Contradictions of the standard model of physics

As every comparison fails at some point, all models have a limited validity. Somewhere, they give results conflicting with reality. 

It is also what we get with the standard model of quantum physics. With it, the flaws appear with the concept of spin and with the dual corpuscular and wave-like nature of fundamental particles. But these weaknesses are usually concealed behind a juggling of mathematical equations and are definitively put aside with the resorting to pragmatic considerations.

1- The enigmatic quantum spin

Physics manuals tell us that the electron spin is a notion related to angular momentum. It is as if the electron was rotating on itself but that it is not really the case. If it was so, it would rotate on itself faster than the speed of light given the point-like dimensions of the electron. 

We are then told that the notion of quantum spin doesn't have any equivalent at our human scale. That the quantum world is a strange world that we must take as is presented without asking any further questions. That these questions are useless, that they are philosophical questions not of direct concern to science, etc., etc. 

How should we take these philosophical assertions putting down conceptual questionning in science? They are simply unwarranted and authoritarian assertions coming from a pragmatic philosophical stance. For such a stance, only results count. As if curiosity, questionning and the desire to explain phenomena in terms of coherent concepts and of material interactions was not at the core of the scientific development! As if all questionnings were merely useless speculations and science was only about experimental results. 

So much powerlessness and resignation are concealed under the pragmatic assertions of some manuals of physics! The powerlessness to unmask the quantum ghosts and the resignation to use some illogical concepts. 

The quantum spin of the electron is a measure and a concept that doesn't fit with its presumed corpuscular dimensions. Refering only to a measure without trying to precisely define the material context of what is measured doesn't resolve the problem. It merely puts it aside. 

If we want to use simultaneously coherent concepts of spin and of angular momentum, electrons must have an extended spatial structure, not a pointlike one as assumed by the standard model. Assuming such an extended structure gives rise to other questionings related to some experimental settings where it seems electrons behave like pointlike particles. But that doesn’t do away with the need to consider electrons as spatially extended particles or waves to get the measured angular momentum.

2- The wave-particle duality

The wave-particle duality expresses another contradiction between quantum theory and experimental results. We are told that electrons can be considered both as very localised pointlike particles and as spatially extended waves (probability waves, the quantum ghost distributions). According to this way of thinking,  the wave nature and the particle nature of electrons are two complementary sides, two fundamentally contradictory and irreducible sides that reveal themselves depending on the measuring context. 

Here the key word causing probem is irreducible. This is a type of contradiction that science has always tried to resolve and explain, not to put forward as its final say. To be happy with two irreducible sides leads to the refutation of one side with every experiment. It is not a very good situation for an experimental science! The way basic academic manuals of physics juggle and deal with the question, we can see how uneasy some authors feel about it. 

I think we could go beyond the contradiction and solve it. For example, as a first step, we could see how a spatially extended wave can manifest itself as a pointlike particle is some experiments. 

To get this result, let’s take the intersection of two sperical waves coming from two coupled sources. Coupled means that the emissions and the motions of the sources are connected so as to produce a coherent interference of their waves. These two waves intefere between themselves and we get a new extended wave with its center between the two original ones. It is as though this center produces waves going in all directions. For all practical purposes, we could consider that it is a pointlike particle that emits waves. This is a very simple and natural way to logically connect particles and waves.

As a general method, I suggest that the detection of an electron at a particular point is related to the interference pattern of many waves, including the ones emitted by the atoms of the measuring apparatus. To be clearer, the proposition should include pictures to better visualize the explanation and experiments to test its merits. My limited intent here is restricted to show that we can think outside of the box, that we can think differently that the usual way of thinking. The idea is to suggest that there exists another general way of exploring and solving an old problem deemed insolvable by some masters like good old Feynman. 

I would like to emphasize that the solution suggested here is very different than the one that we usually find in manuals of physics concerning a purely ondulatory model for electrons. What they consider is a very localized wave packet produced as the result of a superposition of extended waves, a wave packet with a null result except in a very localized region considered to be a particle. Of course, every real wave packet tend to get dispersed, which causes intractable problems to that solution. There is no such problem with the proposition of the detection at one point of an extended wave.

In conclusion

To conclude this section I would like to say that I see no problem with the pragmatic use in physics of concepts and measures whose nature are not well understood. But I have problems with the hiding of logical contradictions and with the discouragement of fundamental questionning like do many basic academic manuals of quantum physics. 

Physics no more explains the phenomena of reality solely in terms of interactions between concrete objects of that reality. It resorts nowadays in a fundamental way to abstract mathematical concepts with some behaving like ghosts in the material world. Not only does it put forward those concepts, it also proudly boasts them. 

But, behind their pragmatic shell, many physicists have deep materialist conceptions that make them feel uneasy with ghosts even if these are learnedly incorporated and mixed in pragmatic recipes. Although any proposed change to the standard model of physics is strongly and immediately opposed on the basis of the precision of its experimental confirmations, the field is still open to a fundamental questionning.