Recently, Carlo Rovelli wrote an essay about bad philosophy hampering the progress of physics [1]. That, of course, can be true. Nevertheless, my letter will present a definite proof that bad statistics hampers that progress as well. Here we show that erroneous statistical underpinnings of a key experiment to demonstrate the absence of Einstein data in the empirical reality, disallows a serious conclusion from an experiment. The experiment [2] is paradigmatic for a whole array of similar experiments. We mention e.g. Weihs et al [3]. The presentation of the flaw is done without much reference to random variables and detailed probability violations. It is based on an integral expression to make it easier for not statistically schooled readers who are interested in philosophy of physics. It is however statistical methodology of experiments in foundational physics. The derived result implies that Einstein data may still exist in the empirical reality. The general context of this result is not only philosophical or foundational. It affects quantum technology as well. Quantum security, more in particular entanglement based quantum key distribution, may not be safe at all when Einsteinian variables exist and can be manipulated.
Recently, Carlo Rovelli wrote an essay about bad philosophy hampering the progress of physics [1]. That, of course, can be true. Nevertheless, my letter will present a definite proof that bad statistics hampers that progress as well. Here we show that erroneous statistical underpinnings of a key experiment to demonstrate the absence of Einstein data in the empirical reality, disallows a serious conclusion from an experiment. The experiment [2] is paradigmatic for a whole array of similar experiments. We mention e.g. Weihs et al [3]. The presentation of the flaw is done without much reference to random variables and detailed probability violations. It is based on an integral expression to make it easier for not statistically schooled readers who are interested in philosophy of physics. It is however statistical methodology of experiments in foundational physics. The derived result implies that Einstein data may still exist in the empirical reality. The general context of this result is not only philosophical or foundational. It affects quantum technology as well. Quantum security, more in particular entanglement based quantum key distribution, may not be safe at all when Einsteinian variables exist and can be manipulated.
In 1935 Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) published an important paper [17] in which they claimed that the whole formalism of quantum mechanics together with what they called "Reality Criterion" imply that quantum mechanics cannot be complete.That is, there must exist some elements of reality that are not described by quantum mechanics.There must be, they concluded, a more complete description of physical reality behind quantum mechanics.There must be a state, a hidden variable, characterizing the state of affairs in the world in more details than the quantum mechanical state, something that also reflects the missing elements of reality.Under some further but quite plausible assumptions, this conclusion implies that in some spin-correlation experiments the measured quantum mechanical probabilities should satisfy particular inequalities (Bell-type inequalities).The paradox consists in the fact that quantum probabilities do not satisfy these inequalities.And this paradoxical fact has been confirmed by several laboratory experiments in the last three decades.The problem is still open and hotly debated among both physicists and philosophers.It has motivated a wide range of research from the most fundamental quantum mechanical experiments through foundations of probability theory to the theory of stochastic causality as well as the metaphysics of free will.
This is a statistical analysis of the experimental data used in a recent paper [M. Giustina et al, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 250401 (2015)], published at https://arxiv.org/abs/1511.03190. The data for this analysis was graciously made available by the authors as a private communication. This article is not meant in any way to comment upon the originally published findings of the experiment. Abstract – Till date, all experiments prove non-locality of quantum entanglement based upon overall statistical correlations and thus demonstrating that Bell’s inequality is violated. No detailed data analysis has been published yet. This article presents a first of its kind experimental analysis and it indicates that there is a real chance that entanglement may be local. This is a huge claim by any means. But it is necessary to make such dramatic claim due to two reasons – 1) It is based upon experimental data and can be tested and verified. 2) So that the QM community makes an effort to analyze detailed data to scrutinize the reality of entanglement. Due to large amount of data involved, experimentalists only look at data at aggregate level and do not scrutinize the raw data in full detail. When data of this experiment was analyzed at detail level, it was observed that non-locality of entanglement can not be settled until this kind of analysis is completed on data from multiple such experiments. The natural and prompt reaction from many may be to look for faults with this analysis without presenting the evidence that such analysis has already been completed. For curious people, observation is odd enough to be probed further. The complacent ones will look only for the faults, but those who welcome scrutiny, will challenge it with evidence and/or their own analysis at this detailed level. All sound theories welcome scrutiny and refute it with evidence. This article does not claim “classical mechanics” to be the solution. Quantum Mechanics predictions are correct in terms of averages. This analysis indicates that the statistical correlation percent of entanglement may be guided/balanced by some real/local mechanism rather than being independently probabilistic and spooky. It presents an intuitive mechanism that can explain statistical correlations without entanglement being non-local or entanglement being defined in a different way then it currently is. The scope of this article is only statistical data. Anti correlation (Bell’s state, when measured in the same angle) is always true, therefore it is not statistical in nature and is left out of scope. Moreover perfect anti correlation can easily be explained as a direct consequence of conservation laws. In fact, perfect anti correlation is a big red flag to the probabilistic nature. There is no such thing as zero, or one probability. Zero or one probability would actually be a law, not probability. So, perfect anti correlation itself indicates that the outcomes of entanglement can not be probabilistic; they have to be governed by law, not probability. If some balancing mechanism is found to exist then (in terms of magnitude), it really operates within probabilistic limits thereby making it very difficult to differentiate it from probabilistic nature. Therefore a detailed data analysis on many such experiments is necessary to rule it in/out. In fact it would require special experiments for its independent investigation. This can also explain why the correlations have been considered probabilistic for such a long history. Therefore, this type of experimental investigation is a must in order to conclude existence/nonexistence of non-local entanglement. By the time this revision is written, another experiment has been analyzed and published at http://vixra.org/abs/1611.0148 Both of the recent experiments give similar indications.
ENERAL philosophy claims to be the critical subject which lays down for all of us what we may be allowed to think, and yet it has played no part whatever in the great revolutions of human thought of the present century-those connected with relativity and the quantum theory. It might have been expected that the scientists would have been constantly consulting the philosophers as to the legitimacy of their various speculations, but nothing of the kind has happened. Since no one can dispense with some sort of metaphysic, each scientist has made one for himself, and no doubt they contain many crudities, but it would seem that a deep interest in metaphysic is a disadvantage rather than an advantage to the physicist-at least I have the impression that those of my friends who are most inclined to speculate on the ultimate things appear to be the ones whose scientific work is most hampered by doing so. Now I propose to risk a similar indiscretion. I want to embody in it the practical philosophy of a physicist, and I do not mean it as an attack on the pure philosophers, who are very reasonable people, only chargeable with the minor offence of not having made me want to read their books! I had better begin by stating shortly the ideas I intend to discuss. There is a notable contrast between the way we think about things and the way we think we ought to think about them.
Somebody indicated me that Rovelli’s book has very similar idea to my ideas of entities and their “interactions”. I took a look at the book and, indeed, I saw some quite similar ideas in Rovelli’s book. For me, it seems as if Rovelli had read my works before writing his book. This would not mean he plagiarized my ideas. However, some ideas are quite similar to my ideas and mainly the “framework of working” (“reality is interactions”) is very similar! My question is what does it mean “reality”? Does not “reality” presupposes some entities? Than we get: reality is entities that interact”. But what exactly is “reality” in this case? If we replace “reality” with EDWs, we reach exactly my framework of thinking! carlo rovelli introduces many of my ideas: ‘interactions’ is my main notion of articles and books published in 2002. 2004. 2005, 2008 etc. carlo rovelli claims that space and time do not exist! My brother and I wrote a book about exactly this idea in 2016! He also indicates the role of philosophy in science. Amazing, a scientist who has never written something about philosophy in the past, have started to strongly emphasize the role of philosophy just in the last one year or so! I indicated the same idea in my books 2008, 2010, etc.! It seems carlo rovelli moves very fast, publishing many of my ideas (not those about quantum mechanics, but also other ideas) after I published them and posted on various sites on Internet!
We consider the nature of quantum randomness and how one might have empirical evidence for it. We will see why, depending on one’s computational resources, it may be impossible to determine whether a particular notion of randomness properly characterizes one’s empirical data. Indeed, we will see why even an ideal observer under ideal epistemic conditions may never have any empirical evidence whatsoever for believing that the results of one’s quantum-mechanical experiments are randomly determined. This illustrates a radical sort of empirical underdetermination faced by fundamentally stochastic theories like quantum mechanics.
Since its inception, quantum theory has been the subject of fierce interpretive controversy, which persists to this day. Disputed topics include the basic ontology and dynamics of the theory, the role (if any) of measurement, the meaning of probability, and the issue of non-locality. But there is yet another problem that has been largely ignored: how the theory makes contact with observational data. The problem is endemic to physics, and was discussed by Einstein in several places. In this essay, I discuss Einstein's general approach, how it applied to some quantum-mechanical phenomena, and why a central aspect of the solution might lead to novel and important new predictions.