The current Paper 59 benchmark does not claim that a full laboratory optical delayed-choice experiment, exact interferometric amplitudes, or the complete quantum measurement formalism have already been derived from first principles. It does show that the verified QGEFT Monte Carlo engine now supports a direct algorithmic analogue of delayed choice with explicit left/right slits and a macroscopic detector region. In the reference `N=64` run, the engine opens `97` pending virtual branches, records `19` detector hits, resolves `5` left-slit and `4` right-slit virtual passages, but commits only `2` left and `2` right histories while discarding `32` alternatives. The defensible conclusion is therefore that delayed choice can be reinterpreted inside QGEFT as late branch-cache commit plus deletion of unused histories, rather than retrocausal rewriting of an already completed past.
The current Paper 59 benchmark does not claim that a full laboratory optical delayed-choice experiment, exact interferometric amplitudes, or the complete quantum measurement formalism have already been derived from first principles. It does show that the verified QGEFT Monte Carlo engine now supports a direct algorithmic analogue of delayed choice with explicit left/right slits and a macroscopic detector region. In the reference N=64 run, the engine opens 97 pending virtual branches, records 19 detector hits, resolves 5 left-slit and 4 right-slit virtual passages, but commits only 2 left and 2 right histories while discarding 32 alternatives. The defensible conclusion is therefore that delayed choice can be reinterpreted inside QGEFT as late branch-cache commit plus deletion of unused histories, rather than retrocausal rewriting of an already completed past.
John Wheeler devised a gedanken experiment in which a piece of apparatus can be altered just before the arrival of particle, and this “delayed choice ” can, seemingly, alter the quantum state of the particle at a much earlier time, long before the choice is made. A slightly different gedanken experiment, which exhibits the same conceptual difficulty, is analyzed using the techniques of consistent history quantum theory. The idea that the future influences the past disappears when proper account is taken of the diversity of possible quantum descriptions of the world, and their mutual compatibility or incompatibility. John Wheeler proposed a delayed-choice experiment in which the second beam splitter of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is or is not removed at the very last instant before a photon reaches it and passes out of the interferometer [1]. A modified version which exhibits essentially the same paradox is shown in Fig. 1. A photon enters the interferometer through channel a, and two detectors in the c and d arms are either (a) left in position, or (b) removed just before the photon reaches (one of) them, so that it is free to proceed on to the second
Ever since the proposal of delayed choice quantum erasure and subsequent realization in the experiment by Kim et al., the interpretation and implications of delayed-choice experiments have remained a subject of intense foundational debate. This paper resolves the apparent paradox attached to the experiment using standard quantum mechanics. Using an extended Mach-Zehnder interferometer which captures every operational feature of the original experiment, we show that choosing between which-path and erasure detectors is simply a choice of measurement bases, which does not rewrite a photon's past. Furthermore, by mapping the experiment to a two-way Stern-Gerlach framework, we prove that quantum erasure is an expected result of measuring entangled states, not a physical anomaly. Ultimately, through a pedagogical game, we illustrate that the illusion of retrocausality arises from asking illegitimate questions, and that a forward-in-time description is entirely sufficient to explain the logic.
Quest for Entropy #18: we ran Wheeler's late choice on a quantum computer. The order didn't matter. This episode shows that on the ledger toy from #17 the delayed-choice quantum eraser runs as a strict sequence of meetings and two settlements, with no step that waits and no message to the past, and that a real quantum computer gives the same sorted fringes whether the marker is turned and read before the photon reaches the join or after it has landed. It does not derive the arrows: the turns, the delay and the meetings are standard quantum arithmetic, imported. It does not say why a detector settles and a marker does not. It is not the first delayed-choice circuit run on a cloud quantum computer; it is ours, with the code public so that you can break it.
Introduction In recent years, numerous quantum optics experiments have demonstrated novel quantum effects based on quantum amplitude superposition. Some of these empirical observations raise disturbing questions about the nature of reality, particularly concerning quantum nonlocality. In this chapter we discuss some experiments that suggest (to us, at least) that the information void, that uncharted regime between signal preparation and outcome detection, is not well modeled by classical spacetime. Something strange seems to be lurking there. For the purposes of exposition, the sequence of experiments we discuss in this chapter does not follow the historical sequence of those experiments, We discuss first the delayed-choice quantum eraser experiment of Kim et al. (Kim et al., 2000), referred to here as KIM. This leads us to define a heuristic measure of which-path information that is central to the theme of this chapter. This leads to a discussion of Wheeler's thought experiments on the conundrum of delayed choice in physics, particularly evident in the phenomenon of galactic lensing (Wheeler, 1983), and its empirical implementation, the delayed-choice interferometer experiment of Jacques et al., referred to as JACQUES. Our final experiment in this sequence is the double-slit quantum eraser of Walborn et al. (Walborn et al., 2002), referred to as WALBORN. That experiment gives a significant challenge for quantized detector networks (QDN) to reproduce its empirical results. Such experiments have led to suggestions that interference patterns formed by particles impacting on a screen may be influenced in some way by decisions made long after those particles had landed on that screen. Our objective in this chapter is to show by a detailed QDN analysis of those experiments that quantum principles do not support these suggestions. Nevertheless, something bizarre seems to be there. There are two complementary aspects in these experiments that have deeply worried physicists. The first involves spatial nonlocality and is the point of Wheeler's concerns. Historically, it has been a great source of debate among physicists.
This deposit contains the complete English translation of v1 (28 January 2026) of the preprint “Dualité onde-corpuscule, choix retardé et présentisme probabiliste”. Published French source and related work Published French v1: Zenodo 18404150 — DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18404150 Concept DOI for the French work: 10.5281/zenodo.18404149 Reference preprint on probabilistic presentism: 10.5281/zenodo.18207811 Scope. Wave–particle duality and delayed-choice experiments are often presented as if present choices could rewrite the past. This article develops an alternative reading within probabilistic presentism: only the present exists ontologically, while the future corresponds to a structured space of possibilities. Central distinction. The wave aspect describes a coherent structure of possibilities before actualization; the particle aspect describes a present fact in the form of a localized event. The “late choice” fixes the experimental context in which a fact becomes defined; it does not retroactively alter an already factual past. Experiments and constraints. The discussion covers Born's rule, interference, which-path information, decoherence, outcome uniqueness, no-signalling, the double slit, Wheeler's delayed choice, delayed-choice quantum erasers, and EPR/Bell correlations. Conditional interference patterns are treated as post-selected correlations and not as signals sent into the past. Status. This is a conceptual and exploratory preprint. Interpretive claims are identified as such, and the framework is not presented as an experimentally validated replacement for quantum mechanics. Translation fidelity. This English edition is a translation, not a revised scientific version. It preserves the argumentative structure, equations, references, links, limitations, and epistemic qualifications of the published French v1.
@5incere5cience · Sincere Science · We Are the Champions 20 1 1 2 3 5 8 ... ∞AbstractWe re-examine the double-slit experiment under the ontology established in prior@5incere5cience work — discrete energy packets (Einstein 1905a), relative time with zeroproper time on null worldlines (Einstein 1905b), time as the sequence of discrete interactionevents in each packet's own frame, and agency as the direction of spin at the forced resolutionnode. Under these axioms, the difference between the 'no detector' (OFF) and 'which-pathdetector' (ON) regimes is a difference in the number of resolution events traversed by thepacket in its own history: two ticks versus three. The packet itself is the same discrete object inboth cases. What is traditionally called wave-particle duality dissolves as a linguistic artifactarising from the attempt to reconcile two statistical patterns by postulating a change of nature.Weak-measurement phenomenology is accounted for as population mixing of binaryindividual-packet histories, anchored by direct macroscopic observation in microscopy ofStructured Vesicular Entities (SVEs). The delayed-choice quantum eraser (Kim et al. 1999)dissolves its apparent retrocausality via the same separability-failure move previously used todissolve Bell nonlocality. The quantitative derivation of the OFF-regime interferencedistribution from first principles — the analog of the cos2(θ) derivation completed forpolarization in an earlier paper — is flagged explicitly as an open problem. All claims aremarked with epistemic status (observation, logical consequence, working hypothesis, postulate,open problem) so that readers can identify which parts of the construction are load-bearing,which are exploratory, and which invite refinement.