Abstract
Classical quantum mechanics is a hybrid of classical concepts (space, time) and quantum concepts (states, tests). A more consistently quantum dynamics is proposed, with space, time and matter replaced by one primitive concept of process. Examples are given of relativistic propagators, mass spectrum and scattering amplitudes computed in such a quantum dynamics. Mass spectra exhibit Brillouin-like zones, as of propagation in the crystal of time. In particular, the electromagnetic and weak interactions may be mediated by the zeroth and first zone of one four-spinor process. Then the range of the weak interaction approximates the fundamental time.
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Footnotes
Process quantum theory was also formulated by R. Giles, J.Math.Phys. 11, 2139 (1970); process thermodynamics, by R. Giles, Mathematical Foundations of Thermodynamics, Oxford, 1964. In a process quantum mechanics the Dirac ket vector represents a preparation process, a dual bra covector repre-sents a detection process, and as A.Peres, Am.J.Phys. (1974, to be published), also puts it, the individual quantum system has no state.
But for pressing reasons Leibniz makes his monad a duration process, explicitly not a creation or destruction process, one of several concessions to Aristotle that spoil the picture. On grounds of locality, light emission-absorption, etc., others such as Dignaga, to name the most accessible of a school un-known to Leibniz I assume, factored the least duration process into elementary initial and final processes of creation and destruction, like the Dirac square root of space-time; and since duration is described by a space-time vector, it is na-tural to describe-the elementary processes of creation and destruction by spinors. I use monad for these more elementary processes. See F.E. Manuel, Portrait of Sir Isaac Newton, Harvard, 1968 about the Newton-Leibniz controversy; T.Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic I, II, Dover, New York, 1930 (repr.1962) on early process philosophy; and D.Browning (ed.),Philosophers of Process, Random, New York, 1965, on modern process philosophy. I thank C.F.von Weizsäcker for discussions of these matters.
For further details see D. Finkelstein, G. Frye and L. Susskind, Space-time Code. V, Phys.Rev. 1974 (to be published), refe-rences there, and a paper in preparation.
This is possible for the Dirac equation too using c particles which not only spin but roll, 5-dimensional balls on a 4-di-mensional space-time table. See A.M. Sutton, Phys.Rev. 160, 1055 (1967).
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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Finkelstein, D. (1974). Quantum Physics and Process Metaphysics. In: Enz, C.P., Mehra, J. (eds) Physical Reality and Mathematical Description. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2274-3_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2274-3_5
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