A paradigm shift in mathematical physics, Part 1: The Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW)

Authors

  • Jeffrey H. Boyd retired

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24297/jam.v10i9.1908

Keywords:

Theory of Elementary Waves, TEW, Lewis E Little, Feynman diagrams, local realism, nonlocality, Bell test experiments, complementarity, wavefunction collapse, Dirac notation

Abstract

Why is quantum mathematics (QM) the only science based on probability amplitudes rather than probabilities? A paradigm shift called the Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW) posits zero energy waves traveling in the opposite direction as particles, which a particle follows backwards: like a probabilistic guidance system emanating from detectors. Probability amplitudes are the mathematical analog of these elementary rays. Although this proposal might sound like gibberish, that is the hallmark of a paradigm shift. Thomas Kuhn warns that previous paradigm shifts were rejected because they sounded like gibberish. TEW is internally coherent, explains a mountain of empirical data, and resolves insoluble problems of QM. For example, it dispenses with the need for wavefunction collapse because probability decisions are made at the particle source, not the detector. It is the only local realistic theory consistent with the Bell test experiments. That which QM calls “nonlocality,†TEW calls “elementary rays.†One term is vague, the other involves elegant mathematics. This article introduces that mathematical notation, explains complementarity in double slit experiments, and reinterprets Feynman diagrams. QM and TEW are partners that need each other. One is a science of observables; the other a science of how nature works independent of the observer.

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Author Biography

Jeffrey H. Boyd, retired

Dr. Boyd was born in 1943 in northern New Jersey, USA, the son of a factory worker family in which no one had ever been to college. As a teenager he and his cousin, Lewis E. Little, played three dimensional tic-tac-toe, and developed strategies for four dimensional tic-tac-toe. Boyd chose which college to apply to based on his cousin’s advice. Boyd’s undergraduate degree in mathematics was from Brown University in 1965, three years after Little graduated from Brown in physics. Boyd has Advanced degrees from Harvard, Yale and Case Western Reserve Universities, has served on the research faculty of the National Institutes of Health for seven years, and has been on the faculty of the Yale Medical School. His day job is as a physician. Boyd retired after a quarter century at Waterbury Hospital, Waterbury CT, a Yale teaching hospital at which he served as chairman of behavioral health and chairman of ethics. He has published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Advances in Physics and Physics Essays. 

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Published

2015-06-30

How to Cite

Boyd, J. H. (2015). A paradigm shift in mathematical physics, Part 1: The Theory of Elementary Waves (TEW). JOURNAL OF ADVANCES IN MATHEMATICS, 10(9), 3828–3839. https://doi.org/10.24297/jam.v10i9.1908

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Articles