Missing Matter

Well I would be motivated to brush up on this long forgotten knowledge in order to take part in the Cavediver/Son Goku EvC String theory "correspondence" course.

Well Cavediver seems unconvinced but in the absence of knowing where it is we are trying to end up and thus no idea of the best way to get there, your description so far seemed perfectly clear to me.I don't know how you typed the symbols you did but my understanding is that the quantum field equation (of your last paragraph) tells us the probability of the field being in any particular state at time t in the same way that the normal Schrod equation tells us the probability of a particles position at a time t. Where the state of the field is itself a description of it's strength at any position x.I realise that my descriptions probably add little but they are my way of checking that I have understood and allow for my interpretation to be corrected if obviously wrong.Feel free to do so.

So a Hilbert space is a space of points where each point is a probability amplitude of all the possible field configurations.Each probability amplitude is itself infinite because the number of possible field configurations is, in practise, infinite.So what decides how many points there are in a particular Hilbert space? Is the number of points also infinite in practise? Or not? How many would there be to represent your 4 possible field states?How many dimensions does a given Hilbert space have, what decides this, what do these dimensions physically reperesent?Apologies if the questions are dum but if they are I doubt I am alone in my lack of comprehension............

QM is often cited as being non-causal in the sense that, for example, we cannot predict which atoms will decay we can only say how many atoms will decay. In this sense QM is considered to be inherently probabalistic and "non-causal".Does QFT give rise to causality in this sense or am I getting my "causalities" mixed up? What exactly did you mean by causality in this context?

If we considered a simple example such as a single electron and the corresponding electric field how would we go about constructing our probability amplitudes and constructing our Hilbert space?Or is this where things get impossible without the required maths?Even if the process of constructing the Hilbert space for such an example is beyond this discussion could you describe what the Hilbert space for a such an example would look like?

Yes it does make sense and don't for one minute think that my lack of response equals a lack of interest!!!I will no doubt be back soon with my conceptual 'recap' and more questions but in the meantime please note that a lack of response does not equal a lack of interest.It is just harder to engage and less obvious to pursue than the more accessible "creationist are wrong" debates.Long may the SG masterclass continue.

Hello. Yes I am still reading and yes I think I am still following. Here you are referring to exactly the sort of "spooky action at a distance" type misconception mentioned in Message 80 right? The difference between correlation and causation as per: In other words there is no faster than light communication of any sort occurring between entangled particles. Exactly as per Bell's theorem. Right?So can we totally discount the possibility of a "real, honest and old fashioned" theory underlying QM on this basis? Or is this still considered a meaningful possibility? Is anyone working on such a thing?Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

Just to let you know that I (and no doubt others) are still following this!!I hope to read your post properly soon and ask questions at some point after. Hopefully in less than 9 months time......And to those unfamiliar with this on-off long running thread - It is a masterclass in advanced physics for simpletons that anyone interested in such things should take note of.