Heisenberg deduced the famous uncertainty principle which shows that there exist several conjugated quantities that can never be measured precisely at the same time. Further, Copenhagen interpretation gives a new perspective about quantum mechanics, which claims that particles do not have properties like position or momentum until people measure it. Hence, the famous EPR paradox was proposed to question the realism and locality of Quantum mechanics, which leads to the Hidden Variable explanation. However, this theorem was proved wrong by John Bell in 1964 with Bell Inequality. In addition, Hidden Variable Interpretation was developed by De Broglie and Bohm, they came up with the Bohmian Mechanics, which can be considered as Non-local Hidden Variable theorem. This interpretation gives physical meaning to waves. Unlike Copenhagen Interpretation, this theorem claims that particles do have a determined position. Some people may argue that it can be proved contradicted by using the Turing method (self-reference). Because if the algorithm represented by physics law described Hidden Mechanics to determine particles’ state, then the future is determined and predictable. Therefore, another algorithm can be established based on that, which will lead to “Liar Paradox”. This article will briefly introduce the uncertainty principle and some interpretations about quantum mechanics. Furthermore, this article will combine some ideas in Alan Turing’s Halting Problem to the universe of non-local hidden variables as a thought experiment, which involve self-reference, to give an interesting result of locality and determinism.
Heisenberg deduced the famous uncertainty principle which shows that there exist several conjugated quantities that can never be measured precisely at the same time. Further, Copenhagen interpretation gives a new perspective about quantum mechanics, which claims that particles do not have properties like position or momentum until people measure it. Hence, the famous EPR paradox was proposed to question the realism and locality of Quantum mechanics, which leads to the Hidden Variable explanation. However, this theorem was proved wrong by John Bell in 1964 with Bell Inequality. In addition, Hidden Variable Interpretation was developed by De Broglie and Bohm, they came up with the Bohmian Mechanics, which can be considered as Non-local Hidden Variable theorem. This interpretation gives physical meaning to waves. Unlike Copenhagen Interpretation, this theorem claims that particles do have a determined position. Some people may argue that it can be proved contradicted by using the Turing method (self-reference). Because if the algorithm represented by physics law described Hidden Mechanics to determine particles’ state, then the future is determined and predictable. Therefore, another algorithm can be established based on that, which will lead to “Liar Paradox”. This article will briefly introduce the uncertainty principle and some interpretations about quantum mechanics. Furthermore, this article will combine some ideas in Alan Turing’s Halting Problem to the universe of non-local hidden variables as a thought experiment, which involve self-reference, to give an interesting result of locality and determinism.
An interpretation of quantum mechanics is presented in which there is one hidden variable. While this number of hidden variables is insufficient to explain Bell nonlocality it can help solve the measurement problem. It also provides an explanation of the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment that does not involve retroactive erasure of “which way” information and is more intuitive than current explanations. In addition, it offers a solution to the new Wigner’s friend paradox. The key idea is that from the perspective of an outside observer, not entangled with an observed system, we treat all interactions within the system as unitary. However, from the perspective of an “observer” inside the system, entangled with the system, we treat all new entanglements as “micro-observations” and as a projection onto some basis of measurement. One particle can “observe” another. Thus, particles will have a defined value on one measurement basis from the inside perspective. This means that the wave function, from the outside view, will at times describe an objective uncertainty, at other times a subjective uncertainty and at yet other times a combination of both. The wave function describes the total uncertainty, the minimal uncertainty that is present for any observer outside of the system, while for an observer inside the system, only the objective part of the uncertainty remains. The hidden variable is invisible to the outside observer.
The EPR paradox is shown to be a result of the wrong definitions in quantum mechanics of such physical quantities as momentum and position. The corrected definitions show that momentum and position of particles can be precisely defined simultaneously and uncertainty relations do not prevent it. Therefore, with correct definition of physical quantities in quantum mechanics, the paradox disappears. The Bohm Aharonov version of the EPR paradox is illustrated by the example of measuring the polarization of photon pairs. The common view of the two photon state radiated by a source is presented. The common Bell’s inequality is discussed and the simplest version of it for a specific hidden variable is derived. A possibility of an experimental study of whether a photon and its polarization are preexistent before measurements is considered.
The two previous papers developed quantum mechanical formalism from classical mechanics and two additional postulates. In the first paper it was also shown that the uncertainty relations possess no ontological validity and only reflect the formalism's limitations. In this paper, a Realist Interpretation of quantum mechanics based on these results is elaborated and compared to the Copenhagen Interpretation. We demonstrate that von Neumann's proof of the impossibility of a hidden variable theory is not correct, independently of Bell's argumentation. A local hidden variable theory is found for non-relativistic quantum mechanics, which is nothing else than newtonian mechanics itself. We prove that Bell's theorem does not imply in a non-locality of quantum mechanics, and also demonstrate that Bohm's theory cannot be considered a true hidden variable theory.
The dominance of the Copenhagen interpretation is the result of a historical accident (Cushing, 1994). At the Solvay conference in 1927, Louis de Broglie put forward the deterministic pilot wave theory, described later. Never slow to criticize, Pauli jumped up and demolished de Broglie’s proposal, and de Broglie was so discouraged by this that he did not develop his interpretation any further. The Copenhagen interpretation was then developed by Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli and many others, as described in the previous chapter. It was strongly supported by von Neumann’s proof of the impossibility of hidden variables. Years later, in 1952, Bohm published a deterministic hidden variable theory, showing that there must be something wrong with von Neumann’s proof. The error was found by John Bell in 1966, as described in the last chapter, and he also showed how Pauli’s objections to de Broglie’s original idea can be answered. If this had been done at the conference in 1927, quantum mechanics could have been interpreted deterministically from the beginning. The essential mistake in the Copenhagen interpretation is to treat it as a complete account of the behaviour of each individual system. It is frequently claimed that it enables us to calculate, at least in principle, everything that can be measured. Thus Hooft (1997, p. 11) said that ‘The laws of quantum mechanics have been formulated very accurately. We know exactly how to compute anything we would like to know.’ Also Peierls (1997, p. 25) has said that quantum mechanics ‘had become a complete and consistent scheme capable of giving a unique answer to any questions relating to actual or possible observations’. Even if this were true, it would not imply that it is the final complete theory, for it is always possible that some new phenomenon might be found that cannot be calculated quantum-mechanically. However, it is not true: there are many phenomena such as the time of decay of a radioactive nucleus, or the direction a particle is scattered by a nucleus, that cannot be calculated, even in principle. Quantum mechanics is therefore an incomplete theory. We can only calculate the statistical properties of these systems, such as the half-life of a radioactive decay or the differential scattering cross-section that gives the probabilities that a particle is scattered through various angles. All measurements of quantum systems are of this statistical character. It might be thought that the possibility of making measurements on a single electron provides an exception to this. However, even in such cases the electron is continually bathed in a fluctuating background radiation from nearby atoms. Since this is variable, that electron is a member of an ensemble of electrons subject to different fluctuations. All these examples clearly demonstrate the statistical character of quantum mechanics. ‘I am rather firmly convinced’, Einstein (in Schilpp, 1949, pp. 666, 671) remarked, ‘that the essentially statistical character of contemporary quantum theory is solely to be ascribed to fact that this theory operates with an incomplete description of physical systems’. As a result, ‘the c-function is to be understood as the description not of a single system but of an ensemble of systems’. So, ‘if the statistical quantum theory does not pretend to describe the individual system completely, it appears unavoidable to look elsewhere for a complete description of the individual systems’. Thus ‘the difficulties of theoretical interpretation disappear, if one views the quantum-mechanical description as a description of an ensemble of systems’. If this is achieved, ‘the statistical theory would, within the framework of future physics, take an approximately analogous position to statistical mechanics within the framework of classical mechanics’. ‘Thus, essentially, nothing has changed since Galileo or Newton or Faraday concerning the status of the ‘‘observer’’ or our ‘‘consciousness’’ or of our ‘‘information’’ in physics’ (Popper, 1982, p. 46). Once this is accepted, the quantum paradoxes that plagued the Copenhagen interpretation are easily resolved, as described below. In any textbook of quantum mechanics problems such as the calculation of the energy levels of the hydrogen atom are solved as if that hydrogen atom is alone in the universe. As Feynman (1972) remarked, ‘when we solve a quantum-mechanical problem, what we really do is to divide the universe into two parts – the system in which we are interested and the rest of the universe. We then usually act as if the system in which we are interested comprised the whole universe.’ In fact, however, every hydrogen atom on which measurements are made is surrounded by other atoms and exposed to their radiations. Quantum mechanics somehow takes this into account and gives the average behaviour of an ensemble of hydrogen atoms. A more detailed theory takes these influences into account. One attempt to do this is stochastic electrodynamics, described in a later section.
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.
The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox demonstrates that entangled particles can interact in such a way that it is possible to measure both their position and momentum instantaneously. The position or momentum of one particle can be determined by measuring another identical particle that exists in another space. This instantaneous action is actually called nonlocality. The nonlocality has been proved by Bell’s theorem that states that all quantum theories must be nonlocal. The Bell’s theorem gives a strong support to the hidden variable theory, i.e. Bohmian mechanics. Using nonlocality, we present that the velocity field of one particle can be obtained by measuring the velocity of other particles. The trajectory of these particles is perhaps surrealistic trajectory due to the nonlocality.