Quantum mechanics’ greatest puzzle ‘solved’ in a Surrey cottage
THE mystery of why quantum matter jumps from a wave-like state to a well-defined particle when it is observed has puzzled scientists for nearly a century.
Known as “the measurement problem”, it is widely seen as the major complication in quantum theory and has led even well-respected scientists to suggest that the human mind may have some kind of telepathic influence on the fabric of the universe – our thoughts actually shaping reality around us.
But Jonathan Kerr, a physicist who has studied quantum mechanics for 35 years from his cottage in Surrey, believes he has solved the riddle, and the answer is more prosaic than some might have hoped.
He thinks that it is actually impossible to measure anything without a tiny interaction taking place and it is that “bump” that tells the particle where it is in space and fixes its form.
Kerr, nephew of Judith Kerr, The Tiger Who Came to Tea author, has just published a book on his theory and an article is to appear in a leading journal. The idea was first posited by some scientists in the Nineties but it has remained unfinished until now.
Kerr said: “For 70 years it was assumed that just observing the world brings it into a more concrete state of existence.
“But when we make a measurement, we have to cause an interaction – bumping bits of matter together – and people started to suspect that the interaction necessary for the measurement is what causes it.
“This idea would remove what some might see as the ‘woo-woo’ from quantum physics – mind, consciousness, the observer.”
The world of quantum exists in a baffling fog of uncertainty where particles change states, pop in and out of existence for seemingly no reason and interact at speeds faster than light.
The American theoretical physicist Richard Feynman once said: “I think it is safe to say nobody understands quantum mechanics.”
But Kerr believes the answer lies in the fabric of the universe itself. In his theory space is made up from a series of dimensions, curled into cylinders which lie side-by-side in parallel. Matter occurs in places where the cylinders vibrate.
But because their alignment is not fixed, particles exist in a wave like state or ‘superposition’ of uncertainty.
When a measurement is made, the experimenter has to cause an interaction, and when two particles bump together, they “get their bearings”, and find out where the cylinders they live on are in space. At that moment all the other possibilities in the wave disappear, and just one position remains.
The theory has piqued the interest of Carlo Rovelli and Neil Turok, the celebrated theoretical physicists, who met Kerr to film a discussion of his idea.
Rovelli said: “We don’t understand quantum mechanics yet. If there is something clear it’s that it is not clear.
“The idea that one should replace the notion of measurement to one of interactions is a key one. Measurement cannot be anything foundational because it doesn’t mean anything.
“Does it require a physicist in a lab to create the universe? It doesn’t make any sense. The universe didn’t appear when humans started looking at it.”
Rovelli came up with the theory of
Relational Quantum Mechanics in the Nineties to suggest that it was not observation causing the shift from wave to particles but probably interactions. But until now nobody has explained how or why it happens.
Turok, an emeritus professor of mathematics physics at Cambridge, and now at the Perimeter Institute in Canada, said: “Many physicists are very unhappy with the solipsistic view that our presence in the universe is somehow critical to its existence.
“So removing the observer is fundamental and removing measurement as having this elevated special state is something that people have been aspiring to do for a long time.”
The Unsolved Puzzle by
‘The idea removes what some see as the “woo-woo” from quantum physics – mind, consciousness, the observer’
Jonathan