(ALPHA) EPR Paradox---SciForums Journal Club

B

BenTheMan

Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love
Valued Senior Member
Ok, I think I will start a journal club, and judging by interest, perhaps we can keep it going for a while. If you don;t know, a journal club is a forum for people to read and discuss a journal article in some detail, with the goal of understanding the conclusions as explicitly as possible. For example, at OSU we have an LHC journal club, where we talk about LHC phenomenology and experiment.

For the first journal club, I ran across this article : On the EPR Paradox. This is Bell's original 1960-something paper on the subject, where he shows that hidden variables are inconsistent with quantum mechanics.

If you are interested, please read the paper, and we can discuss back and forth what we are learning. If you haven't read the paper, I invite you to follow the discussion.

My vision is that, at some point in the future, other people will suggest articles for open discussion, and we can all learn some actual physics.
 
Hi Ben.

I would be interested to read the paper. I've read quite a few concerning EPR, but i am having problems accessing the one you provided.

Could you attach a copy to:

garethlee. meredith@tiscali.co.uk

Thanks
 
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Your email address is wrong.
 
Hey.

I've never read the original paper, so cheers Ben.

So, what is the purpose of this club...
 
I can download this yet Klippy because of certain technicalities, but i will eventually.... cheers pal.
 
I've read it. My understanding is that he isn't showing that hidden variables are inconsistent with QM, but rather that any correct hidden variable theory would still have to be nonlocal. Which is to say that hidden variables aren't relevant to the paradox; whether you go in for them or not, you're stuck with nonlocality.
 
This is exactly correct. quad---I am quite busy right now, so if you want to start some discussion, feel free. Otherwise I will find some time tonight.
 
Farsight---

If you could please explain the place where Bell made his mistake in the paper, it would be a very welcomed contribution to the discussion.
 
BenTheMan said:
If you could please explain the place where Bell made his mistake in the paper, it would be a very welcomed contribution to the discussion.
Click to expand...

I haven't got it in front of me, so from now-hazy memory: the article didn't point out a precise error in Bell's paper, but said Bell employed commutative operations, wherein the sequence didn't matter. However when you employ non-commutative operations such as rotations, it does, and this damages Bell's proof. I've got to go now, but there should be something in one or more of Joy Christian's papers:

http://arxiv.org/find/grp_physics/1/au:+christian_joy/0/1/0/all/0/1

The article said the particular Joy Christian paper concerned is under review at Physics Review Letters I think.
 
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I'd like this one stickied - it's going to be slow, I think - certainly for me. It's hard, I mean.

example: Years ago I worked out the logical structure of Bell's argument with Venn diagrams, and found that very enlightening. But I can't find the notebook, and the whole thing is fuzzy. I think a lot of us - or the three interested, or whoever - have to do similar catching up.
 
Apologies all---

I have been busy lately with trying to get a paper out the door, and haven't done much else. Hopefully this weekend I will get a chance to read the Bell paper in more detail. So far, quad has made the (correct) statement that any hidden variables would have to be non-local anyway, and Farsight has made some general claims about Bell missing something, and linked to a set of papers by Joy Christian. As to those papers, I can't say I understand them fully, but it seems that Christian wants to reformulate quantum mechanics in terms of clifford algebras.

Perhaps Farsight can read one of those papers and explain it to us.
 
The finding errors is not easy.

So I'll just state the reality:

The culprit is the 'Projection Postulate'.
Without it, everything works correctly, and there is no paradoxes.
Bell is on the wild geese chase.


ES
 
Well, this topic seems to have died. Perhaps we shall revive it at some point in the future.

Apologies all! I have been busy finishing a paper before everyone leaves for christmas.
 
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