Does relativity lie at the source of quantum exoticism?
Apr 2020, phys.org
No way; this paper, from a theoretical physicist at University of Warsaw (and who Wired is calling a rebel physicist), makes a claim that I'm finding hard to believe. It's not the claim that's hard to digest, it's the fact that it's so simple.
They're telling us that if we just accept the fact that Einstein is wrong, and that there are things in the universe that travel faster than the speed of light, then quantum mechanics and relativistic physics can all get along just fine.
"Einstein considered the second postulate (constant velocity of light) to be crucial. In reality, what is crucial is the principle of relativity."
Things move at three speeds -- at subluminal velocities, at the velocity of light, and at superluminal velocities.
Today, we say that the third option is magical thinking; not a part of reality.
But listen --
If in one system at point A there is generation of a superluminal particle, even completely predictable, emitted towards point B, where there is simply no information about the reasons for the emission, then from the point of view of the observer in the second system events run from point B to point A, so they start from a completely unpredictable event."We noticed, incidentally, the possibility of an interesting interpretation of the role of individual dimensions. In the system that looks superluminal to the observer some space-time dimensions seem to change their physical roles. Only one dimension of superluminal light has a spatial character —- the one along which the particle moves. The other three dimensions appear to be time dimensions," says Dr. Dragan.A characteristic feature of spatial dimensions is that a particle can move in any direction or remain at rest, while in a time dimension it always propagates in one direction (what we call aging in everyday language). So, three time dimensions of the superluminal system with one spatial dimension (1+3) would thus mean that particles inevitably age in three times simultaneously. The ageing process of a particle in a superluminal system (1+3), observed from a subluminal system (3+1), would look as if the particle was moving like a spherical wave, leading to the famous Huygens principle (every point on a wavefront can be treated itself as a source of a new spherical wave) and corpuscular-wave dualism."All the strangeness that appears when considering solutions relating to a system that looks superluminal turns out to be no stranger than what commonly accepted and experimentally verified quantum theory has long been saying. On the contrary, taking into account a superluminal system, it is possible -— at least theoretically —- to derive some of the postulates of quantum mechanics from the special theory of relativity, which were usually accepted as not resulting from other, more fundamental reasons," Dr. Dragan concludes.
via Institute of Theoretical Physics, University of Warsaw; Centre for Quantum Technologies, National University of Singapore; Mathematical Institute, University of Oxford: Andrzej Dragan and Artur Ekert, Quantum principle of relativity, New Journal of Physics (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1367-2630/ab76f7
Just get over it -- things move faster than light, and you'll never be able to see them (not until you trade-in your meatbag body-capsule for an unencumbered and fully liberated constellation of semi-sentient, self-swarming photon clouds).
Image credit: Kilanova Afterglow, NASA CXC MWeiss, 2022
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