Volume 9, Issue 4, pages 187-210
What is it that ‘waves’ in wave mechanics? It is thought that the waves represented by the wave function are not waves of anything. But this sits uneasily with the seeming physical significance of the phase relations between the linearly superposed elements of the wave function. For example, motion in quantum mechanics is described by the interference of superposed wave functions belonging to different energies, controlled by the phase relations between them. Quantum field theory, too, remains rooted in the ‘harmonic paradigm’ of waves and wave packets. So some think there is more to be said. The present article seeks to contribute to the ongoing debate about the ontology and meaning of the wave function by offering a new perspective on what it is that ‘waves’ in quantum mechanics. It postulates an underlying periodic physical process that all spin-half particles are taken to undergo in the ‘shadow’ of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. It shows how the underlying process can account for the waves and wave packets of the quantum-mechanical formalism (including in the spin-one case)—the mathematical formalism ‘modelling’ the underlying actual physical process. The new perspective seems to provide insight into other aspects of quantum mechanics as well, including its linear superposition principle, the Schrödinger Zitterbewegung—and, rather unexpectedly, into the quantum field-theoretical problem of why a finite particle mass and charge is always observed despite the potentially infinite field energy surrounding a particle.
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