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John G. Cramer T he Quantum Handshake Entanglement, Nonlocality and Transactions The Quantum Handshake John G. Cramer The Quantum Handshake Entanglement, Nonlocality and Transactions 123 JohnG.Cramer Department ofPhysics University of Washington Seattle, WA USA ISBN978-3-319-24640-6 ISBN978-3-319-24642-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-24642-0 LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2015952772 SpringerChamHeidelbergNewYorkDordrechtLondon ©SpringerInternationalPublishingSwitzerland2016 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpart of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission orinformationstorageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilar methodologynowknownorhereafterdeveloped. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publicationdoesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfrom therelevantprotectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor foranyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeenmade. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerInternationalPublishingAGSwitzerlandispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia (www.springer.com) This book is dedicated to Gilbert N. Lewis, John A. Wheeler, and Richard P. Feynman, who first envisioned the advanced-retarded handshake. Foreword Since its inception, quantum mechanics has been fraught with conceptual diffi- culties. What started as a noble attempt to understand the behavior of atoms, morphedintoasetofworkingrulesforcalculatingcertain“observable”quantities. These working rules have proven amazingly effective at dealing with a wide range of phenomena whose outcomes are statistical in nature, while attempts to understandtheinnerworkingsatadeeperlevelhavemetwithimmensefrustration. My CalTech colleague, the late Richard Feynman, put it this way: Onemightstillliketoask:Howdoesitwork?Whatisthemachinerybehindthelaw?No onehasfoundanymachinerybehindthelaw.Noonecanexplainanymorethanwehave justexplained.Noonewillgiveyouanydeeperrepresentationofthesituation.Wehaveno ideasaboutamorebasicmechanismfromwhichtheseresultscanbededuced.[1] Allscientificadvancesrequiresuspensionofdisbelief—iftheyfolloweddirectly from what came before, they would have already been discovered. The brilliant insights of the 1920’s that led to our present situation were all of the form “If we use this particular mathematical representation,then the answer for the (…)comes out right”, where (…) was, in many cases, certain spectral line energies of the hydrogen atom. While one must admire the fortitude of those who crafted these mathematical tricks, the result certainly does not constitute “understanding” in the sensethatthetermisusedintherestofscience.Bohrandhisfollowersattemptedto remedy the situation with their “Copenhagen Interpretation”, which has caused more confusion than the mathematics itself. As Ed Jaynes put it: …alltheseyearsithasseemedobvioustomeasitdidtoEinsteinandSchrödingerthatthe Copenhagen Interpretation is a mass of contradictions and irrationality and that, while theoreticalphysicistscan,ofcourse,continuetomakeprogressinthemathematicaldetails and computational techniques, there is no hope of any further progress in our basic understandingofnatureuntilthisconceptualmessisclearedup.[2] Faced with this situation for what is now nearly a century, there have been two distinctpositionstakenbythoseinthefield.Thefirstispragmatic,asarticulatedby Feynman: vii viii Foreword Fig.0.1 CarverMead(1934–),GordonandBettyMooreProfessorEmeritusofEngineeringand AppliedScienceattheCaliforniaInstituteofTechnology,wastheoriginatorofthetermMoore’s Law. He discovered that transistors would get faster, better, cooler and cheaper as they were miniaturized,therebyblazingthetrailthathasledtothemicroelectronicsrevolution Donotkeepsayingtoyourself,ifyoucanpossiblyavoidit,‘buthowcanitbelikethat?’ because you will get ‘down the drain’, into a blind alley from which nobody has yet escaped.Nobodyknowshowitcanbelikethat.[3] Others believe that it will be understood, but may take a long time. John Archibald Wheeler said it well: Behinditallissurelyanideasosimple,sobeautiful,socompellingthatwheninadecade,a century,oramillenniumwegraspit,wewillallsaytoeachother,howcouldithavebeen otherwise?Howcouldwehavebeensostupidforsolong?[4] My own belief is that Wheeler is correct, but, instead of just one idea, a whole constellation of interlocking ideas must come together before the puzzle can be solved. High on the list of these ideas is the bidirectional arrow of time. We humans live deep in the grips of thermodynamics, and all of our common experienceisconditionedbyit.Tousitisnaturalthateventsinthepastdetermine our situation in the here and now, but inconceivable that events in the future are affecting us in the present. So deeply is this conviction held that we never stop to ask from whence this asymmetry arises. The laws of electromagnetism are com- pletely symmetrical with respect to both time and space. They always have two solutions: 1. A “retarded solution” that runs forward in time; and 2. An “advanced solution” that runs backward in time. In spite of this symmetry, it is common practice, based on our thermal experi- ence, to adopt the first solution and simply ignore the second. Already in 1909, Einstein had clearly stated the issue: Inthefirstcasetheelectricfieldiscalculatedfromthetotalityoftheprocessesproducingit, andinthesecondcasefromthetotalityofprocesses absorbingit…Bothkindsofrepre- sentationcanalwaysbeused,regardlessofhowdistanttheabsorbingbodiesareimagined Foreword ix tobe.Thusonecannotconcludethatthatthe[retardedsolution]isanymorespecialthan thesolution[containingequalpartsadvancedandretarded].[5] Atthequantumlevel,thingsarequitedifferentfromourthermalworld:Whenan atom inan excited state is looking for a way to lose its energy, it must find one or morepartnerswillingandabletoreceivethatenergy,regardlessofhowdistantthey are. The Einstein solution, half advanced half retarded, creates a perfect “handshake” by which both atoms can accomplish their energy transfer. In this book, John Cramer gives us a simple way of resolving many quantum mysteries by adopting the handshake as the common coinage of quantum interac- tion. It is by far the most economical way to visualize what is going on in these “mind-twisters” without departing from the highly successful mathematics of existing quantum mechanics. Seattle Carver Mead July 2015 References 1. R.P. Feynman, R.B. Leighton, M. Sands,The Feynman Lectures, vol. 3 (Addison-Wesley, Reading,1965).ISBN0201021188 2. E. Jaynes, Probability in Quantum Theory, in Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Informationed.byW.Zurek(Addison-Wesley,Reading,1990),pp.381–403 3. R.P.Feynman,TheCharacterofPhysicalLaw(MITPress,Cambridge,1967),p.129 4. J.A.Wheeler,HowCometheQuantum?Ann.NewYorkAcad.Sci.480,304–316(1986) 5. A. Einstein, On the Present Status of the Radiation Problem (Zum gegenwärtigen Stand des Strahlungsproblems), Physcialische Zeitschrift 10 (1909); translated in A. Beck, P. Havas, (eds.),TheCollectedPapersofAlbertEinstein,vol.2,(PrincetonUniversityPress,Princeton, 1989) Preface In 1900 there were clouds on the scientific horizon, unexplained phenomena that foretold the coming of the great intellectual revolution that was quantum mechanics. (See Chap. 2.) Today the scientific horizon is not without similar clouds. Quantum field theory, our standard model for understanding the fundamental interactions between particles and fields, tells us that the energy content of the quantum vacuum should be 10120 times larger than it actually is. At the interfacebetweengeneralrelativityandquantumfieldtheory,informationseemsto be vanishing at event horizons in a very unphysical way (see Sect. 6.21). Within blackholes,singularitiesarepredictedtoexistthatarecompletelybeyondthereach of contemporary physics. Quantum chromodynamics, our standard model of particles, works very well in agreeing with high-energy physics experiments, but it employstwodozenarbitraryparticlemassesandinteractionstrengths.Wehaveno idea where these values came from, how they are related, or how they were set in the early universe. We can anticipate that our current understanding of Nature at the smallest and largest scales is at best a rickety scaffolding that must inevitably be replaced or improved. It is likely that another scientific revolution is on the way. Quantum mechanics will certainly play a key role in this revolution, but it is currently ham- pered by our lack of understanding of its inner mechanisms and our inability to visualizethemanycounter-intuitiveaspectsofquantumbehavior.TheTransactional Interpretationofquantummechanics,presentedandillustratedinthisbook,provides toolsforvisualization,forunderstandingquantumprocesses,andfordesigningnew experiments.Itpavesthewayforfuturetheoreticalandtechnicalprogressandinour understanding of the way the universe works. These tools should also be useful in the coming computation revolution, based on artificial intelligence, quantum com- puting,andquantumcommunication(seeChap.8)thatwill,ifproperlyused,leadto improvement of the human condition and benefit all of us. This book gives an overview of the interpretational problems of quantum mechanics, provides an introduction to the Transactional Interpretation, and then demonstratestheuseofitinunderstandingwhatisgoingon“behindthescenes”in xi xii Preface many otherwise strange and mysterious problems of quantum optics. The target audience is the intelligent reader with some grasp of basic mathematics and a curiosity about quantum mechanics, what it is and how it works. We will not shy away from using occasional equations, but we will use them sparingly, and only when they are needed to make an important point. The style of this book is intended to be wedge-shaped, starting easy and pro- gressing to the somewhat more technical. It begins with a narrative style and introduces new concepts slowly and carefully. It builds up the basic conceptual framework of the Transactional Interpretation slowly, and then swings into action, applying it to a large collection of otherwise mysterious and counter-intuitive experiments that illustrate the curious behavior of quantum phenomena. This requires some mathematics, but the experiments that require the heavy use math- ematicsfortheiranalysisareplacedinAppendixD.Thereadercan“surf”overthe mathematicalpartsandstillgainadeepappreciationofwhatquantummechanicsis and how it works. A certain mentalflexibility will be asked of the reader in mastering the concept of“advanced”wavesthataregoingbackwardsintimeandcarryingnegativeenergy intothepast.Weareconditionedbytheeverydayworldofexperiencetoexpectan “arrowoftime”thatalwayspointsfromthepasttothefuture,andwearedisturbed by anything that seems to be going in the wrong time direction. However, the fundamental equations of physics have a time symmetry that recognizes no pre- ferredtimedirection.Amoviemadeofthebehavioroffundamentalparticleslooks OK, whether the images are presented in the time-normal or the time-reverse sequence. How this time-symmetric microcosm scales up to become the time-forward-onlyeverydayworldisaverydeepquestionthatisdiscussedinsome detail in Chap. 9. The Transactional Interpretation, described in this book, uses wavesgoinginbothtimedirectionswiththetwotypesdoinghandshakesasoneof itsbasicquantummechanisms,becausethatmechanismcanbeseeninthequantum formalism itself and because it allows us to understand the weirdness of entanglement and nonlocality. However, we note that these advanced time-running-backwards effects are limited to just the formation of time-forward transactionsandareneverallowedtoproduce“advancedeffects”thatwouldviolate cause-and-effect. The reader is also warned that there are a large and growing number of inter- pretationsof quantum mechanics, of whichthe TransactionalInterpretation isonly one. I am reminded of a story that I heard long ago about a young child who was growing up in a house operated by the Berlitz School of Languages asa residence forthelanguageteachersoftheSchool.Thechild’smotherspoketohiminEnglish, his father in French, and the other occupants of the house each spoke to him in a differentlanguage.Oneday,thechildbegantospeakingibberish.Hisparents,after hours of persuasion, finally convinced him to talk to them in a language that they couldunderstand.“Well,”hesaid,“I’mgettingtobeaprettybigboy,andIdecided that it was time that I had a languageofmy own.”This is much the way it iswith