Realism in Quantum Mechanics and a New Version of the EPR Experiment

Roshan Foadi, F. Selleri

Liangsuo Shu, Shiping Jin, Xiaokang Liu +5 more

Local realism has been knocked down by the experiments with entangled pairs of particles based on Bell's theorem(J. S. Bell, Physics (Long Island City, N.Y.) 1, 195 (1964)). However, there has been continuing debate on whether locality or realism is the problem. In this work, we analyzed the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen thought experiment of Bohm's version using information theory and thermodynamics. The inference of non-locality from EPR experiments will be against the principle of non-realism of quantum mechanics. Therefore, the experiments about quantum entanglement cannot provide any proof to accuse locality.

Stanley Gudder

M. D. Reid

We consider a new version of the Einstein - Podolsky - Rosen (EPR) paradox in which the measurements have limited accuracy, so that a photon number is specified only to plus or minus a macroscopic number of photons. In our example the minimum quantum uncertainty product for the two relevant conjugate quantities is itself a macroscopic photon number. This new version of the EPR situation is stronger than the original microscopic versions, which were based on the validity, now disproved by Bell experiments, of `local realism' at a microscopic level. The new version is based on the validity of `macroscopic local realism', which has to date not been questioned.

Guang-Liang Li

Bell inequalities are intended to formulate mathematically the argument of the thought-experiment proposed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) in the Einstein-Bohr Debate. Devised to test Bell inequalities against quantum mechanics for resolving the Einstein-Bohr debate, Bell experiments are purportedly modern versions of the EPR experiment. However, there exists a fatal logical flaw in Bell experiments. Because of the logical flaw, Bell experiments differ essentially from the EPR experiment, and quantum correlation in the EPR experiment is not "quantum entanglement" in Bell experiments; the latter is not physically meaningful. In addition to the logical flaw in Bell experiments, a physical constraint imposed on measuring individual quantum objects is violated by all Bell inequalities, which makes Bell inequalities physically meaningless. Unlike Bell experiments, the EPR experiment will not violate any physical constraint, and the EPR argument has no logical flaw. Consequently, the experimental invalidation of Bell inequalities is not evidence for falsifying the two fundamental hypotheses for scientific research, i.e., locality and realism, underlying the EPR experiment, and by no means can Bell experiments resolve the Einstein-Bohr debate. Stemming from abandoning either locality or realism or both, the so-called new applications of quantum mechanics, including various quantum information technologies, are all ineligible and doomed to failure, for they attempt to exploit physically meaningless "quantum superposition" or "quantum entanglement", treating them as physical resources "out there" in the real world.

Hans Primas