The quantum theory (QT) and new stochastic approaches have no deterministic prediction for a single measurement or for a single time‐series of events observed for a trapped ion, electron or any other individual physical system. The predictions of QT being of probabilistic character apply to the statistical distribution of the results obtained in various experiments. The Copenhagen interpretation (CI) of QT acknowledged the abstract and statistical character of the predictions of QT but at the same time claimed that a state vector Ψ provided complete description of each individual physical system. The assigning the state vector to an individual physical system together with a postulate of its instantaneous reduction in the measurements was shown by Einstein Podolski and Rosen to lead to so called EPR paradox for the experiments with the entangled pairs of the particles. EPR concluded that a state vector could not provide a complete description of the individual systems and the question arose whether the probabilistic predictions of QT could be derived from some more fundamental spatio‐temporal deterministic description of the invisible sub‐phenomena by introduction of supplementary parameters. The experimental violation of the Bell inequalities in the spin polarization correlation experiments (SPCE) which were the implementations of Bohm and EPR gedanken experiments eliminated so called local and realistic models of the sub‐phenomena. Quite often the violation of these inequalities has been incorrectly interpreted as a proof of the completeness of QT or as the violation of the locality and causality in the micro‐world. The local and realistic models overlooked the fact that an experimental outcome is only the information about a particular system‐system or system‐instrument interaction. Namely the quantum phenomena are described in terms of the probabilities. It is well known that the probability distribution is not an attribute of a dice but it is a characteristic of a whole random experiment: “rolling a dice”. In this paper we will underline: that the quantum probabilities do not describe the lack of knowledge about the physical systems but the lack of knowledge about the experiments and therefore they are “contextual” and that the statistical long range correlations between two random variables X and Y are not a proof of any causal relation between these variables. Moreover any probabilistic model used to described a random experiment is consistent only with a specific protocol telling how the random experiment has to be performed. The probabilistic model used to prove Bell inequalities implied a protocol completely inappropriate and impossible to implement for SPCE . We conclude that the meaningful question about the predictable completeness of QT is still open and it should be answered by a careful and unconventional analysis of the experimental data. The correct understanding of statistical and contextual character of QT is essential for the research in the domain of quantum information and quantum computing.
The quantum theory (QT) and new stochastic approaches have no deterministic prediction for a single measurement or for a single time‐series of events observed for a trapped ion, electron or any other individual physical system. The predictions of QT being of probabilistic character apply to the statistical distribution of the results obtained in various experiments. The Copenhagen interpretation (CI) of QT acknowledged the abstract and statistical character of the predictions of QT but at the same time claimed that a state vector Ψ provided complete description of each individual physical system. The assigning the state vector to an individual physical system together with a postulate of its instantaneous reduction in the measurements was shown by Einstein Podolski and Rosen to lead to so called EPR paradox for the experiments with the entangled pairs of the particles. EPR concluded that a state vector could not provide a complete description of the individual systems and the question arose whether the probabilistic predictions of QT could be derived from some more fundamental spatio‐temporal deterministic description of the invisible sub‐phenomena by introduction of supplementary parameters. The experimental violation of the Bell inequalities in the spin polarization correlation experiments (SPCE) which were the implementations of Bohm and EPR gedanken experiments eliminated so called local and realistic models of the sub‐phenomena. Quite often the violation of these inequalities has been incorrectly interpreted as a proof of the completeness of QT or as the violation of the locality and causality in the micro‐world. The local and realistic models overlooked the fact that an experimental outcome is only the information about a particular system‐system or system‐instrument interaction. Namely the quantum phenomena are described in terms of the probabilities. It is well known that the probability distribution is not an attribute of a dice but it is a characteristic of a whole random experiment: “rolling a dice”. In this paper we will underline: that the quantum probabilities do not describe the lack of knowledge about the physical systems but the lack of knowledge about the experiments and therefore they are “contextual” and that the statistical long range correlations between two random variables X and Y are not a proof of any causal relation between these variables. Moreover any probabilistic model used to described a random experiment is consistent only with a specific protocol telling how the random experiment has to be performed. The probabilistic model used to prove Bell inequalities implied a protocol completely inappropriate and impossible to implement for SPCE . We conclude that the meaningful question about the predictable completeness of QT is still open and it should be answered by a careful and unconventional analysis of the experimental data. The correct understanding of statistical and contextual character of QT is essential for the research in the domain of quantum information and quantum computing.
In spite of the fact that statistical predictions of quantum theory (QT) can only be tested if large amount of data is available a claim has been made that QT provides the most complete description of an individual physical system. Einstein’s opposition to this claim and the paradox he presented in the article written together with Podolsky and Rosen in 1935 inspired generations of physicists in their quest for better understanding of QT. Seventy years after EPR article it is clear that without deep understanding of the character and limitations of QT one may not hope to find a meaningful unified theory of all physical interactions, manipulate qubits or construct a quantum computer.. In this paper we present shortly the EPR paper, the discussion, which followed it and Bell inequalities (BI). To avoid various paradoxes we advocate purely statistical contextual interpretation (PSC) of QT. According to PSC a state vector is not an attribute of a single electron, photon, trapped ion or quantum dot. A value of an observable assigned to a physical system has only a meaning in a context of a particular physical experiment PSC does not provide any mental space‐time picture of sub phenomena. The EPR paradox is avoided because the reduction of the state vector in the measurement process is a passage from a description of the whole ensemble of the experimental results to a particular sub‐ensemble of these results. We show that the violation of BI is neither a proof of the completeness of QT nor of its non‐locality. Therefore we rephrase the EPR question and ask whether QT is “predictably “complete or in other words does it provide the complete description of experimental data. To test the “predictable completeness” it is not necessary to perform additional experiments it is sufficient to analyze more in detail the existing experimental data by using various non‐parametric purity tests and other specific statistical tools invented to study the fine structure the time‐series.
Eighty years ago Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen demonstrated that instantaneous reduction of wave function, believed to describe completely a pair of entangled physical systems, led to EPR paradox. The paradox disappears in statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) according to which a wave function describes only an ensemble of identically prepared physical systems. QM predicts strong correlations between outcomes of measurements performed on different members of EPR pairs in far-away locations. Searching for an intuitive explanation of these correlations John Bell analysed so called local realistic hidden variable models and proved that correlations consistent with these models satisfy Bell inequalities which are violated by some predictions of QM and by experimental data. Several different local models were constructed and inequalities proven. Some eminent physicists concluded that Nature is definitely nonlocal and that it is acting according to a law of nonlocal randomness. According to these law perfectly random, but strongly correlated events, can be produced at the same time in far away locations and a local and causal explanation of their occurrence cannot be given. We strongly disagree with this conclusion and we prove the contrary by analysing in detail some influential finite sample proofs of Bell and CHSH inequalities and so called Quantum Randi Challenges. We also show how one can win so called Bell's game without violating locality of Nature. Nonlocal randomness is inconsistent with local quantum field theory, with standard model in elementary particle physics and with causal laws and adaptive dynamics prevailing in the surrounding us world. The experimental violation of Bell-type inequalities does not prove the nonlocality of Nature but it only confirms a contextual character of quantum observables and gives a strong argument against counterfactual definiteness and against a point of view according to which experimental outcomes are produced in irreducible random way.
Quantum theory (QT) provides statistical predictions for various physical phenomena. To verify these predictions a considerable amount of data has been accumulated in the 'measurements' performed on the ensembles of identically prepared physical systems or in the repeated 'measurements' on some trapped 'individual physical systems'. The outcomes of these measurements are, in general, some numerical time series registered by some macroscopic instruments. The various empirical probability distributions extracted from these time series were shown to be consistent with the probabilistic predictions of QT. More than 70 years ago the claim was made that QT provided the most complete description of 'individual' physical systems and outcomes of the measurements performed on 'individual' physical systems were obtained in an intrinsically random way. Spin polarization correlation experiments (SPCEs), performed to test the validity of Bell inequalities, clearly demonstrated the existence of strong long-range correlations and confirmed that the beams hitting far away detectors somehow preserve the memory of their common source which would be destroyed if the individual counts of far away detectors were purely random. Since the probabilities describe the random experiments and are not the attributes of the 'individual' physical systems, the claim that QT provides a complete description of 'individual' physical systems seems not only unjustified but also misleading and counter productive. In this paper, we point out that we even do not know whether QT is predictably complete because it has not been tested carefully enough. Namely, it was not proven that the time series of existing experimental data did not contain some stochastic fine structures that could have been averaged out by describing them in terms of the empirical probability distributions. In this paper, we advocate various statistical tests that could be used to search for such fine structures in the data and to answer the title question of this paper. In our opinion a proper understanding of the statistical character of QT and of its limitations is crucial in the domains such as quantum optics and quantum information.
The entanglement and the violation of Bell and CHSH inequalities in spin polarization correlation experiments (SPCE) is considered to be one of the biggest mysteries of Nature and is called quantum nonlocality . In this paper we show once again that this conclusion is based on imprecise terminology and on the lack of understanding of probabilistic models used in various proofs of Bell and CHSH theorems. These models are inconsistent with experimental protocols used in SPCE. This is the only reason why Bell and CHSH inequalities are violated. A probabilistic non-signalling description of SPCE, consistent with quantum predictions, is possible and it depends explicitly on the context of each experiment. It is also deterministic in the sense that the outcome is determined by supplementary local parameters describing both physical signals and measuring instruments. The existence of such description gives additional arguments that quantum theory is emergent from some more detailed theory respecting causality and local determinism. If quantum theory is emergent then there exist perhaps some fine structures in time-series of experimental data which were not predicted by quantum theory. In this paper we explain how a systematic search for such fine structures can be done. If such reproducible fine structures were found it would show that quantum theory is not predictably complete, which would be a major discovery.
Abstract One of the Bell’s assumptions in the original derivation of his inequalities was the hypothesis of locality, i.e., the absence of the influence of two remote measuring instruments on one another. That is why violations of these inequalities observed in experiments are often interpreted as a manifestation of the nonlocal nature of quantum mechanics, or a refutation of a local realism. It is well known that the Bell’s inequality was derived in its traditional form, without resorting to the hypothesis of locality and without the introduction of hidden variables, the only assumption being that the probability distributions are nonnegative. This can therefore be regarded as a rigorous proof that the hypothesis of locality and the hypothesis of existence of the hidden variables not relevant to violations of Bell’s inequalities. The physical meaning of the obtained results is examined. Physical nature of the violation of the Bell inequalities is explained under new EPR-B nonlocality postulate. We show that the correlations of the observables involved in the Bohm–Bell type experiments can be expressed as correlations of classical random variables. The revisited Bell type inequality in canonical notatons reads 〈AB〉 + 〈A’B〉 + 〈AB’〉 − 〈A’B’〉 ⩽ 6.
This year we celebrate 100 years of quantum mechanics (QM). Incorrect interpretations of QM and incorrect mental models of the invisible details of quantum phenomena lead to paradoxes. To explain these, we advocate the statistical contextual interpretation (SCI) of quantum mechanics. State vectors (wave functions) and various operators are purely mathematical entities that permit quantitative probabilistic predictions. “State vector” describes an ensemble of identically prepared physical systems, and a specific “operator” represents a class of equivalent measurements of a physical observable. A collapse of wavefunction is not a mysterious and instantaneous physical process; a collapsed quantum state describes a new ensemble of physical systems prepared in a particular way. A value of a physical observable, such as a spin projection, associated with a pure quantum ensemble is a characteristic of this ensemble created by its interaction with measuring instruments. Probabilities are objective properties of random experiments in which empirical frequencies stabilize. Following Einstein, SCI rejects the claim that QM provides a complete description of individual physical systems, but it remains agnostic about whether a more detailed subquantum description can be found or is necessary. In conformity with Bohr contextuality, SCI rejects Bell-local and Bell-causal hidden variable models. Nevertheless, by incorporating into a probabilistic model contextual hidden variable measuring instruments, long distance quantum correlations studied in Bell tests can be explained without evoking quantum nonlocality or retro-causality. SCI allows the explanation of several quantum phenomena without evoking quantum magic. SCI does not claim to provide a complete description of quantum phenomena; in fact, it is unknown whether quantum probabilities even provide a complete description of existing experimental data. Time series of experimental data may contain much more information than is obtained using empirical frequencies and histograms. Therefore, predictable completeness of QM must be tested and not taken for granted.