The Vacuum-Phonon (Sonon) Reinterpretation of QED

Abstract

This paper provides a reference copy of one particular and highly informal comment in a multiweek Academia.edu discussion of the paper Randomness in Relational Quantum Mechanics by Gary Gordon. The other main participants in this particular thread of the discussion were Doug Marman, Conrad Dale Johnson, Ruth Kastner, and the author. In this comment, the author argues that the only self-consistent approach to reconciling Feynman path integrals with Maxwell’s experimentally well-proven theory of electromagnetic wave pressure is introducing a new spin-0 particle, the vacuum or space phonon (sonon), that conveys linear momentum. The path histories of QED become the always-expanding structure of the sonon field, which, like a bubble, becomes increasingly unstable as it expands. The collection of all sonon fields around well-defined bundles of conserved quantum properties creates xyz space by defining the complete set of relational information for those entities. Spacetime in the sonon model is granular, multi-scale, and entirely mass-energy dependent. Implications of the sonon model are discussed, including the need for a drastic update to general relativity to take the multi-scale granularity of spacetime directly into account, rather than explaining it obliquely via models such as dark matter, dark energy, or MOND.