The Remaining Alternative of Bell's Theorem

Kaj Börge Hansen

Travis Norsen

This is a polemical response to Howard Wiseman's recent paper, "The two Bell's theorems of John Bell". Wiseman argues that, in 1964, Bell established a conflict between the quantum mechanical predictions and the joint assumptions of determinism and (what is now usually known as) "parameter independence". Only later, in 1976, did Bell, according to Wiseman, first establish a conflict between the quantum mechanical predictions and locality alone (in the specific form that Bell would sometimes call "local causality"). Thus, according to Wiseman, the long-standing disagreements about what, exactly, Bell's theorem does and does not prove can be understood largely as miscommunications resulting from the fact that there are really two quite distinct "Bell's theorems". My goal here is to lay out what Wiseman briefly describes as an "alternate reading" of Bell's 1964 paper, according to which (quoting Wiseman here) "the first paragraph of Bell's `Formulation' section [should be seen] as an essential part of his 1964 theorem, the first part of a two-part argument." I will argue in particular that this "alternate reading" is the correct way to understand Bell's 1964 paper and that Wiseman's reading is strongly inconsistent with the available evidence.

Roderick I. Sutherland

Sujit K Choudhary, Pankaj Agrawal

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.

А. В. Белинский

Leffler, Warren

In this paper we identify a hidden premise in Bell's theorem: measurability of the underlying space. But our system (the space of all paths, SP) is not measurable, although it replicates the predictions of standard quantum mechanics. Using it we present three counterexamples to Bell's theorem and also show why Bell-like arguments for more than two particles cannot be carried out in this model. Moreover, we show that the result places severe constraints on possible viable interpretations of quantum mechanics: Either an interpretation must in some form represent a quantum system in terms of all paths within the system or, alternatively, the interpretation must harbor "action at a distance".