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The Physics Delusion
GOD really does not play dice
Johan F. Prins
Modern physics has not learned from Galileo!
The author is personally and solely responsible for the contents and opinions expressed in this book. This book is a robust attempt to redirect physics from the present realm of fairytales. It could not be avoided to name people. If those of them, who are still alive, or their descendents feel affronted, it is not personally intended: I had no other choice since the contents of this book is in the interest of our future as human beings.
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www.cathodixx.com
First Edition Published in September 2010 by: Sage Wise 66 (Pty) Ltd. P O Box 1537 Cresta, Johannesburg, Gauteng 2118, South Africa.
Revised edition: July 2011
© Johan Prins Family Trust
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior permission by the author and/or Sage Wise 66 (Pty) Ltd.
ISBN 1466377437 and 9781466377431
Cover art: Jacobus Christiaan Saunderson. DISCLAIMER: The comments and views contained in this publication are those of the author alone and do not reflect the views, and are not associated, in any way, with the publisher Sage Wise 66 (Pty) Ltd. or any other person involved in the production of this book.
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This book is dedicated to the three founding fathers of quantum-physics who steadfastly refused to lose their common sense:
Albert Einstein, Louis de Broglie & Erwin Schrödinger
“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds” Albert Einstein
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A Guide for the Reader of this Book
It is not accidental that the title of this book is reminiscent of Richard Daw-kins’ book: “The God Delusion”. The present book is, however, not an at-tempt to counter Dawkins’ analysis of organised religion; but an exposé of the irrational reasoning one finds in organised physics: It is argued here that the inclination to defend accepted dogma regardless of reality, is not discipline-specific but a general human malaise; and that the “high-priests” in charge of the “physics-church” at present, are worse than those in any other discipline. This tendency in physics, although it has always been there, has grown in fe-rocity with leaps and bounds during the 20
th century; and it is rapidly beco-
ming a roaring epidemic within the present century. This book is thus mainly intended for the community outside physics who should take an active interest before it is too late. The problem when at-tempting to target readers, who are not physicists themselves, is to inform them about the scientific issues involved without expecting them to know about the intricacies of physics before reading this book. Thus the needed in-sights into physics have to be developed as required for the arguments being raised. I hope that I have succeeded in this.
At first, I intended to write this book without using a single mathematical equation, but soon found out that such an approach will be impossible. This is so since the most serious delusions which have crept into modern physics have been caused by theoretical physicists who increasingly based their mo-dels on “beautiful mathematics” and not on the reality around us which they are supposed to interpret and explain.
Although Einstein’s 2mcE = is well-known, more complicated equations
are also required in this book in order to illustrate where physics has gone off the rails. An equation of importance in this book is the differential equation which models waves and wave-motion. I do not expect the reader to under-stand where such an equation actually comes from and how it must be sol-ved to find the mathematical expression modelling the relevant wave. This equation, and others like it in this book, is thus given and its characteristics explained; very much like a car salesman will explain what the functions of the different components in a car are without having to explain how the engineers designed these components to do what they are doing. Thus the reader should, hopefully, be able to read “around” the equations and in this way follow the logic and conclusions reached. It is even possible that the reader will come to the realisation that mathematics is not as difficult as some people want to believe.
At present most quantum physics is based on interpretations which cannot be related in any manner to reality. The Copenhagen-interpretation is definitely nothing else but a fairy tale based on virtual reality. In fact, some of
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the contortions in logic which this interpretation has caused, like, for example, John Archibald Wheeler’s concept of a “participatory universe”, are just plain nonsense. Anybody who is willing to accept such “logic” probably still belie-ves in the Tooth Fairy. I hope this book will bring us back to basics which are firmly grounded in real reality; as physics must be.
September 2010
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Comments on the Revised Edition:
In the first edition of this book, it was assumed that the charge-carriers within a superconductor can polarise while a current is flowing. It has since become clear that this is not possible: The charge-carriers can only polarise when an electric-field is applied without injecting charge-carriers at the same time: i.e. when current-flow through the superconductor is blocked. This means that the superconductor is actually a Mott-type insulating-dielectric when a current is not flowing through it.
The latter insight required some minor revisions in certain sections of the first edition of this book: A major revision also had to be done to section 23 on Josephson-“tunnelling”. The latter effect is incorrectly modelled in the main-stream scientific literature as being caused by so-called phase-slip-ping. This is not the case! The correct model must be based on the fact that the critical voltage-potential, at which normal conduction starts to occur through a Josephson-junction, marks an insulator-to-metal phase-transition. Section 23 is now based on this experimentally-certifiable, correct fact. This is thus the first model on Josephson-tunnelling which makes physics-sense.
It has been known for a long time that a metal-insulator transition might be involved when a metal becomes a superconductor, but nobody could, to date, figure out why this should be required. As already explained in the first edition of this book, a superconductor is actually an insulator with a suitable density of localised electron-orbitals which can convey a current by means of barrier-jumping; where the latter is facilitated by quantum fluctuations. The formation of the required Mott-like, insulating-phase occurs in slightly different ways within the low-temperature metals and the high-temperature ceramics:
(i) In the low temperature metals the required localised orbitals have energies below the energy of (what Mott termed) a mobility-edge. It is well-known that when the Fermi-level moves through such a mobility edge, a metal-to-insula-tor transition occurs; which is called an Anderson-transition. When this hap-pens within a superconducting metal, the localised electronic-states, below the mobility-edge, already have a high density; and they are therefore imme-diately able to convey a superconducting current by means of quantum fluc-tuations.
(ii) In the ceramics the Fermi-level does not move through a mobility edge: In this case the required insulator-phase is, after it starts to form, built up gra-dually by an increase of Mott-type orbitals, which, only after reaching a critical density, allows barrier-jumping by quantum fluctuations; and thus supercon-duction to occur. The formation of this Mott-type insulator has been observed
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in all the ceramics and this has been reported in the main-stream literature. This cannot be explained in terms of the “venerated” BCS-model: It has recently been incorrectly concluded by the “experts on superconduction” that this Mott-like phase is distinct from the superconducting phase. This is, how-ever, not the case! It is exactly this insulator-phase which is required for superconduction to occur when the density of the orbitals becomes high enough.
This is further compelling proof that superconduction cannot be explained in terms of the BCS-model and/or phase-slipping; and that this phenomenon does not require the formation of Cooper-pairs. As will be seen in this book, the experimental evidence has for more than 50 years been incorrectly inter-preted: The evidence is, in fact, compelling that the charge-carriers within a superconductor are all singly-charged, localised, Mott-type electron-orbitals. The formation of such orbitals, in non-ideal metals, has already been predic-ted by Eugene Wigner during the 1930’s. According to his model, these orbi-tals will, under suitable conditions, be strongly isotope-dependent; which is exactly what is observed for most of (but not all of) the low-temperature me-tals. This isotope-dependence has nothing to do with phonon-coupling of e-lectron-pairs. In the ceramics this strong isotope-dependence cannot mani-fest since the required Mott-type orbitals form between the crystallographic layers of these materials and not by quantum-mechanical “vibration through” induced positive charges as in the case for most low-temperature metal su-perconductors. Johan F. Prins July 2011
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CONTENTS
Prologue xxv-xxvi
Cartoon-summary xxviii-xxix
1. Is modern physics rotting? 1
1.1 Dogma 1
1.2 Experimental philosophy 3
1.3 Galileo’s inertia 4
1.4 Ptolemy’s universe 5
1.5 An important question 6
1.6 Superconduction 6
1.7 Censorship 7
1.8 Goebbels’ ghost 10
1.9 The demise of common sense 17
1.9.1 Copenhagen: The city of fairy tales 17
1.9.2 Heisenberg’s uncertainty-folly 17
1.9.3 Born the gambler 22
1.9.4 de Broglie waves 26
1.9.5 “Uncertainty” versus wave-size 28
1.9.6 Bohr and quantum jumps 30
1.9.7 Bohr becomes “complementary” 32
1.9.8 The Blitzkrieg! 33
1.9.9 Einstein storms windmills 33
1.9.10 Heisenberg’s mystic path 35
1.9.11 Follow the fork 36
1.9.12 Einstein throws a spanner 37
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1.9.13 A Bell tolls 38
1.9.14 Space without time 39
1.9.15 Alternative interpretation 39
1.10 Back to common sense 40
2. My Background 43
3. My Quest 47
4. Quest for a Cold-Cathode 51
5. Quest for n-Type Diamond 57
6. Cold-Cathode impossible? 59
7. Energy, equilibrium-states,
transmutation and transport of energy 61
7.1 Energy 61
7.1.1 All is energy 61
7.1.2 Conservation of energy 61
7.2 Heat-energy and Thermodynamics 62
7.2.1 Macroscopic approach 62
7.2.2 Entropy and the second law 63
7.2.3 Absolute zero temperature 64
7.2.4 Work and engines 65
7.2.5 Perpetual motion 66
7.2.6 The Energetists 66
7.2.7 Statistical thermodynamics 69
7.2.8 Order and symmetry 72
7.3 Mechanical-energy and forces: 72
7.3.1 Stepping over a precipice 72
7.3.2 Inertia and relativity 74
7.3.3 Relativistic “illusions” 75
7.3.4 Relativistic goebbelisms 82
7.3.5 Space-time 85
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7.3.6 Gradient of potential energy 86
7.3.7 A conservative vector-field 87
7.3.8 Choosing a gauge 88
7.3.9 Constrained movement 89
7.3.10 Dissipative forces 91
7.3.11 Calculating work 92
7.3.12 Thoughts on kinetic energy 93
7.3.13 Higher-order differential operators 94
7.3.14 Collisions 94
7.3.15 Newton’s law of gravity 96
7.4 Electric-energy and conservative electric-fields 97
7.4.1 Generating an electric-field 97
7.4.2 Polarisation-field within a conductor 99
7.4.3 Current-flow through a conductor 100
7.4.4 Polarisation-field within an insulator 101
7.5 Wave-energy 103
7.5.1 Non-ballistic energy-transfer 103
7.5.2 Simple harmonic motion 106
7.5.3 Phase angle 108
7.5.4 The “classical” differential wave-equation 110
7.5.5 A coherent source along one dimension 111
7.5.6 Phase-angle for a moving coherent wave 112
7.5.7 Wave intensity 116
7.5.8 Wave momentum 117
7.5.9 Huygens’ wave-construction 117
7.5.10 Schrödinger’s differential wave-equation 120
7.5.11 Complex wave-amplitudes 121
7.5.12 Time-dependence 124
7.5.13 Classical complex amplitudes 129
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7.5.14 Shocking follies 130
7.6 We are nearly there! 133
8. Electronic charge-carriers 135
8.1 Electrons in a material 135
1.8.1 The glue of chemistry 135
1.8.2 The transporters of charge? 135
8.2 Drude-Lorentz model 136
8.2.1 “Free” electrons 136
8.2.2 Heat capacity 137
8.2.3 When is an electron “free”? 138
8.2.4 Another goebbelism 139
8.3 Schrödinger’s electron-waves in a material 139
8.3.1 Waving a current along? 139
8.3.2 Modelling a “many-body” wave 140
8.4 e-Matter in an “ideal”-metal 140
8.4.1 Approximations 140
8.4.2 Electron-waves in an” ideal”-metal 141
8.4.3 A note on “non-ideal” metals 141
8.4.4 Unfortunate terminology 141
8.5 Standing waves on a string 142
8.5.1 No momentum 142
8.5.2 Positional “vibration” 143
8.5.3 Running- versus standing waves 144
8.5.4 Intensity of waves on a violin string 144
8.5.5 Applying boundary conditions 145
8.5.6 Intensity and energy 146
8.5.7 Superposing waves on a string 146
8.6 Electron-waves within an “ideal”-metal 147
8.6.1 Boundary conditions 147
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8.6.2 More Copenhagen follies 148
8.6.3 Mass-energy and electron waves 150
8.6.4 Mathematical basis-waves 152
8.7 Energy-spectrum of standing waves within a metal 153
8.7.1 The role of “spin” 153
8.7.2 Fermions 153
8.7.3 Fermi-Dirac statistics 153
8.7.4 A note on bosons 154
8.8 Whoza charge-carriers? 155
8.9 Periodic boundary-conditions 156
8.9.1 A circular metal ring 156
8.9.2 A rectangular metal block 159
8.10 Wave-packets 161
8.11. n-Type semiconductors 165
8.12 A Comparison 165
8.13 Metal-insulator transitions 169
8.13.1 Wigner’s prediction 170
8.13.2 Other metal-insulator transitions 174
8.13.3 Metal-superconductor transition? 175
9. Electronic Interfaces 177
9.1 Formation of a dipole-layer 177
9.2 The actual mechanics of relaxation 181
9.3 “Tunnelling” 183
9.4 And at low temperature? 184
9.5 Extraction of electrons with an anode 186
10. The Empire Strikes! 189
11. Birth of a Cold-Cathode 191
11.1 How to do it 191
11.2 It works! 191
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11.3 A fly in the ointment? 193
11.4 But is there a fly? 194
11.5 Contamination? 195
11.6 A black rod 196
11.7 Electronic interface physics triumphs again! 197
12. The Revelation 199
12.1 Zero electric-field 199
12.2 Non-zero current 201
12.3 A compelling conclusion 202
13. Superconduction!? 205
13.1 The defining behaviour 205
13.2 The role of polarisation 205
13.3 Cancellation of an applied electric-field 206
13.4 Solely a magnetic effect? 207
13.5 Woe the physics-church 207
14. The Curious Case of Ohm’s Law 209
14.1 Simple electricity 209
14.2 Ohm’s experiments 210
14.3 Resistivity 210
14.4 Oh Goebbels! 211
14.5 Persistent electric-fields 212
14.6 Ohm’s law and zero resistivity 212
14.7 Relaxation-time 213
14.8 Solutions of Drude’s equation 214
14.9 The London brothers 215
14.10 Switching off the electric-field 216
14.11 Missing the logic! 217
15. The Holy Grail! 219
15.1 The discovery 219
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15.2 A second breath 219
15.3 Not the same 220
15.4 BCS or not? 220
15.5 Quantum field theory 223
15.6 Lucky me!?? 224
16. The Empire Strikes Again 225
16.1 The battle of Budapest 225
16.2 Blacklisted 226
17. Knights and Dragons 227
18. He Who Pays the FiddlerB.. 229
19. The Empire Consolidates 231
19.1 Irony 231
19.2 The choice 231
19.3 Rats in the woodwork 232
19.4 Prove the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect! 233
19.5 Looking for funds 233
19.6 Don’t quit! 234
20. A Vision 237
20.1 Insomnia 237
20.2 Covalent bonds and virtual photons? 237
20.3 Covalent bonds and overlapping waves? 238
20.4 The size of an electron 239
20.5 Being uncertain is certainty? 240
20.6 Layers and donor-electrons 241
20.7 No surrender! 241
21. Writing a Book 243
22. Eureka! 245
23. The Mechanism 249
23.1 The crux of the matter 249
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23.2 “Insulduction” 249
23.3 Perpetual motion 254
23.4 Low-temperature metals 255
23.4.1 Anchored orbitals in a metal 255
23.4.2 Transferring a single charge 256
23.4.3 Drift speed of charge-carriers 258
23.4.4 Coherent movement of charge-carriers 258
23.4.6 Maintaining a ground-state 258
23.4.7 Binding- and activation energies 260
23.4.8 Wave packets and zero volt 262
23.4.9 Isotope effect 263
23.5 Entangled superconducting phase 263
23.5.1 Macro-entanglement of electrons 263
23.5.2 Teleportation? 264
23.5.3 Faster than the speed of light? 264
23.6 Ceramic superconductors 264
23.6.1 Why ceramics? 264
23.6.2 Importance of layers 265
23.6.3 YBCO 267
23.6.4 Applying pressure 269
23.7 Superconduction in p-type diamond 269
23.7.1 High dopant density 269
23.7.2 Hole-energy diagram 269
23.7.3 Disordered localised states 270
23.7.4 Increasing the dopant density 270
23.8 Superconduction in disordered thin films 271
23.8.1 Original intent 271
23.8.2 Homogeneous disorder 272
23.8.3 The separatrix 272
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23.8.4 Insulating phase above separatrix 273
23.8.5 Electron-energy diagram 274
23.8.6 Superinsulator 275
24. Circular motion and rotational fields 277
24.1 Following a circular loop 277
24.2 Angular momentum 279
24.3 Circular vector fields 281
24.4 Magnets and induction 282
24.5 Currents and magnetic fields 284
24.6 Magnetic moment 288
24.7 Divergence 290
24.8 Electromagnetic waves 293
25. Superconduction and magnetism 297
25.1 Superconducting rings 297
25.2 Non-superconducting mesoscopic rings 298
25.3 Flux trapping through a superconducting ring 299
25.4 Fritz and Heinz again 299
25.5 Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect 301
25.6 Onset of superconduction around a ring 302
25.7 Flux quantization 304
25.8 Vortex-state in type II superconductors 305
26. The order-parameter 307
26.1 “Critical” phase changes 307
26.2 Ginsberg-Landau model 308
26.3 The macro-wave 308
26.4 Phase-angle as a position-field 309
26.5 Current within a constant wave-intensity 311
26.6 Gauging away the problem 311
26.7 Further quantization antics 312
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26.8 And finally! 313
27. Charge-injection into a superconductor 315
27.1 Injection rate 315
27.2 Transit time 316
27.3 Injection-limited current 318
27.4 Single-link limitation 319
27.5 Entanglement between strings? 320
27.6 Holistic coherence? 320
27.7 Andreev reflection 321
28. “Tunnelling”-junctions and superconduction 323
28.1 Measuring “tunnelling” 323
28.2 Josephson’s prediction 325
28.3 Conventional models 326
28.3.1 Thick insulating layer 326
28.3.2 Thin insulating layer 328
28.3.3 “Phase slipping” 329
28.4 Wigner-orbitals separated by an insulating layer 331
28.4.1 A thick insulating layer 331
28.4.2 A thin insulating layer 335
28.5 The AC-Josephson-effect 337
28.6 External magnetic-field within a junction 343
28.7 SQUIDS 349
29. One small fact is sufficient 353
30. Spooking with waves 357
31. The age of complacency 361
32. The birth of “modern” physics 363
32.1 Black-body radiation 363
32.2 Cavity radiation 364
32.3 Measuring the light spectrum 364
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32.4 Quanta-quanta 365
32.5 Photo-electric effect 367
32.6 The disappearing photon 368
32.7 The constituents of cavity radiation 369
32.8 Cavity radiation and mass 371
32.9 Strange radiations 372
32.10 Atomic pieces 372
32.11 Atoms shoot back! 373
32.12 Quantum jumps 375
32.13 “Old” and “new” quantum mechanics 377
32.14 Schrödinger’s electron-orbitals 378
33. The morphing of waves 383
33.1 Light escaping from a cavity 383
33.2 Shrinking the cavity 384
33.3 Photo-electric waving 385
33.4 Absorption-emission 385
33-5 Resonance 387
33-6 Quantum jumps RIP 388
33-7 Bose-Einstein Condensates 389
34. The curious case of the solitary electron 393
34.1 O’ solo electron 393
34.2 Inertial potential 395
34.3 Which wave equation? 396
34.4 The restoring force 399
34.5 Field around an electron-charge 402
34.6 Electron “spin” 404
34.7 Coherent electron-waves 407
35. Double-slit diffraction 409
35.1 The only mystery 409
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35.2 Path-amplitude and phase angle 412
35.3 Delaying the choice 414
35.4 So what is really happening? 415
35.5 Afshar’s experiment 416
35.6 Aharanov-Bohm diffraction 418
35.7 Holistic waves and diffraction-interference 422
36 Observation and measurement 425
36.1 Awareness and sensing 425
36.2 Sensing and measuring 426
36.3 Limitations on measurements 427
36.4 Modified information 428
36.5 The “measurement problem” 430
36.6 Bands and bonds 434
37. A sordid tale 437
38. New horizons 451
38.1 The dawn is nigh 451
38.2 May the force be with you! 456
38.3 Concluding with a Big Bang! 461
39. APPENDIX 469
INDEX 479
CURRICULUM VITAE: Johan F Prins 487
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Prologue
The Bell on the Holy Island
This is a fictitious story but it could be true:
There is a small pollen-free island in the sea north of Germany. Its inhabi-tants are very religious and the Island is considered a holy place. In the local vernacular it is therefore called “Heligoland”. During the beginning of the 20
th century there lived a group of extremely
devout people who believed that one should attend mass at least four times a day. They despaired about their neighbours on the same island, who, al-though also devout, did not attend as regularly. They thus considered this sorry state of affairs with their padre and came to a bright solution: They deci-ded to build the highest tower possible and cast the largest bell they can muster to hang in the tower. Every time they go to mass this bell will be rung so that everybody on the island will hear it. This must surely remind them that there is mass and thus encourage them to attend. Unfortunately these devout people were a bit overambitious. When the tower and the bell were completed, they found that the bell was too large and too heavy to be lifted to the top of the tower. With the best equipment they could muster at that time, they could only succeed to lift the bell about 10 centimetres from the ground. It became clear that even if the bell could be lifted to the top of the tower, it would be impossible to swing it in order to get any sound from it. This was a very sad situation, since the bell had the volu-me to be heard over the whole island, and when testing it by tapping with a hammer, it had also the most divine sound. It would have been the ideal bell to attract the attention of everybody. The bell master came up with a solution: He proposed that they should keep the bell at its present height and cast two smaller bells to be lifted into the tower. He will then devise a mechanism so that the tongue of the large bell can be swung within the bell when the other two bells are also tolling. A miracle happened! The three bells together made the most beautiful music ever heard. People even came from all over mainland Europe just to listen to this marvellous sound. During 1925 a young German physicist who suffered from hay fever came to the island: He was advised that a visit to a pollen free environment might cure his allergy. One day he was walking past the bell tower while the
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bells were tolling. He looked up at the two smaller bells swinging in the tower and then at the stationary bell at the foot of the tower in absolute astonish-ment. He was considered to be a brilliant theoretical physicist, but was not very adept when it came to practical matters: In fact, he was nearly failed when he did his doctorate because he could not explain how a light micro-scope works.
After the mass this physicist went to the padre and asked him the follo-wing: “Padre, I understand why the two bells in the top of the tower are tolling since they swing and thus encounter their tongues which hang stationary when they are not swinging. But this stationary bell below the tower con-founds me: How can it toll without swinging?” So the padre answered: “My son, what we do is to swing the tongue within the bell”.
The young scientist answered: “But padre, I have come to the conclu-sion that one should only accept what one can observe and measure. Any-thing else is not worthwhile knowing since it cannot be known. I do not see any tongue swinging within this bell even when I peek below the rim of the bell, and since all church bells the world over only toll when they are swung against their tongues, it is impossible for me to accept that there is a tongue swinging within the bell”. No matter how much the padre tried to convince this young man that there is a tongue swinging, he could not succeed. The padre finally argued that if you tilt the bell by a certain amount you will be able to see the tongue.
The young physicist asked the padre if he would allow him to pay for, and obtain the equipment to tilt the bell so that he could see whether there is a tongue. To end the argument, the padre agreed. This was duly arranged and when the physicist looked, he saw that there was indeed a tongue hang-ing against the side of the tilted bell. He then asked the padre to swing the tongue so that the bell can toll. The padre informed him that this was only possible once the bell has been restored to its non-tilted position. “Aha said the physicist I told you that the tongue cannot swing”. The padre informed him that it can swing but only once the bell is in a position so that the tongue cannot be seen.
The young physicist looked very worried for a while, but suddenly his eyes lit up and he exclaimed: “Aha, now I understand: When I cannot see the tongue it can swing and toll the bell but when I see it, it cannot. Thus by ob-serving the tongue it acts differently than it can when I do not observe it. Thank you padre, you cannot imagine how much you opened my eyes. I am spending a post-doctoral year in Copenhagen, and your bell has solved a very important problem in physics with which I have been wrestling over the past months”. When he walked away, a member of the congregation walked up to the padre and asked him: “Who is that extraordinary young man?” The padre answered: “He introduced himself as Werner Heisenberg”.
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THE ILLUSIONISTS
Bohr-Heisenberg-Born
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THE REALIST
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