Primary Menu Search
  • Aims & Scope
  • Editorial Board
  • Content
  • Book Reviews
  • Supplement
  • Members
  • Submit
  • Contact IJQF

International Journal of Quantum Foundations

An online forum for exploring the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory and quantum gravity

You are here: Home ∼ Quantum Theory without Planck’s Constant

Quantum Theory without Planck’s Constant

Published by International Journal of Quantum Foundations on June 30, 2020

Volume 6, Issue 3, pages 48-87

John P. Ralston [Show Biography]

John P. Ralston is Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Kansas. He was educated at Harvey Mudd College, the University of Nevada, and the University of Oregon. He held postdoctoral positions at McGill University and Argonne National Laboratory. At various times he worked as a material expediter, warehouseman, union electrician, design engineer, apartment emergency manager, and locksmith. Originally trained as a high energy theorist, Ralston has worked in many areas of physics, including particle astrophysics, cosmic rays, cosmology, nuclear and particle physics, and pharmaceutical chemistry. He has held visiting appointments at Fermilab, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford Linear Accelerator Laboratory, CERN, E’cole Polytechnique, CEA-Saclay, and ICTP. Without planning it, Ralston contributed to intellectual property that actually made money for his university. His invention of mathematical methods to discover vaccines has saved tens of thousand of lives, mostly laboratory mice. He has predicted new phenomena that were actually observed, created new experimental technologies that were actually built, conducted an experiment that actually got a signal, and written a book on quantum mechanics that was actually published. “How to Understand Quantum Mechanics” (IOP and Morgan-Claypool 2018) presents a new logical ordering of topics which are self-explanatory and stand on their own without redundant postulates. If there is a philosophy behind this, it is the philosophy of learning what actually happened in physics history, and generally avoiding it.

Planck’s constant was introduced as a fundamental unit in the early history of quantum mechanics. We find a modern approach where Planck’s constant is absent: it is unobservable except as a constant of human convention. Despite long reference to experiment, review shows that Planck’s constant cannot be obtained from the data of Ryberg, Davisson and Germer, Compton, or that used by Planck himself. In the new approach Planck’s constant is tied to macroscopic conventions of Newtonian origin, which are dispensable. The precision of other fundamental constants is substantially improved by eliminating Planck’s constant. The electron mass is determined about 67 times more precisely, and the unit of electric charge determined 139 times more precisely. Improvement in the experimental value of the fine structure constant allows new types of experiment to be compared towards finding “new physics.” The long-standing goal of eliminating reliance on the artifact known as the International Prototype Kilogram can be accomplished to assist progress in fundamental physics.

Full Text Download (1330k)

Posted in Volume 6, Issue 3, July 2020 Tagged Original Paper

Article written by International Journal of Quantum Foundations

International Journal of Quantum Foundations

← Previous Next →

Latest Issues

  • Volume 8, Issue 1, January 2022
  • Volume 8, Issue 2, April 2022
  • Volume 8, Issue 3, July 2022
  • Volume 8, Issue 4, October 2022
  • Volume 9, Issue 1, January 2023
  • Volume 9, Issue 2, April 2023

IJQF Supplement

  • Volume 4, Issue 1, April 2022
  • Volume 4, Issue 2, July 2022
  • Volume 5, Issue 1, January 2023
  • Volume 5, Issue 2, April 2023

IJQF Members

Newest | Active | Popular
  • Profile picture of editor
    editor
    active 7 hours, 37 minutes ago
  • Profile picture of David Deutsch
    David Deutsch
    active 11 hours, 44 minutes ago
  • Profile picture of Sheldon Goldstein
    Sheldon Goldstein
    active 1 day, 6 hours ago
  • Profile picture of Nathan Argaman
    Nathan Argaman
    active 3 days, 15 hours ago
  • Profile picture of Roger Penrose
    Roger Penrose
    active 5 days, 8 hours ago

IJQF Forums

Newest | Active | Popular | Alphabetical
  • Group logo of 2019 International Workshop: Beyond Bell’s theorem
    2019 International Workshop: Beyond Bell’s theorem
    active 3 months, 3 weeks ago
  • Group logo of 2018 Workshop on Wigner’s Friend
    2018 Workshop on Wigner’s Friend
    active 3 years, 8 months ago
  • Group logo of 2016 International Workshop on Quantum Observers
    2016 International Workshop on Quantum Observers
    active 4 years ago
  • Group logo of 2015 International Workshop on Quantum Foundations
    2015 International Workshop on Quantum Foundations
    active 4 years, 7 months ago
  • Group logo of John Bell Workshop 2014
    John Bell Workshop 2014
    active 5 years, 2 months ago
  • Group logo of 2017 International Workshop: Collapse of the Wave Function
    2017 International Workshop: Collapse of the Wave Function
    active 5 years, 2 months ago

Most Viewed

  • On Testing the Simulation Theory (16,065)
  • 2019 International Workshop: Beyond Bell’s theorem (3,325)
  • Latest Papers on Quantum Foundations (1,970)
  • OBITUARY FOR HEINZ-DIETER ZEH (1932 — 2018) (1,629)
  • Non-Relativistic Limit of the Dirac Equation (1,595)
  • International Journal of Quantum Foundations (1,360)
  • Review of “Foundations of Quantum Mechanics: An Exploration of the Physical Meaning of Quantum Theory” (1,166)
  • Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously (1,065)
  • The Meaning of the Wave Function: In Search of the Ontology of Quantum Mechanics (945)
  • On testing the simulation hypothesis (911)

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Primary Menu

  • Aims & Scope
  • Editorial Board
  • Content
  • Book Reviews
  • Supplement
  • Members
  • Submit
  • Contact IJQF

Copyright © 2023 International Journal of Quantum Foundations.

Powered by WordPress and Path. Back to Top