This paper throws a new light on Bell-test experiments. It is analyzed what the results of Bell-test experiments exactly represent and how they come to existance. It turns out that the 'violation of Bell's inequalities' can be accounted for in a logical way and that there is no need for 'spooky action at a distance'. A condition is that spin is a definite property of particles
This paper throws a new light on Bell-test experiments. It is analyzed what the results of Bell-test experiments exactly represent and how they come to existance. It turns out that the 'violation of Bell's inequalities' can be accounted for in a logical way and that there is no need for 'spooky action at a distance'. A condition is that spin is a definite property of particles
Abstract Claims that entanglement, or non-local interaction ("spooky action-at-a-distance), has been experimentally proven are false. The claims are based entirely on the fact that the results of experiments performed to test that issue (EPR-Bohm experiments) violate various theoretical inequalities (Bell Inequalities).The various Bell Inequalities used to interpret the results of EPR-Bohm experiments are shown to be inappropriate for such experiments. The inequalities do not correctly provide for the correlation between the particles in each pair, which is the essence of such experiments; and therefore the inequalities are irrelevant. Claims that the results of such experiments, because they violate the inequalities, require the conclusion that the measurement of one particle in an "entangled" pair can instantly affect the state of its partner, even at great distances, are untrue and need to be modified.
We analyze foundational consequences of recently announced loophole free tests of violation of Bell's inequality. We consider two interpretations of these remarkable experiments. By the conventional one Einstein was wrong and Bohr was right, there is spooky action at a distance, quantum realism is incompatible with locality. However, we show that it is still possible to treat quantum mechanics without appealing to nonlocality or denying realism. We hope that this note will attract attention of the experts in quantum foundations and convince them to come with their own comments on the final Bell's test.
Introduction Fifty years after the publication of Bell's theorem, there remains some controversy regarding what the theorem is telling us about quantum mechanics, and what the experimental violations of Bell inequalities are telling us about the world. This chapter represents my best attempt to be clear about what I think the lessons are. In brief: There is some sort of nonlocality inherent in any quantum theory, and, moreover, in any theory that reproduces, even approximately, the quantum probabilities for the outcomes of experiments. But not all forms of nonlocality are the same; there is a distinction to be made between action at a distance and other forms of nonlocality, and I will argue that the nonlocality needed to violate the Bell inequalities need not involve action at a distance. Furthermore, the distinction between forms of nonlocality makes a difference when it comes to compatibility with relativistic causal structure. The Bell locality condition is a condition which, if satisfied, renders possible a completely local account of the correlations between outcomes of spatially separated experiments. Bell's theorem tells us that the probabilities that we compute from quantum mechanics do not admit of such an account. Modulo auxiliary assumptions that, in my opinion, should be noncontroversial, this yields the conclusion that there must be something nonlocal about any theory that yields the quantum mechanical probabilities or anything close to them. One way to violate the Bell locality condition – and this is the way that any deterministic theory must do it – is via straightforward action at a distance. However, we should also consider the possibility of a stochastic theorywith probabilistic laws that involve irreducible correlations. The sort of nonlocality inherent in such a theory involves relations between events that are significantly different from causal relations as usually conceived. Perhaps surprisingly, such a theory, unlike its deterministic cousins, need not invoke a distinguished relation of distant simultaneity. This makes a difference for the situation of the two sorts of theories vis-a-vis relativity. Though a deterministic theory can achieve the appearance of being relativistic, at the level of observable phenomena, it can do so only by introducing a preferred foliation and with it a causal structure at odds with relativistic causal structures. Things are otherwise with dynamical collapse theories.
We analyze foundational consequences of recently reported loophole free tests of violation of Bell's inequality. We consider two interpretations of these remarkable experiments. The conventional one is “Einstein was wrong and Bohr was right, there is spooky action at a distance, quantum realism is incompatible with locality.” However, in line with discussions in literature during last decade, we show that it is still possible to treat quantum mechanics without appealing to nonlocality or denying realism. We hope that this note will call the attention of experts in quantum foundations and convince them that the case is not closed, so that they should come with their own comments on the status of the final Bell test.
Abstract The various Bell Inequalities used to interpret the results of EPR-Bohm experiments are shown to be inappropriate for such experiments. The inequalities do not allow for correlation between the particles, which is the basis for such experiments, and therefore are irrelevant. Claims that the results of such experiments, because they violate the inequalities, require the conclusion that the measurement of one particle in an "entangled" pair can instantly affect the state of its partner, even at great distances, are untrue and need to be modified.
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.