Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Foundations of physics and/or philosophy of physics, and in particular, posts on unresolved or controversial issues

Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Yablon » Thu Jul 04, 2019 3:13 pm

Heinera wrote:
Yablon wrote:Fair enough, so let’s follow that logic through:
QM predicts a correlation -a.b. If it could be proved that QM was counterfactually definite and local, without losing the correlation prediction -a.b, how would you interpret that?

I wouldn't feel the need to interpret that. I would go looking for the certain error(s) in the proof, if I had time.

That is entirely fair and appropriate.

Let’s put a pin in this. Sometime in a month or two or three, when I am comfortable that suitable rigor has been employed in the development, I may present a proof along with whatever assertions I am prepared to make at that time. And then I will ask you to beat up on it and see if you can find any holes or errors. If you can, that will be my problem to deal with. And if you cannot, then I will ask you to reconsider some things which at present you regard as “certain.“

The one thing I will ask again, right now, is for you to take a look at my early draft at https://jayryablon.files.wordpress.com/ ... e-4.3a.pdf, especially sections 3 through 5. Because a fair amount of what I will eventually seek to prove will find its foundations in those sections. So I would like to know early on if you or anybody else see anything there that is cause for alarm. That will also save you time down the road, because you will have a basic familiarity with what I am doing and will have had a chance to warn me off of certain directions if you believe they are wrongheaded. I know that Richard, short of a detailed review of the math calculations, has read through this and not pressed any alarms.

Jay
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Yablon » Thu Jul 04, 2019 3:38 pm

gill1109 wrote:
Yablon wrote:... At the present time quantum mechanics is widely understood to be a non-local theory. IF — and I emphasize that I am using the hypothetical word IF — IF it can be shown that quantum mechanics, unbeknownst to anybody at the present time, is in fact a “local“ and “realistic“ theory in accordance with commonly-accepted definitions of those terms, then Bell’s Theorem would become irrelevant. I did not say “wrong.” I said “irrelevant.” Because, as Peres has made clear, Bell’s Theorem does not apply to quantum mechanics...,

Well, there are lots of people working in quantum foundations who think and argue that QM "as it is", is local. I mention for instance Andrei Khrennikov, Theo Nieuwenhuizen, Gilles Brassard and Paul Raymond-Robichaud. They don't have any need for an alternative framework, either, since they are happy with what they already have....


Hi Richard,

As we both know, there is a big difference between “thinking and arguing,“ and “proving” to the satisfaction of a critical mass of the scientific community. I will offer the counterfactual observation :D that if these good folks had reached critical mass with their work, we would not be sitting here today still debating the things that we are all debating.

Jay
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Thu Jul 04, 2019 10:38 pm

Yablon wrote: I am not prepared at this juncture to assert that Joy is correct or incorrect, nor am I prepared at this juncture to assert that Bell is correct or incorrect.


This tells me that you do not yet understand the proof of Bell's theorem, because if you did, you would either accept the proof as correct, or you would have found a hole in the proof and told us so.

It is important that you fully understand the proof before you go on with your attempt to make QM local and realstic, because if you much later come to the realization that Bell's theorem is correct, you will have wasted a lot of time that could be avoided if this realization came sooner.

In fact, the only practical application of Bell's theorem is for someone who tries to make a counterfactually definite and local formulation of QM. The theorem tells them that they shouldn't bother, because it is mathematically impossible.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Thu Jul 04, 2019 11:19 pm

Heinera wrote:
Yablon wrote: I am not prepared at this juncture to assert that Joy is correct or incorrect, nor am I prepared at this juncture to assert that Bell is correct or incorrect.


This tells me that you do not yet understand the proof of Bell's theorem, because if you did, you would either accept the proof as correct, or you would have found a hole in the proof and told us so.

It is important that you fully understand the proof before you go on with your attempt to make QM local and realstic, because if you much later come to the realization that Bell's theorem is correct, you will have wasted a lot of time that could be avoided if this realization came sooner.

In fact, the only practical application of Bell's theorem is for someone who tries to make a counterfactually definite and local formulation of QM. The theorem tells them that they shouldn't bother, because it is mathematically impossible.

Anyone who is trained in physics and mathematics and has spent some time on the "proof" of Bell's so-called "theorem" would immediately recognize what a load of baloney it really is.

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Thu Jul 04, 2019 11:26 pm

Joy Christian wrote:Anyone who is trained in physics and mathematics and has spent some time on the "proof" of Bell's so-called "theorem" would immediately recognize what a load of baloney it really is.

***


This is demonstrably wrong, because the overwhelming majority of people who are trained in physics and mathematics and has spent some time on the "proof" of Bell's so-called "theorem" think it is correct.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Thu Jul 04, 2019 11:39 pm

Heinera wrote:
Joy Christian wrote:Anyone who is trained in physics and mathematics and has spent some time on the "proof" of Bell's so-called "theorem" would immediately recognize what a load of baloney it really is.

This is demonstrably wrong, because the overwhelming majority of people who are trained in physics and mathematics and has spent some time on the "proof" of Bell's so-called "theorem" think it is correct.

Please provide a proof of your claim. You have made extremely smug claims about what "the physics community" believes or does not believe. We do not have any evidence that you --- as an anonymous poster on this forum --- have any authority or qualifications to know what "the physics community" believes or thinks. As I noted above, Bell's theorem is a load of nonsense.

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby FrediFizzx » Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:15 am

Certainly there is no mathematical proof of Bell's "theorem" since it is just a word theorem. It really is just junk physics.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:21 am

Joy Christian wrote:Please provide a proof of your claim.
***

That is not difficult. Use scholar.google.com and search up Bell's original paper. Google lists about 13 000 citations to the paper. Go through a random sample of those papers and see how many you find that claim the theorem is wrong.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jul 05, 2019 12:33 am

Heinera wrote:Google lists about 13 000 citations to the paper. Go through a random sample of those papers and see how many you find that claim the theorem is wrong.

I just did a random sample test using the same statistical tactics that Bell's theorem uses. I found that the majority ( 75% ) of the papers on Google show that Bell's theorem is wrong. That contradicts your claims on this forum. I think it is high time that you do not make claims about the subject you know nothing about, or have any demonstrable authority or qualifications in.

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Fri Jul 05, 2019 1:22 am

Joy Christian wrote:
Heinera wrote:Google lists about 13 000 citations to the paper. Go through a random sample of those papers and see how many you find that claim the theorem is wrong.

I just did a random sample test using the same statistical tactics that Bell's theorem uses. I found that the majority ( 75% ) of the papers on Google show that Bell's theorem is wrong. That contradicts your claims on this forum. I think it is high time that you do not make claims about the subject you know nothing about, or have any demonstrable authority or qualifications in.

***

When I say "random", your usual tactic of cherry picking is of course not allowed. Go through them all, then. It's a finite number.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby gill1109 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 3:55 am

Heinera wrote:
Joy Christian wrote:
Heinera wrote:Google lists about 13 000 citations to the paper. Go through a random sample of those papers and see how many you find that claim the theorem is wrong.

I just did a random sample test using the same statistical tactics that Bell's theorem uses. I found that the majority ( 75% ) of the papers on Google show that Bell's theorem is wrong. That contradicts your claims on this forum. I think it is high time that you do not make claims about the subject you know nothing about, or have any demonstrable authority or qualifications in.

***

When I say "random", your usual tactic of cherry picking is of course not allowed. Go through them all, then. It's a finite number.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Google to give you a file containing those 13508 literature references?

Then we could sample 100 of them and find out how many agree with the theorem and how many disagree. Obviously, most of those references are just the standard obligatory reference which anyone has to give who writes anything remotely connected to entanglement and quantum information.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jul 05, 2019 4:12 am

gill1109 wrote:
Heinera wrote:
Joy Christian wrote:
Heinera wrote:Google lists about 13 000 citations to the paper. Go through a random sample of those papers and see how many you find that claim the theorem is wrong.

I just did a random sample test using the same statistical tactics that Bell's theorem uses. I found that the majority ( 75% ) of the papers on Google show that Bell's theorem is wrong. That contradicts your claims on this forum. I think it is high time that you do not make claims about the subject you know nothing about, or have any demonstrable authority or qualifications in.

***

When I say "random", your usual tactic of cherry picking is of course not allowed. Go through them all, then. It's a finite number.

Does anyone know if it is possible to get Google to give you a file containing those 13508 literature references?

Then we could sample 100 of them and find out how many agree with the theorem and how many disagree. Obviously, most of those references are just the standard obligatory reference which anyone has to give who writes anything remotely connected to entanglement and quantum information.

The 13,508 literature references do not define "the physics community." Heinera made a ridiculous claim and then tried to justify it with ridiculous analysis using irrelevant "Google" data.

More likely is that 95% of the physicists couldn't care less about Bell and his theorem. Ask Jay, for example. Did he, as a particle physicist, care about Bell or his theorem until recently?

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby gill1109 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 4:37 am

Joy Christian wrote:
gill1109 wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to get Google to give you a file containing those 13508 literature references? [to Bell's 1964 paper]

Then we could sample 100 of them and find out how many agree with the theorem and how many disagree. Obviously, most of those references are just the standard obligatory reference which anyone has to give who writes anything remotely connected to entanglement and quantum information.

The 13,508 literature references do not define "the physics community." Heinera made a ridiculous claim and then tried to justify it with ridiculous analysis using irrelevant "Google" data.

More likely is that 95% of the physicists couldn't care less about Bell and his theorem. Ask Jay, for example. Did he, as a particle physicist, care about Bell or his theorem until recently?

***

I'm sure you're right! Most physicists don't know and/or don't care. A very great many have vaguely heard something about it and think it is something fishy which should be avoided.

The "official line" (ie, the line of journal editors) is that it is true and that experiments have confirmed it to be true. Those journal editors have no idea what it actually is and no clue that their official line is devoid of any logic.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jul 05, 2019 4:44 am

gill1109 wrote:
Joy Christian wrote:
gill1109 wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to get Google to give you a file containing those 13508 literature references? [to Bell's 1964 paper]

Then we could sample 100 of them and find out how many agree with the theorem and how many disagree. Obviously, most of those references are just the standard obligatory reference which anyone has to give who writes anything remotely connected to entanglement and quantum information.

The 13,508 literature references do not define "the physics community." Heinera made a ridiculous claim and then tried to justify it with ridiculous analysis using irrelevant "Google" data.

More likely is that 95% of the physicists couldn't care less about Bell and his theorem. Ask Jay, for example. Did he, as a particle physicist, care about Bell or his theorem until recently?

I'm sure you're right! Most physicists don't know and/or don't care. A very great many have vaguely heard something about it and think it is something fishy which should be avoided.

The "official line" (ie, the line of journal editors) is that it is true and that experiments have confirmed it to be true. Those journal editors have no idea what it actually is and no clue that their official line is devoid of any logic.

I couldn't agree more!

PS: I have witnessed Bell himself saying that his interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics was seen by his colleagues at CERN as an "eccentric hobby."

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Yablon » Fri Jul 05, 2019 5:21 am

Joy Christian wrote:
gill1109 wrote:
Joy Christian wrote:
gill1109 wrote:Does anyone know if it is possible to get Google to give you a file containing those 13508 literature references? [to Bell's 1964 paper]

Then we could sample 100 of them and find out how many agree with the theorem and how many disagree. Obviously, most of those references are just the standard obligatory reference which anyone has to give who writes anything remotely connected to entanglement and quantum information.

The 13,508 literature references do not define "the physics community." Heinera made a ridiculous claim and then tried to justify it with ridiculous analysis using irrelevant "Google" data.

More likely is that 95% of the physicists couldn't care less about Bell and his theorem. Ask Jay, for example. Did he, as a particle physicist, care about Bell or his theorem until recently?

I'm sure you're right! Most physicists don't know and/or don't care. A very great many have vaguely heard something about it and think it is something fishy which should be avoided.

The "official line" (ie, the line of journal editors) is that it is true and that experiments have confirmed it to be true. Those journal editors have no idea what it actually is and no clue that their official line is devoid of any logic.

I couldn't agree more!

PS: I have witnessed Bell himself saying that his interest in the foundations of quantum mechanics was seen by his colleagues at CERN as an "eccentric hobby."
***

Well then, make it a trifecta, with me, Richard and Joy all on the same page.

As a particle physics seeking to explain why various particles have the masses and energies which they have, for quite a few years I watched discussions like the present one from the sidelines, with a basic sense that all of this was “icky.” But when Richard came calling and Joy agreed with having a symposium, aware that all of this was symptomatic that the Einstein Bohr debates are still raging 90+ years later, I did what I felt was my civic duty to the scientific enterprise, set aside my preference to work on particle physics, and enlisted.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:03 am

I wouldn't call it "icky", but in contrast to most other theorems in physics, Bell's theorem is completely useless if you work in another field than Quantum Foundations or Philosophy of Science. Most other mathematical theorems that physicists care about are of the type where you can replace something complex in a theory with something simpler and more easily calculated, and appeal to the teorem to argue that they are equivalent. Those theorems are part of the physicist's tool box. Bell's theorem is in a sense the opposite; it "merely" tells you what mathematical structures won't work if you want to achieve a particular result (the QM correlations).
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby gill1109 » Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:30 am

Heinera wrote:I wouldn't call it "icky", but in contrast to most other theorems in physics, Bell's theorem is completely useless if you work in another field than Quantum Foundations or Philosophy of Science. Most other mathematical theorems that physicists care about are of the type where you can replace something complex in a theory with something simpler and more easily calculated, and appeal to the teorem to argue that they are equivalent. Those theorems are part of the physicist's tool box. Bell's theorem is in a sense the opposite; it "merely" tells you what mathematical structures won't work if you want to achieve a particular result (the QM correlations).

Well, Bell's theorem does tell you (if you believe that the world is run by QM) how to do secure cryptographic key distribution, how to do perfectly secure random number generation, and lots more. So it is the key to a whole heap of applications, some of which are already being marketed by clever entrepreneurs and used by government "defence" organs...

Amusingly, long ago Luigi Accardi together with a Japanese colleague was already *selling* a classical quantum key distribution system by exploiting the detection loophole to "fake" quantum correlations. Of course, since it was actually a classical system, it would have been easy for an eavesdropper to break in and no-one would notice. That was before the various experimental loopholes were rather thoroughly explored and we learnt how to mitigate or even abolish all of them (thanks, in particular, to my own work, inspired by the work of people exactly like Accardi. I needed to set up a bet with him that he could *not* win, except by a small chance which I knew).
Last edited by gill1109 on Fri Jul 05, 2019 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Joy Christian » Fri Jul 05, 2019 9:37 am

***
And yet, Bell's theorem is wrong, it has nothing to do with fundamental physics, and a very successful local-realistic framework reproducing strong quantum correlations already exists. :)

***
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Fri Jul 05, 2019 10:08 am

gill1109 wrote:Well, Bell's theorem does tell you (if you believe that the world is run by QM) how to do secure cryptographic key distribution, how to do perfectly secure random number generation, and lots more. So it is the key to a whole heap of applications, some of which are already being marketed by clever entrepreneurs and used by government "defence" organs...

We could well add Quantum Information Science to the other two, but I consider it to be more computer science and communication theory, and less physics. And yes, a demonstrable violation of some Bell inequality is typically used as proof of randomness or privacy in these protocols.
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Re: Is quantum mechanics itself local and realistic?

Postby Heinera » Fri Jul 05, 2019 11:43 am

The last two posts by Richard and myself got me thinking. While the quantum protocols are at present impractical and costly, and thus mostly a theoretical exercise so far, this will in all likelihood change with future advances in engineering. But if Bell was wrong, he will be wrong forever.

So, if we could in fact demonstrably violate Bell-type inequalities with classical computers, how can we monetize on this? For one thing, we could generate very cheap/fake proofs of the protocols. I'm pretty sure we could make a s**tload of money. Would we need to keep the discovery a secret? I guess so. Any ideas? Should we start a new, secret thread?
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