How to Convert One Green Photon Into Two Locomotives of Momentum

The physics of photon momentum are straightforward mathematically but can produce surprisingly counterintuitive outcomes. A few simple calculations show how a single photon of green light can, in principle, impart two locomotive engines’ worth of momentum without violating energy conservation. The calculation is one example of why quantum mechanics needs better accounting of linear momentum.

Light Cones as Quantum Phenomena

Quantum erasure experiments push the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds by letting delayed events influence the state of previously recorded and potentially widely distributed classical information. The only significant restriction to such unsettling violations of forward-only causality is that the distribution of forward-dependent information cannot cross out of the light cone boundaries of the event in the past, a feature that ensures no violations of causality — no rewriting of anyone else's recorded histories — can occur. The erasure interpretation of this conundrum requires rewriting of information recorded and distributed in the past, which would itself be a violation of causality. The quantum predestination interpretation removes the causal rewriting issue. However, quantum predestination requires detailed coordination of inputs from outside of the forward-dependent event's light cone, thus massively violating the same limit that prevents causality violations in such events. Yet another approach is to invoke the Schrödinger's cat variant of quantum erasure in which arbitrarily complex classical events within the light cone become quantum dependent upon the future event. As with all Schrödinger's cat interpretations of quantum mechanics, this variant of quantum erasure violates causality by discarding local classical histories such as the information-rich state of the cat's body. The most straightforward interpretation of erasure experiments is to follow the lead of the equations themselves, which transform on paper as if their components are independent of ordinary space and time limits, up to the limits imposed on them by the speed of light. Interpreting the light cone of each quantum system as an atemporal, aspatial unit in which classical time and space have no meaning results in a multi-scale, matter-dependent definition of spacetime in which every light cone is a singular quantum entity. In such a universe, both time and space are defined not as pre-existing, mass-independent continuums but as the consensus of vast numbers of constantly interacting and mutually limiting quantum-entity light cones.

Quantum Erasure as Quantum Predestination

As indicated by the name "quantum erasure," the most common interpretation of certain classes of delayed choice quantum experiments is that they, in some fashion, erase or undo past decisions. Unfortunately, this interpretation cannot be correct since the past decisions were already classically and irreversibly captured as recorded information or datums. A datum is information that, through temporal entanglement, constrains future events. The correct interpretation of such experiments is stranger than erasure: Recordings made early in such quantum experiments predestine choices made later through arbitrarily complex and often human-scale classical choices. Since this process of quantum predestination occurs only within the future light cone of datum creation, another (possibly) less radical way to interpret such experiments is that time is multiscale, granular, and impossible to define outside of the quantum state of the entities involved. The continuum time abstraction is not compatible with this view.

The Vacuum-Phonon (Sonon) Reinterpretation of QED

This paper provides a reference copy of one particular and highly informal comment in a multiweek Academia.edu discussion of the paper Randomness in Relational Quantum Mechanics by Gary Gordon. The other main participants in this particular thread of the discussion were Doug Marman, Conrad Dale Johnson, Ruth Kastner, and the author. In this comment, the author argues that the only self-consistent approach to reconciling Feynman path integrals with Maxwell’s experimentally well-proven theory of electromagnetic wave pressure is introducing a new spin-0 particle, the vacuum or space phonon (sonon), that conveys linear momentum. The path histories of QED become the always-expanding structure of the sonon field, which, like a bubble, becomes increasingly unstable as it expands. The collection of all sonon fields around well-defined bundles of conserved quantum properties creates xyz space by defining the complete set of relational information for those entities. Spacetime in the sonon model is granular, multi-scale, and entirely mass-energy dependent. Implications of the sonon model are discussed, including the need for a drastic update to general relativity to take the multi-scale granularity of spacetime directly into account, rather than explaining it obliquely via models such as dark matter, dark energy, or MOND.

II. Your Present Moment in Spacetime

This essay extends the argument begun in "Why Quantum Mechanics Makes Sense," exploring the conditions under which a physical world can define and communicate information. I argue that like the structure of quantum physics, the principles of Special and General Relativity can be understood as reflecting the requirements of a universe in which things are observable and measurable. I interpret the peculiar hyperbolic structure of spacetime not as the static, four-dimensional geometry of an unobservable "block universe", but as the background metric of an evolving web of communicated information that we, along with all our measuring instruments and recording devices, actually experience in our local "here and now." Our relativistic universe is conceived as a parallel distributed processing system, in which a common objective reality is constantly being woven out of many kinds of facts determined separately in countless local measurement-contexts.

I. Why Quantum Mechanics Makes Sense

We take it for granted that our physical environment communicates information, making things observable and measurable. However, there are very strong constraints on the fundamental physics of any universe that can do this. Measuring or communicating any kind of information always requires an appropriate interactive context, and these contexts are necessarily complex, involving other kinds of information determined in different contexts. This makes measurement hard to grasp theoretically, since every measurement depends on other kinds of measurements. Even so, we can identify some basic functional requirements for a physics that determines and communicates facts. These are sufficient to explain the peculiar features of quantum mechanics, combining the unitary evolution of superpositions with the mysterious "collapse" that occurs whenever the context allows new facts to be defined. Moreover, the precise determinism of classical physics can be understood on the same basis. It seems likely, in fact, that most of the complexity and fine-tuning we see in our most fundamental theories is needed to make any kind of information measurable.

III. The Origins of Determinate Information

This paper continues an argument begun in "Why Quantum Mechanics Makes Sense", which explores the conditions under which a physical world can define and communicate any kind of information. Since it appears that nearly all of what’s known in our most fundamental theories may be needed to do this, the question arises as to how such a complex, many-leveled system of rules and principles could have emerged from much simpler initial conditions. Following the earlier treatment of Quantum Mechanics, the initial state of the universe is taken to be a plenum of unconstrained (and therefore structureless) possibility. Any sort of system can emerge, in these conditions, so long as it’s able to define all its constraints in terms of each other – as our observable universe does. I attempt an "archaeological" analysis of currently known physics into component layers of self-defining structure, each of which can be understood as emergent on the basis of previously established constraints. I also consider how this kind of reconstruction might relate to our currently well-established Concordance Model of the early history of our universe.

On the Quantum Mechanics of Collision Processes [English Translation]

An examination of collision processes indicates that Schrödinger’s quantum mechanics describes not only stationary states, but also quantum jumps.

Evidence of High-Detail Perceptual Modeling in the Visual Cortex

This informal but well-referenced description of an afterimage experiment called Ghost Tap provides persuasive and easily reproducible evidence that the visual cortex plays a significant role in certain classes of long-duration visual afterimages. Subjects of the experiment literally cannot discern the difference between the afterimage and reality, resulting in easy startling of the subjects when physical motion in the room no longer matches the persuasive afterimages they are perceiving. Anecdotal examples of less extreme versions of the same effect suggest that the Ghost Tap effect has, over centuries, intentionally and unintentionally helped persuade people of the existence of nominally “supernatural” effects that are just persuasive long-duration afterimages. While this description is informal, the easy reproducibility of the Ghost Tap makes it a good candidate for more precise and quantitative studies. One theory why Ghost Tap exists is that it is part of load reduction and speed enhancement strategy to compensate for the slow processing speeds of neurons. Maintaining a dynamic and predictive real-time model of likely sensory inputs from the external world would enable the brain to discard quickly and with minimal processing any sensory inputs that fall within the predictive tolerance limits to the current model state. A perceptive load reduction interpretation of the Ghost Tap argues that the ability of the brain to support dreaming in vivid detail is likely a direct corollary of its ability to create dream-like waking states for faster and more efficient processing of large sensory loads. If the brain regularly uses dream-like waking states to reduce data, more study of effects like Ghost Tap might help explain the frequency of pathologies in which perception becomes disconnected from reality.

Crossref 4.4.2 XML Elements and Attributes

For anyone trying to understand both the basics and the full range of options available when making a DOI metadata submission to Crossref, this linked table of XML element and attribute descriptions gives one small publisher’s best understanding of the most recent version of Crossref’s metadata submission elements and attributes. As of April 2021, the most recent version of Crossref XML files is 4.4.2. This table provides definitions for the six Crossref XML Schema Definition (xsd) files that include the most commonly used description elements of a DOI submission: crossref4.4.2.xsd, common4.4.2.xsd, fundref.xsd, AccessIndicators.xsd, clinicaltrials.xsd, and relations.xsd. The table also includes a brief description of the main features of the externally defined jats:abstract (JATS) element. This table focuses not on XML syntax but on the intent and structure of the elements from a small publisher perspective. This table is one small publisher’s interpretation of Crossref XML and is not authoritative in any way. It will inevitably contain errors, and the author takes no responsibility for its use, which is necessarily and entirely at your own risk. Any submissions created with information from this table should be verified for correctness against the official automated documentation and tools at the Crossref submission site. Note, however, that occasional errors and inconsistencies in those Crossref XML files were uncovered during the creation of this table. Every effort has been made here both to document inconsistencies in the original files and in this interpretation of those files. Important links to Crossref documentation, including comment on the apparent status of Crossref web pages, are provided in the References section after the table on the last document page.