Wholeness and the Implicate Order by Bohm David

Author:Bohm, David
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 1980-01-21T16:00:00+00:00

where ∈ is a very small randomly fluctuating quantity (which gets larger and larger as we go to higher and higher frequencies). To test for such a fluctuation, one could perform an experiment in which the frequency of a light beam was observed to an accuracy, ∇ν. If the observed energy fluctuated by more than ℏ∇ν, and if no source could be found for the fluctuation in the quantum level, this experiment could be taken as an indication of sub-quantum fluctuations.

With this discussion, we complete our answer to the criticisms of Bohr and Heisenberg, who argue that a deeper level of hidden variables in which the quantum of action was divisible could never be revealed in any experimental phenomena. This also means that there are no valid arguments justifying the conclusion of Bohr that the concept of the detailed behaviour of matter as a unique and self-determining process must be restricted to the classical level only (where one can observe fairly directly the behaviour of the large-scale phenomena). Indeed we are also able to apply such notions in a sub-quantum level, whose relations with the classical level are relatively indirect, and yet capable, in principle, of revealing the existence and the properties of the lower level through its effects on the classical level.

Finally, we consider the paradox of Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky. As we saw in section 4, we can easily explain the peculiar quantum-mechanical correlations of distant systems by supposing hidden interactions between such systems, carried in the sub-quantum level. With an infinity of fluctuating field variables in this lower level, there are ample motions going on that might explain such a correlation. The only real difficulty is to explain how the correlations are maintained if, while the two systems are still flying apart, we suddenly change the variable that is going to be measured by changing the measuring apparatus for one of the systems. How, then, does the far-away system receive instantaneously a ‘signal’ showing that a new variable is going to be measured, so that it will respond accordingly?

To answer this question, we first note that the characteristic quantum-mechanical correlations have been observed experimentally with distant systems only when the various pieces of observing apparatus have been standing around so long that there has been plenty of opportunity for them to come to equilibrium with the original system through sub-quantummechanical interactions.31 For example, in the case of the molecule described in section 4, there would be time for many impulses to travel back and forth between the molecule and the spin-measuring devices, even before the molecule disintegrated. Thus, the actions of the molecule could be ‘triggered’ by signals from the apparatus, so that it would emit atoms with spins already properly lined up for the apparatus that was going to measure them.

In order to test the essential point here, one would have to use measuring systems that were changed rapidly compared with the time needed for a signal to go from the apparatus to the observed system and vice versa.

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