Books, Papers and Contributions
to Conference Proceedings on Physics by C.W. Rietdijk, D.Sci.
With an outline of
Rietdijk's realistically four-dimensional theory on physics
Books
On Waves, Particles and
Hidden Variables - A new approach, Assen (Van Gorcum & Comp.) 1971.
ISBN 90 232 0562 6
On the Explanation of Matter Wave Interference - Towards the end of
indeterministic physics,
Assen (Van Gorcum & Comp.) 1973.
ISBN 90 232 1056 5
Papers and
Contributions to Conference Proceedings
On Determinism:
1. 'A rigorous proof of
determinism derived from the special theory of relativity', Philosophy of
Science, Vol. 33, No. 4,
Dec. 1966, pp. 341-344.
2. 'Special relativity
and determinism', Philosophy of Science, Vol. 43, No. 4, Dec. 1976, pp. 598-609.
3. 'On the reality of
"now" at a distance; answer to abbé Lucien', Annales de la
Fondation Louis de Broglie,
Vol. 15, No. 2, 1990, pp. 233-236.
Remark: for
proofs of determinism other than the one discussed in 1. and 2., see 14.,
section 2, 16., section 2, 20., section 1, and 25. Also see the second book
mentioned above (On the Explanation...), Chapter 1.
On Retroactivity
- influences acting backwards in time:
4. 'Proof of a retroactive
influence', Foundations of Physics, Vol. 8, Nos. 7/8, Aug. 1978, pp. 615-628.
5. 'Another proof that
the future can influence the present', Foundations of Physics, Vol. 11, Nos. 9/10, Oct. 1981, pp.
783-790.
6. 'Bell's Theorem and
retroactivity; on an objection by Sutherland', Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 97 B, No. 1, 1987, pp. 111-117.
7. 'Retroactive effects
from measurements', Foundations of Physics, Vol. 17, No. 3, 1987, pp. 297-311.
8. 'A possible
experimental verification of retroactivity', Physica, B 151, 1988, pp. 358-361.
9. 'A largely classical
experiment demonstrating retroaction', Annales de la Fondation Louis de
Broglie, Vol. 16, No. 1,
1991, pp. 91-96.
On Action at a distance - Coulomb interaction etc.:
10. 'How do
"virtual" photons and mesons transmit forces between charged
particles and nucleons?', Foundations of Physics, Vol. 7, Nos. 5/6, June 1977, pp. 351-374.
On Nonlocal influences - The paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen and Bell's Theorem:
11. 'Proof of a
quantum-mechanical nonlocal influence' [co-author: F. Selleri], Foundations
of Physics, Vol. 15, No.
3, March 1985, pp. 303-317.
12. 'On nonlocal
influences', in: G. Tarozzi and A. van der Merwe [eds.], Open Questions in
Quantum Physics,
Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster (D. Reidel Publishing Company) 1985, pp. 129-151.
On a Four-Dimensional Theory of Microphysics - coherent laws defining the world as a
definite four-dimensional whole:
13. 'A microrealistic
explanation of fundamental quantum phenomena', Foundations of Physics, Vol. 10, Nos. 5/6, June 1980, pp.
403-457.
14. 'On the
four-dimensional character of micro-physical phenomena', in: S. Diner et al. [eds.], The Wave-Particle Dualism - A tribute to
Louis de Broglie on his 90th birthday, Dordrecht-Boston-Lancaster (D. Reidel Publishing
Company) 1984, pp. 433-456.
15. 'Four-dimensional
realism and waves carrying physical data codedly as keys to understandable
models', in: A. van der Merwe et al. [eds.], Microphysical Reality and Quantum Formalism, Dordrecht-Boston-London (Kluwer Academic
Publishers) 1988, pp. 245-266.
16. 'The world is
realistically four-dimensional, waves contain information embodied by particles
codedly, and microphysics allows understandable models, Part I', Annales de
la Fondation Louis de Broglie,
Vol. 13, No. 2, 1988, pp.141-182.
17. Ibid., Part II, Vol. 13, No. 3, 1988, pp.
299-336.
18. 'Realistic models
of action quanta, the four-dimensional building blocks of the universe, and of
compound particles such as atoms as lattices thereof, Part I', Annales de la
Fondation Louis de Broglie,
Vol. 16, No. 2, 1991, pp. 177-203.
19. Ibid., Part II, Vol. 16, No. 3, 1991, pp.
287-319.
20. 'Towards a
consistent four-dimensional action physics', in: C. Cormier-Delanoue et al. [eds.], Courants, Amers, Écueils en Microphysique
- Directions in microphysics,
Paris (Fondation Louis de Broglie) 1993, pp. 361-378.
21. 'The Zitterbewegung
embodies understandable models of the action quantum and retroactive
influencing', in: L. Kostro et al. [eds.], Problems
in Quantum Physics; Gdansk '87, Singapore (World Scientific) 1988, pp. 713-737.
Miscellaneous subjects, especially as regards Understandable Models in
Microphysics:
22. 'Suggestions for
experiments on action quanta', Il Nuovo Cimento, Vol. 63 B, No. 2, 1981, pp. 541-564.
23. 'A micro-realistic
explanation of the [psi]² probability rule', Annales de la Fondation Louis
de Broglie, Vol. 20, No.
2, 1995, pp. 187-205.
24. 'Thought
experiments relevant to special and general relativity - and some theses', in:
M.C. Duffy et al. [eds.], Physical Interpretations of
Relativity Theory, London
1990 (sponsored by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science), pp. 246-255 [also on the Mach principle
and the Principle of equivalence].
25. 'Addition to
"Thought experiments relevant to special and general relativity - and some
theses"' [mainly on a new proof of determinism from relativity theory],
in: M.C. Duffy et al. [eds.], Physical Interpretations of
Relativity Theory, London
1990, Supplement, pp. 489-490.
26. 'Feynman's beauty
and simplicity: suggesting solutions by abandoning assumptions', in: M.C. Duffy
et al. [eds.], Physical Interpretations of
Relativity Theory, London
1996 (sponsored by the British Society for the Philosophy of Science), pp. 366-380.
27. 'On the velocity of
light in opposite directions, and on the structure of spacetime', in: M.C.
Duffy et al. [eds.], Physical Interpretations of
Relativity Theory, London
1996, Supplement, pp. 243-246 [we discuss experimental verification of the thesis
that the velocity of light is the same in opposite directions].
28. 'Philosophy of
science in general and of quantum mechanics in particular', in: Autour de
Frans - Nine papers dedicated to prof. dr. Frans Loonstra on the occasion of
his seventieth birthday,
Amsterdam (The Mathematical Centre) 1981, pp. 49-68.
29. 'Answer to
professor Mückenheim' [on relativistic length contraction], Annales de la
Fondation Louis de Broglie,
Vol. 17, No. 3, 1992, pp. 357-359.
30. 'A rough derivation
of mp/me by abandoning an assumption about space and
time', Physics Essays,
Vol. 11, No. 2, 1998, pp. 222-234.
31. `Toward
Understandable Models in Microphysics`, Physics Essays, Vol. 15, No. 3,
2002, pp. 264-289.
32. `How do Hidden Variables Fit in Natural Law?’, Physics Essays, Vol. 16, No. 1,
2003, pp. 43- 62.
33. `Four-Dimensional Physics, Nonlocal Coherence, and Paranormal
Phenomena’, to be published in Physics Essays, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2005.
34. `Four-Dimensional Reality and Determinism; an Answer to Stein’, to be
published in the book Relativity and the Dimensionality of the World (Ed. V. Petkov) in
the Springer series Fundamental Theories of Physics (Ed. A. v.d. Merwe).
35. `Consciousness and the Coherence of Natural Law’, to be published by
Hadronic Press in a book edited by M.C. Duffy.
36. `Four-Dimensional Reality and its Coherence’, to be published by
Hadronic Press in a book edited by M.C. Duffy; it is an adjusted version of the
page on this site with the same title.
Outline of
Rietdijk's realistically four-dimensional theory on physics
1. Four proofs of determinism (that have never
been refuted) even imply the universe to be four-dimensional in a realistic
sense: past and future indeed exist in a definite way. (See above under Determinism).
2. They do not merely "passively"
exist, but - within the Heisenberg margins of "uncertainty" - the
future can even influence the present. This implies natural law to be
realistically four-dimensional too, e.g., Least action not merely being an expedient mathematical
device for deriving the equations of motion, but a realistically
four-dimensional law of nature.
Also note that, in turn, our proofs of the
existence of retroactivity given in 4., 5., and 9. above imply determinism
too: if the future can
influence the present to some degree, it has to exist and be definite.
By the way, the above implies that the
orthodox quantummechanical idea that microphyical phenomena - and, therefore,
the world - are ultimately "uncertain", has to be abandoned. That is,
Einstein was right in rejecting it intuitively.
3. One of the revolutionary conseqences of the
above is Planck's quantum of action to be a realistic entity, viz. a
four-dimensional "atom", not of three-dimensional objects, but of all
(four-dimensional!) processes: it is the indivisible element of "occurring"; that is, the
most elementary process. This fits within the general model of a
four-dimensional universe in which events, or processes, rather then objects
and fields, are the ultimate constituents or elements.
Action is the entity or stuff processes, or
"occurring", consist of, this also precisely explaining now why
action and its quanta are primary in physics at all, and especially in the
quantizations of all physical observables.
We even go as far as abandoning as a
redundant hypothesis the idea that anything more exists in the
four-dimensional physical universe than action quanta and their structures (or
"lattices"),
which constitute processes in time, such as the existence in time of a particle
or field. It appears to be possible to derive "conventional" metric,
energy, matter etcetera from action and the structures ("processes",
four-dimensional existence) formed by its quanta (see especially 13.).
4. One more radical consequence is that - as
demonstrated in 13. and 14. above - a new metric becomes relevant in
microphysics. Such action metric is in a position to explain the nonlocal phenomena - in space and time - appearing
in quantum mechanics, such as the Paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, the
"instantaneous" collapse of wave packets, and an electron
"passing through two slits at a time" in a Young double-slit
interference experiment. More generally, it radically contributes to producing an
understandable model of the intriguing "wave-particle duality"
appearing in microphysics.
Inter alia, it provides
an understandable model of retroactivity (see 13.).
This for the first time explains Bohr's
conjecture that "a microprocess constitutes a whole",
"explaining" being meant here as really implying our getting an Aha-Erlebnis.
Actually, the concept of action distance
(and, hence, action metric) is simple and goes with our four-dimensional model
of the world: it is the distance between events (rather than objects), measured in "an amount of
occurring", that is, of action. Generally, we abandon as a superfluous assumption
the idea that metric independently exists as a "pre-existing scheme".
Quite the contrary, it is derived from four-dimensional processes, that is, action, just as everything else in physics.
Within this scope, the vacuum is a mere "derived, theoretical
construct", not existing independently of events and action. As
independent entities - as "amounts of vacuum" - metrical distances do
no more exist than the aether.
5. The action metric, in a way, is in the
produced part of Special relativity. Viz. the latter integrated space and time
into spacetime in such way that both space and time lost their absolute
character on account of their being derived from spacetime. This, inter alia, solved the paradox of the constancy of
the velocity of light.
Now we go a step further by in turn integrating
both spacetime and energy-momentum into action. By our doing so, even spacetime
and its metric become less absolute, just as formerly Euclidean metric became less
absolute because of its integration into spacetime. For, spacetime and
concomitant relativistic metric are now relativized by their integration into
more absolute action,
the primary "stuff" of four-dimensional processes and the
four-dimensional world. Within this scope, action metric as indicated above is
also more fundamental than the relativistic one derived from it.
We can also say: Precisely as Euclidean
metric implies a distortion of more fundamental relativistic metric, small
distances in the latter sometimes becoming "stretched" in Euclidean
space, relativistic distances appear now as sometimes distorted
("stretched") manifestations of action metric, in which difference in
action is essential.
6. Our main program is now explaining atoms,
protons and other microparticles - or rather: their four-dimensional existence
in time -, as well as micro-interactions, via understandable deterministic
models, using action
metric, realistic action quanta and another new concept: the coded-information
theory.
Such models boil down to the conception
that "quantization" (just as everything else in microphysics) is a
very realistic four-dimensional phenomenon too, i.e. the one that all micro-processes - including
micro-objects existing in time - are constituted by structures or lattices of
action quanta, these structures being just as realistic and unequivocally
definite as is always required with understandable models. Still, they fundamentally differ from classical models by (a) realistic
four-dimensionality, (b) the (corresponding) action metric and (c) waves
carrying physical information in coded ways, which wrongly used to suggest
to us that realistic models of the relevant processes are impossible. (Our ignorance of action metric - the
latter "distorting" otherwise possible imaginable models of objects
and processes - added to such idea.)
In constructing four-dimensional
action-quantal models of compound particles such as atoms and molecules in 19.,
we discuss how sub-processes such as electronic rotations, and vibrations and
rotations in molecules, fit in such models. Nature appears to encode optimally
simply ("economically") the physical data at stake. Our models
explain why the "quantal clocks", and the de Broglie wave lengths
going with complicated compounds such as atoms, correspond to the appearance of
"whole-atom quanta".
In our understandable model of the proton
in 20. it is seen how it can zitter as a point particle in the Dirac way and be an extended compound consisting of
quarks at the same time. An imaginable relation between strong and Coulomb
forces is discussed too, and derived from a model of action quanta.
7. The point under (c) of (6) is discussed in
15., 16. and 17. An essence of it is that the wave and the corpuscular
manifestation states of a particle carry the integrated data - the information
- defining such particle in two, mutually isomorphically organized, "economical" information codes,
respectively. Besides the appearance of action metric this causes particles to
be in a position of manifesting themselves one time as corpuscules, and another
time as waves. Hence there is no corpuscule somewhere hidden in the waves.
As already indicated above, it is
particularly points (a), (b) and (c) of (6) that cause actually realistic microphysical processes to be observed by
us as highly formalistic, probabilistic, and often incoherent phenomena,
elusive of understandable models.
8. In 21. and 18. we consider one period of the
Zitterbewegung as the
realistic model of an action quantum going with a massive Dirac particle in the
corpuscular state. For the rest, the wavelike variant of action quanta is
discussed there too, and also in 13., 14. and some of the other papers given
above. The Zitterbewegung
appears to provide a mechanism for retroactivity in the corpuscular state too.
[The one we had in view under (2) and in 13. especially refers to systems in
the wave state.]
Nonlocality in space and time (such as
retroactivity), as indicated above, has two more radical consequences:
(a) It allows a reconciliation of Bohr's position on the "unpredictable
influence" of observational acts with Einstein's conviction that "God
does not play dice"; see especially 18.;
(b) It amounts to a radically simplifying factor in microphysics. For
nonlocality such as implied by action metric removes from nature the
"obligation" of having to store all information needed at some
point-event A - needed in
order to allow natural law to act properly at A - locally at A itself. See 21. and 26.
9. In coherence with determinism and
four-dimensional realistic definiteness, Heisenberg's uncertainty margins and the associated "measurement
disturbance" appear to be explainable quantitatively by the quantal-lattice
model of microprocesses (see 20. above, section 8). They appear to be directly
related to the "constraint" that action quanta cannot but link up
with each other at their "starting" or "end" points - on
account of their indivisibility - and do not imply nature to be truly
uncertain. Within this scope, Einstein's "hidden variable" appears as
the (nonlocal) influence of a process as a whole on some particular local measurement-event.
We put as a hypothesis that the relevant
deterministic definition of a four-dimensional process as a whole comes
about via an - "extended" - Least action principle - now referring to
such whole process -, similarly to how the simpler paths covered by objects in
space-time are defined by "classical" Least action (see also 26.). This hypothesis may
contribute to the explanation of the origin and construction of compound
microparticles and microprocesses in general.
10. Generally, there is every appearance that
most physicists too easily acquiesced in the idea that understandable models
and the Aha-Erlebnis in
microphysics are beyond human reach, or even fundamentally impossible. On the
other hand, we are convinced that the "paradoxes" appearing if we try
to construct such models are mere implications of our erroneously not
abandoning some preconceptions about how nature works. Compare how in the past the
"paradox" of the non-dependence of the velocity of light on the
velocity of the observer was simply a consequence of our having prejudices
about the relation of space and time, which were corrected by Einstein.
In current thinking about nature,
prejudices still may even be more radical than those refuted by Einstein.
Primarily, they refer to determinism and realistic four-dimensionality as well
as concomitant new (action) metric, retroactivity and nonlocal influences in
general, which are connected with man's view on life at all. As is clear from
the foregoing, various papers listed above show such prejudices to violate
experiment in coherence with rational argument.
Finally, we draw attention to some papers
that are indirectly related to our main thinking - aimed at understandable
models - as summarized above:
(a) A theory on Coulomb interaction in which the idea of nature 's
"borrowing energy from God" is superfluous: the virtual photons
transmitting the force quantitatively precisely embody both such force and
its potential energy, viz.
by their momentum and energy, respectively. This produces an imaginable model
that is also relevant to some other interactions (see 10.);
(b) In 12. we give a simpler proof of Bell's theorem; also, we discuss a varied
EPR thought experiment demonstrating, inter alia, that retroactivity only appears within the
"traditional" margins of uncertainty "left free" by quantum
mechanics. It is one among - indeed nonlocal - hidden variables. Also, 12. contributes to translating
quantum formalism into understandable models using - imaginable - nonlocality
and action quantities and concepts.
See also: Books and Papers
on Socio-Cultural Subjects by C.W. Rietdijk, D.Sci. [most titles are in
Dutch]