Bell-test experiments rule out additivity of expectations

[Joy Christian]

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I have received a decision email from a journal concerning my paper I have liked above: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02876.pdf.

The paper has been rejected based on two reviewer reports. The first reviewer recommends outright rejection based on an argument identical to the one Justo has put forward in this forum. I do not agree with that argument and might consider fighting back.

The second reviewer has enthusiastically recommended the paper for publication with very positive comments: "The manuscript by Joy Christian is a virtuoso performance and tells us much about the possible analogies and failures of von Neuman's and Bell's no-go proofs. I find Christian's logic convincing and definitely recommend that this work be published." The report then goes on to make some minor criticisms and concludes: "Besides all these minor criticisms, Christian's paper is excellent and definitely should be published."

The paper is nevertheless rejected on the grounds that the journal's "current publication program is not well suited for it, and must regretfully decline your offer to let us publish it."
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Why did they send it out for review if it wasn't well suited for the Journal. This is highly unusual. The editor should reject it outright if that is the case.

The thought occurred to me as well. They also say that the basis for their decision is the referee reports. So it is all a bit confusing. Unfortunately, journal editors have a lot of powers.

Are the review reports confidential or can you post it here for us to shred?

Review reports are always confidential. By posting the information that I have posted is already a violation of some unwritten rules of publication ethics. Moreover, I have decided to appeal the decision because I do not agree with the comments by the first reviewer. It is worth addressing them if only to refute the argument head-on. So, for now, I cannot post the reports here.

So my paper concerning this thread is still under appeal. Appeals, however, are of very low priority for journals, and the rate of successful appeals is also usually quite low.

But I have managed to have my argument against Bell's theorem published in this brand new IEEE Access paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9418997.

It is not the full argument. I have presented it in a simplified form in Section II of the above paper. Here is the concluding paragraph from that section in the above paper:


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[local]

Y'all may find this paper relevant and interesting.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.13996

[Joy Christian]

Y'all may find this paper relevant and interesting.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.13996

Thanks for this. I have met this guy at a conference in Bhubaneshwar, India, in 2009. I will read his paper, but we already know that his conclusion must be wrong. Because there already exists, since 1952, a completely worked out hidden-variable theory that reproduces all of the predictions of quantum mechanics exactly. I mean Bohm's nonlocal theory. I am not a fan of it because it is nonlocal, but its existence proves that the claim of the above paper, that "von Neumann’s proof is fully resurrected", must be wrong, by the counterexample of Bohm's theory.
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[Joy Christian]

Y'all may find this paper relevant and interesting.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.13996

Thanks for this. I have met this guy at a conference in Bhubaneshwar, India, in 2009. I will read his paper, but we already know that his conclusion must be wrong. Because there already exists, since 1952, a completely worked out hidden-variable theory that reproduces all of the predictions of quantum mechanics exactly. I mean Bohm's nonlocal theory. I am not a fan of it because it is nonlocal, but its existence proves that the claim of the above paper, that "von Neumann’s proof is fully resurrected", must be wrong, by the counterexample of Bohm's theory.

I have had a quick look through the above paper. His argument is the following: The conservation laws imply that the additivity of expectation values must hold on average for all physically reasonable theories. The additivity of expectation values evidently holds within quantum mechanics. But it does not hold for dispersion-free (or hidden variable) theories, as pointed out by Grete Hermann and Bell (among several others, including Einstein). Therefore dispersion-free theories cannot exist as physically reasonable theories. In other words, von Neumann was right and the critics of his theorem are wrong (despite the existence of Bohm's nonlocal hidden variable theory).

This sounds quite reasonable, but there is a flaw in the above argument. The conservation laws do not hold during the acts of measurements that select out one of the specific eigenvalues of quantum mechanical operators, which are averaged over in dispersion-free theories. Therefore the conservation laws need not hold for the averages that are involved in dispersion-free theories. Consequently, the argument put forward in the above paper is flawed. von Neumann indeed made a mistake in his theorem, and Bell ended up making the same mistake in his own theorem, as I have explained in Section II of my latest paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3076449.
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[Joy Christian]

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On the fate of any unimaginative no-go theorem such as Bell's:

William Feller, known for his works on probability theory, and his wife Clara were once trying to move a large round table from the living room to the dining room. They pushed, pulled, and turned every possible way, but they couldn't get the table through the door. Tired of this situation, Feller took paper and pencil and worked out a mathematical model of the situation proving, after a few minutes, that what they were trying to do was impossible. While he was busy demonstrating this ′′ corollary ", his wife kept insisting and managed to move the table into the dining room.

This is a true story.
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[Joy Christian]

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An important biography of von Neumann has been published, which I recommend to the readers of this thread:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B08 ... tkin_p1_i0

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the ... dern-world
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[local]

Great, thanks. It'll sit right next to my Einstein, Dirac, and Schrodinger biographies. No room for Bell hagiographies.

[gill1109]

Y'all may find this paper relevant and interesting.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.13996

Thanks for this. I have met this guy at a conference in Bhubaneshwar, India, in 2009. I will read his paper, but we already know that his conclusion must be wrong. Because there already exists, since 1952, a completely worked out hidden-variable theory that reproduces all of the predictions of quantum mechanics exactly. I mean Bohm's nonlocal theory. I am not a fan of it because it is nonlocal, but its existence proves that the claim of the above paper, that "von Neumann’s proof is fully resurrected", must be wrong, by the counterexample of Bohm's theory.

I have had a quick look through the above paper. His argument is the following: The conservation laws imply that the additivity of expectation values must hold on average for all physically reasonable theories. The additivity of expectation values evidently holds within quantum mechanics. But it does not hold for dispersion-free (or hidden variable) theories, as pointed out by Grete Hermann and Bell (among several others, including Einstein). Therefore dispersion-free theories cannot exist as physically reasonable theories. In other words, von Neumann was right and the critics of his theorem are wrong (despite the existence of Bohm's nonlocal hidden variable theory).

This sounds quite reasonable, but there is a flaw in the above argument. The conservation laws do not hold during the acts of measurements that select out one of the specific eigenvalues of quantum mechanical operators, which are averaged over in dispersion-free theories. Therefore the conservation laws need not hold for the averages that are involved in dispersion-free theories. Consequently, the argument put forward in the above paper is flawed. von Neumann indeed made a mistake in his theorem, and Bell ended up making the same mistake in his own theorem, as I have explained in Section II of my latest paper: https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3076449.
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In Section II of that paper you present us a wrong proof of the CHSH inequality by introducing an extraneous, unwarranted, assumption. You even wrote explicitly "Here I have rewritten the integral in (2) as a discrete sum because that is what is observed in the experiments, with λ_k being an initial state for the kth run of the experiment". You have a problem with your own straw-man version of the CHSH inequality which shows simply that you don't understand Bell's logical reasoning. Or elementary probability theory.

Bell (when deriving the CHSH inequality in his later works) does not "define" the theoretical correlations as you did. He made some physical assumptions, according to which functions A, B, rho should exist with the familiar properties, and used that to derive an inequality involving four separate correlations each measured in a different experiment. One of the assumptions is that rho, the distribution of the hidden variables, does not depend on the two settings of the experiment. Read "Bertlmann's socks" for his *physical motivation* for that assumption.

Your problem with Bell-CHSH is as old as the hills and was already properly answered and disposed of by Bell in his 1975 paper "Locality in quantum mechanics: reply to critics". It's Chapter 8 of Speakable and Unspeakable. Read it! You can read it for free at https://cds.cern.ch/record/980330/files/CM-P00061609.pdf

Speaking of Bell hagiographies, Bell was a revolutionary, but so were a whole lot of people of his generation. Read for instance David Kaiser's book "How the hippies saved physics: science, counterculture and the quantum revival". Bell was one of many who were fed up with "shut up and calculate" and the materialistic soul-less physics which was the dominant physics culture in those days (60's, 70's).

[Joy Christian]

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@gill1109: More waffles from the master of waffles. Don't patronize me. It is you who is clueless about the derivations of the Bell-CHSH inequalities and the assumptions they depend on.

The bottom line of my analysis is very clear: What is ruled out by Bell-test experiments is not local realism but the assumption of the additivity of expectation values -- an assumption that is not valid for any hidden variable theory, regardless of its specific characteristics.

If I were you I would stick to the kind of third-rate statistics you do about killer nurses. Unlike me, you have no sophisticated training or knowledge to dabble in physics or philosophy.
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[gill1109]

A rather nice appraisal of Bell's life and work is: "John Stewart Bell and Twentieth-Century Physics: Vision and Integrity" by Andrew Whitaker. It is not a hagiography. The author indeed says "he was not a saint".

The bottom line of Joy's analysis is clear enough, but the analysis is fatally flawed, as it must be, since the bottom line is evidently non-sense. A hidden variable theory which reproduces quantum mechanical predictions must predict also the linearities of expectation values of observable quantities which are predicted by QM.

A hidden variables theory, in the sense that most people give to those words, is just a classical probability model linking probability distributions of different possible experimental scenarios. Linearity of expectation values is therefore built-in by the very concept itself of a hidden variables theory. Unless you allow the probability distribution to depend on the entire experimental context. That's how Bohr used to waffle his way out of the quandrary.

Who is the master of waffles? Joy has no arguments. He is just skilled in name-calling.

[Joy Christian]

A hidden variable theory which reproduces quantum mechanical predictions must predict also the linearities of expectation values of observable quantities which are predicted by QM.

You have made this comment several times, and it is the most stupid comment about hidden variable theories one can make. It shows that you have zero understanding of what a hidden variable theory (as defined by von Neumann) means. I have explained the standard understating of hidden variable theory very clearly in my paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02876.pdf.
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[gill1109]

A hidden variable theory which reproduces quantum mechanical predictions must predict also the linearities of expectation values of observable quantities which are predicted by QM.

You have made this comment several times, and it is the most stupid comment about hidden variable theories one can make. It shows that you have zero understanding of what a hidden variable theory (as defined by von Neumann) means. I have explained the standard understating of hidden variable theory very clearly in my paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02876.pdf.

Yes, and you have said that it was a stupid comment, many times. But you haven't explained what is wrong with my argument. On the other hand, I think that your "explanation" is flawed, non-sense. Well, we two have to agree to disagree. It might be interesting to hear the comments of others. And the judgement of the scientific community. Obviously, nobody has to take any notice of a third rate statistician.

[Joy Christian]

A hidden variable theory which reproduces quantum mechanical predictions must predict also the linearities of expectation values of observable quantities which are predicted by QM.

You have made this comment several times, and it is the most stupid comment about hidden variable theories one can make. It shows that you have zero understanding of what a hidden variable theory (as defined by von Neumann) means. I have explained the standard understating of hidden variable theory very clearly in my paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1704.02876.pdf.

Yes, and you have said that it was a stupid comment, many times. But you haven't explained what is wrong with my argument. On the other hand, I think that your "explanation" is flawed, non-sense. Well, we two have to agree to disagree. It might be interesting to hear the comments of others. And the judgement of the scientific community. Obviously, nobody has to take any notice of a third rate statistician.

The third-rate statistics you do is not the problem. The problem with you is the same as the problem anyone would have in having a rational discussion with a religious fanatic. Like any religious fanatic, your modus operandi is to hold fast your religious belief in Bell's discredited theorem, regardless of the evidence against it. No matter what evidence anyone produces to demonstrate that Bell's so-called theorem is a worthless piece of junk, you come up with an absurd defense against it. It is therefore impossible to have any rational discussion with you.
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[local]

Hear hear!

At some point people stopped trying to demonstrate perpetual motion. That day is coming for the advocates of quantum nonlocality.

Why is there no Nobel prize for quantum nonlocality? Simple. The Nobel committee is sensibly unwilling to throw Einstein's Special Relativity under the bus in favor of woo-woo nonsense. The disciples cannot accept this and try to save face by claiming every year that Aspect et al are under serious consideration. How many years?

[Heinera]

Why is there no Nobel prize for quantum nonlocality?

There is no such thing as "quantum nonlocality". Nonlocality is one needed as a mechanism for those Luddites that still believe that classical theories should still rule the world (and Einstein was one of them). The rest of the physics community moved onward in the 1920s.

Quantum Field Theory is perfectly consistent with Special Relativity. The Nobel Committee (actually any academic physicist) know this very well.

[Joy Christian]

Why is there no Nobel prize for quantum nonlocality?

There is no such thing as "quantum nonlocality". Nonlocality is one needed as a mechanism for those Luddites that still believe that classical theories should still rule the world (and Einstein was one of them). The rest of the physics community moved onward in the 1920s.

Who the punk are you to insult Einstein? You dumb ignorant fool, Einstein's position on the issue was infinitely more subtle than your puny little robot brain can understand.

More specifically, Einstein never claimed that quantum mechanics was incorrect. He only thought that it might be (might be) incomplete.

For those with the human brain, here is an excellent summary of Einstein's views: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/eins ... ilscience/.
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[Heinera]

Einstein can't be insulted. He's been dead for 66 years. It's obviously possible to insult his worshippers, but that doesn't really bother me.

[Joy Christian]

Einstein can't be insulted. He's been dead for 66 years. It's obviously possible to insult his worshippers, but that doesn't really bother me.

Where does this breathtaking arrogance of yours come from? You have absolutely nothing to show for it. Is your worthlessness driving you to insult Einstein?
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[Heinera]

Einstein can't be insulted. He's been dead for 66 years. It's obviously possible to insult his worshippers, but that doesn't really bother me.

Where does this breathtaking arrogance of yours come from? You have absolutely nothing to show for it. Is your worthlessness driving you to insult Einstein?
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I have observed that Bell denialists are very fond of characterizing other people's mental states. Please stick to physics.

[Joy Christian]

Einstein can't be insulted. He's been dead for 66 years. It's obviously possible to insult his worshippers, but that doesn't really bother me.

Where does this breathtaking arrogance of yours come from? You have absolutely nothing to show for it. Is your worthlessness driving you to insult Einstein?
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I have observed that Bell denialists are very fond of characterizing other people's mental states. Please stick to physics.

You are worthless until you prove otherwise. And I have given you plenty of opportunities to prove otherwise. But you can't. Because you have nothing to show for your arrogance.
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