At the nuclear level but not at the sub-atomic level? Correct?)
At the subatomic, the waveform of spacetime seems to “collapse” in reverse from kinetic disturbance to the potential state of mass. Does my understanding agree with what you are writing?
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The word “collapse” is a place holder. All we know is there a sharp border between the electronic region and the nucleus. There is a threshold frequency, which describes this border.
Similarly, there is a sharp border between the low frequency electromagnetic field and the “3D whirlpool” of the electronic region. There is another threshold frequency, which describes this border.
I wonder if there is experimental data available out there from which these two threshold frequencies may be calculated.
So, we have a linear electromagnetic field transitioning into a rotating electronic field, which is then collapsing into a nuclear mass.
“Collapsing” would then mean the transition from frequency to mass. The nuclear mass may be made up of shells, whose frequencies are way beyond gamma range, because the “lower frequency beats” produced by them happen to be in the gamma range.
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Electrons and atoms are stable configurations.
A free electron may be looked upon as an “atom without a nucleus”.
A free electron seems to interact easily with other atoms. It is as if free electrons stick to most atoms.
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People bow down to mathemetics in the descriptions given in Physics, Quantum Mechanics, etc.
But math applications are only as good as the assumptions made in those subjects.
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Development of Quantum Mechanics by Harrison, Univ of Toronto might interest you
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Thanks Ravi. I shall check it out.
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Here is an interesting link
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
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Here is another interesting link.
http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/GeneralInterest/QM.html
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
“In 1905 Einstein proposed that light, in addition to its well known nature as a wave of electric and magnetic fields, can be thought of as a particle, which now we call the photon. In 1923 Louis de Broglie proposed that particle-like objects, such as electrons, could also be thought of as some sort of wave. At this time de Broglie was a graduate student, and his proposal was part of his PhD thesis. His supervising committee didn’t know what to make of this outlandish proposal and asked Schrödinger, who pronounced that the idea was “rubbish!” The committee went to Einstein, who essentially said that they should give the kid his PhD, since “there might be something to it.” So that is how de Broglie got his PhD, and in 1926 Davisson and Germer actually saw electrons demonstrating an interference pattern.”
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The particle-wave duality may be explained through “cascading shell” structure of atom. Each shell is made up of a frequency in the gamma range. The shells are increasing in frequency as one moves toward the center of the atom.
A free electron may be looked upon as an “atom without nucleus”. It appears as a particle because it is bounded by a high frequency shell that forms a high frequency gradient with the surrounding low frequency electromagnetic field within which it exists.
Electrons thus create a point impression when detected, which gives the impression of a particle. But electrons also demonstrate an interference pattern because of the wave structure that bounds them.
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
In 1926 Schrödinger published a series of papers giving a full form of Quantum Mechanics; in this formulation the central idea is de Broglie’s hypothesis. This formulation, then, is called Wave Mechanics. When earlier we stated that we could “explain” the ad hoc Bohr model by realising that the ‘allowed orbits’ of that model correspond to standing waves of electrons, we were describing how Wave Mechanics describes the theory of an atom.
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de Broglie’s hypothesis seems to be limited to electrons that don’t have a nucleus. The moment there is a nucleus, it far outweighs the wave effect of the shells around it.
The “standing wave” orbits of Schrodinger may be compared to the resonating “shells” of the Disturbance theory.
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I have ordered the book, “My View of the World” by Schrodinger.
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
You may recall the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox, which was first published in its “scientific form” in 1935 in Zeitschrift der Physick. However in his 1925 essay he recounts an ancient Sankhya Hindu paradox that, jazzed up with some technology, became the cat paradox. In that original form the paradox was cast in the form of two people, one looking at a garden, the other in a dark room. The modern equivalent would be one person looking in the box to see if the cat is alive or dead, while a second person waits out in the hall. As we discussed, in this modern form the state “collapses” for the first person while it does not collapse for the second person.
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Here “collapses” seems to mean “to take a form”. The view gets its form through the viewpoint.
There is an Indian saying, which may be roughly translated as, “The way a person’s innermost tendencies are, the same way the face of God appears to him.”
This Pandora’s Box was opened by Einstein’s theory of relativity. There is a universal constant ‘c’ referred to as “speed of light”. It omits to say that this “speed of light” is relative to the reference frame (condition) of matter. One may then also say that ‘c’ is the speed of matter relative to the reference frame (condition) of light.
But the latter view is rejected by the western science. So the universe has “collapsed” for them according to the first view.
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When I say, “Very high frequencies collapse into mass” I am using a somewhat more specific version of the previous definition of “collapse”.
The “very high frequencies” seem to come together in such a way that they assume the characteristics of mass.
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“The “very high frequencies” seem to come together in such a way that they assume the characteristics of mass.”
I suppose something very obvious but counterintuitive will be discovered. Our unsuccessful assumptions need release to make way for better ones.
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God collapses differently for different religions.
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“God collapses differently for different religions.”
Well said.
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“God collapses differently for different religions.”
Collapsing in this sense is an interesting word for transition. In your sense, I can use the word collapse to describe that moment of inception of an abstract thought. That is interesting to me because it challenges my understanding of what we refer to as free will and what we refer to as determinism. In that moment of inception, is something created? Or is something collapsed? To me, this may be the linchpin of theism.
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
In 1925 Schrõdinger resolved that paradox the way the Vedantists did: he asserted that all consciousness is one. As he wrote:
“But it is quite easy to express the solution in words, thus: the plurality [of viewpoints] that we perceive is only “an appearance; it is not real. Vedantic philosophy, in which this is a fundamental dogma, has sought to clarify it by a number of analogies, one of the most attractive being the many-faceted crystal which, while showing hundreds of little pictures of what is in reality a single existent object, does not really multiply the object.”
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This is what has happened with the theory of relativity. One takes the viewpoint of a frame of reference attached to an object and looks at another moving object. He then sees length contraction and time dilation from this sinular viewpoint.
These singular viewpoints attached to objects in the universe form the plurality of viewpoints referred to above.
When we take the overall viewpoint of the universe, all those anamolies of length contraction and time dilation dissappear. One then realizes that those anamolies were a part of subjectivity associated with the narrowness of the singular viewpoints.
The only objective viewpoint is the broad overall viewpoint.
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
Here is another fragment of that essay:
“… you may suddenly come to see, in a flash, the profound rightness of the basic conviction of Vedanta: … knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one in all men, nay in all sensitive beings.”
Do you think that Schrödinger had such a flash of insight? Is this the sort of insight which in the Eastern traditions is sometimes called enlightenment?
Finally, Schrödinger himself makes an interesting analogy between Vedantic philosophy and modern physics:
“If finally we look back at that idea of Mach [that `the universe is not twice given’], we shall realize that it comes as near to the orthodox dogma of the Upanishads as it could possibly do without stating it expressis verbis. The external world and consciousness are one and the same thing.”
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The above is true only when looks out from the viewpoint of the universe as a whole, and not from some narrow viewpoint, which belongs to only some part of the universe.
“Knowledge, feeling and choice are essentially eternal and unchangeable and numerically one” only when one looks out from the context of the universe. The theory of relativity assumes the narrow viewpoint of an object in the universe, or of a location in space, rather than the viewpoint of the universe or of space.
Mach’s statement, “the universe is not twice given” is best interpreted as saying that there is only one viewpoint from the context of the universe. There cannot be two viewpoints.
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We trust what agrees with our assumptions.
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From http://www.upscale.utoronto.ca/PVB/Harrison/DevelQM/DevelQM.html
In the 5th century of the current era, there was a bitter argument in India between the Sankhya Hindus and the Buddhists about the nature of Universal Flux. Debates were held which lasted for days, and would attract huge crowds. According to the Buddhists:
The phenomena consist of an infinity of discrete moments following one another almost without intervals…. There is no matter at all, flashes of energy follow one another and produce the illusion of stabilized phenomena. The universe is a staccato movement.
while according to the Hindus:
The phenomena are nothing but waves or fluctuations standing out upon the background of an eternal, all-pervading undifferentiated Matter with which they are identical. The universe represents a legato movement.
Reference: F. Theodor Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, Vol I, pg 83.
Even allowing for the possibility that Schrödinger’s Wave Mechanics may have been influenced by Hindu philosophy, the parallels between the Buddhist-Hindu argument and the Heisenberg-Schrödinger aesthetic clash are striking.
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They are the same argument. The cycles of a wave are discrete when looked upon at from the viewpoint of the cycle. But when looked upon at from the viewpoint of the whole wave we see the continuity.
I prefer the overall viewpoint of the wave as that is the all inclusive and, therefore, the objective viewpoint.
I am with Schrodinger. 🙂
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To me the fundmental tenet is:
The universe is continuous, consistent and harmonious in its overarching context.
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“The universe is continuous, consistent and harmonious in its broadest context.”
Agreed. I believe the lesson of relativity teaches us that all things are continuous, consistent, and harmonious within their own frame of reference. The larger our abstraction, the broader, the more inclusive it can be, then the better our theories of everything.
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