What waves in wave-particle duality according to de Broglie

[liquidspacetime]

NON-LINEAR WAVE MECHANICS
A CAUSAL INTERPRETATION
by
LOUIS DE BROGLIE

"Since 1954, when this passage was written, I have come to support wholeheartedly an hypothesis proposed by Bohm and Vigier. According to this hypothesis, the random perturbations to which the particle would be constantly subjected, and which would have the probability of presence in terms of [wavefunction wave], arise from the interaction of the particle with a “subquantic medium” which escapes our oservation and is entirely chaotic, and which is everywhere present in what we call “empty space"."

 

[Simon Bridge]

Apparently describing "quantum foam" or "vacuum fluctuations".
Did you have a question?

 

[bhobba]

I have zero idea what De-Brogle thought waved, but since 1927 when Dirac came up with his transformation theory old ideas like wave-particle duality, waves etc were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Thanks
Bill

 

[Simon Bridge]

There's not really enough in that passage to figure what he's talking about ... maybe he's referring to dBB theory?
Could use a page reference I guess. The book itself is fairly pricey.
http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Non_linear_Wave_Mechanics.html?id=RNoIAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CKLES/?tag=pfamazon01-20

... ah, here we go - a comment on the topic covered:
http://www.davis-inc.com/physics/
... it does seem the passage is referring to pilot waves etc.
i.e. What we now know as the deBroglie Bohm theory or "Bohemian Mechanics".

But I'm with Bhobba on this one - the book and the passage are of historical interest alone.
Nature does not care about the opinions of physicists, however prominent.

OTOH: this is a guesswork response - really need that question.

 

[liquidspacetime]

I have zero idea what De-Brogle thought waved, but since 1927 when Dirac came up with his transformation theory old ideas like wave-particle duality, waves etc were consigned to the dustbin of history.

Thanks
Bill

The “subquantic medium” waves. See the original post.

'Interpretation of quantum mechanics by the double solution theory - Louis de BROGLIE'
http://aflb.ensmp.fr/AFLB-classiques/aflb124p001.pdf

“When in 1923-1924 I had my first ideas about Wave Mechanics I was looking for a truly concrete physical image, valid for all particles, of the wave and particle coexistence discovered by Albert Einstein in his "Theory of light quanta". I had no doubt whatsoever about the physical reality of waves and particles.”

“any particle, even isolated, has to be imagined as in continuous “energetic contact” with a hidden medium”

"For me, the particle, precisely located in space at every instant, forms on the v wave a small region of high energy concentration, which may be likened in a first approximation, to a moving singularity."

"the particle is defined as a very small region of the wave"

"If a hidden sub-quantum medium is assumed, knowledge of its nature would seem desirable. It certainly is of quite complex character. It could not serve as a universal reference medium, as this would be contrary to relativity theory."

In de Broglie's double solution theory the hidden medium waves.

 

[liquidspacetime]

There's not really enough in that passage to figure what he's talking about ... maybe he's referring to dBB theory?
Could use a page reference I guess. The book itself is fairly pricey.
http://books.google.co.nz/books/about/Non_linear_Wave_Mechanics.html?id=RNoIAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000CKLES/?tag=pfamazon01-20

... ah, here we go - a comment on the topic covered:
http://www.davis-inc.com/physics/
... it does seem the passage is referring to pilot waves etc.
i.e. What we now know as the deBroglie Bohm theory or "Bohemian Mechanics".

But I'm with Bhobba on this one - the book and the passage are of historical interest alone.
Nature does not care about the opinions of physicists, however prominent.

OTOH: this is a guesswork response - really need that question.

I am not discussing Bohmian mechanics or de Broglie-Bohm theory (which is incorrectly named as de Broglie disagreed with it). I am referring to de Broglie's double solution theory.

 

[Simon Bridge]

I am not discussing Bohmian mechanics or de Broglie-Bohm theory (which is incorrectly named as de Broglie disagreed with it). I am referring to de Broglie's double solution theory.

... Oh you mean the approach deBroglie had abandoned by 1927 in favor of a particle+pilot wave approach? That's even more historical.
OK - do you have any questions about this?

 

[liquidspacetime]

... Oh you mean the approach deBroglie had abandoned by 1927 in favor of a particle+pilot wave approach? That's even more historical.
OK - do you have any questions about this?

The physical particle and the physical wave, along with the statistical wave-function wave, is de Broglie's double solution theory which is what he is referring to below when he says, "Since 1951..."

"It is sometimes said that when a man grows old he goes back to the preoccupations of his youth. Perhaps that is why, for some four years now, I have asked myself the following question: Might not the concepts which guided my research from 1922 to 1928, when I first worked on Wave Mechanics, be more accurate and fundamental than those that have prevailed since that time?

As early as 1923 I had clearly seen that the propagation of a wave must be associated with the movement of every particle, but the continuous wave—of the type familiar in Classical Optics—which I had been led to consider and which became the W wave of ordinary Wave Mechanics, did not seem to me to describe the physical reality accurately; only its phase, related directly to the motion of the particle, seemed to me of fundamental significance, and that is why I had named the wave which I associated with the particle “the phase-wave”—a designation that is completely forgotten today, but which at that time I believed (entirely justified. However, as the work of other scientists led to further progress in Wave Mechanics, it became daily more evident that the W wave with its continuous amplitude could be used only in statistical predictions. And so, little by little, there was an increasing trend towards the “purely probabilistic” interpretation, of which Bom, Bohr and Heisenberg were the chief advocates. I was surprised at this development, which did not seem to me to fulfil the "explanatory” aim of theoretical physics; and that is what led me, around 1925—1927, to believe that all problems of Wave Mechanics required a set of two coupled solutions of the wave equation: onej the wave, definite in phase, but, because of the continuous character of its amplitude, having only a statistical and subjective meaning; the other, the « wave of the same phase as the W wave but with an amplitude having very large values around a point in space and which, precisely on account of its spatial singularity (a singularity, moreover, which may not be one in the strict mathematical sense of the term) can be used to describe the particle objectively. In this way I obtained, in agreement with Einstein’s concepts, what I had always believed must be sought: a picture of the particle in which it appears as the center of an extended wave phenomenon involving the particle in an intimate way. And, thanks to the theoretically postulated parallelism between u and waves, the W wave, it seemed to me, preserved all the statistical properties that had quite rightly been attributed to it.

Such was the idea that had taken shape in my mind, and its curious subtlety astonishes me to this day. I called it the “theory of the Double Solution,” and it was that idea which translated my real thinking in all its complexity. But, in order to facilitate explaining it, I had sometimes given it a simplified form, much less profound, to my way of thinking, which 1 had named "the piiot-wave theory”, in which the particle, assumed given a priori, was considered to be piloted by the continuous IF wave. Discouraged by the rather unfavorable reception accorded my ideas by most theoretical physicists, who were strongly attracted by the formal elegance and apparent rigor of the purely probabilistic interpretation, I too came round to that interpretation and for more than twenty years admitted its correctness.

But, as I have said, since 1951 I have once again been wondering if, after all, my first idea was not the right one. Further reflections on this very difficult problem have led me to refine certain points of the original double-solution theory and, in certain other points actually to modify that theory, notably by introducing a hypothesis that today strikes me as indispensable: namely, that the equation of the propagation of the u wave is, basically, non-linear and, consequently, different from that admitted for the W wave, even though the two equations may be considered identical almost everywhere."

[mentor note: edited to remove one unnecessary personal remark]

 

[Nugatory]

I'm sorry, but I must confess that despite your quoting ever longer pieces of de Broglie's writing, I'm still not sure myself what you're asking. From the title of your post, it seems that you might be trying to ask what exactly it is that is waving, but you've already quoted him saying

If a hidden sub-quantum medium is assumed, knowledge of its nature would seem desirable. It certainly is of quite complex character. It could not serve as a universal reference medium, as this would be contrary to relativity theory.

which makes it fairly clear that he had no answer to that question.

 

[liquidspacetime]

I'm sorry, but I must confess that despite your quoting ever longer pieces of de Broglie's writing, I'm still not sure myself what you're asking. From the title of your post, it seems that you might be trying to ask what exactly it is that is waving, but you've already quoted him saying

which makes it fairly clear that he had no answer to that question.

He knew exactly what he was talking about. He was talking about a relativistic aether. However, you can't say that without threads being closed.

"The word 'ether' has extremely negative connotations in theoretical physics because of its past association with opposition to relativity. This is unfortunate because, stripped of these connotations, it rather nicely captures the way most physicists actually think about the vacuum. . . . Relativity actually says nothing about the existence or nonexistence of matter pervading the universe, only that any such matter must have relativistic symmetry. [..] It turns out that such matter exists. About the time relativity was becoming accepted, studies of radioactivity began showing that the empty vacuum of space had spectroscopic structure similar to that of ordinary quantum solids and fluids. Subsequent studies with large particle accelerators have now led us to understand that space is more like a piece of window glass than ideal Newtonian emptiness. It is filled with 'stuff' that is normally transparent but can be made visible by hitting it sufficiently hard to knock out a part. The modern concept of the vacuum of space, confirmed every day by experiment, is a relativistic ether. But we do not call it this because it is taboo." - Robert B. Laughlin, Nobel Laureate in Physics, endowed chair in physics, Stanford University

 

[Nugatory]

And I STILL don't know what you're asking. What is your question here?

 

[liquidspacetime]

And I STILL don't know what you're asking. What is your question here?

Why is this physics forum unwilling to discuss the possibility a relativistic aether waves in a double slit experiment?

 

[Nugatory]

Why is this physics forum unwilling to discuss the possibility a relativistic aether waves in a double slit experiment?

The Physics Forums guidelines and mission statement are here: https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/physics-forums-global-guidelines.414380/

This particular question falls outside of "learn and discuss science as it is currently generally understood and practiced by the professional scientific community".