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Standard quantum mechanics provides a recipe for predicting the outcome of measurements but lacks a description of reality independent of human observation. The stochastic electron theory (SET) describes observer-independent entities and processes, thereby satisfying the principle of realism. The theory is compatible with the intuitive notion that an objective world exists independent of conscious observers, and that the aim of physics is to illuminate that world.
In this approach, the correct probabilistic predictions emerge organically from the Brownian-like fluctuations assumed to be the source of quantum deviations from classical physics. In the Copenhagen interpretation, by contrast, these probabilities are not derived; they are imposed by assigning an imaginary “probability wave” (the Schrödinger wave function) by fiat—a wave that spontaneously collapses in the presence of a conscious observer.
In SET, the Schrödinger wave function, rather than fundamental, serves merely as a computational convenience for solving the coupled equations of motion when transient terms can be ignored. The theory’s objective description and philosophical realism dissolve the measurement conundrums of the Copenhagen interpretation: no superposition of states, no collapse of the wave function, no cat paradox. Most profoundly, the dualism of treating human consciousness as exogenous to the quantum framework vanishes.
The deficiencies of the Copenhagen interpretation have spawned diverse attempts to ground quantum mechanics in physical reality and coherently describe what transpires when we observe nature. However, the major alternatives, rather than deriving quantum mechanics, reverse engineer it. Bohmian mechanics simply reinterprets the Schrödinger wave function, showing that certain terms can be formally interpreted as a classical force field. The many-worlds interpretation purges collapsing wave functions from the standard interpretation, but at the heavy ontological cost of proliferating parallel universes ad infinitum. Objective-collapse theories alter the wave function with specialized terms designed to evade the measurement problem. In making the same empirical predictions as standard quantum mechanics, Bohmian and many-worlds theories are untestable; objective-collapse modifications of the Schrödinger equation are, in principle, amenable to experimental tests.
SET generates the Schrödinger equation with the addition of transient terms. Since its predictions deviate from standard quantum mechanics for short times of order τ (“relaxation time”), the theory is testable, in principle. An experimental test would investigate possible deviations from conventional quantum mechanics as the detector is moved closer to an event, e.g., within a distance of order v*τ, where v is the particle velocity, in the iconic double slit experiment. Since τ is medium dependent, estimating its value requires plausible hypotheses on the source of the nonclassical stochastic motion. A possible candidate is the vacuum fluctuations associated with quantum fields.
The contingencies of history etched the Copenhagen interpretation onto quantum mechanics. Once enshrined, the interpretation has reigned as the standard paradigm for a century, despite its ontological vacuity and epistemological incoherence. This paper demonstrates a fundamentally different theoretical basis for generating the Schrödinger equation that is free of these defects.
What if SET had been available in the 1920s before the Copenhagen consensus quieted debate? As an intuitive alteration of classical mechanics exhibiting the desiderata of philosophical realism and internal consistency missing from the standard interpretation, arguably, it would have attracted attention. In a counterfactual history, SET might have offered a different conceptual foundation and expanded research program for the development of quantum mechanics, including the search for the source of those fluctuations. The challenge and possibility remain.