A rebel physicist has an elegant solution to a quantum mystery

A rebel physicist has an elegant solution to a quantum mystery

Benjamin Skuse

In essence, Dragan had shown that in a world ruled by special relativity, counterintuitive quantum effects don’t have to be accepted as fundamental. In other words, by including the wacky ‘unphysical’ parts of special relativity’s equations, patently random and distinctly quantum-like phenomena emerge naturally.

From this faster-than-light vantage point, you can swap the order of cause and effect. This is a key result because the underlying physics must remain the same regardless of whether you’re watching events unfold above or below the cosmic speed limit. And if this is true, the pair argue that the order of events no longer plays a fundamental role in the theory.

Dragan says all of this means that there are no paradoxes to answer for at all. “If you look at it carefully, you find that the rules of causality are changed. But they are not completely destroyed, they are modified in precisely the way quantum theory tells us.”

Their paper ->


Quantum principle of relativity

A. Dragan & A. Ekert

Abstract

Quantum mechanics is an incredibly successful theory and yet the statistical nature of its predictions is hard to accept and has been the subject of numerous debates. The notion of inherent randomness, something that happens without any cause, goes against our rational understanding of reality. To add to the puzzle, randomness that appears in non-relativistic quantum theory tacitly respects relativity, for example, it makes instantaneous signaling impossible. Here, we argue that this is because the special theory of relativity can itself account for such a random behavior. We show that the full mathematical structure of the Lorentz transformation, the one which includes the superluminal part, implies the emergence of non-deterministic dynamics, together with complex probability amplitudes and multiple trajectories. This indicates that the connections between the two seemingly different theories are deeper and more subtle than previously thought.

See also the ideas of materialist philosopher Thomas Nail who also argues matter moves in ways that are non-random but also non-deterministc.