The EPR paradox appears when measurement results of some properties of two distantly entangled particles are correlated in a way that cannot be explained classically, and apparently violate locality. The resolution of the paradox depends on one’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. Explanations from quantum mechanics remain commonplace today, but they fail to explain the EPR (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) paradox totally in a way than can be accepted by the whole community. Here, we present a simple resolution to this paradox in which the uncertainty in the energy of the two-particle system is reduced by its lack of interaction during the journey so that the uncertainty in time becomes greater than the time they have been separating. Consequently, the present and past become indistinguishable because when we measure an observable in the system its value is the same as if the two particle were still together or very close. It is also argued that the destruction of information as the present and past become identical should release heat by Landauer’s principle, and this might make this proposal testable.
The EPR paradox appears when measurement results of some properties of two distantly entangled particles are correlated in a way that cannot be explained classically, and apparently violate locality. The resolution of the paradox depends on one’s interpretation of quantum mechanics. Explanations from quantum mechanics remain commonplace today, but they fail to explain the EPR (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) paradox totally in a way than can be accepted by the whole community. Here, we present a simple resolution to this paradox in which the uncertainty in the energy of the two-particle system is reduced by its lack of interaction during the journey so that the uncertainty in time becomes greater than the time they have been separating. Consequently, the present and past become indistinguishable because when we measure an observable in the system its value is the same as if the two particle were still together or very close. It is also argued that the destruction of information as the present and past become identical should release heat by Landauer’s principle, and this might make this proposal testable.
Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen pointed out that the quantum-mechanical description of “physical reality” implies an unphysical, instantaneous action between distant measurements. To avoid such an action at a distance, these three concluded that quantum mechanics had to be incomplete. However, its extensions involving additional “hidden variables,” allowing for the recovery of determinism and locality, have been disproved experimentally (Bell’s theorem). In this paper, an opposite solution of the paradox is presented, based on the greater indeterminism of the modern quantum field theory (QFT) description of particle physics, which prevents the preparation of any state having a definite number of particles. The resulting uncertainty in photon radiation has interesting consequences in quantum information theory (e.g., cryptography and teleportation). Moreover, since it allows for fewer elements of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) physical reality than the old non-relativistic quantum mechanics, QFT satisfies the EPR condition of completeness without the need for hidden variables. The residual physical reality never violates locality; thus, the unique objective proof of “quantum nonlocality” is removed in an interpretation-independent way. At the same time, the supposed nonlocality of the EPR correlations turns out to be a problem in interpretation of the measurement process. If we do not rely on hidden variables or new physics beyond QFT, the viable interpretation is a minimal statistical one, which preserves locality and Lorentz symmetry.
It is shown that there is one purely deterministic outcome when measurement is made on the state function chosen by EPR to describe the combined two-particle system – the distance between the two particles is preserved the same. Further, it is shown that, surprisingly, the Ψ-function designed according to QM leads to the following paradox – despite the fact that the two particles move in opposite directions, in time the distance between them becomes shorter and shorter. As is known, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) [1] observe two particles which have interacted in the past (for 0 Tt< <) but the interaction between them has ceased for times Tt>. Nevertheless, both particles, even at times Tt> EPR consider to be described by one common state-function, namely 1 2 ( ,)x xΨ. The authors have chosen to explore one particular form of that state-function, namely ( ) 1 2 01 2 (), i x x x pdpex x − −Ψ = ∫ =. (1) This function may be rewritten as ( ) 2 0 11 2 (), i ix x p x pdpe ex x − +Ψ = ∫ = = (2) and then 1 i x p e = can be considered as the orthonormal basis of an observable A pertaining to particle 1 (position of particle 1) while the exponents
In this work, we examine the paradox proposed by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR). They argued that since one may know the exact momentum of a particle without measurement and subsequently measure its position, a contradiction with the Heisenberg uncertainty principle arises. We demonstrate that there is no paradox by two equivalent approaches: first, by computing the quantum conditional expectation to make predictions after a measurement; and second, using the von Neumann post-measurement state. We establish the equivalence between these two methods. In both cases the predictor is an operator valued function of the observables being measured. This ensures that no violation of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle occurs.
A generalization of the 1935 Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) argument for measurements with continuous variable outcomes is presented to establish criteria for the demonstration of the EPR paradox, for situations where the correlation between spatially separated subsystems is not perfect. Two types of criteria for EPR correlations are determined. The first type are based on measurements of the variances of conditional probability distributions and are necessary to reflect directly the situation of the original EPR paradox. The second weaker set of EPR criteria are based on the proven failure of (Bell-type) local realistic theories which could be consistent with a local quantum description for each subsystem. The relationship with criteria sufficient to prove entanglement is established, to show that any demonstration of EPR correlations will also signify entanglement. It is also shown how a demonstration of entanglement between two spatially separated subsystems, if not able to interpreted as a violation of a Bell-type inequality, may be interpreted as a demonstration of the EPR correlations. In particular it is explained how the experimental observation of two-mode squeezing using spatially separated detectors will signify not only entanglement but EPR correlations defined in a general sense.
Introduction The paradox of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen was advanced as an argument that quantum mechanics could not be a complete theory but should be supplemented by additional variables. These additional variables were to restore to the theory causality and locality. In this note that idea will be formulated mathematically and shown to be incompatible with the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. It is the requirement of locality, or more precisely that the result of a measurement on one system be unaffected by operations on a distant system with which it has interacted in the past, that creates the essential difficulty. There have been attempts to show that even without such a separability or locality requirement no ‘hidden variable’ interpretation of quantum mechanics is possible. These attempts have been examined elsewhere and found wanting. Moreover, a hidden variable interpretation of elementary quantum theory has been explicitly constructed. That particular interpretation has indeed a grossly non-local structure. This is characteristic, according to the result to be proved here, of any such theory which reproduces exactly the quantum mechanical predictions. Formulation With the example advocated by Bohm and Aharonov, the EPR argument is the following. Consider a pair of spin one-half particles formed somehow in the singlet spin state and moving freely in opposite directions. Measurements can be made, say by Stern–Gerlach magnets, on selected components of the spins σ 1 and σ 2 .
Experiments have reported the entanglement of two spatially separated macroscopic atomic ensembles at room temperature (Krauter et al 2011 Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 080503; Julsgaard et al 2001 Nature 413 400). We show how an Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paradox is realizable with this experiment. Our proposed test involves violation of an inferred Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which is a sufficient condition for an EPR paradox. This is a stronger test of nonlocality than entanglement. Our proposal would enable the first definitive confirmation of quantum EPR paradox correlations between two macroscopic objects at room temperature. This is a necessary intermediate step towards a nonlocal experiment with causal measurement separations. As well as having fundamental significance, the realization of an atomic EPR paradox could provide a resource for novel applications in quantum technology.