We argue that the so-called entangled states in quantum theory are not something exceptional, deserving a special attention in our efforts to understand conceptual foundations of quantum world. They appear by constructing the basis states of a compound system via the basis states of entering subsystems and describe it as a wholeness. While a system is considered as a wholeness, the individual members, forming the entangled state, have no physical meaning. In consequence, there is no physical ground for Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) correlations arising in a process of decaying the system, being in the entangled state, into its constituent parts. The same regards to Bell’s introduced non-locality of quantum world. 1
We argue that the so-called entangled states in quantum theory are not something exceptional, deserving a special attention in our efforts to understand conceptual foundations of quantum world. They appear by constructing the basis states of a compound system via the basis states of entering subsystems and describe it as a wholeness. While a system is considered as a wholeness, the individual members, forming the entangled state, have no physical meaning. In consequence, there is no physical ground for Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) correlations arising in a process of decaying the system, being in the entangled state, into its constituent parts. The same regards to Bell’s introduced non-locality of quantum world. 1
We argue that the so-called entangled states in quantum theory are not something exceptional, deserving a special attention in our efforts to understand conceptual foundations of quantum world. They appear by constructing the basis states of a compound system via the basis states of entering subsystems and describe it as a wholeness. While a system is considered as a wholeness, the individual members, forming the entangled state, have no physical meaning. In consequence, there is no physical ground for Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR) correlations arising in a process of decaying the system, being in the entangled state, into its constituent parts. The same regards to Bell's introduced non-locality of quantum world.
Introduction The first realization that the validity of the quantum superposition principle in the Hilbert space describing a composite quantum system may give rise to fundamentally new correlations between the constituent subsystems came in the landmark 1935 paper by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR), where it was shown how the measurement statistics of observables in certain quantum states could not be reproduced by assigning definite wavefunctions to individual subsystems. It was in response to the EPR paper that Schrödinger, in the same year, coined the term entanglement ( Verschränkung ) to acknowledge the failure of classical intuition in describing the relationship between the “parts” and the “whole” in the quantum world: Whenever one has a complete expectation catalog – a maximum total knowledge – a ψ function – for two completely separated bodies, …then one obviously has it also for the two bodies together. But the converse is not true. The best possible knowledge of a total system does not necessarily include total knowledge of all its parts, not even when these are fully separated from each other and at the moment are not influencing each other at all. While Bell's strengthening of the original EPR-paradox setting and the subsequent experimental verification of Bell inequalities irreversibly changed the perception of entanglement from a property of counterintuitive “spookiness” to (beyond reasonable doubt) an experimental reality, the concept and implications of entanglement continue to be associated with a host of physical, mathematical, and philosophical challenges. In particular, investigation of entanglement in both its qualitative and quantitative aspects has intensified under the impetus of quantum information science (QIS).
This article presents a general discussion of several aspects of our present understanding of quantum mechanics. The emphasis is put on the very special correlations that this theory makes possible: They are forbidden by very general arguments based on realism and local causality. In fact, these correlations are completely impossible in any circumstance, except for very special situations designed by physicists especially to observe these purely quantum effects. Another general point that is emphasized is the necessity for the theory to predict the emergence of a single result in a single realization of an experiment. For this purpose, orthodox quantum mechanics introduces a special postulate: the reduction of the state vector, which comes in addition to the Schrödinger evolution postulate. Nevertheless, the presence in parallel of two evolution processes of the same object (the state vector) may be a potential source for conflicts; various attitudes that are possible to avoid this problem are discussed in this text. After a brief historical introduction, recalling how the very special status of the state vector has emerged in quantum mechanics, various conceptual difficulties are introduced and discussed. The Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) theorem is presented with the help of a botanical parable, in a way that emphasizes how deeply the EPR reasoning is rooted into what is often called “scientific method.” In another section the Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger argument, the Hardy impossibilities, as well as the Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem are introduced in simple terms. The final two sections attempt to give a summary of the present situation: One section discusses nonlocality and entanglement as we see it presently, with brief mention of recent experiments; the last section contains a (nonexhaustive) list of various attitudes that are found among physicists, and that are helpful to alleviate the conceptual difficulties of quantum mechanics.
Abstract The 1935 Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) paper, “Can Quantum–Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?”, stands as a landmark in the foundational debates over quantum mechanics. While the paper has since become one of Einstein’s most cited works, it initially received little attention, and the feature of non-locality, which was central to the argument in the paper, was largely neglected for decades. In this paper, I offer two reasons for this early neglect of non-locality in the immediate aftermath of EPR. First, early responses to the EPR paper defended the completeness of quantum mechanics by reformulating the thought experiment the authors had presented, thereby obscuring the feature of quantum mechanics the authors had wished to highlight. Bohr’s influential reply, for instance, substituted the specific thought experiment presented by EPR with the two-slit experiment, thus suppressing the entanglement between spatially separated systems. A second reason for the marginalization of non-locality was the tendency to see Einstein’s critique of quantum mechanics as proceeding from a commitment to determinism, though this in fact played no role in the EPR paper or in his later writings and correspondence. This paper argues that the failure to recognize non-locality was partly a result of the rhetorical manoeuvring by EPR’s critics, but also to a broader philosophical climate dominated by concerns over determinism, which effectively eclipsed all other conceptual issues, Only with Bell’s theorem in the 1960s did non-locality return as a serious focus of foundational inquiry.
The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox was enunciated in 1935 and since then it has made a lot of ink flow. Being a subtle result, it has also been largely misunderstood. Indeed, if questioned about its solution, many physicists will still affirm today that the paradox has been solved by the Bell-test experimental results, which have shown that entangled states are real. However, this remains a wrong view, as the validity of the EPR ex-absurdum reasoning is independent from the Bell-test experiments, and the possible structural shortcomings it evidenced cannot be eliminated. These were correctly identified by the Belgian physicist Diederik Aerts, in the eighties of last century, and are about the inability of the quantum formalism to describe separate physical systems. The purpose of the present article is to bring Aerts' overlooked result to the attention again of the physics' community, explaining its content and implications.
Abstract Einstein's severe critique of quantum mechanics took its ultimate form in the so‐called Einstein Podolsky Rosen (EPR) paradox. The latter remained a subject of mere dispute, until a remarkable progress was initiated in 1964 by Bell who showed that quantum mechanical correlations specific for an EPR type experiment cannot be reproduced in any local hidden—variables theory. Afterwards, realistic versions of EPR experiments have been conceived and, in fact, carried out. The objective of the present paper is to give a review of this recent exciting development, both theoretical and experimental, which reveals one of the most striking features of quantum theory, the “quantum interconnectedness of distant systems”.