Duelling with destiny

[Excerpt Be and Become, © ProCreative, Sydney 2000]

As mentioned in the previous section, when physicists attempt to follow or observe the detailed trajectory of say an electron, things are not so deterministic or certain as in our normal everyday world of balls or arrows. When we throw a ball, for example we can predict quite precisely with mathematics (calculus) the trajectory of the ball. We can do so because the macro-sized world we inhabit appears to be continuous and predictable.

Newton’s laws of physics, for example, are continuously and predictably applicable to the real world of things (putting aside Zeno and his troublesome paradoxes). However, in the world of the quantum, things are not so continuous, predictable or certain.

Perhaps the most significant observation that first began to upset Newton’s mechanistic and predictable model of the world was the observation, around the turn of this century, of the photo-electric effect. The photo-electric effect could not be explained by any of science’s existing schools of factualisms—factualisms which all required continuity and predictability as a necessary condition. In essence, the photo-electric effect occurs when electrons are ejected from a metallic surface when it is irradiated with light (or any electromagnetic energy, such as x-rays and radio waves). The odd thing about the photoelectric effect is that different colored light ejects electrons with different velocity (energy). Brighter light simply ejects more electrons, not faster electrons. This is counter-intuitive to what we might expect—a brighter, more intense light might be expected to burn off an electron more vigorously, perhaps in a similar manner in which normal sunlight focused through a magnifying glass can vigorously burn wood and paper.

The photo-electric effect could in the end only be explained by accepting that light waves were quantized, i.e. discontinuous. Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics for ultimately solving the dilemma of the photo-electric effect by proposing that light behaved, in such situations, as discrete particles. Up until that time, light was commonly accepted to be a continuous wave. Such wave-like behavior was well established around the turn of the century.

This new development by Einstein was quite revolutionary—light somehow was both wave and/or particle, depending upon how and when it was observed. Unlike previously when light was thought to be wavelike, with Einstein’s development came the uncertainty of how to conceptualize energy (light). What did it really mean for light to behave as either a wave or a particle?

As if that wasn’t enough to upset the deterministic scientists, in 1923 Louis de Broglie submitted his Ph.D. thesis to his physics professors suggesting that electrons (matter) in an atomic orbit were associated with a wave. Not only did light seem to behave as both wave and particle, but here was a young physicist proposing that matter behaved as both wave and particle. His idea was that the observed behavior of an electron in an atomic orbit could be explained by the use of a wave equation.

"Roughly speaking, the electrons in the atom must fit around the nucleus as some sort of standing wave analogous to the waves on a plucked violin or guitar string. As the fit determines the wavelength of the quantum wave, it necessarily determines its energy state. Consequently, atomic systems are restricted to certain discrete, or quantized, energies."11

As physicist Fred Alan Wolf noted

"Each orbit was a standing wave pattern. The lowest orbit had two nodes. The next one had to have four nodes, since an orbit with three nodes would cancel itself out. The third orbit had to have six nodes, and so on."12

Scientists subsequently realized that

"The atom was a tiny tuned instrument. These mathematical relations balanced the tiny electron into a tuned standing wave pattern. Orbits had determined and fixed sizes in order that these distinct, “quantized” wave patterns could exist."13

For his bold thesis, de Broglie was to eventually receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. It is very important to realize that the electron does not wiggle around the nucleus in a wave-like manner, but that its range of possible characteristics (such as position and velocity) prior to it actually being observed (or measured by some device) as a discrete particle, will be given by a wave function.

As Norman Friedman explained:

"In essence, for every formation of matter there is a corresponding wave function, which contains all its probabilities of activity. But the wave function is essentially passive; mathematically speaking, it is linear. It cannot stimulate action from within itself. It requires an agenti to make a choice among its probabilities for the three-dimensional world to be formed."15

Now, the wave function is one of the cornerstones of quantum physics, so it behoves us to better appreciate its nature. Let’s begin by considering the analogy of the “Mexican wave.” Perhaps you have seen a “Mexican wave” at a football match, whereby various members of the crowd raise their arms in a timely manner to produce a ripple, or wave of hands which “travels” around the stadium. The people don’t travel, only the “wave” travels around the stadium. Assume for the purposes of this analogy that you are quite distant from (or above) the stadium such that you cannot see individual people, only the seamless crowd and the “Mexican wave” rippling around the stadium. Assume further that in being so distant we need to use some mechanical or electronic apparatus (such as a fixed aperture telescope) in order to see individual spectators.

This analogy for it demonstrates the important characteristics of the quantum physical wave. And that is that the wave is comprised of individual “particles”i e.g. electrons) joining together to form the appearance of a wave. The Mexican wave also suggests that each particle (or “spectator-participant”) which forms the wave is aware of the behavior of each other particle (“spectator-participant”) and that the wave is a cooperative process amongst individual particles (“spectator-participants”).

In other words, the “Mexican wave” shows how the wave is comprised of discontinuous, separate parts (particles, “spectators”, anti-particles) joining together with other parts to produce the wave. This analogy is, I believe, of crucial importance in understanding key aspects of quantum physics.

Let’s get back to the historical developments in quantum physics. Additional experimental evidence was soon to show all matter and energy exhibited this strange duality of behaving as either a wave or as a particle, depending again on when and how it was observed. In quantum physics, this phenomena is called the Wave-Particle Duality. There are no exceptions to this Wave-Particle Duality of matter and energy.

In recent years, experimental evidence has shown that matter and energy behave as both waves and particles at the same time. The significance of this Wave-Particle Duality is perhaps at first difficult to appreciate.

Much of science is still based on deterministic mechanisms in which atoms, electrons and photons are believed to act as discrete separate things, much like colliding billiard balls. As a wave, the particle is not anywhere specifically, but is instead spread out or “smeared” across space. This was one of the first “shocking” developments of quantum physics—namely, that when we are not actually watching (measuring) something, it is “everywhere at once.” That is to say, it is everywhere it can be at the same time (i.e. it is “smeared” out in space). However the particle is not diminished, flattened or in any way thinned out, while it is “smeared” around space. It always remains a complete particle in experiments where the wave-particle nature is being investigated—for example, no one has observed half an electron.

As for being “everywhere at once”, Richard Morris explains:

"... an electron in a hydrogen atom can be viewed, in some sense, as being in an infinite number of different places at the same time ... (and) Not only is an electron in many places at once, it can simultaneously occupy an infinite number of different energy states."Ref 16

It is helpful here to consider the foregoing in terms of the “Mexican wave” analogy mentioned previously. When we focus our sight or field of view on only one spectator via the telescope, we will be unaware of the wave which travels around the stadium. All that you will observe through the telescope is the spectator raising his or her arms momentarily. Since we are quite distant from the stadium it is only when we look through our fixed aperture telescope that we see individual people. When we turn away from the telescope and look at the stadium with our naked eyes we see a seamless circle of humanity with (in the event of a Mexican wave) a strange ripple proceeding around the stadium.

When we are looking through the telescope at only one spectator, we could say, in a sense, that the other spectators aren’t real—you only get to confirm their reality (or presence) by focussing on each of them in turn.