A Quantum Computer: a reality or a hype?
“The new law, called the National Quantum Initiative Act, allocates up to $1.2 billion in funding to keep American quantum information science competitive on the global scale” (quote from GizModo).
One of the direct goals of this bill is to energize the development of a practical and functioning quantum computer.
The development of a quantum computer has become “an arms race” between all major countries.
Although, some scientists are skeptical about the whole idea (it has been around for more than thirty years with a very little progress), possible outcomes of having a functioning quantum computer may be extremely rewording – scientifically and technologically.
As I see it, the situation is similar to the widely spread excitement after the discovery of the first high temperature superconductors in 1986. Everyone expected an explosion in the applications, including every-day devices. That, however, has not happened. Superconductors functioning at room temperature still don’t exist. Existing high temperature superconductors are highly high maintained ceramic materials which cannot be simply made in a wire, like copper. Even getting funding for a theoretical research in the field has become very difficult because no one believes anymore that it can be “easily” done. But, high temperature superconductors still have found their use, and the research in the field is still alive.
The situation with quantum computers today is similar to the situation with high temperature superconductors thirty years ago, because fairly recently small but functioning quantum computers have been “discovered”, i.e. built.
How to build a quantum computer?
(d) we can predict the evolution of states of this system (that is what Hamiltonian is for).
(e) hopefully, states of this system may be related to some important aspects of our macroscopic life, for example, large numbers.
When a quantum computer is built, we set it to a desired initial state, measure the final state, and use the information about the final state to extract information we need, based on the assumption that the evolution was happening according to our expectation.
The problem, though, is that because quantum systems are very sensitive to noise, experience so-called decoherence, and other factors, some physicists do not believe in the feasibility of an actual practical quantum computer. I am not a physicist (I’m in education), but I am with the sceptics. Even ninety years after the development of the theory of quantum world (quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics, the standard model) physicists still disagree on the foundation of that theory. There are still different interpretations of what quantum mechanics tells us about the world. Building a quantum computer on a shaky theoretical foundation does not seem to me like something probable.
This situation reminds me the current situation in the field of artificial intelligence. Scientists still disagree on what intelligence is, and yet tech entrepreneurs are trying to build its artificial model.
But the main point of this piece has nothing to do with quantum computing.
One of the common examples and a strong motivation for the development of a quantum computer is that it will allow to brake large numbers into its prime multiples, and also searching large databases much faster than a regular computer.
So, why not develop a large database of prime numbers and their products? Instead of actually braking down a large number into its prime multiples, just find that number in a database, and use already know factors? Turns out that database would have been way too large, simply impossible to be created.
The next question is why don’t put some extra funding into the number theory? The Fermat’s Last Theorem has been proved. Maybe with some extra push, someone will finally find a general equation for prime numbers? That could help with decryption problem maybe even faster than development of a quantum computer.
A concept of a school and a movement: as a facility designed and designated specifically to study learning and teaching processes.
According to Niels Borh, in order to be true, a new idea should be crazy enough to stand out among the mainstream views – think big, have a vision, dream on!
The concept described below might seem too “crazy”, but it is based on the scientific and technological realities, as well as on the experience and expertise of the author. The mission of the project is to prove that good schooling (a) is possible, and (b) to generate scientific data badly needed to promote current education research to a state of a true science (please, note, this page represents only one of the versions of such a school).
A regionally- and facet- distributed joint onsite-online-live-streaming collaborative high school is a new kind of school, which is innovative and unique.
The mission of the school is to prepare all its students for a thriving future. The school will be a nucleus of a research faculty. The mission of the facility built around the school is to organize, conduct and analyze results of a longitudinal study of all aspects of learning and teaching processes.
The school is composed of classes (= school units) set in different school districts (eventually in different states: 50 states, two school units in each state, one class for each years of school, 30 students in each class = 12000 students). Classes in the same time zone are run on the same schedule. During each lesson there is one leading teacher who is primary responsible for preparing a curriculum, lessons plans, exercises, assessments and all other relevant teaching materials. Students in all other classes have a live connection and communication with the class of the leading teacher. Each class during each lesson has at least one teacher assistant (two – for a large class). One of the assistants is a “first assistant”, who takes the leading role in the absence of the leading teacher. Each classroom is equipped with the streaming equipment. Each lesson in each class is being streamed live and being recorded for the further analysis and further editing. Technical requirements: live communication between all classes must be fluent and flawless and provide for students and teachers the means for immediate interaction and a sense of being immersed in the mutual process of discovery. Legal requirement: every student, parent, teacher, staff member is required to sign a release form to concur that he or she allows the release of video and audio materials which include his or her.
For each subject the school has one leading teacher; leading teachers should not work in the same districts.
Each leading teacher is also a leader of a team responsible for preparing a curriculum, lessons plans, exercises, assessments and all other relevant teaching materials. Team members communicate regularly using remote communication technologies.
A team of full-time professionals - including educational psychologists, experts in curricula development, experts in development of assessment tools and analysis of the results of the assessments, experts in team building and knowledge elicitation, managing consultants, legal consultants - works regularly and closely with each team of teachers and teacher assistants, helping with preparing lessons, analyzing lessons and their outcomes, adjusting teaching techniques and approaches. This description might seem like a description of a Teachers– Professionals Partnership (e.g. Professional Development School Partnership). However, every partnership is based on a collaboration of a school educators with educators who work full time at a college, or a university, or a school of education, and only visit a school from time to time. The new type of school described in this proposal will require all professionals work full time at the school, participate in all teaching activities, including teaching students.
The school has a complete staff roster, which includes all staff positions necessary for the everyday functioning of the school. All staff members are essential for the school wellbeing and can participate in team meetings (as long as it does not interfere with the required duties). When a team has to decide on the matter at hands the final decision is made by the leading teacher.
Functioning of the school is directed by the motto: “The school is a community, every member of the community is equally essential, every member of the community helps others with achieving their goals, every member of the community vows do not do any harm neither physical nor psychological to any other member of the community”.
Teaching is based on principles of constructivism, asserting the importance of a zone of proximal development (this statement has to be also seen as a constraint on the selection of the school employees such as teachers and school specialists).
As part of the requirement, all subjects include components helping developing metacognitive abilities and metaskills (including but not limited to an ability to communicate, an ability to cooperate and work as a team member, an ability to self-reflect and to describe internal cognitive processes).
In addition to the standard high school subjects the school requires taking subjects specifically designed for helping developing metacognitive abilities and metaskills (a student theater, a debate course, chess, piano – or equivalent). “A successful person is a harmonic person”.
Students are regularly involved in competitions, Olympiads, games which help developing metacognitive abilities and metaskills.
5. motivate a student to participate in extracurricular activities, including participating in TV episodes.
7. if the results of the assessment allow, guaranty that student’s achievements including learning outcomes will be sufficient to be accepted by a college and to be successful in a college, as long as (a) the student is willing to pursue college education, and (b) the name of the college is on the list provided in an addendum to the contract.
4. motivate a student to participate in extracurricular activities, including participating in TV episodes.
Because a regionally distributed school cannot be formally designed as a public school, the school is a private (non-profit) school. However, by its spirit the school is public (students do not pay a dime). In each district the school participates in the lottery as a regular public school. Students and parents do not pay for education and for any supplementary/complementary school functions.
The school is governed by a principal. The principal conducts and concludes the hiring of all other employees. The principal and an employee sign a contract which defines their mutual rights and responsibilities. The principal is responsible for the number of the employees and their work schedule, the principal defines responsibilities of the employees. The principal makes all financial decisions. The everyday functioning of each school unit is governed by a unit director to whom the principal delegates rights and responsibilities necessary and sufficient to govern the school unit, and described in the contract between the principal and a director.
The principal is selected upon the search conducted by the school board. The school board is composed of representatives from the districts, donors, and exceptional personalities. The rights and responsibilities of the principal and the board members are defined by the bylaw, which is accepted on the first board meeting. The board provides the principal with oversight and advising on his or her everyday functioning and on the general school policies.
The financing is provided by the donors (charities, philanthropists, NSF), but a large part of the budget will be coming from business activates of the facility.
In order to supply an internal income, the school establishes a for-profit company. The school principle is also the director of the company. The company will have two main departments: a broadcasting department and R&D department.
The school is expected to have a stream of a revenue due to (a) business activities of a broadcasting department , and possibly, (b) revenue coming from consulting activities of the professionals, from printed and digital items developed by the professionals as a part of research program (R&D department), and (c) stocks offering for a for-profit company.
The mission of the broadcasting department and its business activities are aimed at promoting the school via a reality-like TV-show. The school has to be designed in such a way that – within limits placed by privacy laws – the whole world could be watching all in school activities 24/7.
There are several streams of revenue.
Subscriptions to the content provided on the school website, subscriptions to live stream from the school, subscriptions to a TV channel designated to run 24/7 live events and reruns of the events happening in the school, like “learning with the stars”, where “stars” (including football players, basketball players, other star personalities) take classes and exams together with students.
A product placement. School furniture, school uniform, students’ breakfasts and lunch, textbooks, worksheets, calculators, hardware (computers and tablets) and software they use, pens, pencils, erasers, etc. - everything is a part of the business practice of the company.
School team members develop their own teaching tools of all kind, from syllabi to textbooks, to TV and online lessons (those tools are better than many on the market). Team meetings are televised. School members give lectures, provide consulting services to schools and districts on better teaching practices, provide reviews on teaching tools which have been selected for approbation.
With the help of R&D department, all inventions done by the school team are to be protected by patents. Every modification leading to improvement of teaching instruments selected for approbation is protected by a patent shared with the original patent holder.
A half a year after the initiation of the first class the school opens doors for interns (expecting a long line of pre-service and in- service teachers to become an intern). The work of the interns is also televised.
In two years after the initiation of the first class, a regionally- and facet- distributed joint onsite-online-live streaming collaborative college starts providing the best in the country teacher preparation courses (school graduates are welcomed to attend this college).
The school is a model of a good schooling; it provides the market with robust and internally consistent teaching tools; school interns and college graduates bring their teaching experience into other schools. Because of the openness of the school via a TV-show all other schools in the country have to compete with the school to prove to parents that they also can do good teaching.
It is expected that within five years the facility becomes financially self-sufficient.
The success of the school is solely based on the team, the members of which are selected by the principal; the vision of the team members must mirror the vision of the principal, who is selected by the board. It is also crucial to have the board members who share the vision described in this concept letter.
About the author: my website provides all information about me, including my experience, the areas of my expertise, my projects. The reader finds that I have been immersing myself in research on how students learn. I have spent significant amount of time unearthing student needs, as well as exploring the changing demands of the world. I have undertaken the rigorous thinking necessary to shape my ideas into the model of the next American high school. I know exactly how to build the new American school, which will be unique in its design, functioning, and financing. The new school will be innovative and engaging, and will prepare all students for a thriving future.
The core of this approach is OPENNESS. I would invite teachers, administrators, philanthropists to support “An Open Classroom” initiative.
I firmly believe that no matter what new technologies will bring to the classrooms, the quality of education has been, is, and always will be defined by how many good highly qualified teachers teach our students.
And one of the strongest motivators for a teacher to grow is to have his or her classroom open for observations to the parents of his or her students, to administrations, to fellow teachers, and basically to anybody who has time and interest to watch their lessons.
That is why I invite everyone who feels the same to support “Open Classroom Initiative”.
All the teachers participating in the project will allow their lessons be captured and posted online. The project will need some hardware, such as web cameras, servers, Wi-Fi routers, DVRs, and also various processing and editing software, Internet and cloud services. The Initiative will be helping teachers to be better prepared for their classes, helping them with purchasing materials for their lessons, with consulting on the best practices they can use to help students learn.
From every participating teacher, it is not just recorded videos of the lessons that will be available for the viewers, but also materials they prepared and used, comments and analysis of what worked and what didn't work, and recommendations on how a teacher could improve his or her teaching practice.
To address privacy concerns a special software will be used which will blur the faces of students and teachers.
The “Open Classroom Initiative” will lead to the development of a library of lessons with the corresponding materials useful for every teacher anywhere around the world.
Teachers from any country can participate in the Initiative and join the open classroom movement.
But the benefits of the Initiative will go beyond just teachers who participate.
Every teacher will be able to compare his or her practice with the practices of fellow teachers teaching the same subjects in the same grade.
The library will become an open source of the invaluable research material for every scientist in the field of education.
Every parent, teacher, principal, or a district administrator can send an invitation to the Initiative, and the Initiative would come to his or her school to find the teachers who would like to join the project.
The Initiative will be posting regular updates on the evolution of the project.
NB: It would be hypocritical of me to call on teachers to open their classrooms but hide my own lessons.
That is why for the last two years I have been posting my own lectures on YouTube.
All the videos are free, as well as all the materials I used for the course (well, except the exams). Based on my encounters with physics teachers, I noticed that some of them focus too much on teaching strategies, and do not have deep understanding of physics. For those teachers I would strongly recommend video-"taking" my course.
This project has been developed as an answer to the call from Ms. Lauren Powell Jobs. At first I wrote an open letter in which I criticized the approach chosen by XQsuprshool project. Particularly, I stated that funding 5 (five!) super-schools will never let to achieve the goal, which was declared as “to transform high school education in the whole country” (paraphrasing). But then, assuming that the authors might indeed have been seeking projects with drastically new approaches to schooling, I offered the project described above.
Later on I wrote letters to Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan and more. Just followed folk wisdom - if you didn't succeed ... etc.
For a long time I have been criticizing (and still am) the approach many philanthropists (including you) select for improving education in the U.S.A.
Recently I have learned about your effort to establish a school in East Polo Alto.
If you would decided to invest a couple of hours into study of my “recipe” for reforming education (which, honestly, is perpendicular to the mainstream views), at the minimum you would broader your views on education in general.
Since then I wrote many more posts on education (evidently), but my search for a visionary philanthropist has not yet been fruitful.
The critical pieces in the third part of this webpage include descriptions of the efforts of several foundations.
My critique is not about what they do – I admire the efforts to help children getting better education.
My critique is about what they claim – they all claim to reform, reshape the whole system of education.
I have addressed that claim in my pieces.
Here I just want to repeat again that all those foundations will prove is that if you have enough money to hire enough good teachers and to provide to teachers and student good learning environment, students will be learning better than students in other schools.
Affecting the whole system of education requires much more than that; and that is the reason for me writing all those articles listed above (Don’t believe me? Read them!).
Here and now I will only repeat one major feature of the only approach which will make a difference (if applied right) – the openness (some specifics can be found in this posts).
P.S. I care about education. That is why I use different forms of communication in my attempt to reach out. The rest depends on how good founders are at finding people to work with. And on how strong is their curiosity. A butterfly effect exists. But it only can happen in a system in a state far away from equilibrium. When a mind is set and rigid, it only accepts information which fits in the already familiar set of patterns.
The Core Assumption of Every Known Single-Photon Experiment is Wrong.
Recent paper (R. Chaves, G. Barreto Lemos, J. Pienaar; 2018) describes “statistics generated … by a photon in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer” in “the Wheeler’s delayed-choice experiment”, or its modified version.
The authors “treat the photon in the Mach-Zehnder interferometer as a two-level quantum system”. The statistics is to be supplied using “photon counting … detector(s)”.
The authors offer a quote (H. Paul, 1982) “It is essential that a single photon source is used, such that both detectors never click simultaneously. This guarantees that each photon cannot be modeled as a classical wave that is quantized only at the detector”.
The discussion essentially revolves around different possible descriptions of a photon traveling along only one possible path, or (as a manifestation of its wave-like properties) along two paths at the same time.
A beam splitter is a device an interaction with which may open for a photon two possible paths to travel along. For the original or a modified experiment, all versions of reasoning about possible outcomes of an experiment are based on the assumption that the photon that eventually enters a detector is always the same photon that entered an interferometer (e.g. at beam splitter BS1).
This assumption, however, is wrong.
A beam splitter is a macroscopic optical device which consists of a large number of atoms or molecules.
When a photon is encountering a device, it does not interact with the device as a whole, it only interacts with a specific atom. As the result of that interaction the photon can be absorbed or scattered. In the latter case, the photon may encounter another atom, and interact with it. There is always non-zero probability that the original photon will be absorbed by the device, and a photon leaving the device will be produced by an atom in the device. Hence, in the latter case, the device does not open for a photon two different paths; a photon does not take one path or another, or both. An original photon gets absorbed, disappears. But, as the result of complicated interactions inside a device, the device eventually (the process takes time) emits a new photon, which on its way to a detector may encounter another optical device, etc.
Exactly same situation will be happening when a photon interacts with any optical device, including (but not limited) a fully reflective mirror, a lens, a prism, a polarizer, a fiber optical cable.
Under these circumstance, any statement about the fate of the original photon entering a detector is wrong, because there is always non-zero, and not accounted for, probability that the photon entering a detector is not the original one, but the one emitted by an optical device (at least one of several devices existing between the very first device and a detector).
An optical device, any optical device, simply cannot be used to make a definite (known) alternation (from a set of possible alternations) in the behavior of a photon entering that device, because there is always non-zero probability of the photon being absorbed.
The result of an action of an optical device on light i.e. (reflection, refraction, polarization) is statistical, and based on the interactions between light in form of a wave (i.e. a large number of photons) and the charges in the device.
Without accounting for the exact interaction between a single photon and an optical device in its entirety, any statement regarding how an optical device may affect the behavior of a single photon is meaningless.
This realization negates all conclusions from all experiments (thought or actual) based on a “single photon – optical device” interaction (which are many).
2. J. A. Wheeler, in Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Theory, edited by R. Marlow (Academic Press, New York, 1978).
3. H. Paul, Photon antibunching, Rev. Mod. Phys. 54, 1061 (1982).
The whole experiment and the following analysis of it is based on the assumption that the photons reaching the receiving stations are the same photons which had been initially generated.
But following the previous argument, there is non-zero – and not accounted for – probability that the originally generated photon (or photons) was (were) absorbed, hence the measured correlations between the photons registered by the receiving stations include correlations between different types of photons.
Quasar photons also have been in a contact with different materials which may have affected their properties, or absorbed and re-reemitted some of the photons.
This statement demonstrates that the authors are aware of a possible absorption of some of the photons and the further replacement of those photons with new ones. They state as the fact that the new reradiated photons will the same wavelength as the absorbed photons.
This fact is correct - ish.
This fact is correct - on average! - for a large number of photons, i.e. for an electromagnetic field traveling through a transparent medium. But I would like to see a proof of that fact/statement for a single photon colliding with a single electron in such a complex system as an atom. Plus, the authors ignore possible multi-photon events.
In the end, we need to assume that he process of absorption and reradiation may alternate the state of quantum coherence between different photons, and that option has not been considered among the ones which could, quote: “lead to corrupt choices of measurement settings within our experiment”.
However, when the goal of an experiment is to probe quantum correlations, the process which may alternate those correlations is the most important to be considered as a reason to corrupt an experiment.
In the end, the described experiment does not allow to established if the result describes solely the properties of entangled photons, or it describes the properties of a large system which was including entangled photons but also was affecting those photons in a non-accounted way.
The two specific examples reported in this piece demonstrate a very common situation when authors try to analyze the behavior of a microscopic system ignoring possible effects of the interaction between the system and the macroscopic measuring device (as the whole) beyond the effects the authors are looking for (beyond the possible states of the detectors). It is also a common case when authors apply properties of the interaction between a medium and a macroscopic number of microscopic particles to the interaction between a microscopic particle and a particle of the medium without having proved the possibility of this transition.
Hamiltonian; otherwise the theory does not describe the actual phenomenon.
Your manuscript has been considered. We regret to inform you that we have concluded that it is not suitable for publication in any APS journal.
The rejection did not come as a surprise at all, I expected it.
But it demonstrates how APS operates.
This was not my first review, for example, check this link (at the end of the piece).
I also have been reviewing publications on physics education.
If you would like to see the referee reports for this article, they are now available by viewing the decision letter for this article in your referee centre at .
We are very grateful for your assessment of this paper and we look forward to working with you again in the future.
As one can see, there is a difference between how APS reviewers operate, and how I operate as a reviewer.
When an author makes a claim, a reviewer has only six options to choose from.
1. The claim is wrong.
2. The claim is correct and significant.
3. The claim is correct and significant, but it has been already previously made, hence, not original.
4. The claim is correct but insignificant.
5. The claim is not clear, but may be correct and significant.
6. The claim is not clear, but even if will be correct, it will not be significant.
In any case, a reviewer can address the claim.
If that is not a case, it simply means a reviewer does not assess the claim, the reviewer assesses an author, and finds the author insignificant (does not deserve the reviewer’s time).
It is not a surprise to me that some reviewers may act in such a manner; they are people after all. The fact that they do science does not automatically mean that they also conduct a scientific behavior.
If someone can skillfully manipulate by a sophisticated machine which makes complicated parts for a space shuttle, would we call that one "an engineer"? Doubtful. The one does not design the parts, doe not have a big picture of how different parts should work together. the one is a technician. There are also many "scientific technicians". Someone who can skillfully apply a sophisticate algorithm to generate some new data. But the algorithm was developed by someone else. And the data mined in the process do not relieve anything truly unexpected. Such a person, though, can be a very good manager, skillful organizer, and make decisions about scientific importance based on how close the ideas are to his own.
I know why it is on hold. In this tiny paper, with no single equation, even no single number (can you imagine - no math!), I go right to the essence of a physical phenomenon (and as a very successful physics teacher, and more, I claim that that is the essence of physics). My claim affects numerous publications which use the evolution of a single photon (just Google "a single photon experiment") as the engine for arriving at final conclusions. The authors of those paper will have to find a fix (do math).
That fix may be trivial.
What I am curious about is who keeps it on hold?
New technologies allow reaching out to a wide audience bypassing established root. For example, in three says after the publication, this piece has reached 61 people.
To this day (12/21/2018), my three blogs reached more than fifty thousand people (combined). I wonder, how many people have read the works of my reviewer?
Yesterday (well, technically, already today), while I was falling asleep, it came to me!
Take a "classical" electron diffraction experiment.
Everyone asks a question "How does an electron "know" where to hit a screen?" But the more interesting question is, "how does it "know" where NOT to hit a screen?" Restrictions on values of physical quantities is one of the most striking differences between quantum and classical mechanic. There are locations on a screen which will never be reached by an electron. But a screen is just a device which stops an electron and makes it seen where it was stopped. A screen can be moved closer or farther away (relative to a carbon crystal playing the role of a diffraction grating). That means that in the space beyond the carbon crystal there are lines, or surfaces where an electron can never be. Take a carbon crystal out, and an electron will be able to be at any location. Place a carbon crystal in, and the space changes, in the space beyond the carbon crystal there are locations where an electron can never be.
A carbon crystal changes the space.
I imagine that changed space like a set of grooves with different deepness (in terms of epistemology, those grooves play role similar to Bohr's orbits). Those which have deeper troughs represent paths with a higher probability of an electron to travel. And the crests represent locations where an electrons cannot be (the Feynman's path for those lines/trajectories has zero amplitude). Of course, this picture implies that at any given instant an electron is located at a certain point in space, it is not smeared around all over space like a physical wave.
The motion of a particle heavier than an electron is not affected as mach as of an electron. A macroscopic particle does not "feel" any grooves at all.
By making a crystal larger and larger, by adding more and more atoms, grooves become more and more overlapping, and eventually, the space is "flattened".
But a crystal is made of atoms. The resulting change in space due to a crystal is the result of interposition (overlapping, interference - described by probability amplitudes (?)) of the changes in space due to an individual atom.
Atoms are made of particles.
The resulting change in space due to an atom is the result of interposition (overlapping, interference) of the changes in space due to an individual particle.
Finally, we have reached the main point of this idea.
Every single particle changes space around it.
It is like in the Einstein's theory of general relativity.
An empty space is flat (I know, it is a space-time, and it may be disturbed by a gravitational wave, but as physics always does, we are starting from the simplest model).
If we place a heavy star in space, the space bends.
To see how it bends, we shoot light and observe its trajectory (does not have to be light, can be any object).
Now, on a microscopic level, we do the same.
An empty space is flat.
We place a particle in it, and space changes; we don't know yet - how it changes, but we know - it does.
Each additional particle leads to an additional change.
To see that change we shoot a photon, or an electron, or another particle, which travels in a changed space.
That change may NOT be static (like bent but static space around a static star); in fact, most probably it is stochastic and leads to the existence of stable and unstable configurations (e.g. Bohr's energy levels). That change also may propagate faster than light ("spooky action over distance").
The mathematical description of this approach should lead to the Schrödinger's equation.
Since we need to understand how a microscopic particle affects space, most probably we need to figure out how to quantize gravity.
For example, the metric tensor may represent only the average value of the space-time metric. The actual value of each component of the metric tensor stochastically fluctuates around the average one.Calculating averages or correlation factors implies using some other parameters as independent variables (at least one) - the meaning of those variables is not known (extra dimensions? spin? another actual field?). Placing a particle in an empty space changes the stochastic properties. The equations for the parameters describing stochastic properties of the space-time in the presence of particles may have stable solution for only specific values of some of the parameters (masses, charges). In a way, this approach is ideologically similar to the Einstein's (and others) approach to a united field theory, but now with an addition of a stochastic component to it.