A small portion of
Part Three: Section ThreeNeedles and Noodles
from
What it All is and Why
"Tongue in cheek", said the Times.
I once had an image in which scientific theory consists of rigidly contrived, perfectly reasoned needles (mathematical equations) connected by limp noodles (the theories that "explain" the equations). Each equation fits most of the theory beneath it; but at each end no longer fits experimental results. A limp noodle hiatus separates that needle from where another begins; that one fits things for awhile, then wobbles in the breeze of the next limp noodle, and so on and so on.
The noodles themselves are all tangled up in each other, the attached needles pointing in helter skelter directions. Each needle belongs to one special group of experts who don't understand any of the others, and the whole mess is a hodge podge. That's why it is thought that equations (the theories of Physics) can only approximate but never fully match reality.
This old image recently came to mind again. Something new and interesting is happening, even as I write this book. Almost every day some detail in some report, whether a newspaper, the "physics today" journal, a tv program, not only fits the explanations now to be begun, but shows interconnections to other aspects of the mosaic we are building. The needles are getting longer, the noodles shorter and firmer. Carried to its logical conclusion, theoretical physics, when completed, will consist of many stainless steel needles connected into a neat pattern by multiple pliant strings that align and hold them in place. A finely tuned grid, in which any errant needle is immediately noticed and straightened out to fit the overall pattern of the weaving.You will know that you are reaching home when all roads confirm your map, and lead directly to each other. The "bimps" are the places where roads don't really connect; but someone grabbed the nearest loose noodle to swing himself (and it) across. Each such noodle connection that is solved ties the end needles together into one longer perfect piece. When series of them so connect, the overall picture subtly changes. But not enough. Various such growing fragments still hook to others by stretched tangles. Eventually, however, if you are getting close to home, the emerging sections get big enough to become ever larger pieces of a jigsaw puzzle in which with every correct placement it becomes easier to align the rest. When finished, there are no more needles and noodles, no more strings and springs. Just a finely polished grid, ready to respond in every possible frequency to any possible ask, and it shall be given.{From the basement level, one can see all the way to the top. Only in some directions, at first; but as the grid lines up, superconductivity takes place and minimal effort is needed to see equally well in all directions.}
[…]
The dust continues to settle. As it does, the view grows clearer. To continue the allegorical analogies it has occurred to me that the quantum issue was not a bimp. Bimps are sensed, and one has to go over the logic several times to pinpoint the place where some noble Tarzan had bridged a gap on his own limp noodle. One has to run his mental finger back and forth over such places to feel the hidden joint and begin to chip it open.
The quantum theory is a major bump. Everyone knows that it contains a mystery.There had been two noodles: one was the theory that all matter is made of particles, the other was that radiation takes place in a continuous field. The attempt to connect them had resulted in two equations, neither of which fully fit the experimental facts.
Planck grabbed the nearest noodle with which he was familiar, entropy, grabbed another, probability, and wove them around the flapping needle ends. A workable equation resulted. Others soon saw the junction beginning to stretch, to threaten to pull apart. They spun many other noodles around the seam, to strengthen the bond. Soon one such weaver found his noodle connected to another being spun by another weaver: matrix mathematics found a bond that matter wave mathematics also simulated. They tied a big knot in the middle of their noodles and sat back, satisfied. Another found a pull still threatening the bond, and boiled his own noodle to produce one called "complementarity", in which what happens depends on which side of the knot you're on. Successors slapped successive noodles on the patch until it was a huge bump rather than a finely polished bimp. When your curious author came along he tried to understand this bump. He tried to decipher its meanings. Gradually he began to unwrap the outer, still damp noodles. Several real needles, successively tied into the package, came undone and began to swing away. The core needles seemed joined still. As successive layers were unwrapped, the form of a needle appeared within the remaining dried up noodle wraps. Coming to the last such layer, your author, five months ago, spent three days meticulously scraping off the remains, eager to view the shining needle therein enclosed. When that innermost needle was finally unclothed, he tapped it to hear its pure vibratory note.
With one minute forty seven seconds to go of the three days allocated to the task of solving the quantum needle's physical meaning, it shattered! Dust remained, and quickly blew away in the breeze of the real needles, which sprung apart as if repulsed by one another. The only thing holding them in their (wrong) places were the snarled, entangled noodles themselves. The inner "needle" was just the first dried up noodle; which cracked up instantly and blew away.
The noodle needle isn't there. Neither, per se, is a quantum. It is a quantity, not a thing. As such, it can be the sum of other quantities, none of which are quanta of themselves. Two pints of milk make one quart. But, until they are poured into one container, they remain two pints, not one quart. {If you press that analogy hard enough, it explains the quantum.}
The task of explaining the quantum and photon by putting the right Physics' words in the right places in the abstract equations became increasingly difficult. Some of the concepts in the Physics texts are self contradictory. The equations used to explain them are sometimes incorrect. The experimental findings sometimes make it physically impossible for the textbook definitions of amplitude and intensity to be valid or usable as is. I will show you just a few of the reasons why I have [reluctantly, and only after many months of diligent effort and study] found it necessary to redefine such terms and concepts from the point of view of their underlying physical mechanisms.
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