Bell's theorem - for or against Hidden Variables? jrdixon Junior Member Posts: 4 Threads: 0 Joined: Jul 2016 Reputation: 0 07-27-2016, 03:41 PM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2016, 03:47 PM by jrdixon.) The Adenier and Khrennikov paper is pointing out that QM cannot explain a no signaling violation that they see in the data from an experiment (assuming signaling was impossible). My papers imagine a scenario where the no signaling violation and the Bell violation can be explained (without signaling and without nonlocal effects). So yes, my scenario disagrees with QM on whether the no signaling equalities can be violated, but agrees with QM on the Bell correlation. Thomas Ray Member Posts: 101 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 1 07-27-2016, 03:56 PM secur wrote: " ... IF we assume the Bell experiments really do demonstrate what they appear to demonstrate, then information from the future light cone is being used to produce the experimental correlations. How Nature can access those two detector setting variables is unknown. Your suggested answer involves considering the exact properties ('unity', 'indistinguishability of past and future events') of what we casually refer to as 'space'. Christian and FrediFizzx have a similar approach, based on 'spinor properties' of space. Unfortunately the papers which attempt to prove these ideas aren't convincing, as far as I know at this time. What I'd really like to see is an experiment that could help decide the issue." You have it right.  Let me offer this working paper:  https://www.researchgate.net/publication..._Spacetime and I'll have more to say later. Thomas Ray Member Posts: 101 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 1 07-27-2016, 04:48 PM (This post was last modified: 07-27-2016, 04:50 PM by Thomas Ray. Edit Reason: complete thought ) Heinera: "QRC is a challenge with some rules; it does not assume anything." Like Bell-Aspect, it assumes measurement criteria, and no measure *space.* With those rules, one can "prove" anything that one asserts. gill1109 Junior Member Posts: 46 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 0 07-28-2016, 08:21 AM (07-27-2016, 01:52 PM)secur Wrote: (07-27-2016, 08:14 AM)gill1109 Wrote: (07-26-2016, 06:47 PM)secur Wrote: To me the phrase "QM is non-local" means the following in this context. When we analyze and predict mathematically the results of the experiment, those two non-local variables must appear together in the same equation. In fact, we must use the cosine of the sum of the angles (or, the dot product of vectors representing the detector settings) to predict the correlations of Alice and Bob's two detections (or a series thereof). This happens nowhere else in physics! To analyze any other experiment, and predict its results - or a function of the results, like correlation coefficients, or moments - it's always sufficient to use only the information available in the past light cone. Except in this one case. Here we must use two variables that no possible single observer could have known, at the time of the measurement. This very peculiar and unique situation can reasonably be called "non-local".It is more subtle than this, I think. There is a local realistic model which predicts that the correlation is half the cosine of the difference between the angles. There is no local realistic model which predicts that the correlation is the full cosine. To predict the correlation between both observer's measurements we need to know both observer's settings, in either case. No mystery about that. For one thing, a correlation of half the cosine is no good because it doesn't give the right results. At an angle of pi, for instance, the true correlation is -1, but this would give 0. But one can easily imagine semi-correct correlation functions that can be produced under local realism. The key necessity is that correlations of smaller angles, less than pi/2, are not so strong as in real QM. For instance, a correlation of (1 - theta * 2/pi) would do it. (Substituting theta = 2*pi - theta when theta is between pi and 2*pi.) Something like this will give roughly the right correlations. At least for theta=pi it is, correctly, -1. And it works fine without any knowledge of the other detector's setting. But for small angles, near 0, the correlation is too weak. So sure, a wrong correlation can be achieved easily in a local-realism model. But so what? It doesn't match experiments. Perhaps it's harder than I thought to nail down the definition of "Property X". Let me try it as follows. Consider the QRC. One way to beat it would be to communicate detector settings between the two programs simulating the two stations. This "cheating" would be equivalent to an FTL signal between Alice and Bob's detectors. If a real-time simulation of an experiment requires incorporating an FTL signal like that, to correctly mimic Nature: then the experiment possesses "Property X". Can you see any problem with that definition? It's meant to be equivalent to the one I gave before, but less ambiguous.I think that's an excellent definition of "Property X". secur Member Posts: 165 Threads: 0 Joined: May 2016 Reputation: 0 07-28-2016, 10:19 PM (This post was last modified: 07-28-2016, 10:22 PM by secur.) Here's another way to define "Property X", which might be clearer to people not familiar with QRC and simulator software. IF these results could be obtained with a classical experiment (no QM involved) then it would need the equivalent of a superluminal signal. Of course, that's assuming that no one like Hess, etc, manages to provide another explanation, based on "properties of space" or "negative probabilities" or whatever. Thomas Ray Member Posts: 101 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 1 07-29-2016, 12:26 AM Not properties of space; properties of spacetime. The so-called QRC is a perpetual time-wasting game of tic-tac-toe (naughts and crosses to you Brits).  It prescribes its own boundary, without a physical space to frame it, and so presents the illusion of individual discrete choice on an infinite two-dimension plane.   Events in four dimension spacetime are reversible.  There is no need to violate special relativity -- special relativity in fact may be the key to our comprehensibility of a finite world.  Many Christian critics think that his measure space is exotic – it is not. What is exotic, actually, is the infinite and unbounded space of conventional quantum theory, which has no physical sense independent of experiment. (Think on the significance of Terry Tao's remark: " ... that all functions on a finite set are bounded - can be viewed as a very simple example of a local-to-global principle.")  Terry Tao knows the significance of a finitely bounded topology. Einstein can say that all physics is local, because all physics is not other than local.  That includes the results of Bell-Aspect. Schmelzer Administrator Posts: 215 Threads: 31 Joined: Dec 2015 Reputation: 0 07-29-2016, 10:06 AM Thomas, it would not change anything if one would replace infinite Euclidean space $$\mathbb{R}^3$$ by a large enough torus $$T^3 \equiv (S^1)^3$$. So the question if space is finite or infinite is completely irrelevant. (Except for relativist fanatics, who would object against $$T^3$$ that it is incompatible with Lorentz symmetry, but who cares). Thomas Ray Member Posts: 101 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 1 07-29-2016, 11:24 AM Ignoring the fact, of course, that we live a 4-dimension universe with integrated time parameter. There are any number of ways to construct an unrealistic geometry that excludes time -- and only one way (experimentally validated) to include time in a locally realistic physical model. secur Member Posts: 165 Threads: 0 Joined: May 2016 Reputation: 0 07-29-2016, 04:32 PM Thomas Ray wrote: Not properties of space; properties of spacetime. Sorry, that's what I should have said. Thomas Ray wrote: The so-called QRC is a perpetual time-wasting game of tic-tac-toe (naughts and crosses to you Brits).  It prescribes its own boundary, without a physical space to frame it, and so presents the illusion of individual discrete choice on an infinite two-dimension plane.   I know little about QRC. But I've coded, and directed the development of, many simulation programs and facilities. In comments above about QRC, I was supposing it is done the way it ought to be done, like any other effective numerical program that simulates the results of a scientific experiment. Anyway, you're right: even supposing it's well-written, it's not the same as the real physical situation. It's just a digital reproduction of the equations. A very elaborate game of tic-tac-toe, if you will. It has many artificial features, like the illusion of a perfectly uniform infinite space (based on the computer's virtual memory), round-off errors, and so forth. A simulation is NOT the real thing. However a good simulation does mimic the equations (the math, the theory) very well, so it can be used to explore theoretical concepts. Thomas Ray wrote: Events in four dimension spacetime are reversible. I don't think so. Consider: I can get older (often do, in fact) but not younger. If you can reverse that event, I'll give you 500,000 USD, cash, to put me back the way I was 50 years ago. Please PM me with your technique to reverse aging! Thomas Ray wrote: There is no need to violate special relativity -- special relativity in fact may be the key to our comprehensibility of a finite world. Without it, modern physics would indeed be incomprehensible. Thomas Ray wrote: What is exotic, actually, is the infinite and unbounded space of conventional quantum theory, which has no physical sense independent of experiment. If I understand you correctly, you're right. (Dirac discussed this at length.) Don't forget a "theory" is, just like a computer simulator, an artificial construct to represent the real physical situation. All theories are "unreal" in various ways. For instance, they conventionally use infinity: integrals are taken from -inf to +inf, and so on. That's impossible in the real world. Anyway, you think that real spacetime has certain properties which are not correctly accounted for in QM theory. For one thing, it's finite, and this simple fact points to a correspondence between local and global phenomena. So we can mistakenly think a phenomenon is "global" (or, non-local) when actually it's local. That makes sense, as far as it goes. But, like Schmelzer, I don't see how it can explain Bell. Of course maybe that's because I don't understand Christian, or Hess, or other pertinent information. Thomas Ray wrote: Einstein can say that all physics is local, because all physics is not other than local. No he can't, he's dead. (Unless you can reverse that event also!) However, you can say it. Naturally it depends what we mean by "local". Well at least I've learned one thing: "non-local" is another one of those terms, so common in today's physics, which I'm not supposed to use. Like ether, collapse of wavefunction, "lost information", etc. Many physicists seem to care more about language than math! So I'll just call it "Property X". All that actually matters - to me, anyway - is results of experiments, not what you call them. Theory matters also, but not as much. Thomas Ray Member Posts: 101 Threads: 0 Joined: Jun 2016 Reputation: 1 07-29-2016, 06:30 PM (07-29-2016, 04:32 PM)secur Wrote: Thomas Ray wrote: Not properties of space; properties of spacetime. Sorry, that's what I should have said. Thomas Ray wrote: The so-called QRC is a perpetual time-wasting game of tic-tac-toe (naughts and crosses to you Brits).  It prescribes its own boundary, without a physical space to frame it, and so presents the illusion of individual discrete choice on an infinite two-dimension plane.   I know little about QRC. But I've coded, and directed the development of, many simulation programs and facilities. In comments above about QRC, I was supposing it is done the way it ought to be done, like any other effective numerical program that simulates the results of a scientific experiment. Anyway, you're right: even supposing it's well-written, it's not the same as the real physical situation. It's just a digital reproduction of the equations. A very elaborate game of tic-tac-toe, if you will. It has many artificial features, like the illusion of a perfectly uniform infinite space (based on the computer's virtual memory), round-off errors, and so forth. A simulation is NOT the real thing. However a good simulation does mimic the equations (the math, the theory) very well, so it can be used to explore theoretical concepts. Thomas Ray wrote: Events in four dimension spacetime are reversible. I don't think so. Consider: I can get older (often do, in fact) but not younger. If you can reverse that event, I'll give you 500,000 USD, cash, to put me back the way I was 50 years ago. Please PM me with your technique to reverse aging! Thomas Ray wrote: There is no need to violate special relativity -- special relativity in fact may be the key to our comprehensibility of a finite world. Without it, modern physics would indeed be incomprehensible. Thomas Ray wrote: What is exotic, actually, is the infinite and unbounded space of conventional quantum theory, which has no physical sense independent of experiment. If I understand you correctly, you're right. (Dirac discussed this at length.) Don't forget a "theory" is, just like a computer simulator, an artificial construct to represent the real physical situation. All theories are "unreal" in various ways. For instance, they conventionally use infinity: integrals are taken from -inf to +inf, and so on. That's impossible in the real world. Anyway, you think that real spacetime has certain properties which are not correctly accounted for in QM theory. For one thing, it's finite, and this simple fact points to a correspondence between local and global phenomena. So we can mistakenly think a phenomenon is "global" (or, non-local) when actually it's local. That makes sense, as far as it goes. But, like Schmelzer, I don't see how it can explain Bell. Of course maybe that's because I don't understand Christian, or Hess, or other pertinent information. Thomas Ray wrote: Einstein can say that all physics is local, because all physics is not other than local. No he can't, he's dead. (Unless you can reverse that event also!) However, you can say it. Naturally it depends what we mean by "local". Well at least I've learned one thing: "non-local" is another one of those terms, so common in today's physics, which I'm not supposed to use. Like ether, collapse of wavefunction, "lost information", etc. Many physicists seem to care more about language than math! So I'll just call it "Property X". All that actually matters - to me, anyway - is results of experiments, not what you call them. Theory matters also, but not as much. Excellent post, secur. We agree on the nature of theory.  It is precisely because theory is (should be) mathematically independent of physical results, that I find Bell's theorem physically false and incomplete.  The THEOREM is logically sound, but makes no closed logical judgment; the EXPERIMENT (Bell-Aspect, et al) therefore does not correspond to the mathematics.  It can't, because experimental science makes a closed logical judgment on the outcome of an experiment.  So when one starts with a mathematical inequality, and a physical inequality is experimentally verified -- is one surprised?  Special relativity does not suffer that defect; E = mc^2 is always completely realizable, in its theoretical conclusion, and experimental result. There is no hope for a quantum theory free of spurious interpretations. Now -- since you put time-reversible events in terms of your own aging process -- let me ask, how do you know?  The entropy of past events is not distinguishable from that of future events.  I dealt with this in my ICCS 2007 conference PowerPoint, "Time, Change and Self-Organization."  https://www.researchgate.net/profile/T_H...tributions « Next Oldest | Next Newest »