Along the development of Quantum Mechanics in the 20th Century, there was a dispute Schrödinger versus Heisenberg, because the first one did not accept the interpretation that Bohr and Heisenberg proposed for the theory.
According to Heisenberg, a theory had to be developed free of metaphysical concepts. When Schrödinger discovered the zitterbewegung in the Dirac's equation of the electron, he interpreted it as a physical phenomenon, according to which the electron would be moving with helical trajectory.
But a helical trajectory is a metaphysical concept, and from
Heisenberg's philosophical viewpoint it could not be accepted by the
scientific criterion.
So, while Schrödinger believed that Physics
must be developed by keeping some fundamental physical concepts
underlying the phenomena, unlike Heisenberg considered it disagree to
the scientific criterion, from which any metaphysical concept would have
to be eliminated in the development of a theory, in order that
Theoretical Physics would have to be developed from mathematical
concepts only.
The most physicists followed Heisenberg's
criterion. and so the scientific community has considered the
zitterbewegung as an abstract mathematical concept, with no physical
meaning:
"A reformulation of the Dirac theory shows that
zitterbewegung need not be attributed to the interference between
positive and negative energy states as originally proposed by
Schrödinger. Rather, it provides a physical interpretation for the
complex phase factor in the Dirac wave function generally" (see also Zitterbewegung by Quantum Field Theory Considerations - Zhi-Yong Wang, Cai-Dong Xiong )
Such
interpretation of zitterbewegung, according to the Heisenberg's
scientific criterion, is today incorporated to Quantum Field Theory, the
successor of Quantum Mechanics.
The duel Schrödinger versus
Heisenberg is not taught in the universities, because the professors try
to hide from the students that Schrödinger disagreed with the
philosophy of Quantum Mechanics.
The dispute between the two geniuses is described in the book THE MISSED U-TURN, the duel Schrödinger vs Heisenberg
, by W. Guglinski. The Telesio Galilei Academy of Sciences decided to
publish the book in 2009, in a partnership with a publishing house of
London. But due to financial crisis of that year, the publishing house
had troubles, and the publication was canceled.
The book THE
MISSED U-TURN was published in Brazil in October-2008 by the Editora
Bodigaya, but the editor decided to change its title, and so he
published it with the title A EVOLUÇÃO DA M ECÂNICA QUÂNTICA- o duelo Schrödinger vs Heisenberg (see it the link of Bodigaya).
Now a new experiment shows that Schrödinger wins the
duel: the experiment shows that photons have helical trajectory.
This new experiment was published in Phys. Rev. Letters in
July 2010, under the title “Unveiling a
Truncated Optical Lattice Associated with a Triangular Aperture Using Light's
Orbital Angular Momentum”
So, this new experiment with the light shows that,
concerning the zitterbewegung concept, Quantum Field Theory is wrong. The successor of Quantum Mechanics is not
correct, since QFT does not consider the zitterbewegung as a physical helical
trajectory of elementary particles.
Along the upcoming years, new experiments will show
that electrons have helical trajectory too, in the physical sense as proposed
by Schrödinger. He is the winner of the
duel.
