The new tomographic formulation of quantum mechanics is used to develop a method which can reconstruct the entire density matrix of a two-particle spin state in terms of positive classical distributions of probabilities of the values of certain observables. It is shown that to obtain a complete description of the mixed spin state it is necessary to know not only the probabilities of the spin projections as functions of the coordinates of the points on a unit sphere but also the probabilities defining the contributions of the pure states to the mixed ones. With the help of this method the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is analysed. It is shown that to remove the paradox the observer must strictly fix at every moment the set of observables and describe the transformation of one set into another. Such a description is performed with the help of the technique of selective and nonselective measurements as defined by Schwinger.
The new tomographic formulation of quantum mechanics is used to develop a method which can reconstruct the entire density matrix of a two-particle spin state in terms of positive classical distributions of probabilities of the values of certain observables. It is shown that to obtain a complete description of the mixed spin state it is necessary to know not only the probabilities of the spin projections as functions of the coordinates of the points on a unit sphere but also the probabilities defining the contributions of the pure states to the mixed ones. With the help of this method the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox is analysed. It is shown that to remove the paradox the observer must strictly fix at every moment the set of observables and describe the transformation of one set into another. Such a description is performed with the help of the technique of selective and nonselective measurements as defined by Schwinger.
A new “classical” formulation of conventional quantum mechanics is used to construct a description of quantum states with spin j =1/2 which uses only positive classical probabilities of observables instead of a complex density matrix. These probabilities are functions of points on a unit sphere which determine the directions relative to which the spin projections are measured. The proposed construction is a generalization of a system for tomography of the spin states of a single particle and may be used as a new method of measuring two-particle spin states. For pure spin states this method is exactly the same as the case of a single particle. Additional probabilities must be defined to describe mixed states.
The Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox highlights several strange properties of quantum mechanics including the super position of states, the non locality and its limitation to determine an experiment only statistically. Here, this well known paradox is revisited theoretically for a pair of spin 1/2 systems in a singlet state under the assumption that in classical physics time evolves in discrete time steps t while in quantum mechanics the individual spin system(s) evolve(s) between the eigenstates harmonically with a period of 4 t. It is further assumed that time is a single variable, that the quantum mechanics time evolution and the classical physics discrete time evolution are coherent to each other, and that the precision of the start of the experiment and of the measurement time point are much less than t. Under these conditions, it is demonstrated for a spin 1/2 system that the fast oscillation between the eigen states spin up | ↑> and spin down | ↓> reproduce the expected outcome of a single measurement as well as ensemble measurements without the need of postulating a simultaneous superposition of the spin system in its quantum state. When this concept is applied to a spin 1/2 system pair in a singlet state it is shown that no entanglement between the two spins is necessary to describe the system resolving the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox.
The Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox highlights several strange properties of quantum mechanics including the super position of states, the non locality and its limitation to determine an experiment only statistically. Here, this well known paradox is revisited theoretically for a pair of spin systems in a singlet state under the assumption that in classical physics time evolves in discrete time steps t while in quantum mechanics the individual spin system(s) evolve(s) between the eigenstates harmonically with a period of 4 t . It is further assumed that time is a single variable, that the quantum mechanics time evolution and the classical physics discrete time evolution are coherent to each other, and that the precision of the start of the experiment and of the measurement time point are much less than t . Under these conditions, it is demonstrated for a spin system that the fast oscillation between the eigen states spin up | ↑> and spin down | ↓> reproduce the expected outcome of a single measurement as well as ensemble measurements without the need of postulating a simultaneous superposition of the spin system in its quantum state. When this concept is applied to a spin system pair in a singlet state it is shown that no entanglement between the two spins is necessary to describe the system resolving the Einstein-Podolski-Rosen paradox.
The famous EPR paradox shows that if we describe quantum particles in the usual way -- by their wave functions -- then we get the following seeming contradiction. If we entangle the states of the two particles, then move them far away from each other, and measure the state of the first particle, then the state of the second particle immediately changes -- which contradicts to special relativity, according to which such immediate-action-at-a-distance is not possible. It is known that, from the physical viewpoint, this is not a real paradox: if we measure any property of the second particle, the results will not change whether we perform the measurement on the first particle or not. What the above argument shows is that the usual wave function description of a quantum state does not always adequately describe the corresponding physics. In this paper, we propose a new, more physically adequate description of a quantum state, a description in which there is no EPR paradox: measurements performed at the first particle does not change the state of the remote second one.
Introduction The paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen was advanced as an argument that quantum mechanics could not be a complete theory but should be supplemented by additional variables. These additional variables were to restore to the theory causality and locality. In this note that idea will be formulated mathematically and shown to be incompatible with the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. It is the requirement of locality, or more precisely that the result of a measurement on one system be unaffected by operations on a distant system with which it has interacted in the past, that creates the essential difficulty. There have been attempts to show that even without such a separability or locality requirement no ‘hidden variable’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is possible. These attempts have been examined elsewhere and found wanting. Moreover, a hidden variable interpretation of elementary quantum theory has been explicitly constructed. That particular interpretation has indeed a grossly non-local structure. This is characteristic, according to the result to be proved here, of any such theory which reproduces exactly the quantum mechanical predictions. Formulation With the example advocated by Bohm and Aharonov, the EPR argument is the following. Consider a pair of spin one-half particles formed somehow in the singlet spin state and moving freely in opposite directions. Measurements can be made, say by Stern–Gerlach magnets, on selected components of the spins σ 1 and σ 2 .
This paper discusses the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox from a new point of view. In section II, the arguments by which Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen reach their paradoxical conclusions are presented. They are found to rest on two critical assumptions: (a) that before a measurement is made on a system consisting of two non-interacting but correlated sub-systems, the state of the entire system is exactly represented by: (b) that the exact measurement of an observable A in one of the sub-systems is possible. In section III it is shown that assumption (b) is incorrect. Thus we conclude, as did Bohr, that the results of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen are not valid. The arguments of section III are quite distinct from Bohr's, and therefore in Section IV this work is related to that of Bohr.