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Physics

Quantum Milestones, 1964: John Stewart Bell Quietly Rings in New Era of Quantum Theory

Dan Garisto

Published Mar 7, 2025• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

In 1964, Bell showed that quantum physics predicts correlations that violate certain inequalities. The work implied that quantum mechanics is not compatible with locality, even if there were “hidden variables” not accounted for in quantum theory.
DOI
10.1103/physics.18.53

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Quantum theory is considered as the most successful scientific theory of all time. The realization of a controversy between quantum mechanics and reasonable assumptions was pointed out by Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (EPR) in 1935. It was John Stewart Bell, an Irish physicist, established what the quantum theory can tell us about the nature of the world. Bell formulated certain inequalities based on the arguments of EPR. They should be valid for any theory satisfying the notions of reality and locality. The striking news is that the Bell's inequality is violated by quantum mechanics but the experimental results agree with the predictions of quantum theory. This chapter presents the Schrodinger cat paradox and Bohm's version of EPR paradox. It gives a brief sketch of Bell's inequality and the quantum mechanical examples violating it. Most of the experiments were based on correlations between the polarizations of pairs of photons. Correlated photons can be produced in many ways.
Abstract Bell’s theorem (Bell 1964) establishes that local hidden variable theories are committed to Bell inequalities violated by quantum correlations. Since violations of Bell inequalities can be verified without requiring that the observables whose correlations figure in the inequalities be measured with arbitrarily high precision, Bell’s theorem yields a method of falsifying local hidden variable the­ ories. Moreover, the evidence for violations of Bell inequalities We thank J. Finklestein, N. D. Mermin, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. A. K. was supported by a Royal Society University Research Fellow­ ship and thanks the Oxford Centre for Quantum Computation for much appreciated hospitality.
Abstract John Stewart Bell was one of the most significant physicists of the twentieth century; his work has led to a much enhanced understanding of quantum theory and what it says about the physical universe, particularly about realism, determinism, and locality. This book describes Bell's relatively humble origins and his struggles to obtain secondary and university education. It then describes his work at Harwell, where he made important theoretical contributions to the development of particle accelerators, in particular with his pioneering work on strong focussing. Later, he proved the extremely important CPT theorem. At CERN, Bell made a range of important theoretical contributions to elementary particle physics; these contributions include the physics of neutrinos, the existence of different types of neutrinos, the suitability of gauge theory for all physical interactions, and the Adler–Bell–Jackiw anomaly, which shows how classical symmetries are lost under quantum theory. In his work on quantum theory, he criticized the orthodox 'Copenhagen' interpretation of quantum theory, which did not allow the actual state of the physical world to be analysed. He showed that the famous von Neumann theorem, which claimed to show that 'hidden variables' were not allowed in quantum theory, was incorrect; his famous Bell's theorem, or Bell's inequality, showed that any such variables much be non-local. Bell's work led to greatly increased freedom in the discussion of quantum theory, and the development of quantum information theory.
John Stewart Bell (1928-1990) was one of the most important figures in twentieth-century physics, famous for his work on the fundamental aspects of the century's most important theory, quantum mechanics. While the debate over quantum theory between the supremely famous physicists, Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, appeared to have become sterile in the 1930s, Bell was able to revive it and to make crucial advances - Bell's Theorem or Bell's Inequalities. He was able to demonstrate a contradiction between quantum theory and essential elements of pre-quantum theory - locality and causality. The book gives a non-mathematical account of Bell's relatively impoverished upbringing in Belfast and his education. It describes his major contributions to quantum theory, but also his important work in the physics of accelerators, and nuclear and elementary particle physics.
J.S. Bell's remarkable 1964 theorem showed that any theory sharing the empirical predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics would have to exhibit a surprising – and, from the point of view of relativity theory, very troubling – kind of nonlocality. Unfortunately, even still on this 50th anniversary, many commentators and textbook authors continue to misrepresent Bell's theorem. In particular, one continues to hear the claim that Bell's result leaves open the option of concluding either nonlocality or the failure of some unorthodox “hidden variable” (or “determinism” or “realism”) premise. This mistaken claim is often based on a failure to appreciate the role of the earlier 1935 argument of Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen in Bell's reasoning. After briefly reviewing this situation, I turn to two alternative versions of quantum theory – the “many worlds” theory of Everett and the quantum Bayesian interpretation of Fuchs, Schack, Caves, and Mermin – that purport to provide actual counterexamples to Bell's claim that nonlocality is required to account for the empirically verified quantum predictions. After analyzing each theory's grounds for claiming to explain the EPR–Bell correlations locally, however, one can see that (despite a number of fundamental differences) the two theories share a common for-all-practical-purposes (FAPP) solipsistic character. This dramatically undermines such theories’ claims to provide a local explanation of the correlations and thus, by concretizing the ridiculous philosophical lengths to which one must go to elude Bell's own conclusion, reinforces the assertion that nonlocality really is required to coherently explain the empirical data. Introduction Fifty years ago, in 1964 [1], John Stewart Bell first proved the theorem that has become widely known as “Bell's Theorem” but that Bell himself instead referred to as the “locality inequality theorem” [2]. In Bell's own view, the theorem showed that the empirical predictions of local theories will be constrained by Bell's inequality (or as Bell himself preferred to call it, the “locality inequality”). Hence, nonlocality is a necessary feature of any theory that shares the empirical predictions of standard quantum mechanics.