8. Can you face the Quantum Facts?

[Dr Alain L Fymat]

Quantum facts are ordinary but quantum theory, the only complete explanation we possess of these facts, is decidedly non-ordinary

Quantum reality does not show up directly in the quantum facts: it comes indirectly out of the quantum theory, which perfectly mirrors these facts. Referring to the celebrated Airy experiment, every elementary particle (photon, electron, quark, gluon, lepton, graviton, etc.) seems to possess contradictory attributes, cannot be split apart, and retains its identity in collisions with other particles. As a wave, it spreads over vast regions of space, is divisible to infinity, and merges completely with other waves it happens to meet. Neither a purely particle theory nor a purely wave theory can explain the Airy experiment.

Any elementary particle (generically named “quon” by Herbert) is in reality neither a particle nor a wave, but an entity new to human experience which exhibits the properties of both. It behaves like a particle when measured and like a wave in between measurements. This alternation of identities is typical of all quantum entities and is the major cause of the reality crisis in physics.

The essential difficulty in describing quantum reality is that unmeasured quons seem to behave in a totally different manner from measured quons, and that neither behavior by itself is enough to explain how the world itself behaves. Thus, the quantum facts give us not one description but two – each one separately inadequate and both together contradictory. Moreover the knot that connects the two descriptions is the act of observation; leave out observation and neither description makes sense. Running parallel to the quantum facts, quantum theory represents unmeasured quons as waves and measured quons as particles. Furthermore, it regards these unmeasured waves not as real waves but merely as oscillations of possibility.

As well as demonstrating the particle/wave nature, the Airy experiment illustrates the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Indeed, a relationship of the Heisenberg type holds for all dynamic attributes, and prevents anyone from resolving the quantum reality question via the light of experiment. The Heisenberg relations guarantee that any experiment will contain a blind spot just big enough to hide the solution to the wave/particle riddle.

Thus, it seems we cannot directly experience quantum reality, and we are fated to experience the quantum world secondhand. Can you face this situation?