The (still) open one-sided bet.

[gill1109]

My bet with J. Christian concerning Christian's experiment is cancelled. However one bet, or rather, one open challenge, remains open. It is to generate two computer files of directions of angular momentum such that ... [I will copy the exact specification, from the old bet topic, to this new one, later. Essentially - by simulation of Christian's model or experiment or whatever - win the now cancelled personal, two-sided, bet about the experiment "in silico", on Christian's behalf.]

You could say: establish "proof of concept" thereby motivating experimentalists to go ahead and do the real thing. Show that it is possible that data really could be generated leading to the famous four "quantum correlations" +/- 0.7071 within an incredibly generous margin of +/- 0.2.

Till June 11 a winning submission gets 10 000 Euros from me. Thereafter, 5 000.

[Joy Christian]

My bet with J. Christian concerning Christian's experiment is cancelled. However one bet, or rather, one open challenge, remains open. It is to generate two computer files of directions of angular momentum such that ... [I will copy the exact specification, from the old bet topic, to this new one, later. Essentially - by simulation of Christian's model or experiment or whatever - win the now cancelled personal, two-sided, bet about the experiment "in silico", on Christian's behalf.]

You could say: establish "proof of concept" thereby motivating experimentalists to go ahead and do the real thing. Show that it is possible that data really could be generated leading to the famous four "quantum correlations" +/- 0.7071 within an incredibly generous margin of +/- 0.2.

Till June 11 a winning submission gets 10 000 Euros from me. Thereafter, 5 000.

I have already won this offer of 10,000 Euros by Richard Gill.

I won his offer of 10,000 Euros yesterday by producing this simulation: http://rpubs.com/jjc/16415. It generates the 2 x N vectors, e_k and –e_k, which necessitate the strong correlation unambiguously, for any two freely chosen measurement directions “a” and “b”.

It is pretty clear from the incontrovertible evidence presented in this simulation that when my proposed experiment is realized it will undoubtedly produce the same strong correlation, with e_k and -e_k as spin directions observed by Alice and Bob (respectively).

I think Richard Gill is smart enough to recognize the evidence I have presented and wise enough to realize the inevitability of seeing the strong correlation in my proposed experiment. He has therefore backed-off from the bet which he cannot possibly win. It is of course wiser to retreat than to be humiliated.

With my main opponent defeated, it is now time to get on with real physics, in both theoretical and experimental direction. There is much work to be done.

For further details, please see my recent posts on FQXi, where I have refuted his supposed calculations of my correlations by redoing his calculations correctly.

[gill1109]

Christian's thought experiment http://arxiv.org/abs/0806.3078 (N exploding balls, and analysis of a a lot of video footage of those explosions) would generate two computer files each containing N directions of angular momentum. The files could actually be plain text files with the directions encoded using spherical coordinates theta (azimuth), phi (zenith).

Let's call the directions of angular momentum in Alice's file u_k, k=1,...,N, and in Bob's file v_k, k = 1, ..., N

If I pick measurement directions a and b,thinking now of directions as unit vectors in R^3, then according to the same paper the outcomes left and right are

A_k = sign(a . u_k) and B_k = sign(b . v_k),

and the estimated (observed, sample, experimental ...) correlation is

E(a, b) = 1/N sum_k A_k B_k
= ( N(++) + N(--) - N(+-) - N(-+) ) / ( N(++) + N(--) + N(+-) + N(-+) )

in the obvious notation.

Christian predicts the theoretical (population, large N limit, ensemble) correlation rho(a, b) = - a . b = - cos(angle between a and b)

I will now focus on just two possible directions for Alice and two for Bob. They are all in the equatorial plane so they can be described just by azimuthal angles alpha = 0 and 90 degrees for Alice and beta = 45 and 135 for Bob.

Christian's theory has

rho(0, 45) = - 0.7071...,

rho(0, 135) = + 0.7071...,

rho(90, 45) = - 0.7071...,

rho(90, 135) = - 0.7071....

and he predicts therefore

E(0, 45) = - 0.7071...,

E(0, 135) = + 0.7071...,

E(90, 45) = - 0.7071...,

E(90, 135) = - 0.7071....

up to experimental and statistical error, of course.

I claim that at least one of these four predictions is certain to be off target, by an amount 0.2 or more (ie the absolute value of the difference between observed and predicted is 1/5 or more).

The challenge is to create two computer files named, for instance, "AliceDirections.txt" and "BobDirections.txt". They should be posted on internet. It is a matter of complete indifference to me how they are created.

I will then show that one of the four predictions has failed by a large amount: E(alpha, beta) is off target by 0.2 or more.

If I cannot do this, I will pay the challenger 5 000 Euro (and if it is done before June 11, 2014, I will pay 10 000 Euro). First come, first serve. I will pay the first succesful challenger. In case of dispute we will ask independent and competent adjudicators to decide for us. They are bound by the rules set out here. Any challenger can only call on the adjudicators once.

To summarize: each challenger may make as many attempts as they like. If I believe the challenge has succeeded, I will pay up. If not, and if the challenger insists, we will go to adjudication. After an unsuccesful adjudication (from the point of view of the challenger) the challenger is disqualified from further attempts.

There will be at most one prize - it goes to the first succesful challenger.

[FrediFizzx]

Congrats to Joy for winning this bet! But then it is very easy to beat CHSH especially after we have shown it to be a fraud on this forum. I would imagine Richard doesn't feel so confident now about the bet on the experiment.

My bet with J. Christian concerning Christian's experiment is cancelled. However one bet, or rather, one open challenge, remains open. It is to generate two computer files of directions of angular momentum such that ... [I will copy the exact specification, from the old bet topic, to this new one, later. Essentially - by simulation of Christian's model or experiment or whatever - win the now cancelled personal, two-sided, bet about the experiment "in silico", on Christian's behalf.]

You could say: establish "proof of concept" thereby motivating experimentalists to go ahead and do the real thing. Show that it is possible that data really could be generated leading to the famous four "quantum correlations" +/- 0.7071 within an incredibly generous margin of +/- 0.2.

Till June 11 a winning submission gets 10 000 Euros from me. Thereafter, 5 000.

I have already won this offer of 10,000 Euros by Richard Gill.

I won his offer of 10,000 Euros yesterday by producing this simulation: http://rpubs.com/jjc/16415. It generates the 2 x N vectors, e_k and –e_k, which necessitate the strong correlation unambiguously, for any two freely chosen measurement directions “a” and “b”.

It is pretty clear from the incontrovertible evidence presented in this simulation that when my proposed experiment is realized it will undoubtedly produce the same strong correlation, with e_k and -e_k as spin directions observed by Alice and Bob (respectively).

I think Richard Gill is smart enough to recognize the evidence I have presented and wise enough to realize the inevitability of seeing the strong correlation in my proposed experiment. He has therefore backed-off from the bet which he cannot possibly win. It is of course wiser to retreat than to be humiliated.

With my main opponent defeated, it is now time to get on with real physics, in both theoretical and experimental direction. There is much work to be done.

For further details, please see my recent posts on FQXi, where I have refuted his supposed calculations of my correlations by redoing his calculations correctly.

[gill1109]

Congrats to Joy for winning this bet! But then it is very easy to beat CHSH especially after we have shown it to be a fraud on this forum. I would imagine Richard doesn't feel so confident now about the bet on the experiment.

Well, according to the rules which Joy and I drew up together, he still has to submit his file of directions. And if he's right, I admit defeat, and if I think he's wrong, we go to arbitration.

So I think Joy's announcement that he has won is premature and your congratulations to him possibly premature also.

You could also still claim the 10 000 yourself by extracting the file of directions yourself and posting them to internet before Joy does. Good luck!

And what's this you are saying about CHSH? There is no mention of CHSH anywhere, here.

I am still very confident that no one is going to succeed.

I have cancelled my bet with Joy (the bet about the experiment) because of his attempt to get out of an agreement by rewriting the rules single-handed and by spreading lies. The guy cannot be trusted. I have no desire to gain his 5 000 Euro.

Notice, in this topic we discuss a challenge which is open to the world. It is one-sided: the challenger loses nothing, except perhaps their reputation, if they publicly claim victory but this victory turns out to be short-lived. dr J J Christian is disqualifed from further attempts till he has succesfully completed the agreed procedure. He must inform me by personal email, after his claim is properly registered, by posting a file of directions (well actually the rules called for two, and they were to use polar coordinates, but one file with Cartesian coordinates is also OK if it is understood that the second file contains the opposite directions to the first, in the same order.)

All that is proven so far is that Christian breaks publicly made agreements and is not even able to read the agreement he helped draw up.

[FrediFizzx]

"So I think Joy's announcement that he has won is premature and your congratulations to him possibly premature also."

You have never ever made a premature announcement that you have won? LOL! And... you are the one that is always bringing up CHSH. Easy to see that Joy has beat "your" version hands down.

[gill1109]

"So I think Joy's announcement that he has won is premature and your congratulations to him possibly premature also."

You have never ever made a premature announcement that you have won? LOL! And... you are the one that is always bringing up CHSH. Easy to see that Joy has beat "your" version hands down.

I no longer bring up CHSH. It is a dead, red herring caught as part of a wild goose chase.

I do not announce that I have won the challenge (not a bet really) announced in this thread, and earlier announced in another. How can I? The challenge is open and anyone can still claim victory. Of course, any fool can always claim victory, but that is not the same as gaining victory.

So the correct statement is: the challenge is still wide open for all, because no one has yet gained victory. Christian has disqualified himself from participation. However, he can still win by participating under a false name. Or one of his supporters can win, on his behalf. If it is easy to see that Joy has effectively/morally/whatever ... won, then he (or anyone else) just needs to complete the "victory lap". A purely formal procedure, I am sure. Why are we waiting? What's the problem?

PS thanks for locking down the other, earlier, "bet" topic I started - my one-on-one two-sided bet with Christian on his experiment. There is no bet between me and Christian on his experiment any more. I informed the adjudicators that the bet is called off because of Christian's proven untrustworthiness. I am not interested in his 5 000 Euro. Pity for Medecins sans frontieres...

PPS The only definitely valid (ie exact, certain) CHSH-type bound is "4". And the so-called Bell's theorem is not Bell's theorem. It's not even a true theorem. Please let's move on, now. All this has been agreed.

[gill1109]

To give an example of the difference between claiming and gaining victory.

It is the Olympic games. The men's 100 meter sprint.

10 meters from the finishing line, the guy who is in front, top athlete J Christian, stops running and steps to one side and says "I have clearly won: at 90 meters, I was two meters ahead of the nearest competitor".

Does he get a gold medal? (Even if what he said was actually true, according to the video footage of the race).

Do we think this guy is incredibly smart?

(I call this premature ejaculation, sorry for the awful innuendo)

[Joy Christian]

To give an example of the difference between claiming and gaining victory.

It is the Olympic games. The men's 100 meter sprint.

10 meters from the finishing line, the guy who is in front, top athlete J Christian, stops running and steps to one side and says "I have clearly won: at 90 meters, I was two meters ahead of the nearest competitor".

Does he get a gold medal? (Even if what he said was actually true, according to the video footage of the race).

Do we think this guy is incredibly smart?

(I call this premature ejaculation, sorry for the awful innuendo)

The facts are quite different from how Richard Gill has been presenting them. As soon as he realized that I have successfully accomplished the task he thought was impossible to accomplish, he backed off from the 10,000 Euros offer he had made publicly. He found excuses, threw a massive tantrum, and revoked his offer as fast as he could. The task was to generate N vectors, e_k and -e_k, appearing in equation (16) of this paper of mine, so that they would locally produce the strong EPR-Bohm correlation. As anyone can see from this simulation I have accomplished this task spectacularly. Consequently, I have won the 10,000 Euros offered by Richard Gill decisively. But as soon as he realized that I have accomplished what he claimed to be impossible, he backed off from paying up and revoked his offer. Typical.

[Joy Christian]

Congrats to Joy for winning this bet! But then it is very easy to beat CHSH especially after we have shown it to be a fraud on this forum. I would imagine Richard doesn't feel so confident now about the bet on the experiment.

Thanks, Fred.

You are right. After I produced this simulation Richard realized that he cannot possibly win the bet on my proposed experiment, so he backed off as fast as he could.

[gill1109]

Sorry, but I've put Joy Christian on my list of "foes" so I don't see his postings here unless I take extra action. When he's posted a computer file of directions on internet, he can personally email me the URL. Or somebody else can let me know.

[gill1109]

Request to Fred Diether:

I should have named this new topic "The (still) open one-sided bet" a bit differently - namely as "The (still) open one-sided challenge". It's a subtle but perhaps important distinction. Is it possible for you, respected super-user and owner, to rename a topic without changing URL's etc?

It would be much appreciated.

But if it's too much bother, no problem. And if it's technically impossible, sorry that I bothered you with the request.

Richard

[minkwe]

Sorry, but I've put Joy Christian on my list of "foes" so I don't see his postings here unless I take extra action. When he's posted a computer file of directions on internet, he can personally email me the URL. Or somebody else can let me know.

We've seen statements like this in the past. We know how long the tantrum will last. Joy's R-code is very clear. You do not say what is wrong with it. First it was the suggestion that 'b' was fixed at 0, which was swiftly snuffed, then the suggestion that "good" was doing some magic. That too was swiftly snuffed. Then next was the suggestion that Joy had produced a curve rather than a surface. That line of argument was long abandoned. All of a sudden the master of R is no longer interested in R but in two separate files and a different method of calculation. As I suggested all along, the real issue is not whether Joy can reproduce QM correlations, Richard's real interest is in playing games with method of calculation, as we've already established elsewhere.

Some questions are begging to be asked:

1) Is Joy's simulation local-realistic or not? If not state precisely where in the code.
2) Does any of the correlations E(a,b) deviate from the QM prediction by more than 0.2 or not? (Simply look at the plot. or point out precisely why you believe the calculation of the plot is in error, the code is public).

I suspect you won't answer these questions. I suspect you would resort to a different method of calculation, and blame Joy for the failure of your method to reproduce the results/calculation he has posted in the open. Not only that, I suspect you will then claim that Joy has agreed to your method, and you will then try to deflect by accusing me of not having read Joy's paper. But the above questions will remain as a dark cloud over your head, and you will know it is there, and it will bother you until you address them.

[Joy Christian]

Sorry, but I've put Joy Christian on my list of "foes" so I don't see his postings here unless I take extra action. When he's posted a computer file of directions on internet, he can personally email me the URL. Or somebody else can let me know.

We've seen statements like this in the past. We know how long the tantrum will last. Joy's R-code is very clear. You do not say what is wrong with it. First it was the suggestion that 'b' was fixed at 0, which was swiftly snuffed, then the suggestion that "good" was doing some magic. That too was swiftly snuffed. Then next was the suggestion that Joy had produced a curve rather than a surface. That line of argument was long abandoned. All of a sudden the master of R is no longer interested in R but in two separate files and a different method of calculation. As I suggested all along, the real issue is not whether Joy can reproduce QM correlations, Richard's real interest is in playing games with method of calculation, as we've already established elsewhere.

Some questions are begging to be asked:

1) Is Joy's simulation local-realistic or not? If not state precisely where in the code.
2) Does any of the correlations E(a,b) deviate from the QM prediction by more than 0.2 or not? (Simply look at the plot. or point out precisely why you believe the calculation of the plot is in error, the code is public).

I suspect you won't answer these questions. I suspect you would resort to a different method of calculation, and blame Joy for the failure of your method to reproduce the results/calculation he has posted in the open. Not only that, I suspect you will then claim that Joy has agreed to your method, and you will then try to deflect by accusing me of not having read Joy's paper. But the above questions will remain as a dark cloud over your head, and you will know it is there, and it will bother you until you address them.

Thank you, Michel. I couldn't have put this better than you have.

[Heinera]

2) Does any of the correlations E(a,b) deviate from the QM prediction by more than 0.2 or not? (Simply look at the plot. or point out precisely why you believe the calculation of the plot is in error, the code is public).

You clearly have some programming experience. Look at this piece of code from Joy's public program:

Code: Select all

for (i in 1:(K - 1)) {
    alpha <- angles[i]
    a <- c(cos(alpha), sin(alpha))  ## Measurement vector 'a'
    for (j in 1:(K - 1)) {
        beta <- angles[j]
        b <- c(cos(beta), sin(beta))  ## Measurement vector 'b'
        ca <- colSums(e * a)  ## Inner products of cols of 'e' with 'a'
        cb <- colSums(e * b)  ## Inner products of cols of 'e' with 'b'
        N <- length(ca)
        corrs[i] <- sum(sign(-ca) * sign(cb))/N
        Ns[i] <- N
    }
}

First the code loops on i (the alpha angles), and then on j (the beta angles).

But the assignment to the correlations corrs[i] within the j-loop only has one index i. So for each new value of j, the previous assignment to corrs[i] is simply forgotten and overwritten. So at the end of the loop, we end up with corrs[i] dependent only on angles[K-1] (the last assignment to beta). All other values of beta are irrelevant. Agree?

[gill1109]

OK. Joy and I are talking again (by email) and I also removed his name from my "foe list" here.

The challenge as formulated at the beginning of this topic is taken up by Joy. He's even submitted his file of directions but I have not analysed them yet. First I will draft a letter to the persons we have in mind for the adjudicating committee, and put it to Joy for his approval.

If he approves, I'll send it to them.

Then I will analyse the data which Joy has submitted, post it on internet, and also post my initial conclusion.

If it's negative then Joy will ask the adjudicators for a "second opinion".

If it's still negative we are done. If however the adjudicators judge in Joy's favour I owe him 10 000 Euro.

Is that fair or is that fair?

Probably we are finished in a few days ... perhaps a couple of weeks. At the most we will be finished by June 11, I'm sure. It will be mainly up to the adjudicators.

[minkwe]

First the code loops on i (the alpha angles), and then on j (the beta angles).

But the assignment to the correlations corrs[i] within the j-loop only has one index i. So for each new value of j, the previous assignment to corrs[i] is simply forgotten and overwritten. So at the end of the loop, we end up with corrs[i] dependent only on angles[K-1] (the last assignment to beta). All other values of beta are irrelevant. Agree?

That is a fair criticism.

[Joy Christian]

First the code loops on i (the alpha angles), and then on j (the beta angles).

But the assignment to the correlations corrs[i] within the j-loop only has one index i. So for each new value of j, the previous assignment to corrs[i] is simply forgotten and overwritten. So at the end of the loop, we end up with corrs[i] dependent only on angles[K-1] (the last assignment to beta). All other values of beta are irrelevant. Agree?

That is a fair criticism.

How is this equivalent to "b" being fixed? It seems to me that the last assignment of beta can take any value.

[Heinera]

First the code loops on i (the alpha angles), and then on j (the beta angles).

But the assignment to the correlations corrs[i] within the j-loop only has one index i. So for each new value of j, the previous assignment to corrs[i] is simply forgotten and overwritten. So at the end of the loop, we end up with corrs[i] dependent only on angles[K-1] (the last assignment to beta). All other values of beta are irrelevant. Agree?

That is a fair criticism.

How is this equivalent to "b" being fixed? It seems to me that the last assignment of beta can take any value.

No, the last assignment of beta always takes the value angles[K-1], which is constant (K is a constant).

[gill1109]

This is the letter I am thinking of sending to the adjudicators:

Dear ...

Recently I emailed you telling you that a certain bet I had made with Joy Christian was called off. At the time I was rather angry and pretty determined not to have anything to do with him again, but in the meantime my anger abaited somewhat and after some further contacts we came to a new agreement concerning the following challenge: ...

We would like to ask you if you would be prepared to adjudicate a submission to this challenge, just once. We moreover believe that very little work is required of you, and all that you will be required to produce is a yes/no answer to a simple question.

The procedure is: Christian submits a computer file to Gill who processes it to the best of his ability according to his interpretation of the rules set out in the challenge. (Gill and Christian have formulated these rules together, and both believe they are unambiguous).

He either accepts that Christian has succeeded, or he claims that Christian has failed.

In the latter case, and in the latter case only, and once only, you are asked to adjudicate.

Christian might submit some supporting material arguing why he disagrees with my conclusion. Up to you what you make of it.

Your decision is final and binding on all parties and no appeal is possible, no correspondence with the jury is allowed (on the subject of the challenge) either during their deliberations or after their conclusion is announced.

Christian and Gill expect to submit materials in a few days and would be delighted if the jury could come to a conclusion before the coming Vaxjo conference.

On Gill's side the only material expected would be the data file (which is not going to be very large at all) and an R script generating the numbers on the basis of which he comes to his initial decision. He has Python, Perl, and Excel versions available too (which have been tested on similar data sets to all give the same answer). These scripts are short and transparent. (It is a question of calculating four correlations). However, it must be emphasized that the jury is free to use whatever computer tools they like to get the answers. Their essential task is to independently calculate the four numbers described in the challenge.