Rejection of the Light Quantum: The Dark Side of Niels Bohr

Evidence is recalled of the strong opposition of Niels Bohr, at the time of the Old Quantum Theory 1.913-25, to the Lichtquanten hypothesis of Einstein. Some episodes with H.A. Kramers, J.C. Slater and W. Heisenberg are recollected; Bohr's changing point of view is traced back to some philosophical antecedents and to his endeavour to deduce quantum results from the Correspondence Principle. Some consequences for the future interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, specially to the Complementarity Principle, are considered.Comment: 15 page

Person to Person in Hong Kong

While still in the midst of their study abroad experiences, students at Linfield College write reflective essays. Their essays address issues of cultural similarity and difference, compare lifestyles, mores, norms, and habits between their host countries and home, and examine changes in perceptions about their host countries and the United States. In this essay, Derek Cash describes his observations during his study abroad program at Hong Kong Baptist University in Hong Kong, China

Hall Normalization Constants for the Bures Volumes of the n-State Quantum Systems

We report the results of certain integrations of quantum-theoretic interest, relying, in this regard, upon recently developed parameterizations of Boya et al of the n x n density matrices, in terms of squared components of the unit (n-1)-sphere and the n x n unitary matrices. Firstly, we express the normalized volume elements of the Bures (minimal monotone) metric for n = 2 and 3, obtaining thereby "Bures prior probability distributions" over the two- and three-state systems. Then, as an essential first step in extending these results to n > 3, we determine that the "Hall normalization constant" (C_{n}) for the marginal Bures prior probability distribution over the (n-1)-dimensional simplex of the n eigenvalues of the n x n density matrices is, for n = 4, equal to 71680/pi^2. Since we also find that C_{3} = 35/pi, it follows that C_{4} is simply equal to 2^{11} C_{3}/pi. (C_{2} itself is known to equal 2/pi.) The constant C_{5} is also found. It too is associated with a remarkably simple decompositon, involving the product of the eight consecutive prime numbers from 2 to 23. We also preliminarily investigate several cases, n > 5, with the use of quasi-Monte Carlo integration. We hope that the various analyses reported will prove useful in deriving a general formula (which evidence suggests will involve the Bernoulli numbers) for the Hall normalization constant for arbitrary n. This would have diverse applications, including quantum inference and universal quantum coding.Comment: 14 pages, LaTeX, 6 postscript figures. Revised version to appear in J. Phys. A. We make a few slight changes from the previous version, but also add a subsection (III G) in which several variations of the basic problem are newly studied. Rather strong evidence is adduced that the Hall constants are related to partial sums of denominators of the even-indexed Bernoulli numbers, although a general formula is still lackin

Relation of the cyclotomic equation with the harmonic and derived series

We associate some (old) convergent series related to definite integrals with the cyclotomic equation $x^m-1= 0$, for several natural numbers $m$; for example, for $m = 3$, $x^3-1 = (x-1)(1+x+x^2)$, leads to $\int_0^1dx\frac{1}{(1+x+x^2)} = \frac{\pi}{(3\sqrt{3})} = (1-\frac{1}{2}) + (\frac{1}{4}-\frac{1}{5}) + (\frac{1}{7}-\frac{1}{8}) + \ldots$ . In some cases, we express the results in terms of the Dirichlet characters. Generalizations for arbitrary $m$ are well defined, but do imply integrals and/or series summations rather involved.Comment: This paper has been accepted in The Scientific World Journal, and will appear in brie

Supersymmetry and Polytopes

We make an imaginative comparison between the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model and the 24-cell polytope in four dimensions, the Octacube.Comment: Presented to the Workshop on Geometry and Physics: Supersymmetry. Bilbao, Spain. May 200