What We Can Know: is Marcus du Sautoy Right re Bell's Theorem?

I. Pearson

Justo Pastor Lambare

Gordon Watson

Here begins a precautionary tale from a creative life in STEM. Bringing an elementary knowledge of vectors to Bell (1964)—en route to refuting Bell's inequality and his theorem—we aim to help STEM students study one of the strangest double-errors in the history of science. To that end we question Marcus du Sautoy's claim that Bell's theorem is as mathematically robust as they come.

Niall Shanks

Gordon Watson

Here begins a precautionary tale from a creative life in STEM. Bringing an elementary knowledge of vectors to Bell (1964)—en route to refuting Bell’s inequality and his theorem—we aim to help STEM students study one of the strangest double-errors in the history of science. To that end we question du Sautoy’s (2016) claim that Bell’s theorem is as mathematically robust as they come.

Gordon Watson

This open letter challenges Annals of Physics' Editors and Bell's supporters on this front: in the context of Bell's theorem -- after AoP (2016:67) -- ‘it's a proven scientific fact that a violation of local realism has been demonstrated theoretically and experimentally.' We show that such claims under the Bellian canon are curtailed by its foundation on a naive realism that is known to be false; ie, under Bohr's old insight (in our terms), a test may disturb the tested system. Further: (i) We define a general all-embracing local realism -- CLR, commonsense local realism -- the union of local-causality (no causal influence propagates superluminally) and physical-realism (some physical properties change interactively). (ii) Under CLR, with EPR-based variables (and without QM), a thought-experiment delivers a local-realistic account of EPRB and GHZ in 3-space. (iii) Under EPR, mixing common-sense with undergrad math/physics in the classical way so favored by Einstein, we interpret QM locally and realistically. (iv) We find the flaw in Bell's theorem: Bell's 1964:(14a) ≠ Bell's 1964:(14b) under EPRB. (v) EPR (1935) famously argue that additional variables will bring locality and causality to QM's completion; we show that they are right. (vi) Even more famously, Bell (1964) cried ‘impossible' against such variables; we give the shortest possible refutation of his claim. (vii) Using Bell's (1988:88) moot gloss on a fragment of von Neumann's work, we conclude: ‘There's nothing to Bell's theorem -- nor Bellian variants like CHSH (1969), Mermin (1990), Peres (1995); nor Bellian endorsements like those by Bricmont, du Sautoy, Goldstein et al., Maudlin, Norsen, Shimony -- it's not just flawed, it's silly; its assumptions nonsense; it's not merely false but foolish' and misleading. (viii) Our results accord with common-sense, QM, Einstein's principles, EPR's belief and Bell's hopes and expectations.