Is Quantum Theory As Fundamental As It Seems? by Michael James Goodband

Michael Goodband

Hi Joy and Tom,

On thinking like Einstein, it is worth updating the EPR argument from quantum mechanics to quantum field theory (I've re-attached a copy of the original EPR paper for convenience so you can see that it is a QM based argument). Dirac's equation of 1928 raised a warning flag about the effect of relativity on QM before the EPR paper, and the first quantum field theory (QED) was in place by the time of Bell's 1964 paper (the Nobel prize for QED was 1965). But despite this, Bell's choice of manifold S0={-1,+1} is effectively based on the assumption of a non-relativistic classical physics analogue of non-relativistic QM. BUT this is wrong because the required classical physics analogue should be of relativistic quantum field theory.

In QFT - and this applies even in the deceptively non-relativistic case of stationary electrons - the electrons interact by virtual photons that can become virtual electron-positron pairs. In this QFT expansion, positrons can annihilate the original electrons, turning their electron partners in the created pair into the new correlated electrons. In this process, the spins of the real electrons - i.e. not the virtual ones - are constrained to be in the same S=0 singlet state. If each spin was also constrained to remain in the same direction THEN the manifold would be S0, BUT each spin is actually free to lie on any point of S2 within S3. Any physically correct classical physics analogue - i.e. what Einstein was after - MUST reproduce this, which Bell's does NOT, but Joy's does - ergo, the former is wrong and the latter is correct.

But in addition to the S=0 condition, the QFT dynamics is also constrained for there to be 2 real electrons - it is easy to forget this, but in QFT a virtual photon can produce a particle/anti-particle pair for any of the charged fermion types. These virtual pairs must annihilate to leave 2 real electrons, and this QFT constraint MUST also be reproduced in the hidden variable classical physics analogue of the QFT dynamics. In analogy to the correlated spins effectively exploring the global structure of S3 through the classical physics analogue of the QFT dynamics, the changes in particle type also effectively explore the global structure of the "particle space". The constraint of S3 or S7 should similarly apply, implying that the internal particle symmetry space MUST be S7.

The scenario given in my essay (and paper) is of the correct form for a classical physics analogue for QFT of the EPR scenario, but it is also the predicted scenario of a pure geometric 11D GR without additional fields.

Best,

MichaelAttachment #1: EPR.pdf

Fred Diether

Hi Michael,

You said, "In this QFT expansion, positrons can annihilate the original electrons, turning their electron partners in the created pair into the new correlated electrons."

Yes, real electrons can just swap with their virtual counterparts all the time. Of course it doesn't matter so much as the properties will remain the same in ordinary circumstances. But I am not quite getting the point of this related to what you say further about "If each spin was also constrained to remain in the same direction THEN the manifold would be S0,..."?

Also, in the EPR-Bohm scenario, the Stern-Gerlach device for detection, does further constrain the spins to be either up or down.

Best,

Fred

Joy Christian

I think Fred is right. Bell's insistence on using S0 is fully justified on the operational grounds. What he missed, however, was the distinction between the image of his functions A(a, L) within their co-domain, which has to be S0, and their co-domain itself, which has to be S3 in general, as I have argued. But once the co-domain is taken to be S3, the correlation -a.b follows at once.

Michael Goodband

Hi Fred,

The point about S0 is in constructing a classical physics analogue of QT in terms of hidden dynamics - "thinking like Einstein" and looking for the physical dynamics. If the direction of a classical spin is set in one direction and there is no dynamics to change it, then it remains the same - this gives the condition for Bell's S0={-1,+1}. But in the QFT of EPR, it is not the direction of each spin which is conserved, but the spin of the singlet state S=0. The virtual particle dynamics can give any electron pair state with S=0, which will include the individual electron spins as possibly being any point on S2. Any classical physics hidden dynamics must reproduce this feature, which only exists because of the virtual pair creation of QFT.

Joy, you said: "But once the co-domain is taken to be S3, the correlation -a.b follows at once." But it doesn't follow *at once*, it follows via an integral over lambda, which in Bell's paper is the previously mentioned eqn (2) for a SINGLE electron pair, NOT an ensemble (the meaning of lambda in this integral is different from its meaning in the preamble). This integral over lambda is only justified in *physical terms* - the Einstein standard of EPR - IFF the dynamics explores the extent of this lambda domain. This is the dynamics required to reflect the spin features of the QFT dynamics. Otherwise it is an ensemble integral, for which there is no *physical* dynamics correlating different points on S3, as in this case these points are *physically* experienced by different electron pairs. Thus there would be no causal *physical* dynamics involving the global structure of S3, and consequently no super-linear spin correlation.

This is not an issue of mathematical constraint, but an issue of the hidden *physical* dynamics required to satisfy the condition. The *physical* hidden dynamics for a SINGLE electron pair must explore S3 to *physically* justify integrating over it, i.e. eqn (2) and the equivalents in your analysis. It is this uncompromising focus on the *physicality* of the hidden dynamics which is why I phrased it: "thinking like Einstein".

Best,

Michael

Joy Christian

Hi Michael,

I am afraid you are going too fast in your reasoning in the middle paragraph above. Let me explain:

For completeness, let me begin by stressing that in my very first paper I introduced two trivectors, mu and I, which are related as

mu = +/- I.

Thus there are two trivectors in my model for EPR, mu and I, and they are related by the orientation L = +/-1 of a unit parallelized 3-sphere. The twelve or so papers that followed are my continuous attempt to explain this basic fact to some of my critics, who are unable to grasp that fixing the orientation L = +1 or L = -1 *a priori* amounts to smuggling something in by hand.

In the present company we are not confused about this, but what I want to stress is the discreteness of the hidden variable L (in my entire model, for ALL possible quantum correlations). Thus, although your observation of the shift in the meaning of lambda (or L) in Bell's equations (1) and (2) is entirely correct, it is not as relevant as you seem to think when it comes to my model. In particular, because L is discrete in my model, the continuous integral in Bell's equation (2) reduces to the discrete sum evaluated in equation (104) of my latest paper (which I am attaching here for convenience). To be sure, one can treat the trivector mu as a continuous geometrical object (a volume form) of the physical space and then integrate over the functions A(a, mu) as I do in my earlier papers, but that does not change the fact that the basic hidden variable L of the model is a discrete number. This is especially transparent in the second to last step in the derivation of the correlation (104).

Thus, I think, you are too hasty in your conclusion that "...there would be no causal *physical* dynamics involving the global structure of S3, and consequently no super-linear spin correlation." You can certainly argue in favour of the propensity interpretation of probabilities ("single instance") as opposed to the frequency interpretation ("ensemble integral"), but that is a different debate altogether. The correlation (104) itself follows robustly from the co-domain S3(L) regardless of the choice of interpretation of the stochasticity involved in the calculation.

Best,

JoyAttachment #1: 4_2piSpinor.pdf

Michael Goodband

Hi Joy,

I can appreciate that after 5 years of critics, I might be confusing you as I think there is more to your work, not less - a kind of an anti-critic. I have no doubts about the application of your model to EPR, and its mathematical status as a counter-example which disproves the generalised claim made on the basis of Bell. And I'm also aware that in your model it is physical space which provides the connection between spins, and that without this there would be no *physical* causal dynamics involving the global structure of S3. But I'm not convinced that the metaphysical result of your proof - has to be S3 or S7 - is directly dependent upon this spatial connection condition, and I'm also not convinced that the basic mathematical structure is only true for the spatial connection condition either. I think it is largely a physical interpretation issue on the hidden variable and its integration over the hidden domain.

In the general metaphysics of the hidden variable (L) framework, L is specified by the functions A(n, L), the factorisation rule and the L integral (eqn (2) in Bell). The hidden variable rhetoric of Bell is a red-herring as he contradicts himself in the calculation - the bit that actually matters. This metaphysical framework leaves a great deal of freedom in the choice of L, a freedom that you use to find a model that disproves the generality of Bell by counter-example. My interest is in metaphysical proof, specifically a proof that it has to be S3 or S7 within the generic hidden variable framework for there to exist the super-linear correlations of QT.

I think that the freedom of choice for L can be used to choose your framework as a specific instance to prove the general metaphysical result. Your model does this for the EPR scenario (S3) and the general spin case (S7). But your spatial connection condition leads to further predictions - such as for your experiment - which are not metaphysics. The distinction being that without this spatial connection condition, the result would be backed-up by the whole weight of experimental particle physics - because it is just a hidden variable formulation of QM and QFT - and so could not be wrong. This would make it a metaphysical result that constrained what physics could be. In contrast, the spatial connection is a model specific feature which can be wrong.

The physical dynamics I described above is what is required to be captured by the hidden variable model for the proposed generic metaphysical proof to be possible. Just as the spin singlet state can be characterised by S0 on the S2 equator of S3, a positron-electron state - the QFT particle/anti-particle equivalent of the EPR spin state - could be characterised by S0 on the X equator of Y. If you accept that my change in interpretation of the hidden variable is significant enough for your framework to be applied without the spatial connection, then your work amounts to a metaphysical proof that Y - the particle symmetry space - has to be S7. My change in interpretation would mean that your work amounts to a metaphysical proof that QT only applies in physics to the particle symmetries (S7) and spin (S3) - the second Casimir invariant of the Poincare group. This would mean that there was NO proof that QT applies to interactions only involving mass - the first Casimir invariant - and so this metaphysical existence proof for QT would not include quantum gravity (implying that there is no such thing).

In combination, my change in hidden variable interpretation raises your results from being model specific to generic metaphysics that constrains physics on the origin of QT, no quantum gravity, and the particle symmetry space. All which agree with my results, no doubt because the constraints come from the same place - the 5 number systems (N, R, C, H, O). The price to pay for this would be the loss of the physical spatial connection, and consequently your prediction of SU(2) correlations in your classical physics experiment. As I said, I don't see your results as requiring the physical interpretation you give it of a physical spatial connection. If I'm wrong and they do, then I can't believe that there isn't a very closely related model without this physical interpretation that can be used for the generic metaphysical proof instead.

Best,

Michael

Edwin Klingman

Dear Michael, Joy, Fred, Jonathan, and Tom,

A truly fascinating discussion. Congratulations to all. While I do not accept either Joy's specific model or Michael's S7 particle model, it is absolutely fascinating to follow the reasoning in these remarks.

Thanks, Michael, for bringing QFT and virtual particles into the discussion. As Fred noted, you said, "In this QFT expansion, positrons can annihilate the original electrons, turning their electron partners in the created pair into the new correlated electrons." Are you implying that the positrons are exactly correlated with the original pair, and hence should introduce uncorrelated change to the original pair? Is this what you refer to when you state "This integral over lambda is only justified in *physical terms* - the Einstein standard of EPR - IFF the dynamics explores the extent of this lambda domain [the ensemble?]. This is the dynamics required to reflect the spin features of the QFT dynamics." My own opinion is that virtual particles are *the* primary fudge factor of QFT. As you noted, it is based on *every* species of particle [which raises interesting questions about SUSY, which would double the number of species!] In raising QFT issues of this sort you have taken the discussion in new directions.

Joy has reiterated that his model began by introducing two trivectors, mu and I, and his subsequent twelve papers are based on these. In my opinion it is this introduction of these trivectors into physics that is Joy's greatest accomplishment. My model uses volume forms in ways different from Joy and I am making nice progress in this regard, but here is not the place to present this.

Michael's last comment 26 Nov 2012 @15:40 has taken yet another major turn, a hard turn into metaphysics. In this [if I understand him] he is finding new common ground between his model and Joy's model [that I earlier denied existed] in yet another new conception. While I don't follow all of his reasoning I greatly admire both his grasp of issues and his originality.

I would also like to observe that Michael's points about Bell changing horses in midstream, halfway betwixt his preamble and his eqn [2], is of potentially major significance, and I hope this point does not get lost in the new twists and turns this conversation is following.

Thank you, Joy and Michael, for stretching my brain. It feels good.

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Edwin Klingman

Michael,

An editing mistake deleted a 'not' from my above question to you.

You state above that "In QFT - and this applies even in the deceptively non-relativistic case of stationary electrons - the electrons interact by virtual photons that can become virtual electron-positron pairs. In this QFT expansion, positrons can annihilate the original electrons, turning their electron partners in the created pair into the new correlated electrons."

The question is whether these new electrons are correlated with the original pair of electrons [I assume not], and whether you are postulating that this occurs 'all the time' by virtue of the very nature of virtual processes in QFT or simply occurs occasionally, and so does not significantly affect the Bell test correlations that are actually measured. Or do you mean something else entirely?

Thanks,

Edwin Eugene Klingman

Joy Christian

Hi Michael,

There is indeed a lot we agree about. I am not sure, however, what you mean by "the metaphysical result of [my] proof - has to be S3 or S7." The closest "metaphysical proof" of my result I can think of is actually a mathematical theorem (the theorem by Hurwitz; cf. section 1.5 of my book), which says that a certain quadratic equality holds only for the numbers 1, 2, 4, and 8. The rest is a physical proof, whose simplified version goes as follows: Measurement results (at least in the non-relativistic domain) are events in space at a given time. The nature of the simplest non-trivial quantum state---namely, the four particle GHZ state---dictates that the corresponding EPR elements of reality are points of a unit 7-sphere (cf. section 6.5.2 of my book). Such a 7-sphere, however, is not disciplined enough (if it is round) to reproduce the strong correlations predicted by the quantum GHZ state. The strong correlations can be reproduced if and only if the 7-sphere is parallelized. Thus the observed quantum correlations are the evidence that physical space we live in respects the geometry and topology of the parallelized 7-sphere.

There is of course a lot more to my argument than this simplified version (cf. chapter 7 of my book), but the above, in essence, is my argument why it has to be S7. Any other attempts to reproduce quantum correlations realistically and deterministically would necessarily violate local causality. This is because only manifolds corresponding to a division algebra, such as S7, can be closed under multiplication, and without that it is impossible to maintain local causality. Thus, unlike you, I do not see the spatial connection in my work as a model specific feature, but the very essence of my argument. What I am after is not just to exclude quantum gravity, but to explain quantum phenomena themselves as gravitational (or geometrical) effects, where gravity is to be understood sufficiently broadly.

So, it appears that while agreeing about a lot we continue to disagree about the most fundamental issues. At one point I thought that you could accommodate the spatial connection within your point of view. But apparently you were not entirely happy with your own attempt to do so.

Thank you, Edwin, for your input and remarks. While valid, we shouldn't get too excited about Michael's observation of the shift in the meaning of lambda in Bell's equations (1) and (2). We must remember that this was his first paper on the subject. He has much more careful presentations of his "theorem" in later reiterations, most notably in his last paper (written in 1990).

Best,

Joy

Jonathan Dickau

Hi Michael,

I was wondering what you think about Reginald Cahill's "Process Physics." It would appear that he treats Gödel's result in a way that is similar to how you employ it in your essay - so that it assures a certain freedom of choice and variability, rather than being a limiter of knowledge as such. I am not greatly familiar with his work, but process theoretic notions have great appeal for me.

I re-read your comments from Oct. 6th on "Space-Time: real or emergent?" and I'll have some comments to share. I actually have a lot of comments and questions left, but have had some trouble finding the time and the right words. I have attached one of Cahill's papers on Process Physics to this post, and I will e-mail a larger document which is bigger than the 1 Meg limit.

All the Best,

JonathanAttachment #1: CahillFinalPaper.pdf

[deleted]

If Feist and I are correct then even Cahill 2003 overlooked the 1887 mistake the implications of which he described with strong words.

Eckard

Michael Goodband

Hi Jonathan,

I've had a brief look at the papers as "process philosophy" has come to my attention before - though I've yet to look at it. Fisrt impressions are of some similarities, largely because self-referential network dynamics gives the most generic form of how Gödel's incompleteness proof applies to a physical system. They seem to think that this self-referential dynamics only occurs at the basic level of the fabric of space, whereas it is actually the case that the same pattern occurs again and again throughout science - QT is just the first instance. In biology it occurs in the gene-protein network of life, in multicellualr life in the appearance of organism form, in the ecological networks of nature, in the economic network of a market economy, in the social networks of a society, in the financial networks of the financial markets (i.e. what is really going on) ... oh, and is why the mind has undecidable features.

They haven't got that their Gödel boundary is crossed by simply changing from discrete natural-number description to continuous real-number description. It is very annoying that I've shown this (listed here), but can't get past the mainstream censorship of science.

I'll have more to say later on "process physics" when I have more time, but I'm otherwise occupied over the next couple of days.

Best,

Michael

Michael Goodband

Hi Joy,

Found it! I've been having extreme difficulty with the physicality of your model. Its been annoying the hell out of me, as my physics intuition has been telling me that EPR is fine, but the classical physics extension is not. I was right on my 14 Nov post, there has to be a physical spatial connection for super-linear correlations and in EPR there is - it IS light (100% sure, no doubt whatsoever). Your model doesn't explicitly include the fact that electrons are charged, and you can't reproduce EPR in physics with electromagnetically neutral particles, because none really exist. E.g. a neutron is a composite of charged particles, and has a net magnetic dipole moment - therefore there-exists a electromagnetic connection between EPR neutrons.

All other possible scenarios are the same, the particles in an EPR spin singlet state are coupled by an electromagnetic gauge field. In QFT this is described in terms of the spin 1 photon, in classical physics light is described by circularly polarised light (i.e. with rotation), and in Kaluza-Klein style theories like mine, the gauge field is a torsional metric connection along the compactified dimensions. In my model there is a direct association between spin and electromagnetism, because as topological spin defects the fermionic particles only exist because there is the unbroken U(1) symmetry of electromagnetism. So in ALL the known physical ways of describing the EPR scenario, there IS a physical spin connection between the electrons - it IS light. The spin connection of EPR definitely is NOT a new spin force aspect of gravity, but in any theory with compactified dimensions it IS definitely geometric - a torsional aspect of the extra-dimensional fabric of reality. So in a Kaluza-Klein sense, it is a gravitational effect.

Your model of EPR captures this geometric aspect in a mathematical form that does NOT include the physical fact that the particles in question are charged (and have a magnetic dipole moment) where light is the physical spin connection. Extending your model from EPR up to classical physics takes it beyond its domain of validity, and gives a false impression that classical objects in SO(3) rotation states will display QT correlations - the physics of EPR says that they will not. The success of your model in describing EPR does NOT provide evidential support for QT-style correlations in the SO(3) rotations of classical objects - it is an entirely unsupported speculation.

If you put your head on the block over this speculation, given the behind of scenes state of physics you describe, I can see you losing your head! It can get far worse yet, such as being shut-out of arxiv, journals etc. and viewed as a crank who doesn't know any physics. I know that can be the Oxford view of Cambridge and DAMPT, but physics history says otherwise.

I have already shown that QT can be arrived at by a shift from discrete to continuous description in a pure geometric theory (11D GR) - it's been in UK libraries all year. I have also shown that any attempt to construct a classical physics theory of particle reactions makes this necessary - this QT result is a metaphysics result that is independent of my GR model. The associated papers are only on vixra because journals, and arxiv, are SO closed minded as not to even read them because I have no university affiliation or endorsement (note that my PhD papers are on arxiv and were published, I know the standard). My epiphany was seeing how Godel applied to science, and it can do so in 9 difference instances, QT is just one of them. The basic proof is just undergraduate level maths - at least it was when I did my degree - so I know for a fact that it is a PROOF. A Cambridge education really isn't that pathetic, although British philosophers of science have given me the message that they think so - something I noted down to use in evidence against them at some later date that will come, it always does.

Your (parallelised) S3 and S7 results is not a metaphysical proof yet, but I think such a result is possible - it hadn't occured to me that such a thing could be possible until I saw your work. You could find it quicker than I could as I don't have your mathematical talent, but your work (almost) gives a template for how do it.

Best,

Michael

Joy Christian

Hi Michael,

I am afraid you are mistaken. Your error lies in the following statement: "...you can't reproduce EPR in physics with electromagnetically neutral particles." This statement contradicts quantum mechanical prediction for entangled neutral particles such as neutral kaons and neutrinos. You may be able to discount the case of neutral kaons (as you have discounted the case of neutrons), but your argument falls apart for the case of entangled neutrinos. No light there, I am afraid.

Best,

Joy

Michael Goodband

Hi Edwin,

In QFT, don't forget that the virtual photons provide a connection between the original electrons and the virtual electron-positron pair. QFT also says that this dynamics is happening all the time, and so QFT predicts that the spin of an electron in the singlet state isn't confined to stay pointing in the same direction, but dynamically takes every possible value on S2. My point is that to fulfil Einstein's original intention for his EPR scenario, the hidden variable framework in classical physics needs to reproduce the net result of this dynamics. This would seem to necessarily entail an integral over the physical S2 given by QFT - the integral over the hidden variable is that integral, and my IFF condition expresses the corresponding physical dynamics.

On virtual-particles being the primary fudge factor of QFT, my work shows the shift in descriptive language from natural-numbers (N) for the numbers of particles to real-number (R) valued fields - i.e. matter fields - to be the critical fudge of QFT, but the physical reason for this fudge, IS virtual-particles. The distinction is because despite the critical role of virtual-matter in QFT, it is fundamentally a feature of Relativity and not QFT per se. GR predicts that normal matter becomes virtual-matter when it enters the ergo-region of a rotating black hole, and such a black hole of 4 million solar masses is predicted to lie at the centre of our galaxy (the chances that it isn't rotating are nil). The Kerr metric for this black hole gives an ergo-region just outside the event horizon where the in-falling matter and radiation becomes virtual, but this would be on the macroscopic scale of classical physics and not QFT scales.

On SUSY, note the dependency of reasoning that leads to the speculation of SUSY:

It is a super-symmetry between fundamental bosonic fields and fermionic matter fields

1) Fermionic matter fields are a continuous field description of discrete particles

2) The discrete numbers of particles are recovered by a number operator acting over the fermionic fields

3) This relationship between discrete (N) and continuous (R) is fundamentally QT - this is why I'm picking up any attempt to try and sneak in this shift (such as Bell)

4) These matter fields are necessary because QT is fundamental

QT not being fundamental implies that matter fields are not fundamental, so how could there be a super-symmetry between something fundamental (bosonic fields) and something that isn't (fermionic fields)? The obvious answer is that there is no super-symmetry.

Best,

Michael

Michael Goodband

Hi Joy,

Neutrinos are electrically neutral, but they are not entirely neutral because they have a non-zero isospin charge. The analogous QFT story as for electron pairs still stands for neutrinos but with the spin 1 photon replaced by the spin 1 W and Z bosons. The physical spin connection is still the gauge fields, where there is also a corresponding description in terms of classical gauge fields and KK compactified dimensions. So my point still stands for neutrinos.

The flavour entangled element of neutrinos is where it gets interesting, but does require my point about S7 being the internal particle symmetry space. I raised this flavour issue earlier if you remember in the context of the non-associativity of the octonions.

On the relation between the parallelisation of the spheres S3, S7 and my desire for them to correspond to symmetry group spaces, the spaces of SU(n) are flat are they not? So my assertion that the unified symmetry "group" is actually the symmetry group quotient SU(4)/SU(3) gives the differntial manifold S7 which MUST be flat - the parallised sphere S7 - mustn't it?

Best,

Michael

Joy Christian

Hi Michael,

I am afraid I remain unconvinced. How big is the non-zero isospin charge compared to their gravitational interaction? And how strong a link such a short-range interaction could provide in a long-range correlation such as EPR correlation? The parameters of neutrinos are not known precisely. What is known for sure is that neutrinos have non-zero masses, and hence they are gravitationally non-neutral. So it is gravity, and gravity alone---not light---that is common in all known examples that exhibit long-range entanglement, including my macroscopic fermions.

I am sure the manifold S7 you derive is flat, or could be made flat by parallelization. But one cannot account for even the simplest three-particle GHZ correlations local-realistically without recognizing that these correlations are correlations among measurement events in space-time, not in a symmetry space. The simultaneous clicks of six detectors are events in space-time, not points in a symmetry space. The GHZ correlations are thus correlations among events in space-time, not symmetry space. This is the point of our disagreement.

Best,

Joy

Thomas Ray

Joy wrote: " ... your argument falls apart for the case of entangled neutrinos."

I think this underscores the importance of our being able to show that strong quantum correlations do not differ from weak classical correlations, given any case of particles sharing an initial condition.

A classical correlation -- such as the prediction that a fair die producing one value correlates perfectly to one of five other values -- is as dependent on perfect information (i.e., knowledge of the complete state of the die's six faces) as the probabilistic quantum mechanics. The trouble with QM, though, is that by assigning perfect information (by the equally likely hypothesis) to an incomplete state, nonlocality sneaks in the back door as a fundamental physical principle. One then leaps to the assumption that "the experiment not performed" has no basis in reality, and then takes the short step to conclude that we live in an observer-created world.

This nonconstructive argument (and its proof) neglects that the equally likely hypothesis applied to incomplete information is a shot in the dark. One is reminded of the parody:

"I shot an arrow into the air;

It fell to Earth I know just where.

Though aimed at a buck who stood afar,

It pierced the radiator of my car."

(No idea of whom to attribute this dimly remembered ditty.)

Point is, QM brings the target to the arrow. Whatever probability the arrow has of hitting the car when the bow is drawn, the probability is 100% that it hit the target.

Classically, the arrow either hit the target or missed (the outcome is heads or tails) -- and whether or not it hit or missed, there is a lot of complicated but local physics between the state preparation (drawing of the bowstring) and the measurement result. In QM, state preparation is disconnected from the measured outcome; Bell-Aspect type experiments only end up proving what they assumed in the first place, i.e., that correlated events remain correlated to infinity. The explanation: nonlocality. That's like saying that because EM and gravitational field influences are infinite, physical laws on one side of the universe do not differ from those on the other side -- true, but trivial.

What QT proponents *really* want from entanglement, is to be able to show that quantum correlations are independent of classical correlations .

Vlatko Vedral never replied to my response to his challenge, though some time ago in these FQXi forums he said he was willing to bet a bottle of Bollinger champagne that quantum entanglement would remain a part of fundamental physics. I am willing to take that bet.

Tom

Joy Christian

Vlatko Vedral is absolutely correct. Quantum entanglement will remain a part of fundamental physics just as assuredly as metempsychosis will remain a part of fundamental Hinduism.

Thomas Ray

LOL! Joy, are we getting a wee bit cynical? :-)

Tom

Fred Diether

Hi Joy, Tom,

Well, the physical effect certainly won't go away. But hopefully the wrong explanation of non-locality will go away.

Best,

Fred

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