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Philosophical Problems in Science (Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce)

Krótka (pre)historia argumentu EPR

Tadeusz Pabjan

Published Dec 20, 2010• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The 1935 thought experiment of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen is one of the most important episodes in the history of the dispute about the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. The present paper deals with the origin of the EPR paper and discusses some other thought experiments that preceded the formulation of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument. Special attention is paid to the evolution of a simply photon-box experiment, which was devised by Einstein in 1930 and then modified by him several times before 1935. It is argued that the scheme of the original EPR argument is in fact contained in these few seminal experiments.

DOI
10.59203/zfn.47.156

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The 1935 thought experiment of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen is one of the most important episodes in the history of the dispute about the correct interpretation of quantum mechanics. The present paper deals with the origin of the EPR paper and discusses some other thought experiments that preceded the formulation of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen argument. Special attention is paid to the evolution of a simply photon-box experiment, which was devised by Einstein in 1930 and then modified by him several times before 1935. It is argued that the scheme of the original EPR argument is in fact contained in these few seminal experiments.
In 1930, Einstein argued against the consistency of the time–energy uncertainty relation by discussing a thought experiment involving a measurement of the mass of the box which emitted a photon. Bohr seemingly prevailed over Einstein by arguing that Einstein's own general theory of relativity saves the consistency of quantum mechanics. We revisit this thought experiment from a modern point of view at a level suitable for an undergraduate readership and find that neither Einstein nor Bohr was correct. Instead, this thought experiment should be thought of as an early example of a system demonstrating nonlocal 'EPR' quantum correlations, five years before the famous Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paper.
The author describes several thought experiments that are important in modern physics, by which he mean the physical theory and practice that developed explosively from the late 19th century onwards. Some thought experiments provide the basis for rigorous arguments with clear conclusions; others seem to work simply by drawing attention to an important question that otherwise might not have been apparent. While the thought experiments to be discussed here are key turning points in the history of modern physical theory, in several cases their full implications remain to be plumbed. It is an extraordinary fact that most of the decisive thought experiments in 20th-century physics were born from the fertile imagination of one person, Albert Einstein. This forces to ponder the importance of individual creativity in the advancement of science. The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) thought experiment dominates investigations of the foundations of quantum mechanics and plays a defining role in quantum information theory.
In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR) published a thought experiment that is entirely correct, has been demonstrated in real experiments, and is now the most famous in quantum physics. Their pioneering work described, for the first time, quantum correlations and can be regarded as a very early glimpse into today's 'deep' quantum technologies, by which I mean those that enhance functionality by making use of quantum correlations. However, their work also contains a paradox that Erwin Schroedinger had already recognised as such in 1935 and which has since been cemented by the so-called Bell experiments. Here, I am now able to pinpoint the origin of the paradox within the chain of reasoning, which ultimately resolves the paradox.
In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen ('EPR') reported on a thought experiment that they believed showed that quantum theory provided an incomplete description of reality. Today we know that quantum theory is a complete and correct description of Nature (in flat space-time). The EPR thought experiment is predicted by quantum theory and has since been experimentally confirmed. However, EPR experiments have no physical pictorial explanation, and are considered part of a "paradox". Here I resolve the "paradox". I show independently of any interpretation of quantum theory that EPR (thought) experiments are a direct and compelling consequence of the existence of true randomness and the conservation of energy. It becomes obvious why EPR (thought) experiments allow for the precise prediction of truly random measurement values. Local hidden variables are not motivated.
This chapter details not only the prehistory of EPR but also examines the structure and logic of the EPR paper – including Einstein’s own preferred version of the argument for incompleteness. We here attempt a seamless interweaving of the excellent extant literature with additional details that have emerged from our work and the recent work of others. Some examples of new aspects in this prehistory of EPR include evidence of a ‘proto’ photon-box thought experiment Einstein had developed in connection with his ill-starred collaboration with Emil Rupp in 1926. We also describe the potential importance to this prehistory of Einstein’s paper with Tolman and Podolsky and of Einstein’s seminar and discussions with Schrödinger in Berlin in the early 1930s.
Assessment of Einstein's argument Is quantum mechanics complete and local … It was observed in §1.4 that Einstein's method of criticizing the orthodox view of quantum theory was to focus on examples whose special characteristics could be used to show that adherence to the completeness assumption compels one to adopt ‘unnatural theoretical interpretations’. It was a way not of disproving the conventional interpretation by attempting to locate in it some logical flaw, but of pushing it into a corner that in Einstein's view no one would seriously want to inhabit. The paper of Einstein, Podolsky & Rosen (EPR) (1935) is the most famous component of this programme and the purpose of this chapter is to analyse the extent to which the arguments presented in it are compatible with the quantum theory of motion. From contemporaneous correspondence it appears that the EPR paper was written by Podolsky and that Einstein did not consider that the point which was really troubling him had been made explicit (Fine, 1986, Chap. 3). According to Einstein's accounts, EPR had the following purpose: to show that if one believes the wavefunction exhausts all the statements that can be meaningfully asserted about a physical system, then one must also accept that the real physical state of the system depends on what befalls another system with which it has previously interacted, no matter how far apart the two systems may become.