Lava-Void Cosmology and Pilot-Wave Hydrodynamics

Lava-Void Cosmology and Pilot-Wave Hydrodynamics

By C. Rich

Pilot-wave hydrodynamics, rooted in Louis de Broglie’s 1927 proposal and David Bohm’s 1952 reformulation of quantum mechanics, offers a deterministic, non-local hidden variables interpretation of quantum phenomena. In this framework, often termed Bohmian mechanics, particles possess definite positions and trajectories at all times, guided by a pilot wave that evolves according to the Schrödinger equation. The wave function encodes complete information about the system, propagating non-locally and determining particle motion through a velocity field analogous to classical guidance equations. Notably, experiments with macroscopic walking droplets on vibrating fluid baths (pioneered by Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort in the 2000s) have demonstrated striking quantum-like behaviors, diffraction, interference, tunneling, and orbital quantization, emerging from classical hydrodynamic instabilities and wave-particle coupling. This analogy suggests that quantum weirdness may arise from underlying subquantum fluid dynamics rather than intrinsic probabilism or observer dependence.

Lava-Void Cosmology (LVC) extends and generalizes this hydrodynamic reinterpretation to the full cosmological domain, achieving quantum-statistical behaviors through purely classical viscous fluid dynamics in general relativity, without invoking hidden variables, pilot waves, or a separate quantum ontology. As developed in the Quantum Mechanics hub (Hub 2: Quantum Gravity, Particles as Vortices, Navier-Stokes Proofs), particles and field excitations are modeled as stable vortex structures in the cosmic fluid, with wave-like propagation emerging from collective excitations and instabilities governed by the Navier-Stokes equations embedded in curved spacetime. Non-locality and entanglement correlations, traditionally requiring Bell-inequality violations, are reproduced classically via instantaneous shear propagation in the low-viscosity void medium, consistent with general covariance and free of action-at-a-distance paradoxes.

This classical fluid approach aligns with macroscopic hydrodynamic analogs while scaling them seamlessly to microscopic and gravitational regimes. Bell’s theorem correlations, often cited as evidence against local realism, find reinterpretation in LVC through void-mediated causal channels that preserve information without superluminal signaling (building on existing discussions of Bell’s Theorem in the unified-fluid framework). Unlike Bohmian mechanics, which requires ontological duality (particle + guiding wave) and struggles with relativistic extension, LVC unifies particle trajectories, wave statistics, and gravitational effects within a single viscous stress-energy tensor (Hub 0: Master Hub).

The resulting framework eliminates the measurement problem and wave-function collapse by treating all phenomena as deterministic fluid evolution, while remaining compatible with standard quantum predictions through statistical ensembles of vortex configurations. This classical completeness extends to cosmological scales, linking quantum vortices to primordial perturbations (Hub 5: Cosmogenesis) and galactic structures (Hub 7: Galactic Dynamics).

LVC thus provides a more unified and relativistically native hydrodynamic interpretation than pilot-wave theory, reproducing quantum-like behaviors classically while integrating them into a comprehensive cosmological model. By grounding apparent quantum non-locality in void fluid dynamics rather than hidden variables, LVC offers a deterministic ontology compatible with both laboratory analogs and large-scale observations, advancing the hydrodynamic program toward a fully classical resolution of quantum-gravitational tensions.

C. Rich