This short paper identifies that the concept of a local measurement is always violated by a necessary metrological process – calibration. J. S. Bell's formal development of the same violation demonstrates that the EPR paradox and related discontinuities may be resolved by including the calibration process in a measurement process, as formalized in Measurement, February 2018 “Relative Measurement Theory”.
This short paper identifies that the concept of a local measurement is always violated by a necessary metrological process – calibration. J. S. Bell's formal development of the same violation demonstrates that the EPR paradox and related discontinuities may be resolved by including the calibration process in a measurement process, as formalized in Measurement, February 2018 “Relative Measurement Theory”.
This paper is a response to the EPR paper titled: "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?", published in Physical Review in 1935. A quantum-mechanical (QM) measurement function describes a distribution of local results and each empirical measurement process produces one result as exact as allowed by a measuring instrument calibrated to a non-local unit standard. Repeating these empirical measurements produces a bell shaped distribution of measurement results. Each of these distributions can be compared to the other. To precisely compare a QM measurement function describing a distribution of eigenvectors to a distribution of repetitive empirical measurement results, it is necessary to determine, by calibration, the precision of the eigenvectors to the same standard as the empirical results, because each eigenvector evidences uncertainty relative to a standard. When the calibration process is recognized as formal as well as empirical, QM measurement function results and metrology measurement process results are unified.
Despite its remarkable success in describing microscopic phenomena, quantum mechanics continues to pose unresolved foundational questions concerning measurement, nonlocality, wavefunction collapse, and the nature of physical reality. These issues were highlighted by the EPR paradox. Quantum mechanics predicts that measuring one particle’s observable instantaneously determines the state of the other, seemingly violating special relativity’s prohibition of faster-than-light influences and suggesting an incomplete description of physical reality. However, Bell’s theorem has largely ruled out local hidden variable theories. In this paper, I critically examine the assumptions in deriving Bell’s theorem and demonstrate that the theorem does not apply strictly to quantum mechanics. By assuming measurement is always accompanied by uncontrollable environment interactions, I show that quantum theory can be local and realism with decoherence in EPR-like measurement. Specifically, I apply the quantum decoherence framework, pioneered by Zeh, Zurek and Leggett to analyze an EPR-like system using system-environment interactions as a measurement model. The results illustrate that measurement on one entangled particle does not instantaneously collapse the system's wavefunction. Instead, the local wavefunctions of the measured particle and its environment evolve dynamically, while the remote particle’s wavefunction remains unchanged. Environment-induced decoherence selects pointer states and rapidly suppresses quantum correlations through strictly local interactions, giving rise to the appearance of wavefunction collapse. These findings challenge the conventional interpretation of Bell’s theorem and suggest that quantum mechanics fundamentally respects locality and realism if the wavefunction is treated as an ontic entity. This work offers a potential path toward a locally realistic quantum theory in alignment with Einstein’s vision. It not only strengthens the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics, but also carries tremendous implications for quantum information processing and computing.
Abstract This paper is a response to the EPR paper titled: "Can quantum-mechanical description of physical reality be considered complete?", published in Physical Review in 1935. A quantum-mechanical (QM) measure function describes a distribution of local results, while each experimental measurement process produces one result as exact as allowed by a measuring apparatus calibrated to a non-local unit standard. Repeating experimental measurements produces a Gaussian distribution of measurement results. These QM and experimental measurement result distributions can be compared. To compare a QM measure function describing a distribution of eigenvectors to a distribution of repetitive experimental measurement results, it is necessary to determine, by calibration, the precision of the eigenvectors to the same standard as the experimental results, because each eigenvector evidences uncertainty relative to a standard. When the calibration process is recognized as formal as well as empirical, QM measure function and experimental measurement process results are unified.
With Bell's inequalities one has a formal expression to show how essentially all local theories of natural phenomena that are formulated within the framework of realism may be tested using a simple experimental arrangement. For the case of entangled pairs of spin-1/2 particles we propose an alternative measurement setup which is consistent to the necessary assumptions corresponding to the derivation of the Bell inequalities. We find that the Bell inequalities are never violated with respect to our suggested measurement process.
Despite its remarkable success in describing microscopic phenomena, quantum mechanics continues to pose unresolved foundational questions concerning measurement, nonlocality, wavefunction collapse, and the nature of physical reality. These issues were highlighted by the EPR paradox1-2, in which Einstein and his co-authors examined the measurement of entangled particles in space-like separation. Quantum mechanics predicts that measuring one particle’s observable instantaneously determines the state of the other, seemingly violating special relativity’s prohibition of faster-than-light influences and suggesting an incomplete description of physical reality. However, Bell’s theorem3-5, along with the Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem6-10 and subsequent experiments, has largely ruled out local hidden variable theories. In this work, I apply the quantum decoherence framework11-13, pioneered by Zeh, Zurek, Joos and Leggett et al. to analyze an EPR-like system using system-environment interactions as a measurement model. I demonstrate that measurement on one entangled particle does not instantaneously collapse the system's wavefunction. Instead, the local wavefunctions of the measured particle and its environment evolve dynamically, while the remote particle’s wavefunction remains unchanged. Environment-induced decoherence selects pointer states and rapidly suppresses quantum correlations through local interactions, giving rise to the appearance of wavefunction collapse. These findings suggest that quantum mechanics can be reconciled with local realism if the wavefunction is treated as an ontic entity, offering a potential path toward a locally realistic quantum theory in alignment with Einstein’s vision.
Aside from Bell’s inequality, QM and local real theory have other specifications that can be observed in experiments. To explore these specifications, we re-examine EPR paradox to show that non-locality arises from the absence of location variable. Our analysis are then applied to several reported experiments. 1) In a known short range Bell experiment with high detection efficiency, portion of the presented data agrees more with local real model than with QM. 2) The so called non maximally entangled state in several experiments are essentially partially entangled photons, with a large local real part helping the violation of Bell’s inequality, and the reported event counts deviate from expected entanglement model. 3) In long range EPR experiments for closing locality loophole, interactions with local real apparatus prior to measurements put the entanglement in question.