Bell's Theorem and Nonlocality

I can go over definitions and distinctions between various interpretations, but why does any of this matter? I've mathematically proven that locality+determinism = 33%+ correlation, so why would any additional details change the result? Suppose I prove a result which applies to all prime numbers, does the result change if I specifically consider a prime number which has 7 as its second-last digit? So why would you think that adding or removing extra details in a local hidden variable theory would change the basic 33%+ result it's supposed to predict?

Do you actually believe it's possible to construct a local deterministic hidden variables theory which escapes the result of my math proof?

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

You should at least try to understand the difference between HVI and HVT, if you don't yet.

In HVT, what we think we know about particles is persistent and repeatable, and yet they act in unexplained ways. In HVI, we don't think we understand the true nature of particles.

In HVT, our understanding is gained by observation as we examine the results of repeated measurements, done over and over, that tell us that particles have certain characteristics, but various combinations of experiments give unexplained results.

HVI says that our lack of understanding of the unexplained results might stem from the nature of particles not being like we think. It leaves open the question of the nature of particles based on the lack of understanding of why they act the way they do. It asks the question, could there be something fundamentally lacking in our understanding? Could that something mean that we cannot observe a reality that is taking place? Might particles be completely different from what we think they are, and if we could examine the mechanics at an as yet undiscovered "foundational" level of order, would we get a whole new understanding based on concepts that we have not considered to be possible or real? HVI is about learning how to observe the mechanics at that new and deeper level, or at least theorize what they would have to be like in order to explain the results we now get and don't understand? HVI looks for the answers to what we don't yet understand.

The confirmation of QM as we now know it by closing loopholes does not answer the unexplained, and that leaves us with HVI.

HVI people don't do HVT.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

I still don't see how it changes the conclusions from Bell test experiments. Whether the photon is really a particle or something else entirely, and regardless of what undiscovered properties it may have, there's no way to explain the frequency of long-distance anti-correlations resulting from independent random manipulations at opposite, distantly-separated ends of the lab, if you postulate that no faster-than-light effects can propagate between those ends during the measurements.

 

Log in or Sign up to hide all adverts.

What HVI says is that there is an answer for the unexplained results, and we don't know the answer. What you are also saying is that we don't understand the results, so what is your position on whether there is an answer as to the cause of the unexplained results?

Superposition? How does that work mechanically? We don't have the answer. HVI says there is an answer to explain how superposition works mechanically but we don't know the answer. You are probably agreeing that we don't know the answer, so what is your position on whether there is an answer as to the cause of the unexplained superposition?

 

You seem to have it all wrong. I believe we very much do understand the results of the Bell tests, and have had the tools to understand them since the 1920's. Most physicists accept the wavefunction as a fundamental mechanism in itself with no reason to believe that there's anything more classical lying beneath it, the wavefunction itself is the explanation. What a loophole-free Bell experiment would prove is that if you don't like Quantum Mechanics in its present form for whatever reason, whatever you replace it with has to include nonlocality as part of the explanation. To paraphrase your own words, any theory which restricts all phenomena to local deterministic behaviour will automatically be incomplete, incapable of correctly predicting certain experimental measurements.

We do have an answer, it's that nature fundamentally operates according to certain mathematical rules described by linear operators acting on Hilbert spaces. The previous, "classical" answer for how things worked was that nature operates according to certain rules of vector/tensor calculus, but those rules proved to be insufficient to correctly model atomic phenomena. There may or may not be a deeper mechanism underlying the wavefunction describing state superpositions, but if there is an underlying mechanism, it can't be strictly local and deterministic.

 

From what you say, we can stop trying to understand QM because everything is understood? And gravity, is that caused by the curvature of spacetime? You are saying that instead of unexplained mechanics, we have the answers in the mathematics, superposition, wave function, and curvature of space time. We can stop working on a quantum solution to gravity as well? Is that about it?

Let's see if everyone is as satisfied with the status quo as you are.

 

As I've said before, the one and only thing I find unsatisfactory about existing physics is that there are a limited number of known phenomena it's not presently capable of describing. I'm an empiricist, I don't believe ours is a universe which imprints its mathematical properties on the minds of the creatures that evolve inside said universe; we're all just particularly clever little ants, and shouldn't expect that we can understand everything in existence or judge its validity without ever having made a single measurement.

If you have a theory that explains everything QM does and possibly more while making less assumptions, then great. On the other hand, I can't see why anyone would want to take a working theory and add a bunch of vague underlying stuff to it just to make it more emotionally pleasing to them, even if those additions don't help explain anything new- it's not a rational attitude. If someone comes up with a working, self-consistent theory of quantum gravity that explains all the relevant data, dark energy etc. but still works in terms of superpositions, curved spacetimes and "spooky" action at a distance, it seems that you wouldn't be personally satisfied even though there would be no rational grounds to call it incomplete.

You don't know for a fact that electrons and other particles ever have absolute positions or momenta, no one in history has ever measured or detected such properties, therefore you can't call it "reasonable and responsible" to demand that such things must indeed exist.

 

I could agree with that if we agree to state it differently:
1) Saying it your way:
You don't know for a fact that electrons and other particles ever have absolute positions or momenta, no one in history has ever measured or detected such properties, therefore you can't call it "reasonable and responsible" to demand that such things must indeed exist.

2) Saying it differently so that we could agree:
Since our ability to measure both the position and momentum of a particle is fuzzy, i.e. we can't do it with certainty, and no one has a way to eliminate the uncertainty, it isn't reasonable or responsible to say that some way to do that exists.

In your version of that statement you seem to intend to misrepresent what I have been saying about QM, i.e. the ways in which I am saying it might be incomplete, by implying I am suggesting electrons or other particles have absolute positions. I don't claim that.

Also, your version introduces a straw man about supposed efforts to prove the existence of a way to eliminate uncertainty as described by quantum mechanics as it stands, and you imply that is what my hobby-model attempts to do. It isn't.

Your version has bad air with it (it stinks) based on the fact that you don't like me stating my disclaimer that accompanies most discussions about my hobby-model:
"My hobby-model is internally consistent to the best of my ability, and it is not inconsistent with known scientific observations and data, stipulating that those observations are understood and explained with the mechanics that they operate by."

Notwithstanding what you have presented in this thread, if you are being honest you will agree that you have not falsified that disclaimer.

When you falsely pretended to derive an HVT from my hobby-model, you were showing your ignorance of my model. And when you object to me using the phrase, "reasonable and responsible" as adjectives to describe my methodology of speculation, you again show your ignorance of what those adjectives apply to:

My hobby-model evolves beyond known scientific fact and certain accepted theories by use of a methodology of speculation. I refer to that methodology as reasonable and responsible, step by step, bottom up speculation to derive my own answers to questions not yet answered by the scientific community. I hope that clears up how I use those adjectives when describing my model.

My model, since I started to evolve it years ago, has included among other things, speculations and hypotheses about quantum gravity that are not classical, and no reasonable or responsible person that followed my model would ever confuse them with a classical solution.

 

It disappoints me that the height of your understanding of quantum mechanics seems to stop at Bell's Theorem. You are mistaken, if you are saying that we understand the wave function as it relates to reality. Accepting it as the mathematical tool that it is might be what you mean.

Do you have any conception of the complexity of the wave function of even a single electron. And the wave function deals with the probability that you will find the electron at X. Isn't there a real electron out there, lol? What is the nature of the waves it is composed of, how do they propagate, what makes the electron stable, how many waves are there and are they plane waves or spherical waves, and how does a wave packet move, and on and on?

But forget that the wave function deals with the location vs. the energy of a particle. Both are probabilities, and a wave function of an electron is a simple wave function solution compared to the wave function of an apple, and then take a planet. The wave function almost immediately becomes unmanageable as a tool, which leads to ways to deal with more complex wave functions by generalizing.

And I am talking about the physical nature of quantum gravity. I am using the tool of reasonable and responsible speculation, as described in my last post, to build my discussion of the hypothetical underlying foundational level where the mechanics are of the nature of continuous waves, complex standing wave patterns with inflow and out flow of gravitational energy waves in the medium of space, and that move in response to the wave energy density gradient of the medium, based on the highest net directional inflow of wave energy from surrounding objects. The "generalization" of the wave function is of little value in speculating about the mechanics of gravity.

You say you don't think "that there is anything more classical lying beneath it", and I don't see how you could even imagine that an underlying level of nature beneath our current ability to observe could be described as classical. I am beginning to think that is one of the problems you would have understanding any discussion of quantum gravity. It is not going to be something that reverts back to classical physics, it is something that will be derived from new thinking about quantum physics that will lead to a theory of quantum gravity.

Would you mind saying what phenomena? It seems to me that the list wouldn't be described as "limited".

 

Alright, I decided to let this topic lapse because I felt that the facts I was stating here were being ignored by some of the people they were directed at, and that little interest in analyzing any of the arguments was being shown. Nonetheless, as I promised to do a few months ago, I shall demonstrate an example of the simple quantum calculations which correctly predict the results of Bell test experiments. Let's consider the simple experimental example involving measurements of entangled electron spins as already discussed in this topic. Experimentally, we know that the measurements are coincidental 75% of the time and opposite for the remaining 25%.

Suppose one of the electrons is measured along axis A (z-axis) with positive spin. We shall denote this spin state as \(|+z\rangle\). Since the system is initialized in a spin-0 state, measurement on the first electron automatically sets the second electron to have negative spin along axis A, which we denote by the state \(|-z\rangle\). If, just prior to measurement, the second apparatus randomly chooses axis B as the axis of measurement (at angle \(120^\circ\) relative to A), we wish to calculate the probability of the second electron yielding a positive value for spin measurement along this axis.

Without loss of generality, suppose that axis B is produced by counter-clockwise rotating axis A \(120^\circ\) in the x-z plane, and that a positive electron spin state along this axis is denoted by \(|+w\rangle\). The desired probability we wish to calculate for coincidental spin measurements is given by \(\left|\langle-z|+w\rangle\right|^2\).

First we must express \(+w\rangle\) in the z-basis by performing an electron spin rotation:
\(|+w\rangle=e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\hat{S_y}\frac{2\pi}{3}}|+z\rangle\), where \(\hat{S_y}\) is the Pauli spin operator for the y-axis.

Converting spin z-basis to spin y-basis, we may write: \(|+z\rangle=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|+y\rangle+|-y\rangle\right)\). Then we obtain:

\(|+w\rangle=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\frac{\hbar}{2}\frac{2\pi}{3}}|+y\rangle+e^{-\frac{i}{\hbar}\frac{-\hbar}{2}\frac{2\pi}{3}}|-y\rangle\right)=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(e^{\frac{-i\pi}{3}}|+y\rangle+e^{\frac{i\pi}{3}}|-y\rangle\right)\)

Writing \(|+y\rangle=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|+z\rangle+i|-z\rangle\right)\) and \(|-y\rangle=\frac{1}{\sqrt{2}}\left(|+z\rangle-i|-z\rangle\right)\), we ultimately obtain the following:

\(|+w\rangle=\frac{1}{2}\left(e^{\frac{-i\pi}{3}}+e^{\frac{i\pi}{3}}\right)|+z\rangle+\frac{i}{2}\left(e^{\frac{-i\pi}{3}}-e^{\frac{i\pi}{3}}\right)|-z\rangle\).

We may thus conclude: \(\langle-z|+w\rangle=\frac{i}{2}\left(e^{\frac{-i\pi}{3}}-e^{\frac{i\pi}{3}}\right)=\sin\left(\pi/3\right)=\frac{\sqrt{3}}{2}\), and therefore \(\left|\langle-z|+w\rangle\right|^2=75\%\)

So the quantum mechanical prediction is for a 75% coincidence rate, 25% anti-coincidence rate, makes no assumptions about the specific details of the experiment, and precisely matches the experimental results. As proven earlier in this thread, any arbitrary local hidden variables theory requires at least a 33% anti-coincidence rate and is therefore experimentally falsified, but we can see that non-local quantum mechanics nails it without difficulty.

 

In "due time" has come,

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

.

The ISU model of cosmology was developed using a methodology in accord with my way of thinking, of what are reasonable and responsible step by step speculations and hypotheses, from which I have derived the philosophy of Eternal Intent, which acknowledges that it is the nature of the universe to perpetually provide a "sameness" of physics across an infinite medium of space, characterized by ever changing environments where local physical forces generate life, and where successful life forms evolve in ways dictated by various hospitable environments, and out of that Eternal Intent philosophy comes the ideology that there is one greater universe, which as a whole, is as it should be, and could be no other way, and that the concept of "here and now" is common to all points in the universe, making time a continuum of those locally passing "nows", and thus the passing of time is common to all physical places across the ISU as well, but importantly, the measurement of the rate that time passes varies locally, and is governed by the energy density of the local environment, allowing a mind that grasps it that way to realize that the operative variable across the universe is the wave energy density of the local medium of space, which fluctuates at all times, in all places, always has, and always will, making all local existence dependent on the interplay of various strong and weak local forces, an umbrella within which life and individuality can temporally exist, subject to motion that is relative to the net of all other motions, which when thinking both big and small, is mostly influenced by the nearest objects and to a lessor degree by all objects in the surrounding greater universe, where I find that the connection from place to place is the spherically expanding wave motion of energy that continually traverses the infinite medium of space, and where energy is conserved, and where waves are continually refreshed as they intersect and redistribute the converging energy; the greatest example of which is the convergence of big bang energy waves like the one our Milky Way galaxy is in, where our galaxy is a tiny part of our Hubble View of visible space, and where the expanded Hubble view would characterize our big bang arena, such that when big bang sized arena waves intersect and overlap they contribute portions of their internal galactic matter and energy to the formation, under the force of gravity, of local new big crunches at the center of gravity in each overlapping arena of space, and which under the growing compression of said gravity, will collapse/bang into spherically expanding big bang arena waves like our local arena which is evidenced by the raw redshift data. With that one outrageous sentence, I welcome you to the ISU.

Hidden variables are contained in such a universe, but our lack of knowledge and understaning of that universe and the hidden variables at work, makes it impossible to describe a local hidden variables theory that would properly convey them, and so the mathematical proof cannot correspond precisely to reality until all of the unknowns are resolved.

 

A Big Bang never happened. The Michelson Morley Expt. (MMX) never disproved a universal ether, because its key criterion of refractively measuring a "wind-drag" effect was based on a false assumption that an ether must be inertial with respect to earth's movements through it. -If an ether happens to be energically contiguous, it would be non-inertial, the old concept of an underlying universal ether would still be viable, and the MMX would be cosmologically irrelevant.

A creational impulse composed of the smallest, fastest, etheric units ("electronics") was what really started the universe. These units generated transient magnetic wavelike entrainments, forming larger units ("protonics" and "neutronics") in the ether, which, being larger, were slower, and tended to sit inside nuclei of nascent atoms, with the electronics outside. Our present earthly setting, however, is, for us, perceptually mediated by quantum forces, which are spin-vector forces superimposed upon a true underlying, cosmic elemental-etheric-forces vibratory matrix.

The initial excitatory event in original space, which was a "pre-forces" form of space composed of self-compatible oscillating point-localities, was oscillatory fatigue of a pair of "Yin and Yang" adjacent "points," which led to a breaking of perfect symmetry, and then, a self-replicative, self-propagative, process forming a universal, energic-vibratory (derived from the oscillatory) ether, in which elemental ether units interact energically via vibrational, non-fixed, connections, or resonances. Originally, this kind of energic matrix led to intense, etherically-super-refined, foci of transient magnetism, within which it was possible for a focus of sapience to arise, later becoming Creational. -No random "Big Bang" needed.

"Quantum entanglement" just represents radiated packets of etheric energy which have the same vibratory pattern. Elemental etheric units are the only actual participants in this phenomenon, with the quantum units constituting cool "arms" of a quiet purring ether-matrix mechanism which can turn itself on and off, by itself, any time.

 

Sweet Hollering Hesus, what an impeccably convoluted word salad! It is a wonderful post filled with impossibly long run on sentences chocked full of every incorrectly used scientific term you could look up, yet completely devoid of content. I am in awe sir!

Yum, yum.

Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

 

Michael, you've gone way off topic and haven't addressed the pertinent content of this thread, except to the extent that I mention the term "big bang", and CptBork and I have tossed around references to Quantum Mechanics. However, you have not displayed any understanding of how I use the term "big bang". The ISU is a layman level model of cosmology that is described in the following Youtube video. Watch it, and if you want to say anything pertinent to how "big bangs" play out in my model, do so with some understanding of the content to which you are replying.

The Infinite Spongy Universe (ISU) video

The ISU model does not feature a beginning, because in the model, the universe is hypothesized to have always existed. You made reference to a beginning. Can you at least say what caused the beginning in your "model"?

Also, your reference to how entanglement works is presented as fact, without disclaimer, and without evidential or clarifying references.

 

quantum_wave:

You recommend your ISU model, while saying its version of "the Beginning" is based on "hypothesis." (The consensus Big Bang model could also be categorized as hypotheses about the nature of space and the universe, interspersed with empirically-derived observational data obtained in our earthly setting.) -

In my ether-origins model, the starting-point is (also hypothesized) to have been "original" space, a kind of space that existed prior to the first appearances of forces - which would have made it different from space as it exists now. -Inasmuch as Original Space no longer exists, this part of my model has to remain a hypothesis, too. -I would submit that it all comes down to deciding which set of hypotheses makes the most sense.

I do not accept the consensus Big Bang theorist's position, that citing current earth-setting observational data necessarily buttresses the concept of a big bang type of universe.

"Dark matter" is just the ether. "Dark energy," which is presently based on the observation that celestial bodies in the farthest reaches of the universe are being unexpectedly driven farther apart by a negative "dark" form of energy, actually represents an energic influence upon our universe exerted by another, younger, "stronger," universe, which is approaching ever closer to ours, and pulling on the bodies. -This situation would be basically analogous in every way to the cases where two galaxies collide.

 

Your ether-origins model requires a universal change of state without cause. If at first there was space, without forces, where did the forces come from. Why not just say the ehter has always existed and you don't need a causeless origin of forces or change of state from "original" space to explain the ether?

 

Agreed. You 2 just make stuff up with out proof or evidence so why not just make up another aspect of your conjecture. Much easier than real science, that's for sure.

 

To my thinking, space had to come first. As I view it, that's the only intuitively-rational concept. -For an initially-uniform space to then lead to anything like our world, it had to have a property like the one described - a self-compatible oscillation. For oscillational point-localities to produce a world of forces, I don't see any other sequence of possibilities except the one I outlined, oscillatory fatigue, with a "Yin and Yang" disturbance of perfect symmetry, producing vibratory forces. - Oscillatory fatigue is known to occur in metals, but since metallic oscillatory fatigue is a quantum process, it cannot be definitively correlated with oscillatory fatigue in a first-cause setting of original space.

 

Do you understand the concept of space having always existed? Under that hypothesis, the idea of something "coming first" is superceded by the the idea that there was no beginning. There is no scenario that you can describe that explains how space can come into existence without invoking the Supernatural, unless you call it something from nothing. So are you invoking "God did it", or "something from nothing" when it comes to the origin of space? The scientific method does not allow for the Supernatural, so there is no hypothetical scientific scenario that originates with "God did it".

 

quantum_wave:

By saying "space had to come first" I just meant that before anything happened, there had to have existed a pure non-material universal space. To me, that's intuitively rational. -If you don't agree that's your prerogative.

I've already discussed the hypothesis that prior to the first appearance of directional forces, space had a property of self-compatibility manifested by symmetric reciprocal oscillation of point localities.