Incredibly huge inconsistency of modern physics

[Perpetual Student]

...

As for the pseudo science, I've provided ample evidence for this in this thread, for those who have eyes to see.

In order to focus on an example, please identify a single element of pseudo-science that is currently infesting physics. Just one, please.

 

[TheAdversary]

Science facts for you :

Maxwell's equations describe electromagnetic waves with wave lengths.
A photon is the quantum of electromagnetic waves. (Wrong. Photon doesn't exist in Maxwell. QED required.)
Thus photons have wavelengths. (Conclusion doesn't follow, unless QED unnecessary.)

Logic fact for you :

This conclusion doesn't follow. I already explained this. If this conclusion would follow, Quantum Electro Dynamics wouldn't have to be worked out in the first place.
And the fact that it did and was necessary proofs that your logic cannot follow, unless you want to maintain that QED was misguided and we didn't need it in the first place.

Here you claim science, yet then the conclusion doesn't follow. Hence, you're making a very subtle a priori assumption. So it's subtle pseudo science, but still pseudo science
nonetheless. And therefore rather more dangerous ...

 

[Reality Check]

Pick up any book on QM...

I know that waves appear in QM books - I was the one that pointed out that PHYS 101 students works out solutions that have waves and exponential functions in them. Many years ago I was one of those PHYS 101 students !

I want answers to:
23 November 2015 TheAdversary: Cite the "employment of wave or at least wave-like models" in QM from the scientific literature.
23 November 2015 TheAdversary: This "employment" accomplishes what many things at the same time according to the scientific literature?
23 November 2015 TheAdversary: Optimized according to what scientific literature?

You finally give the answer I would have expected to 23 November 2015 TheAdversary: Please cite the scientific literature on this "conservation of probability", e.g. in QM.
Probability Conservation Equation (PHYS 130)
Also see Probability current
Now I will have to look at the fantasies about this tommorrow, e.g. was it that this stops virtual particles from existing?

 

[Reality Check]

23 November 2015 TheAdversary: Do you deny that Electromagnetic waves (Maxwell's equations) came before photons?
23 November 2015 TheAdversary: Do you deny that photons are the quantum of EM waves as established by Maxwell's equations and so need the property of wavelength?

 

[TheAdversary]

My original argument when I started in this thread was that due to QM reducing everything ultimately to PDFs, let's assume for the sake of argument that this is correct, the
final physics 'law' cannot end up as anything else than just pure chance. So any interpretation of QM always ends up attempting to define pure chance and therefore
committing itself to an unsceptical, a priori, assumption per definition. Physics lucked out on the fact that the time evolution of a system was still deterministic, but
this does not change the fact that the 'final decision maker' is just pure, undefinable per definition, chance. Calculations, measurements and sceptical silence. Otherwise
you're making the same mistake as the people who believe in Angels. And then you're better off listening to me ...

Ok, Reality Check, no more circles. You're right. I'm a crackpot. Happy?

 

[Perpetual Student]

Science facts for you :

Maxwell's equations describe electromagnetic waves with wave lengths.
A photon is the quantum of electromagnetic waves. (Wrong. Photon doesn't exist in Maxwell. QED required.)
Thus photons have wavelengths. (Conclusion doesn't follow, unless QED unnecessary.)

Logic fact for you :

This conclusion doesn't follow. I already explained this. If this conclusion would follow, Quantum Electro Dynamics wouldn't have to be worked out in the first place.
And the fact that it did and was necessary proofs that your logic cannot follow, unless you want to maintain that QED was misguided and we didn't need it in the first place.

Here you claim science, yet then the conclusion doesn't follow. Hence, you're making a very subtle a priori assumption. So it's subtle pseudo science, but still pseudo science
nonetheless. And therefore rather more dangerous ...

This is all you've got? You are ignoring the historical development of QM and QED.
The wave/particle duality of photons was recognized many years before QED. So, photons were recognized as massless particles and having a wavelength, which was easily demonstrated experimentally. There is no pseudo science here. As counterintuitive as it may seem to you, this is how nature behaves.
Remember: "It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."
- Richard P. Feynman

QED was the next step, as follows:
"In particle physics, quantum electrodynamics (QED) is the relativistic quantum field theory of electrodynamics. In essence, it describes how light and matter interact and is the first theory where full agreement between quantum mechanics and special relativity is achieved. QED mathematically describes all phenomena involving electrically charged particles interacting by means of exchange of photons and represents the quantum counterpart of classical electromagnetism giving a complete account of matter and light interaction."
_______From Wikipedia.

 

[Ziggurat]

+Ziggurat A reformulation of classical thermodynamics in terms of such numbers would make the entire temperature concept smooth. Do you think such an approach could
lead somewhere? Or has it already been done?

That doesn't make any sense. Why would you do that? How would you do that? And to what end? What problem of thermodynamics do you imagine you could solve this way that you can't with traditional methods?

As for temperature and smoothness, that's not a problem. The discontinuity is only disturbing to the extent that it violates our preconceptions of temperature, but that's a problem with us, not with the theory, and it's easy enough to overcome with some effort. Temperature is defined the way it is for a very good reason, and I don't see why that would change.

 

[TheAdversary]

A temperature of infinity, minus infinity and zero all seem to be states of infinite entropy; The same thing. This looks suspiciously like it could benefit from the no/ni null vectors
from Conformal Geometric Algebra. This might lead to a more elegant formulation of the same theory. But I'm not sure, which is why I asked. Maybe if I continue with this idea it
will turn out to be nonsensical; Maybe I stumble upon something else that is interesting. Who knows? At least, it will increase my understanding of the subjects. That purpose
is good enough for me.

 

[Ziggurat]

A temperature of infinity, minus infinity and zero all seem to be states of infinite entropy; The same thing.

No. A temperature of infinity means a state of maximum entropy. That's not the same thing as infinite entropy. Not all physical systems are capable of exhibiting infinite temperature, because if the entropy is unbounded, then obviously you can't reach maximum entropy.

And zero temperature means minimum entropy, not infinite entropy.

This looks suspiciously like it could benefit from the no/ni null vectors
from Conformal Geometric Algebra.

This looks suspiciously like you looking for a nail for your hammer. But this isn't a nail, it's a screw.

 

[Darwin123]

A temperature of infinity, minus infinity and zero all seem to be states of infinite entropy; The same thing. This looks suspiciously like it could benefit from the no/ni null vectors
from Conformal Geometric Algebra. This might lead to a more elegant formulation of the same theory. But I'm not sure, which is why I asked. Maybe if I continue with this idea it
will turn out to be nonsensical; Maybe I stumble upon something else that is interesting. Who knows? At least, it will increase my understanding of the subjects. That purpose
is good enough for me.

Absolute zero temperature is not a state of infinite entropy because it is by definition a state of zero absolute entropy. Absolute zero temperature was actually defined as the temperature at which the unique entropy of a system reaches zero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics
‘With this we can only obtain the difference of entropy by integrating the above formula. To obtain the absolute value, we need the Third Law of Thermodynamics, which states that S=0 at absolute zero for perfect crystals.’

So until the third law of thermodynamics was introduced, there really was a paradox in thermodynamics! The value of entropy, and therefore temperature, of a material in any container increased with the volume of the container. Therefore, there is no state of thermal equilibrium! One could induce heat flow by joining boxes with different volume!

The real paradox came about because the laws of thermodynamics 0, 1 and 2 do not provide any unique value of entropy. The laws of classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics GUARANTEE that the value of entropy. Yes, Bolzmann showed how to calculate the entropy of a closed container of gas. However, one can change the entropy merely by joining join two identical containers of material together. This is illustrated by Gibbs paradox.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibbs_paradox
Gibbs himself considered the following problem that arises if the ideal gas entropy is not extensive.[1] Two identical containers of an ideal gas sit side-by-side. There is a certain amount of entropy S associated with each container of gas, and this depends on the volume of each container. Now a door in the container walls is opened to allow the gas particles to mix between the containers. No macroscopic changes occur, as the system is in equilibrium. The entropy of the gas in the two-container system can be easily calculated, but if the equation is not extensive, the entropy would not be 2S. In fact, the non-extensive entropy quantity defined and studied by Gibbs would predict additional entropy. Closing the door then reduces the entropy again to 2S, in supposed violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
…
The paradox is averted by concluding the indistinguishability (at least effective indistinguishability) of the particles in the volume. This results in the extensive Sackur–Tetrode equation for entropy, as derived next.’

The third law of thermodynamics was introduced to eliminate the paradox in thermodynamics. Unfortunately, the third law of thermodynamics is inconsistent with classical mechanics and classical thermodynamics because every classical particle is distinguishable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_law_of_thermodynamics
‘The third law of thermodynamics is sometimes stated as follows, regarding the properties of systems in equilibrium at absolute zero temperature:
The entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero is exactly equal to zero.
At absolute zero (zero kelvin), the system must be in a state with the minimum possible energy, and the above statement of the third law holds true provided that the perfect crystal has only one minimum energy state. Entropy is related to the number of accessible microstates, and for a system consisting of many particles, quantum mechanics indicates that there is only one unique state (called the ground state) with minimum energy.[1] If the system does not have a well-defined order (if its order is glassy, for example), then in practice there will remain some finite entropy as the system is brought to very low temperatures as the system becomes locked into a configuration with non-minimal energy. The constant value is called the residual entropy of the system.[2]’

This was a real paradox, not some half-baked intuition.There is no lowest temperature thermal equilibrium in classical mechanics because there is no ground state.

Quantum mechanics resolved this paradox because it showed that there could be a true ground state. Point particles are actually indistinguishable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_particles

‘Identical particles, also called indistinguishable or indiscernible particles, are particles that cannot be distinguished from one another, even in principle. Species of identical particles include, but are not limited to elementary particles such as electrons, composite subatomic particles such as atomic nuclei, as well as atoms and molecules. Quasiparticles also behave in this way. Although all known indistinguishable particles are "tiny", there is no exhaustive list of all possible sorts of particles nor a clear-cut limit of applicability; see particle statistics #Quantum statistics for detailed explication.’

Negative entropy is also not infinite entropy. A negative real number is not infinite. The are posters who are talking about ‘infinity’ are referring to some odd calculations using the mathematical theory of limits. An operationally equivalent way to say this is that they are using the concept of hyper real numbers.

I know ‘hyper reals’ are a bit fancier than limits, but hyper real has at one advantage. The English language treats infinity as a number, not as an operation. So it sounds a little better to talk about a temperature ‘passing through infinity’ then ‘starting a new sequence of temperatures’.

However, this may be just a matter of semantics. The physical ‘paradox’ that I find interesting is Gibbs paradox. I don’t think scientists have solved that 'inconsistently completely. I suspect that some of the paradoxes in quantum mechanics feed into the Gibbs paradox.



What do you think about Gibbs paradox as it relates to quantum mechanics? Is the Gibbs paradox still a real paradox?

 

[Ziggurat]

Absolute zero temperature is not a state of infinite entropy because it is by definition a state of zero absolute entropy.

That's not quite true. It's a minimum-entropy state. Usually that's a unique ground state (zero entropy), but there are exceptions. Spin ices, for example, have residual entropy even in the ground state.

So until the third law of thermodynamics was introduced, there really was a paradox in thermodynamics! The value of entropy, and therefore temperature, of a material in any container increased with the volume of the container. Therefore, there is no state of thermal equilibrium! One could induce heat flow by joining boxes with different volume!

No, this is wrong. Increasing volume does increase entropy, but it does NOT in general increase temperature. Temperature is not a measure of how much entropy a system has, it is a measure of how much entropy changes as you change temperature. And that doesn't vary with volume.

The entropy of a perfect crystal at absolute zero is exactly equal to zero.

Except it isn't always (see: spin ice). Nor does it need to be. It only needs to have a minimum, that minimum doesn't need to be zero.

Negative entropy is also not infinite entropy.

Negative entropy is, by definition, not possible. You can't have less than one microstate accessible.

The are posters who are talking about ‘infinity’ are referring to some odd calculations using the mathematical theory of limits. An operationally equivalent way to say this is that they are using the concept of hyper real numbers.

Infinite temperatures are rather easy to achieve, with the right system. Again, paramagnet in a magnetic field. The zero magnetization state has infinite temperature. There's nothing odd about the calculations.

What do you think about Gibbs paradox as it relates to quantum mechanics? Is the Gibbs paradox still a real paradox?

Of course it's not a real paradox. It's completely resolved, and you correctly identified the resolution: the indistinguishability of identical particles. If you make the particles distinguishable (for example, different isotopes in your adjacent chambers), then removing the barrier does indeed increase entropy as the isotopes mix. But closing the barrier again doesn't return you to your original state because the isotopes remain mixed, so the increase in entropy remains. This fact is used in dilution refrigerators.

 

[schrodingasdawg]

However, this may be just a matter of semantics. The physical ‘paradox’ that I find interesting is Gibbs paradox. I don’t think scientists have solved that 'inconsistently completely. I suspect that some of the paradoxes in quantum mechanics feed into the Gibbs paradox.

What do you think about Gibbs paradox as it relates to quantum mechanics? Is the Gibbs paradox still a real paradox?

Of course it's not a real paradox. It's completely resolved, and you correctly identified the resolution: the indistinguishability of identical particles. If you make the particles distinguishable (for example, different isotopes in your adjacent chambers), then removing the barrier does indeed increase entropy as the isotopes mix. But closing the barrier again doesn't return you to your original state because the isotopes remain mixed, so the increase in entropy remains. This fact is used in dilution refrigerators.

E.T. Jaynes has an excellent article arguing that the resolution of the Gibbs paradox was found already by Gibbs, and that you don't need quantum mechanics to resolve it.

 

[TheAdversary]

Is it possible to reach zero entropy with a finite amount of energy?

 

[Perpetual Student]

Is it possible to reach zero entropy with a finite amount of energy?

I believe super-fluids can come close to zero entropy, but zero entropy cannot be acheived. Someone can correct me, if that is not the case.

 

[TheAdversary]

The Third Law seems to me to be the definition of zero, on the number line. But zero temperature isn't zero, it's a singularity. (Unless you can actually get there.)
So maybe a treatment that has less issues with singularities might lead to a new approach. That is, the fact that it is a singularity makes it look like a
nail for my hammer. I've always found this 'perfect crystal' thing to be rather ad-hoc.

 

[TheAdversary]

'Infinite temperatures are rather easy to achieve, with the right system. Again, paramagnet in a magnetic field. The zero magnetization state has infinite temperature.
There's nothing odd about the calculations.'

Is this infinite temperature concept analogous to the 'infinity' in an infinitely variable transmission (IVT), where simply because the low gear has a zero output speed,
the finite input speed implies an infinite input-to-output speed ratio? Nothing odd about the calculations there either. And you don't actually end up with an infinite speed,
momentum or energy.

 

[Reality Check]

Ok, Reality Check, no more circles. You're right. I'm a crackpot. Happy?

No because I have thought you were a crackpot and have never called you a crackpot, TheAdversary.
What you have done is show some ignorance about QM which I have tried to correct. You have made fanciful assertions based on that ignorance. This post is an example. You know about one interpretation of QM that includes probability but then you assert "any interpretation of QM always ends up attempting to define pure chance" which is multiply wrong:

1. There are deterministic interpretations of QM which never end up attempting to define pure chance..
2. Mathematicians have been defining "pure chance" for centuries.
3. The Copenhagen interpretation does not involve or try to define "pure chance" - it has quite specific probabilities for specific measurements.

 

[Ziggurat]

Is this infinite temperature concept analogous to the 'infinity' in an infinitely variable transmission (IVT), where simply because the low gear has a zero output speed,
the finite input speed implies an infinite input-to-output speed ratio?

Infinitely variable transmissions do not have a low gear with zero output speed. What makes them "infinitely variable" is that they can change gearing ratio continuously. There's an "infinity" of gears in the same sense that there's an infinity of numbers between 1 and 2. The more common term for such transmissions is continuously variable, because that describes how they operate much more precisely.

And no, it's not that sort of an infinity, which wouldn't even make sense here.

Nothing odd about the calculations there either. And you don't actually end up with an infinite speed,
momentum or energy.

I never said that such systems have infinite energy. They don't. They have finite energy, a fact which should be obvious from my description of the system. And yes, you can easily reconcile infinite temperature with finite energy.

 

[TheAdversary]

'There are deterministic interpretations of QM which never end up attempting to define pure chance.'

But aren't those theories becoming more and more implausible as the research continues? That has been my impression at least. And scientifically, you can never go beyond
probably incorrect. There cannot ever be perfection in an argument.

'Mathematicians have been defining "pure chance" from centuries.'

Yes, but all treatments have to content themselves with describing the behaviour of random functions, which have to be assumed as a given. No modern, rigorous, treatment
makes any attempt to define actual randomness. To put it like this, if chance could be defined, its behaviour wouldn't be unpredictable. So pure chance means purely undefinable.
Even typing that sentence makes me feel uneasy ... the can of worms being swept under the rug like that ...
Can you show me one treatment of probability that actually defines randomness? They all start with the base assumption, that cannot be reduced further, about the existence of random
functions. It's an axiom. There exists randomness.

'The Copenhagen interpretation does not involve or try to define "pure chance" - it has quite specific probabilities for specific measurements.'

Yes, see above. I like the PDFs and measurements 'interpretation', which isn't an interpretation at all in my opinion just a statement of fact. Interpretations come in
when concepts like 'wave-particle duality' appear, or 'collapse of the wave-function', or (shudder) 'many worlds'.
I especially think the 'wave-particle duality' concept is an unscientific abomination.

I know you've not been explicitly calling me a crackpot; And it's obvious we come from different backgrounds and don't see eye to eye. Sorry if I come across as an a**hole;
I can be quite rude. But I have to say this is probably the best forum on the internet where actually interesting things are being discussed, populated by well-informed
interesting people.

+Ziggurat No, you're confusing CVT with IVT. Both are continuously variable, but the IVT has a low gear of zero output. Just look at the Wikipedia page. But the difference is
pedantic. It was just an example of infinities occurring without physical absurdities; I never expected such systems to have infinite energy.

 

[Reality Check]

....

Wrong- learn about the MWI interpretation which is actually becoming more poplar!
Irrelevant to the fantasy about "pure chance" in QM or the actual mathematical treatment of randomness.
* Chance has been defined for centuries
* The behavior of the real world is described by QM in all interpretations, including using the "pure chance" you assume to be in it.
Your likes or dislikes have nothing to do with science. Repeating ignorance about QM is also not about science.

Please learn about how to quote posts.

I come from a background of an education that included science: high school science, undergraduate science, postgraduate physics.
Your background may differ !