Quantum Theory of Gravity - "QTG"

15. The EPR experiment.                     

                In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen carried out a theoretical experiment that became known as the EPR experiment. The aim was to obtain conclusive proof of the incompleteness of quantum theory. Einstein never accepted the fact that quantum theory attributes to the observer the property of creating reality.

                Click on the following link for the full original documentation of the EPR experiment.   http://www.drchinese.com/David/EPR.pdf

                The original experiment used correlated electrons, but a more current modified version uses a pair of photons in a specifically phase-linked state, called a parallel polarized state.

                In the version of the experiment carried out by Aspect in 1982 (Alain Aspect, Phillipe Grangier and Gérard Roger), this pair of correlated particles is obtained through the emission of photons from an excited calcium 40 atom. The atom emits or absorbs a photon when a pair of electrons passes from one orbit to another. As we have two excited electrons in the outer shell, we have two photons, with frequencies of 551.3 nm and 422.7 nm, as shown in Figure 1.

                We can imagine that, in the EPR experiment, we have a box that simultaneously sends pairs of blue and red balls in opposite directions, such that it always sends a blue ball to the right and a red ball to the left or vice versa, the two possibilities each occurring in 50% of events. Only after performing the measurement can we know which ball went in which direction.

                When we have a wave or photon originating only from a single source atom, this wave or photon is already polarized. The function of the box is to generate the polarized particles and send them symmetrically in opposite directions.

                How does the box perform this feat? The great failure of QM was always to ignore the specific conditions that the particles possess at the source, by only taking into account the probability. Here are the unknown or hidden variables whose Einstein defended as necessary to give a logical explanation for the results of the quantum experiments. Because, as seen in chapter 4 of the QTG, each observation system will possess its specific temporal reality.

                As can be seen from Figure 2, at any given moment, each of the three observation systems (OS) will have a different temporal reality in relation to the orbiting electrons.

                As a result, we can observe a similar reality for the associated photons, generated by the electrons when they change energy level. At a given instant, OS-A finds that the atomic nucleus and the electron under consideration are at the same local present as all of the atoms that define the local time reference or that of OS-A, because, broadly speaking, OS-A is at the same distance from the nucleus and from the electrons. For OS-B, at that same instant, electron 1 is ahead of the local time reference. For OS-C, electron 1 is in the past. Figure 3 shows the waves associated with each OS for electron 1. Each OS experiences a different reality, and this is the characteristic that confers uncertainty on all microscopic systems in relation to any observer.

                The OS consist of a large number of atoms with their own nuclei and electron clouds. Among themselves, these atoms define their local time carrier by means of their nuclei, because the geometric center of the nucleus has the greatest concentration of mass, with densities of around 10¹⁸ kg/m³. It has been shown experimentally that protons and neutrons achieve a high concentration in a small spherical volume in the order of x.10^-15m³.

                It can be shown that, in the EPR experiment, the photons originating from the calcium atom have the temporal characteristics of their origin when dispersed from the atom. Even if this dispersal always occurs at the same place in the atom, each photon will have an associated wave with a different temporal and spatial orientation, because the electrons must occupy different specific places in the electron cloud, as specified by the Pauli exclusion principle. If they were originally spatially out of phase by 180°, the associated photons will maintain this out of phase until their collapse, regardless of which collapses first. There is no interdependence. That is to say, if a blue ball goes one way, a red ball must go the other way. Whatever one polarizer measures, the other must measure the opposite, making this virtual spatial synchronization completely dispensable.

                Einstein’s disciple David Bohm created an example that illustrates the behavior of these correlated photons very well. Imagine an aquarium like a ball of glass, containing just one fish, constantly monitored by two television systems located at 90° to each other around the aquarium. Of the whole system, the observer is only able to see the two video monitors. When we follow the movement of the fish simultaneously on the two monitors, we can see that if the fish is seen from the front on one monitor at a given instant, it will be seen from the side on the other, and so on. The case of the behavior of correlated particles is analogous.

                The optical instruments commonly used to assist with measurements and observations for this type of experiment are polarizers. Polarization is a phenomenon typical of transverse waves such as electromagnetic waves. Sound, for example, is a longitudinal wave. We have seen in the QTG that these waves are nothing more than a representation of the temporal oscillation of the particles around their local time carrier or local present. Transparent media, generally isolating, propagate electromagnetic waves, while conducting opaque media, such as metals, absorb electromagnetic energy through the Joule effect.

                Polarizers are usually based on a calcite crystal, where the molecules are all regularly aligned in a certain direction. This forms an optical axis that allows particles and their associated temporal waves to pass only if their oscillation is in that direction, while diverting those with temporal oscillation of different polarization.

                In the QTG, polarization is identified with the orientation of the plane of oscillation of the temporal waves represented by the electromagnetic waves. That is to say, it verifies the orientation of the oscillation of the electromagnetic fields, which vary in time and space in relation to the local time carrier of the observation system, here represented by the optical axis. The direction adopted as preferential is that of the vectors of the electrical field, as previously conventionalized. This preferential plane of oscillation is acquired by the temporal wave of the particle or object at the moment when it is dispersed from the atom.

                In the EPR experiment illustrated in Figure 4, if photon x passes through polarizer 1 and is directed towards detector B, as a result of the spatial orientation of its temporal oscillation and the alignment of the polarizers, we can know without any doubt which detector will receive photon y after it passes through polarizer 2, regardless of the distance it still has to travel.

                We should imagine the polarizers in the EPR experiment as if they were observation systems as represented in Figure 2, and their associated waves as represented in Figure 3.

                We can conclude that, under the postulated of the QTG, we can ignore the factor of the non-local reality, which necessarily violates the basic principles of the theory of relativity. The temporal uncertainty principle cannot predict which photon will go to which detector, and we are now in a position to understand the reason for this uncertainty, which is exactly that defended by quantum theory. That is to say, as long as we have no means to identify the temporal situation of a particle or object at its origin, it will continue to be the observer that causes the wave function to collapse.