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European Journal for Philosophy of Science

Must hidden variables theories be contextual? Kochen & Specker meet von Neumann and Gleason

Pablo Acuña

Published Apr 17, 2021• 7 citations
Publisher
DOI
10.1007/s13194-021-00347-8

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arXiv:quant-ph/0507182•Jul 19, 2005•1 citation
Abstract In chapter 12 we give an overview of the historical development of hidden-variable theories aiming to attribute ‘hidden’ definite outcomes to any potential measurement on a quantum system. We start with a discussion of von Neumann’s assumption on hidden-variable models, which was later realized not to hold by Hermann, Kochen, Specker, and Bell, going into detail on Bell’s refutation of von Neumann’s arguments. We then turn to the notion of contextuality, which severely restricts hidden-variable models: we discuss Gleason’s theorem before stating and proving the famous Kochen-Specker theorem, as well as the simpler versions of Peres’ nonet and Mermin’s pentagram. These results show that quantum mechanics is not compatible with the assignment of definite measurement outcomes to all possible measurements, and such assignments can hence only be made once a restricted set of observables, a context, is selected
It is shown that, although correct mathematically, the celebrated 1932 theorem of von Neumann which is often interpreted as proving the impossibility of the existence of "hidden variables" in Quantum Mechanics, is in fact based on an assumption which is physically not reasonable. Apart from that, the alleged conclusion of von Neumann proving the impossibility of the existence of "hidden variables" was already set aside in 1952 by the counterexample of the possibility of a physical theory, such as given by what is usually called the "Bohmian Mechanics". Similar arguments apply to other two well known mathematical theorems, namely, of Gleason, and of Kochen and Specker, which have often been seen as equally proving the impossibility of the existence of "hidden variables" in Quantum Mechanics.
We discuss the problem of hidden variables and the motivation for introducting them in quantum mechanics. These include determinism, and the problem of meassurement and incompleteness. We first discuss Von-Neumann's imposisbility proof and then analyse it's weakness in terms of Bell's explicit hidden variable model of spin one-half particles. We next discuss Gleason's theorem and Kochen-Specker theorem and bring out the troublems with non contextual hidden variable theories. An important role is played by Einstein locality in the discussion of hidden variable theories as was first brought out by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen. We elaborate it's various implications such as Bell's theorem in terms of Bell's inequalities as well as later work in which Bell's theorem follows without using inequalities.