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A Proposal for Experimentally Testing Different “Interpretations” of Quantum Mechanics

Asghar Qadir

Published May 2, 2023• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract It used to be assumed that the differences between “interpretations” of quantummechanics are philosophical and not physical. The experimental test of the original EPR “thought experiment” by Aspect et al., using the Bell inequalities, eliminatedthe Bohm-Aharanov local hidden variables, demonstrating that the so-called interpretations are distinct theories, amenable to experimental testing, and not merely philosophically different “interpretations”. In this paper I present a sequence of experiments, doable by current technology, to distinguish between various “interpretations” of Quantum Mechanics.

DOI
10.21203/rs.3.rs-2862148/v1

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Abstract It used to be assumed that the differences between “interpretations” of quantummechanics are philosophical and not physical. The experimental test of the original EPR “thought experiment” by Aspect et al., using the Bell inequalities, eliminatedthe Bohm-Aharanov local hidden variables, demonstrating that the so-called interpretations are distinct theories, amenable to experimental testing, and not merely philosophically different “interpretations”. In this paper I present a sequence of experiments, doable by current technology, to distinguish between various “interpretations” of Quantum Mechanics.
Bell's inequalities(1964) provides a quantitative criterion to test the local hidden variable theory(LHVT) versus quantum mechanics(QM).For the first time,it leads to the possibility to experimentally distinguish LHVT and QM.So far,there have been tens of experiments ever since the first experiment by Clauser et al(1972).An overwhelming majority of these experiments are in good agreement with the predictions of QM yet violate those of LHVT.Some loopholes in these experiments are discussed in Section I,followed by a respective summary to 12 experiments between 1972 to 1982 and 31 experiments from 1985 and on in Sections II and III.It is finally pointed out that so far there is not a single experiment to close both the locality loophole and the detection loophole at the same time,but the experimental outcomes are irreversible.Accordingly,theoretical physicists must admit that the present physics foundation is broken,i.e.quantum mechanics is contradiction with special relativity.
The study of hidden-variable interpretations of quantum mechanics was transformed by two papers of Bell. In his 1966 paper in Reviews of Modern Physics [1] he analysed the argument of von Neumann [2] and the more powerful arguments of Jauch and Piron [3] and of Gleason [4], all leading to similar conclusions about the nonassignability of simultaneous values to all the observables of a nontrivial quantum system; and he showed that these arguments do not exclude what may be called “contextualistic” hidden-variable theories, in which the value of an observable O is allowed to depend not only upon the hidden state λ, but also upon the set C of compatible observables measured along with O . In Bell's 1964 paper in Physics [5] (written later than the other, in spite of the earlier publication date) he gave a new kind of argument against a hidden-variable interpretation of quantum mechanics, by showing that no hidden-variables theory which satisfies a certain condition of locality can agree with all the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics. The main purpose of this lecture is to discuss an experiment, designed by Clauser, Horne, Holt and myself [6], which is based on Bell's proof of the incompatibility of quantum mechanics and local hidden-variable theories. Before doing this, however, I wish to make several comments.
Bell Inequalities IntroductionFrom the dawn of the quantum age in 1900, there has been an ongoing debate, often fierce and hostile, between the supporters of the classical world view and those of the quantum world view.This debate eventually led to remarkable experiments, the convincing and repeated results of which are claimed by quantum theorists to support the predictions of quantum mechanics (QM) and not those of classical mechanics (CM).However, old paradigms tend to linger on the shelves of science long past their sell-by dates and there are extant schools of theorists that strive to find loopholes in the above-mentioned experiments.That is a legitimate activity up to a point, but the divisive nature of the debate requires commentary, which is the subject matter of this chapter.QM was discovered only by advanced technology, so it stands to reason that any test of QM will require even more advanced technology.In the previous chapter we stressed the differences between active and passive transformations.The experiments discussed here rely on such technically difficult active transformations that the Hidden Variables (HV) theorists (for that is really what they are) opposing QM are frequently able to think of objections, known as loopholes, to the empirical protocols employed by the experimentalists.Some of these loopholes are reasonable but many are not.Closing those loopholes convincingly is an ongoing important activity in experimental quantum physics.A significant feature of the experiments discussed in this chapter is that they go beyond a certain point of complexity in terms of the number of classical and quantum degrees of freedom involved.Historically, before that point had been reached, classical interpretations of quantum wave functions appeared viable and perhaps even attractive, such as that proposed by Bohm (Bohm, 1952).We shall refer to the collective of such interpretations as the hidden variables (HV) paradigm and the point in question as the Heisenberg point.
Abstract By filtering out the philosophic component we can be said that the EPR-paper was directed against the straightforward interpretation of the Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle or more generally the Bohr’s complementarity principle. The latter expresses contextuality of quantum measurements: dependence of measurement’s output on the complete experimental arrangement. However, Bell restructured the EPR-argument against complementarity to justify nonlocal theories with hidden variables of the Bohmian mechanics’ type. Then this Bell’s kind of nonlocality - subquantum nonlocality - was lifted to the level of quantum theory - up to the terminology “quantum nonlocality”. The aim of this short note is to explain that Bell’s test is simply a special test of local incompatibility of quantum observables, similar to interference experiments, e.g., the two-slit experiment.
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.