Bell’s theorem is a fundamental result in quantum mechanics: it discriminates between quantum mechanics and all theories where probabilities in measurement results arise from the ignorance of pre-existing local properties. We give an extremely simple proof of Bell's inequality; a single figure suffices. This simplicity may be useful in the unending debate over what exactly the Bell inequality means, because the hypotheses underlying the proof become transparent. It is also a useful didactic tool, as the Bell inequality can be explained in a single intuitive lecture.
Bell’s theorem is a fundamental result in quantum mechanics: it discriminates between quantum mechanics and all theories where probabilities in measurement results arise from the ignorance of pre-existing local properties. We give an extremely simple proof of Bell's inequality; a single figure suffices. This simplicity may be useful in the unending debate over what exactly the Bell inequality means, because the hypotheses underlying the proof become transparent. It is also a useful didactic tool, as the Bell inequality can be explained in a single intuitive lecture.
One of the Bell's assumptions in the original derivation of his inequalities was the hypothesis of locality, i.e., of 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 local realism. In this paper, Bell's inequality is derived in its traditional form, without resorting to the hypothesis of locality, the only assumption being that the probability distributions are nonnegative. These probability distributions are calculated, for a specific optical experiment, in the framework of quantum theory and it is shown that they can take on negative values. This can therefore be regarded as a rigorous proof that the hypothesis of locality is not relevant to violations of Bell's inequalities. The physical meaning of the obtained results is examined.
Bell’s inequality can be traced back to a classical probabilistic formula that is invalid clearly, while spin correlation formula in quantum mechanics to a formula that has confirmed both by facts and quantum mechanics. Bell’s two misunderstandings about Bell’s theorem are pointed out: Firstly, the hidden variable theory Bell’s used, which is a special form of such theories, is regarded as a general one. Secondly, there are two theses obtainable from Bell’s hypotheses; one is compatible with quantum mechanics, the other leads to Bell's inequality. Unfortunately, the former is regarded as a property of local hidden variable theory, while the latter as self-evident. G.Lochak has revealed the first thesis, and thereby he pointed out that Bell’s inequality has nothing to do with locality, but he did not find the second one, so that he still analyzed this problem starting from hidden variable theory, which is actually without regard to Bell’s inequality.
It is proved that Bell's inequality can be traced back to a classical probabilistic formula that is invalid clearly, while the spin correlation formula in quantum mechanics to a formula that has confirmed both by facts and quantum mechanics. Two misunderstandings about Bell's theorem are pointed out: Firstly, the hidden variable theory Bell's used is a special one, but it is regarded as a general form of such theories. Secondly, there are two outcomes obtainable from Bell's hypotheses: one is compatible with quantum mechanics and the other leads to Bell's inequality. Unfortunately, the former is regarded as a property of local hidden variable theory, while the latter as self-evident. G. Lochak has revealed the first misunderstanding, and thereby he pointed out that Bell's inequality has nothing to do with locality, but he did not find the second one, so that he still analyzed this problem starting from hidden variable theory, which is actually irrelative to Bell's inequality. (The Journal of American Science. 2005;1(2):42-50).
By implicitly assuming that all possible Bell-measurements occur simultaneously, all proofs of Bell's Theorem violate Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. This assumption is made in the original form of Bell's inequality, in Wigner's probability inequalities, and in the ``nonlocality without inequalities'' arguments. The introduction of time into derivations of these variants of Bell's theorem results in extra terms related to the time order of the measurements used in constructing correlation coefficients. Since the same locality assumptions are made in the Heisenberg-compliant derivations of this paper, only time-independent classical local hidden variable theories are forbidden by violations of the original Bell inequalities; time-dependent quantum local hidden variable theories can satisfy this new bound and agree with experiment. We further point out that factorizable wavefunctions have been used to describe some EPR experiments and can be used to describe others. These will generate local de Broglie-Bohm trajectories in the description of the data. This second, independent, line of argument also shows that violation of Bell's inequality is only evidence that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle cannot be ignored.
Hidden variable theories, as encouraged by the EPR paper, that proliferated in the 1950s, were taken quite seriously in some academic quarters, despite the existence of the 1932 von Neumann ‘proof’ that supposedly showed that these hidden theories were incompatible with the stochasticity of quantum mechanics. In 1964, John Bell, a particle theorist, reexamined the von Neumann proof, found it ‘wanting’, and offered his own proof that reaffirmed that hidden variable theories were incompatible with quantum mechanics. Bell added a twist: his proof was in the form a neat inequality theorem that was easy to comprehend and became an instant success. Bell's theorem led to a new generation of experimentalists to rediscover quantum entanglement, and to conduct these experiments in the visible spectrum, to test for evidence of hidden variable theories. The results were negative thus reaffirming the validity of quantum mechanics and its indeterminacy. In this chapter the premises of Bell's theorem are explained as well as its link to the probabilities of quantum entanglement.
Certain predictions of quantum theory are not compatible with the notion of local-realism. This was the content of Bell’s famous theorem of the year 1964. Bell proved this with the help of an inequality, famously known as Bell’s inequality. The alternative proofs of Bell’s theorem without using Bell’s inequality are known as “nonlocality without inequality (NLWI)” proofs. We review one such proof namely the Hardy’s proof which due to its simplicity and generality has been considered the best version of Bell’s theorem.