Is there a quantum theory of other entities besides particles and fields?

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ephen wilb
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QM or quantum mechanics is quantum theory of particles
QFT or quantum field theory is quantum theory of fields (containing QED, QCD, and maybe QG)

are there none beside particles or fields.. why is there no quantum theory of other stuff?
 
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Vanadium 50 said:
What "other stuff" are you talking about?

No. I was just asking if there are just particles and fields... what category does particle and field fall under.. what else in the category and why only the two present?
 
Fields (described by QFT) and particles (described by QM) are not different kinds of "stuff." They are different descriptions of the same "stuff." The description that uses fields and QFT is more fundamental and applies under more circumstances than the description that uses particles and QM. Under some circumstances the fields behave in ways that we label as "particles" that follow the rules of QM, which are easier to work with.
 
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There are also quantum theories of strings and membranes, spins stuck to a lattice and lattice gauge theory.
 
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atyy said:
There are also quantum theories of strings and membranes, spins stuck to a lattice and lattice gauge theory.

In jtbell context... particles, fields, strings, membranes are "different descriptions of the same "stuff.""? so fields are literally strings and vice versa?
 
ephen wilb said:
In jtbell context... particles, fields, strings, membranes are "different descriptions of the same "stuff.""? so fields are literally strings and vice versa?

Yes and no. Heuristically, fields can be thought of as quantum theories of many particles. Also, fields and lattice gauge theory are heuristically the same things. It is also conjectured that fields in a lower dimension can be equivalent to strings in a higher dimension. Of the preceding heuristics, the most rigourous one is the notional equivalence of fields and lattice gauge theory. Thinking of quantum field theories as quantum theories of many particles is less rigourous, but most quantum field theory books do things this way. The relationship between fields and strings is an area of active research.
 
atyy said:
Yes and no. Heuristically, fields can be thought of as quantum theories of many particles. Also, fields and lattice gauge theory are heuristically the same things. It is also conjectured that fields in a lower dimension can be equivalent to strings in a higher dimension. Of the preceding heuristics, the most rigourous one is the notional equivalence of fields and lattice gauge theory. Thinking of quantum field theories as quantum theories of many particles is less rigourous, but most quantum field theory books do things this way. The relationship between fields and strings is an area of active research.

Here's something I'm getting my head into. Do all fields have to be quantized? For example. If fields cause wave function collapse.. does it has to be quantum mechanized? I presume being quantized and quantum mechanized is the same.. But gravity as field doesn't necessarily mean it's quantized.. so how do you tell whether a field can remain classical or should be quantized (quantum mechanized)?
 
ephen wilb said:
Here's something I'm getting my head into. Do all fields have to be quantized? For example. If fields cause wave function collapse.. does it has to be quantum mechanized? I presume being quantized and quantum mechanized is the same.. But gravity as field doesn't necessarily mean it's quantized.. so how do you tell whether a field can remain classical or should be quantized (quantum mechanized)?

In the traditional "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics, there is a practical division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. It is the interaction of the classical part with the quantum part to produce a measurement result that causes collapse. The division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part is subjective, so each observer can do it differently (or even the same observer can do it in several different ways). In this traditional interpretation, the "whole universe" is not necessarily quantum. However, it should be possible to formulate a quantum theory of any part of the universe that we can observe - so in that sense "everything" is quantum.

The basic philosophy here is that we have an intuitive idea as to what a measurement result is, and quantum mechanics is not necessarily about a "story of reality that is continually unfolding", but rather a way to predict probabilities for what an observer observes.
 
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atyy said:
In the traditional "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics, there is a practical division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. It is the interaction of the classical part with the quantum part to produce a measurement result that causes collapse. The division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part is subjective, so each observer can do it differently (or even the same observer can do it in several different ways). In this traditional interpretation, the "whole universe" is not necessarily quantum. However, it should be possible to formulate a quantum theory of any part of the universe that we can observe - so in that sense "everything" is quantum.

The basic philosophy here is that we have an intuitive idea as to what a measurement result is, and quantum mechanics is not necessarily about a "story of reality that is continually unfolding", but rather a way to predict probabilities for what an observer observes.

I understand what is the Wigner Friend all about. It's anti realism of QM due to conflicting accounts with Many Worlds as only alternative. Have you come across any daily life analogy of the Wigner Friend.. such as for example if all wear uniform or certain weather, there is some so and so conflict (just an example of daiy life). I'd like to know if the Wigner friend scenario is a common one or rare one and what's it correlates in other field or topic.
 
ephen wilb said:
I understand what is the Wigner Friend all about. It's anti realism of QM due to conflicting accounts with Many Worlds as only alternative. Have you come across any daily life analogy of the Wigner Friend.. such as for example if all wear uniform or certain weather, there is some so and so conflict (just an example of daiy life). I'd like to know if the Wigner friend scenario is a common one or rare one and what's it correlates in other field or topic.

Yes, it is common throughout QM. But the response need not be anti-realism or Many Worlds. The response could be that QM is a practical theory, and in practice we always know how to divide the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. Wigner's friend and associated problems may simply indicate that QM is incomplete. This was Dirac's own view. Since Bohm's work, we are able to write down explicitly for non-relativistic QM some possibilities for these more complete theories without the Wigner's friend problem. Whether and how we might do so for relativistic QM is still being researched.
 
atyy said:
Yes, it is common throughout QM. But the response need not be anti-realism or Many Worlds. The response could be that QM is a practical theory, and in practice we always know how to divide the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. Wigner's friend and associated problems may simply indicate that QM is incomplete. This was Dirac's own view. Since Bohm's work, we are able to write down explicitly for non-relativistic QM some possibilities for these more complete theories without the Wigner's friend problem. Whether and how we might do so for relativistic QM is still being researched.
I think paradoxes like Schrödinger's cat and Wigner's friend can be solved using decoherence. Also decoherence tells us that we don't need the Heisenberg cut any more.
 
atyy said:
Yes, it is common throughout QM. But the response need not be anti-realism or Many Worlds. The response could be that QM is a practical theory, and in practice we always know how to divide the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. Wigner's friend and associated problems may simply indicate that QM is incomplete. This was Dirac's own view. Since Bohm's work, we are able to write down explicitly for non-relativistic QM some possibilities for these more complete theories without the Wigner's friend problem. Whether and how we might do so for relativistic QM is still being researched.

I was asking if you have analogy of Wigner Friend in other subjects for example, economics, bathrooms, lego objects, toys.. I can't give an example that is why I was asking.
 
ephen wilb said:
I was asking if you have analogy of Wigner Friend in other subjects for example, economics, bathrooms, lego objects, toys.. I can't give an example that is why I was asking.

Well Wigner's Friend represents a bit of a misunderstanding of QM anyway. It relates to the misunderstanding Von Neumann made in his conciousness causes collapse interpretation that he and Wigner held to. Later Wigner woke up to the issue and did a 180% about face. So no - the same misunderstanding doesn't crop up in other fields so its pretty useless outside QM - and these days within QM as well.

Thanks
Bill
 
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atyy said:
In the traditional "Copenhagen" interpretation of quantum mechanics, there is a practical division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part. It is the interaction of the classical part with the quantum part to produce a measurement result that causes collapse. The division of the universe into a classical part and a quantum part is subjective, so each observer can do it differently (or even the same observer can do it in several different ways). In this traditional interpretation, the "whole universe" is not necessarily quantum. However, it should be possible to formulate a quantum theory of any part of the universe that we can observe - so in that sense "everything" is quantum.

The basic philosophy here is that we have an intuitive idea as to what a measurement result is, and quantum mechanics is not necessarily about a "story of reality that is continually unfolding", but rather a way to predict probabilities for what an observer observes.

Going back to this. In special relativity, objects can time dilate and length contract with respect to one another.. this shows reality is malleable.. so what is wrong with the more literal "story of reality that is continually unfolding" in QM? If it can happen in relativity, why not in QM?
 
ephen wilb said:
Going back to this. In special relativity, objects can time dilate and length contract with respect to one another.. this shows reality is malleable

Its shows space-time is described by Minkowskian geometry - not reality is mailable - whatever that means.

Thanks
Bill
 
bhobba said:
Its shows space-time is described by Minkowskian geometry - not reality is mailable - whatever that means.

Thanks
Bill

Minkowski geometry is flexible. it bends, expands, contracts etc. So it is not difficult to make minkowski geometry and the fields in it appear and vanish in instances related to wave function collapse. Since relativity is relative.. then the answer to Wigner Friend is maybe QM has relativity of observations too akin to SR?
 
ephen wilb said:
Minkowski geometry is flexible. it bends, expands, contracts etc.

Really - then how come the metric is constant?

You are thinking about the pseudo Riemannian geometry of GR - but flexible is not the appropriate analogy there.

The key to GR is space-time geometry is dynamical - not 'flexible' which has connotations not appropriate to what's going on.

Thanks
Bill
 
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bhobba said:
Really - then how come the metric is constant?

You are thinking about the pseudo Riemannian geometry of GR - but flexible is not the appropriate analogy there.

The key to GR is space-time geometry is dynamical - not 'flexible' which has connotations not appropriate to what's going on.

Thanks
Bill

Do you know of any function or device in mathematics that can bind discrete and continuous (QM and GR) that can transform into each other and even make them emergent of this more primary aspect?
 
ephen wilb said:
Do you know of any function or device in mathematics that can bind discrete and continuous (QM and GR) that can transform into each other and even make them emergent of this more primary aspect?

I have no idea what you are asking.

So let's take it step by step.

What do you mean by 'bind discrete and continuous (QM and GR)'

Thanks
Bill
 
bhobba said:
I have no idea what you are asking.

So let's take it step by step.

What do you mean by 'bind discrete and continuous (QM and GR)'

Thanks
Bill

GR (continuous) and QM (discrete) can't be united because they are opposite (continuous and discrete). So there may be transforms that can unite them. I'm thinking of the possibility that both GR and QM are emergence from something else.
 
bhobba said:
Where do you get the idea QM is discreet?

Thanks
Bill

QM is random, jumpy.. quantized.. at least during wave function collapse.
you are saying QM is continuous before wave function collapse? that it is compatible with GR before wave function collapse?
 
ephen wilb said:
QM is random, jumpy.. quantized.. at least during wave function collapse.
you are saying QM is continuous before wave function collapse? that it is compatible with GR before wave function collapse?

You are getting confused about a number of concepts.

First wave-function collapse is only part of some interpretations - its not part of the QM formalism.

In combining QM and GR we use Quantum Field Theory, which is a continuous field theory, exactly like GR. You can make GR into a QFT exactly like one does for any classical field theory - there is no issue at all. The issue comes when you try to extract answers from the theory - it blows up with infinity. There is a technique for handling that called renormalisation. The problem is it doesn't work here.

It took many years of hard work to sort out what was going on. I recently wrote an insights paper explaining, at a basic level, what renormalisation is:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/renormalisation-made-easy-comments.813025/

Along with this better understanding came a new view of renormalisation, called the Effective Field Theory approach. It turns out by applying that to the quantum theory of gravity you can get finite answers - but the resulting theory is only valid up to the Plank scale:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.3511v1.pdf

'Effective field theory shows that general relativity and quantum mechanics work together perfectly normally over a range of scales and curvatures, including those relevant for the world that we see around us. However, effective field theories are only valid over some range of scales. General relativity certainly does have problematic issues at extreme scales. There are important problems which the effective field theory does not solve because they are beyond its range of validity. However, this means that the issue of quantum gravity is not what we thought it to be. Rather than a fundamental incompatibility of quantum mechanics and gravity, we are in the more familiar situation of needing a more complete theory beyond the range of their combined applicability. The usual marriage of general relativity and quantum mechanics is fine at ordinary energies, but we now seek to uncover the modifications that must be present in more extreme conditions. This is the modern view of the problem of quantum gravity, and it represents progress over the outdated view of the past.'

Thanks
Bill
 
bhobba said:
You are getting confused about a number of concepts.

First wave-function collapse is only part of some interpretations - its not part of the QM formalism.

In combining QM and GR we use Quantum Field Theory, which is a continuous field theory, exactly like GR. You can make GR into a QFT exactly like one does for any classical field theory - there is no issue at all. The issue comes when you try to extract answers from the theory - it blows up with infinity. There is a technique for handling that called renormalisation. The problem is it doesn't work here.

It took many years of hard work to sort out what was going on. I recently wrote an insights paper explaining, at a basic level, what renormalisation is:
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/renormalisation-made-easy-comments.813025/

Along with this better understanding came a new view of renormalisation, called the Effective Field Theory approach. It turns out by applying that to the quantum theory of gravity you can get finite answers - but the resulting theory is only valid up to the Plank scale:
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1209.3511v1.pdf

Thanks
Bill

If Planck constant or H bar were higher in value.. would this make you get finite answers only at much lower energy say at 5 times less than the Planck scale? what dictate why the resulting theory is only valid up the Planck scale.. is it due primarily to the value of c, the strength of gravity and Planck constant?
 
bhobba said:
First wave-function collapse is only part of some interpretations - its not part of the QM formalism.
It is part of the formalism in the explicitly time-dependent(sequential measurements) case.
In combining QM and GR we use Quantum Field Theory, which is a continuous field theory, exactly like GR.
This is true only for the free QFT. The effective interacting QFT space has finite particles Fock space.
 
ephen wilb said:
what dictate why the resulting theory is only valid up the Planck scale.. is it due primarily to the value of c, the strength of gravity and Planck constant?
... Yes. It is called constant bec it has consistent value in relation to the other constants G, C. Renormalization/cutoffs stops to make sense beyond that scale. In this sense we need a new physics. Well, We can only say at the moment that plank constant is the smallest meaningful derivation- e.g, there's nothing in the universe smaller than a plank. So that new unit would be meaningless because there's nothing to measure that hold consistent to our present physics/experiment etc.
 
Bill and fellas. If the Planck scale doesn't have *inside* because it is a whole thing like superstring. Are you saying there is no fundamental incompability at lower energy far from Planck scale for interacting QFT and gravity? Or would the problem remain? If such is the case, then QFT and gravity is fundamentally incompatible.
 
ephen wilb said:
If the Planck scale doesn't have *inside* because it is a whole thing like superstring..

I am saying no one knows anything about the Planck scale so your questions can't be answered. Even if I could figure out what they mean eg what you mean by an 'inside' I have no idea.

Why does the effective field theory of gravity have a cut-off at the Planck scale? Its because the theory predicts that's where it falls apart and new physics emerges - but to understand the details you need to grind through the math - its associated with something called the plank mass in the theory. The interesting thing about effective field theories is they also tell you where they break down.

Thanks
Bill
 

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