Modern Physics, the view from the duckpond

Hi Guys You ask

who/what is TD?

Well that’s me and I’m a duck and my name is Ugly Duckling..

OK, you may well ask what do ducks know about modern physics?

Well, our credentials are excellent in both maths and physics.

Where do you think the expression eggheads come from and ask any cricketer who invented the number zero? We learned to fly long before you and above all, the fundamental bits of matter have been named after us, the quacks. The old argument still goes on with the gulls who claim the bits were named after them but that’s only based on a printing error in “Finnegan’s Wake”. Anyhow it just proves you have to be a birdbrain to understand modern physics.

I suppose you want to know how we’re all getting on down here on the pond?

Well, for most of us life has its ups and downs, although sometimes I think we’re all a little bit short of a full charge.

My daughters have a strange charm about them but recently they have been putting on an awful lot of weight. My wife, Daisy, is terribly concerns she says its ever since they’ve been visiting farmer Higg’s field. She dreads to think what they’re grazing on across there. But the girls stick together. Daisy says she doesn’t think any force could pull them apart. If you think the girls are big you should see the boys, top and bottom they are enormous. They never stop feeding, pecker down in the mud duck’s ass up in the air, all day long. But I must tell you we’ve been having a little trouble down here recently someone has been shooting at the kids. Now top’s gone into hiding I don’t think we’ll be seeing him again for a while.

Anyway lets get back to the matter at hand your claim that we Ducks can’t make heads or tails of basic physics, well on that much at least we agree. To understand the duck’s position you need to know a little history about our recent research. Our state of confusion about the nature of physical reality goes back to when professor Plonk discovered that black body radiation was quantized , even you humans have heard of Plonk’s constant. Some also say the trouble really started with Mickelpond-Moorhen experiment when they failed to measure the velocity of the ether. Although my great uncle Albert Puddleduck with his theory relativity explained this outcome to the satisfaction of most us anatidaeans.

Anyway lets move on with our story, back at the time when my grandfather was first trying to get into the movies we were carrying out experiments on the smallest bits of things we could find in the pond. In those days we did many experiments and we got some very funny results. Some of our observations suggested these bits of things could be made of waves and others pointed to them being particles. We could not understand this. One thing about ducks we know a lot about waves and particles, we live with them.
We know if we’ve got waves we’re in for rough day on the pond and particles get between our toes and make our webbed feet sore. So if anyone is going to figure out this mystery then its going to be a duck! But try as we may we could not fathom it. Some of us lost so many feathers over it we could barely fly. This was the worst crisis down on the pond since humans started having Christmas dinners.

Eventually Boring duck said “enough’s enough you are driving me quackers, you buffleheads will never get never get a handle on this. We have to approach this from another angle.” So it was, we had to abandon our efforts to visualise what was going on in the world of very small things in favour of developing a method which would tell us how the little entities will affect our measurements in the big world of the pond.

We listed what we could measure, position, momentum, energy, time. Then we described some experimental set-up. Knowing the initial set of measurements associated with this set-up we wanted to predict the outcome for another set of measurements take later when some function had been performed within the experimental set-up. What we needed was set of rules that could be applied to the experimental set up that would connect the measurements of the outcome of the experiment with its initial state.

Surprisingly we came up with a number of sets of rules, which seemed to do the trick. Werner Highsingerbird for instance came forward with his matrix method but eventually our preferred method was one developed by Airwing Shreadwinger. Shreadwinger’s wave equation. These rules we called QM or Quacktum Mechanics

Shreadwinger took de Booby’s idea that all little bits of things have wavelengths and momentums; the wavelength when multiplied by the momentum gives Plonk’s constant; and applied it to the general wave equation to describe the state of the electron. He got some help from a Humboldt Penguin who had developed a form of dynamics, which expressed interactions in terms of change of momentum rather than forces. This is now called Humboldtonian mechanics.

The days spent formulating the rules were blissful ones, “everybird happy, and progressive and occupied”. Some worked on how our observables related to the difeatherential operators, others worked on the shoreline conditions whilst some on the Humboldtonian and Eider values. All seemed to be going well, how wrong we were!

One bright morning in early summer, just before the researchers would normally go for diving practice an urgent meeting was called by Highsingerbird and Max (Born again) Shoveler

All the researchers gathered around the two ducks. Highsingerbird who normally can’t make his mind up about anything quacked “we’re goosed this wave particle duality thing has scoterred us again”. All was quiet apart from the ruffling of a few feathers.
Werner went on “Its like this, a particle can have a precise location at a point in space but a wave can’t. What we are looking at seems to normally behave as a wave until it interacts then somehow it seems to be transformed into a particle or at least interacts impulsively like a particle. What this means is if we try to measure the state of one of these little things, an electron say, we get an impulsive interaction that tells little about the wave-like state we were trying to measure and what’s worse the act of measurement actually changes the original state of the electron. Leaving us with a big chunk of uncertainty about what we are measuring.”

Boring Duck quacked up “so you are saying we can only measure the state of the little things by adding and subtracting energy from them. The act of measurement alters what we are trying to measure. An observation then comes from an interaction that somehow combines the state of the little thing with the state of the apparatus doing the measuring. Meaning we will always introduce uncertainty into our measurements of the states of these small things.

That is correct Werner quacked.

Max piped in “as Werner said left to themselves they seem to behave as waves and their state can be described by a wave-function but when we attempt to carry out a measurement we cause an impulsive shift in energy, which causes an abrupt change in the state of the wave-function.”

Then somebody yelped I don’t understand what’s going on here, it was Ruddy Shelduck, are these littlest bits of things waves or particles?”

Werner answered “I’m afraid we don’t know nor do we have anyway of knowing; we use these terms as analogy with the things we commonly find in our everyday world. That is why we put this team together; to develop a set of rules that will allow us to predict their behaviour without knowing what they are.” It is the purpose of this meeting to explain to you how by their very nature these entities are placing inherent limits on how successful we can be.

Boring Duck billed in again “I see, tell me, is there any way of quantifying the amount of uncertainty contained with in a measurement”


“Yes I think so” Werner replied “In our dynamics, to specify the state of something we need to know its position and its momentum, unfortunately the duplicity in the description of the small things means there will always be uncertainty in our knowledge relating to these two parrotameters.” Werner continued, “The uncertainty is in our combined knowledge of position and momentum. We can offset one against the other for instance the more precisely we measure the position of a little thing then the less we know about its momentum.”

“So if you knew the precise position of an electron then you know absolutely nothing about its momentum”, chirped in a blackbird who’d decided to gate crashed the meeting.

“Exactly” declared Max

At the blackbird cried “Well! sing a song of sixpence” and promptly flew of into the nearest willow tree.

Highsingerbird then went on to show how the uncertainty in momentum related to the uncertainty in position.

The uncertainty in momentum multiplied by the uncertainty in the position is greater than Plonk’s constant!

The team was shocked, everywhere was fluttering and ruffling and fine sprays of water droplets filled the air, but worse was to come.

Max lent forward in the sunlight his bright yellow eyes contrasting vividly with his dark metallic green head.

“We have a problem with QM” he said almost whispering, “we have a kind of causal discontinuity in our model, it doesn’t add up to a full shilling.”

“Our QM rules in effect create a mathematical description of a quacktum system in terms of waves. Subject to the shoreline conditions these waves fill the entire pond. But when we make a measurement it is associated with a quacktum interaction that occurs at a specific place in the pond, the lily patch, the reed shallows or the pike’s corner.

“Our formulation does not give us a path to identify where we are going to find our little thing; it can be any where in the pond?” “In my view the waves we are describing are not going to tell us exactly where we might find an interaction but will tell us the probability of finding an interaction in a given place.” Max went on to talk about the statistical interpretation of the wave, of the probability that a measurement of position in an infinitesimal volume in a given part of the pond would yield an interaction, how consistency required a normalisation condition.

“But surely if we carryon working, sooner or later we will find the connection between our waves and their interactions and then we will be able to make precise predictions about where we will find there interactions? Interjected a perplexed Ruddy.

“No, we don’t think so” said Werner “We believe there is a deep and subtle relationship between the apparent wave-particle duality of things, the idea of inherent uncertainty and the causal gap we are finding in QM. The best we can hope for is someday to understand what’s linking them. But even with that understanding we feel it will not help us to predict the exact positions we will find interactions. Always remember you cannot measure the state of these small things you can only have interactions between them and your measuring apparatus.”

Max went on “Its like this: the waves act as waves of probability. They determine the supply of the interactions (between the little things and the measuring apparatus); that is their distribution in space and time. Our observations come from the little things we want to observe and our method of attempting to measure them. . Our results come from the interactions between the two.

Unnoticed great uncle Albert Puddleduck had joined the back of the group and was listening intently. On hearing Max’s words, his dishevelled feathers seem to stand on end. Suddenly, he quacked “No, No, No the big swan does not play dice.” Then fluttering and flapping he waddled away from the flock in a great storm of fluffy white feathers and down.

“I have a question, said Ruddy almost whistling, uncle Albert being here gave me a thought. Our wave extends in space to the defined shorelines. Which can fill the whole of space. A measurement initiates an interaction that appears to be localised and instantaneous. The interaction seems to cause an instantaneous shift in the state of the wave over all the space enclosed by the shorelines. Whatever is happening to the wave it is happening faster than the speed of light. This must be a violation of Albert Puddle Duck’s theory of relativity.

“Of course you are right” said Highsingerbird, “our understanding of the nature of the physical world is full of inconsistencies and gaps. I think we must regard them as pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. At the moment we don’t recognise where they fit in. We must put them back in the box until we have built up more of the big picture. In the future, perhaps we will be able to answer these questions, for now we must do what we can.”

So it was that the ducks developed their quacktum mechanics and good mechanics they were. It worked in every possible experimental situation. Of course it was still only a set of rules but the rules worked and from any practical consideration that was sufficient.

That early summer day when we learnt of uncertainty and probabilities is now a long time in the past. In the years since we have refined our rules and learnt how to offset one uncertainty against an other to add exquisite subtleties to our rules allowing us to predict some characteristics to unprecedented levels of accuracy. We have learnt of new forces. We have found more strange jigsaw pieces to be placed in Werner’s box, integral paths, Bill’s Inequality and Aspeck’s Eggsperiment. But the greatest mystery has naggingly refused to go away. The “wave-particle” duality off little things.

As for great Uncle Albert, he never did learn to fully accept quacktum mechanics. Often he would be seen swimming at the edge of the pond, keeping his lonely path, working till his dying day, still searching for the proof that” the great swan does not play dice.

In recent years the jigsaw pieces have been taken out of the box again and now we believe we have fitted them together as the big swan intended. By realising that electromagnetism is mediated by space-time via zero interval paths we have: -

1. Eliminated the inconsistencies existing between QM and special relativity.
2. Resolved the wave-particle duality dilemma of light.
3. Discovered the mechanism by which the wave-functions of small things abruptly change when they interact.

In the face of this evidence, to us ducks the case for light being a particle looks pretty feeble.

The task of building a website to explain this to interested aves was given to me, Ugly Puddleduck.

Unfortunately the site has been infiltrated by humans. As we all know the problem with humans they are incapable of independent flight, and it affects their judgement, keep their nose to the ground and can’t see the big picture. They have this unfortunate obsession that the world is made of particles although this leads to an incompreducksible muddle when they try to visualise what’s going on. They also use strange expressions such “the probability of finding a particle” any duck would say “that’s wrong, you mean the probability of finding an interaction.” What ‘s worse in attacking our thesis they will use devious tactics, they talk of attempts to “unseat Einstein and QM”, when these are the very foundation of our thinking.

“If you think that the photoelectric effect can be explained by "waves", then I'd like to see the wave picture explains the 2-photon, 3-photon, 4-photon, etc photoemission” says PF.
What sort of a theory is this guy talking about, who said anything about light being a wave?

Come on guys if you’re intent on knocking it then at least be honest about it and come up with arguments that are relevant to the subject?

Perhaps a little more subtle Reilly says “Note that the author of the website you mention does not touch dynamics nor the cross section.” What he fails to say is the Author (That’s Me Ugly!) showed that dynamically a null interval strike from a remote quantum system is equivalent to being struck locally by a particle. They are dynamically equivalent! Any interaction that can be explained by a particle can equally well be explained by a null interval strike. No more needed to be said.

The import distinguishing characteristic between a particle and a null interval surface is the null interval surface carries the calling cards of the parent quantum system. It holds information about its current state and all potential states, you can use Shreadwinger’s wave equation to determine the momentum, energy and potential interference patterns of light interactions springing from a donor system. As for the collapse and restoration of the wave-functions we believe what is happening here is similar to the effect of “particle” entanglement. At sub-quantum level the whole of the probability density field (energy field) is entangled via null interval surfaces. The whole field can instantaneously respond to the demands of interactions. Deliver a killer punch a billion light years away if needed

Unfortunately I have to leave you now its Easter this weekend and it is rumoured that farmer Higgs is looking for Sunday lunch. So I’m flying south!

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