THE THREE THINGS PHYSICISTS SHOULD NOT SAY, COULD PERHAPS SAY, OR CLEARLY EMPHASIZE, TO THEIR STUDENTS

PLEASE DON'T TELL THIS to students and to the whole world, because it is just not proved:

Michio Kaku (2.13)

[transcript from the video] "Albert Einstein hated Quantum entanglement. He called it Spooky Action at a Distance. He couldn't get his head around it ...

Hei, Einstein was wrong. We do this every day, in the laboratory.

Here is how it works: let's take two electrons very close together and they will vibrate in unison (everything vibrates) (...) Now separate them. As you separate these coherent particles an umbilical cord, an invisible umbilical cord, starts to develop between these two particles, such as, if you wiggle one particle, then the other particle is aware of the fact that its partner is being wiggled. (...) But now separate these particles by the distance of a galaxy itself. So here, at one end of the galaxy we wiggle an electron and on the other side of the galaxy, 100.000 light years distance, instantly, faster than the speed of light, the other particle is aware of the fact that his twin is wiggling. Now, Einstein said : "This is ridiculous ! Because nothing can go faster than the speed of light". But this effect has been measured !"

YOU MIGHT SAY THIS even thou the first Bell Test was made in the seventies, and more than 40 years has passed trying and trying to violate Bell experiments with no success.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CIg6r_Y3_o] The Qubit Lab - Quantum Correlations (5:19)

(Transcript from the video] "If there is a Bell violation, then every layer bellow will also be in place, and thus the particles are wedded in the blissed matrimony of quantum of correlations (...) ... So far there has not been a definitive test but [some labs] are getting close. If a loophole free test shows a true Bell violation this will tell us something very profound about the Universe. Entanglement would mean that particles could be connected across time and space and events could be correlated without anything causing them. [...] Closely connected with the power of quantum computers and the security of quantum communications. So, even if experiments move closer to show real quantum correlations, we don't really understand what they mean. Do you understand what they mean?"

INSTEAD, YOU SHOULD TELL STUDENTS

You might investigate the foundations, and check the math and the concepts that were mistakenly used (fair sampling) or underestimated (measurement crosstalk) and conclude by yourself that Local Realism has not been experimentally rejected.

That is what he did:

Especial, J. Bell inequalities under non-ideal conditions

Give our kids a break !

7 days later

MESSAGE TO (SOME) FQXi MEMBERS:

To Scot Aaronson:

Scott, we already "talked" on the possibility or not of having a scalable quantum computer in the future. To convince you, you defied me to convince the majority of the Physics Community. Here I am, doing my best.

To Gerard T'Hoft

Professor, we had lunch some years ago in Vienna, 2012, during an Emergent Quantum Mechanics, Conference. I have tried to reach you since then ... with no luck. Will now be a good opportunity?

To Roger Penrose

Professor, your contribution to Math and Physics is huge. Don't you want to, as a last grand effort, join this revolution? Your presence would be highly appreciated. Your voice is much louder than mine...

To Lee Smolin

You once wrote

"I am convinced that quantum mechanics is not a final theory. I believe this because I have never encountered an interpretation of the present formulation of quantum mechanics that makes sense to me"

I also read your "O romper das Cordas" book, in portuguese. Twice. I could completely put myself in our shoes. We both could point to an error in the foundations of a theory (yours being the String Theory, mine, Quantum Mechanics) and not many people are willing to listen.

Should we join forces?

To Joy Christian

Joy Cristian, you are a local realist. But we differ on our arguments: you defend Bell's Theorem is wrong, I defend Bell Theorem is right, but all the other Bell inequalities for experiments under non-ideal conditions, are not. And that is why local realism has not been experimentally rejected. Can you take the time, and are you humble enough, to have a serious look at this argument and, perhaps, overcome some of the "anti-bodys" other physicists have towards your ideas? You are a local realist! Your heart is already on the right place.

To Max Tegmark

Max, you are a founder of FQXi, an Institute that "catalyzes, supports, and disseminates research on questions at the foundations of physics and cosmology, particularly new frontiers and innovative ideas integral to a deep understanding of reality, but unlikely to be supported by conventional funding sources"

Thank you. As a non-physicist this was the first time I "dare" to appear in front of a scientific community defending new frontiers.

As a portuguese person, I believe in the success of pacific revolutions. Have you heard how Portugal did a political revolution, "with flowers", from a dictatorial regime to democracy (in 1974)? I was a teenager then. I have lived through one revolution. I'm willing to pursue another.

To Anton Zeilinger

Dear professor, I have seen your poll, "A Snapshot of Foundational Attitudes Toward Quantum Mechanics". Would you be so kind, to do another (easy) experiment? Can you ask your pollers to read J.Especial article, already published in a peer reviewed magazine in 2012,

arXiv:1205.4010

give them 3 months to, without pre-conceptual ideas, analyze it well, and then redo the poll? If there is no significant change ... I will pay you a lunch in the best portuguese restaurant in Lisbon. Agreed?

To Adam Cabello

Adam Cabello, you are (were) a dissident, following Emilio Santos line of thoughts. Today, as Dean of Physics Department in Sevilla University, you did a 642 pages comprehensive essay "Bibliographic guide to the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information".

I'm sure, any post-graduate student interested in the foundations of Physics, Teleportation or Quantum computation welcomed your article.

Can you please be so kind to include J.Especial article in your session I: F Bell Inequalities?

I'm sure, once you read it and acknowledge its scientific implications , you will find a place to put in your guide an article that concludes that there is no experimental evidence of the rejection of the the whole category of local realistic theories.

Sincerely,

Teresa

Hi Teresa,

Thanks for your comments re voting, (please don't just give mine a "5", but whatever you genuinely think each deserves).

there doesn't seem to be a lot of traffic on this site, so perhaps FQXI could do a bit of internet publicity - contacting science magazine pages etc ?

Also all the participants could send a few group emails, twitter, facebook, msgs to interested friends perhaps?

you are right, though we should be active, I will start looking and voting (honestly) around the videos.

ps : I seriously think seeing how the theory of time may be completely unfounded, and showing how Special relativity probably does not infact prove time, or time dilation, but only rate dilation, may be a very big part of the paradigm shift - a lot of (possibly) wasted thought and effort is going into trying to work out what "time" "is", and yet we don't see any proof of anything other than the fact matter exists and is changing.

all the best,

matt

"Does Time exist? How 'Time travel Paradoxes' can't happen without "the past".

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2245

"Time travel, Worm hole, billiard ball' paradox, Timelessly. (re Paul Davies- New scientist article) "

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2244

"Time Travel, Timeless Answers to Prof Brian Cox's Science of Dr WHO "

http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2243

Hi Teresa

Making a plea to change a prevailing theory of physics (whether it is referred to as a revolution of paradigm change) is a reasonable aspiration on your part. Kudos. However, Karl Popper whose picture is in your video would encourage you and all of us to apply the principle of falsifiability to achieve such goals. You or some other physicist will simply need to come up with experimental results that support your theory of choice. If you are correct, it will happen. You won't need to plead with others to agree with you. They will do it on the basis of the merits of the experiment.

Ron Gruber

    Hi Ronald,

    Thank you for your comments.

    I think we are saying the same thing. A theory, to prevail, needs to be falsifiable. There has to be a test, an experimental test, that allow us to refute it and if refuted, discard it.

    That is the case.

    Bell experiments are the only experiments that aim the refutation of (all possible) local realistic theory(ies). [They are not experiments fo prove entanglement, as you know. Accordingly to Popper, we can not prove ... just disprove).

    They were fist proposed, in mid '30, by Einstein - the famous EPR paper; in '64 J.Bell proposed a theorem, and, when laser technology allowed, in late '70, experiments began being made.

    For more than 40 years, they have been performed, with different experimental apparatus, and accordingly to J. Especial none has been able to reject local realism.

    (Those who are not familiar (yet) with J.Especial's work, know that the all experiments have been performed with 'loopholes' and that there is not, at this time, any experiment that has closed all 'loopholes' in one experiment).

    So... what can one conclude, when a paradigm - reality+locality, has been successively tested and the results of the test were, for all experiments, inconclusive?

    Don't you agree that it means that local realism, was not experimentally rejected?

    So why do teachers, renown physicists and all media say the opposite?

    Don't you thing that this could be the reason there is so little funding and credibility for any local realist research for a new local realistic theory for quantum phenomena?

    This theory does not, yet, exists, to be tested. I think because no one is looking for it. But once proposed, I agree with you, it has to be falsifiable too, and a test has to be proposed and performed.

    The purpose of my plea is not for others to agree with me ... but to come with me, and shout:

    "Physics needs a new local realistic theory, compatible with all the other sciences. Local realism has NOT been rejected."

    Let it be funding, good will, creativity, community suport ... and don't lie to future researchers.

    Don't you agree?

    Thank you ... I am doing my best! With all my heart!

    Hi Teresa,

    I've watched your manifesto for questioning the foundations of quantum mechanics, and for searching a local realistic solution. I can't imagine a principle in physics which we should stop questioning. Principles are universal propositions, and they can be tested only in a finite number of situations, so we should never consider them proven forever, and stop testing them. Especially when they come with trouble.

    You commented on my video The puzzle of quantum reality, which contains an interpretation of quantum mechanics that gives, in my opinion, the closest thing to local realism we can get, and in the same time relies entirely on the standard formalism of quantum mechanics. Please watch it, and if you wish, please read my essays Flowing with a Frozen River and The Tao of It and Bit, in which I explain in more details.

    Briefly, my view is that any measurement setup in QM has local real solutions. But: #1. The solution can be local, being a solution to Schrodinger's equation, but when we ask it to also be global, in the sense that it has to be extendible to the entire spacetime, the correlations follow. #2. The solution is real at any time, but depends also by the future measurements (contextuality, "delayed initial conditions"). This is better understood in the block world picture given by relativity, and in this case is just a particular case of #1. I tried to explain how this works in my video, and in the above mentioned essays. And in this video.

    Best regards,

    Cristi

      Dear Teresa,

      I have already rated your video. I do not know why each person is not allowed just to vote one star. That would be more fair than the graduated voting that is allowed. In the essay contest, my essay got perfect 10 ratings from a Physics Professor and two Doctorate Degree certificate holders. Yet my essay did not even qualify for the $1,000 consolation prize awarded to non-members for submitting a splendid effort.

      Joe Fisher

        Hi Cristi,

        Thank you for your comment (and probably for your vote).

        I have a question for you:

        You said you have "an interpretation of quantum mechanics that gives, in my opinion, the closest thing to local realism we can get, and in the same time relies entirely on the standard formalism of quantum mechanics." , don't you think that the two phrases are in contradiction?

        A new paradigm means, not only a new mindset, but also a new formalism, that of course should be compatible with all previous experimental evidence, and be falsifiable, but also bring something new.

        Kuhn pointed out accuracy, consistency, scope, simplicity and fruitfulness as the rational aspects two competing theories would be compared upon.

        My question, now: If you agree that "any measurement setup has local real solutions" why do you think you have to restrict yourself to the quantum mechanics formalism?

        Can't you begin from scratch and invent a new solution?

        (Much more easy to say it than do it, right? hehe. But Go for It, Physicists!! Change the paradigm!)

        Best regards

        Teresa

        Hi Joe

        As I said to Christi, in the last post: Go for it, Physicists! Change the paradigm!

        And you are trying, don't give up!

        You have made your point, in this (small) community. We have heard you: "The biggest myth physicists have about their abstract universe is that abstract light has an abstract linear constant speed when it is shot through a vacuum. Real light is the only real stationary substance in the real Universe."

        The rating is not over, yet. And, if anybody has listen to me (hehe) soon there will be funding for all local realistic research.

        Best regards

        Teresa

        Hi Theresa,

        I can feel you try with all your effort to make a change in physics happen - a science you seem to have a lot passion and dedication for. This is admirable and at times when I struggle with animation, illustration, drawing - things I love - I shall be reminded of the way you pursue your goal. I wish I could plug myself into the actual debate you're involved in and contribute more to the discourse you wish to have - but my knowledge is to limited too join the debate on a satisfactory level.

        I hope you find the chance to check out our video and tell us what you think. If you could vote for us it would be really appreciated, since as you mentioned earlier, votes count for all of us and we would like to share support and appreciation.

        Madeleine

        Piezoelectricity: A Love Story

        Hi Theresa, you have got my vote and l look forward to receiving yours for my video http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2136 "convection? heat transfer? Who cares?". Good luck in the competition!!!

        I agree with your premise Theresa..

        Physics does need a shift, if it is to remain scientific, and maybe it is time for a local realistic revolution. A lot of the luminary figures you have talked about/to in the comments above are seeking for a way to create local realistic theories from which quantum mechanics is emergent. But nobody wants to even try to slay the giant, unless they have a theory in hand, and those who try (like Dr. Christian) get slapped down mighty hard by the QM establishment.

        I guess I'm saying there will have to be quite compelling reasons to adopt a new view, before the world-view that embraces non-locality and entanglement can be laid to rest. Good luck in your crusade! You are likely to need it.

        All the Best,

        Jonathan

        Hi Teresa,

        "don't you think that the two phrases are in contradiction?"

        No. To see that they are not in contradiction, you can check the links I gave you.

        "A new paradigm means, not only a new mindset, but also a new formalism"

        Say you have a smartphone, and you can only turn the screen on and off. Hence, you can only see the time displayed on the screen, so you think that it is just a clock. But you would like to have a cell phone. You are prepared to toss this clock and buy a cell phone. Say that accidentally you discover how to unlock the screen, and use it as a phone. You realize that what you thought is a clock, it is in fact a smartphone. Would you still find justified to toss it and buy a cell phone?

        "If you agree that "any measurement setup has local real solutions" why do you think you have to restrict yourself to the quantum mechanics formalism?"

        If there will be experimental data which would go beyond the boundaries of quantum mechanics, then of course we will have to go beyond those boundaries with the formalism too. But since up to this point the boundaries of the experiments are precisely those of the theory, then I don't think I am restricting myself.

        "Can't you begin from scratch and invent a new solution?" "Much more easy to say it than do it, right?"

        This is in fact the easiest thing to do. There are a lot of great physicists who work in the foundations of quantum mechanics and try to reconstruct it from different principles and using different formalisms. Up to this point, their reconstructions either don't fit the data (give different inequalities), or are complicated by adding new axioms to make them reproduce the same data as QM. But if you follow them, you can see that they have brilliant, radically new ideas, based on new paradigms and so on. Whatever you ask for. And there are so many physicists working at local or realistic versions of QM. Your manifesto comes a bit late, because there are already so many trying to do this. Perhaps you are not satisfied with their work, but did you read it? I think even the smartest guys barely have enough time to read and understand all that is written every day on this subject. Up to this point, there were proposed hundreds of alternative formulations and formalisms of QM, but the simplest and most fit is the Hilbert space formalism. It is not that people don't try to solve these puzzles, they do. The one you should convince seems to be not them, but Nature. Nature doesn't seem to care about our taste.

        You say that all experiments testing Bell's theorem have loopholes. This is an overstatement. To exploit those loopholes, Nature would have to be very sneaky, and to do this at purpose, and change the way to use the loopholes in different ways, depending on the experiment. So either nature violates Bell's inequalities, or obeys them using various complicated improvisations a la Rube Goldberg. But anyway, say that testing Bell's theorem is not perfect so it must be wrong. How about the Kochen-Specker theorem? This doesn't even need an experiment to test it. It proves that QM is contextual. Also, are you aware that there are versions of Bell's theorem without inequalities? I doubt you can find loopholes based on imperfect measurements here.

        So this is why I don't think I should toss the good old formalism. But please read my papers and watch my videos, where I try to explain why the old formalism still allows things considered forbidden by most scientists: measurement without collapse (in the real sense, not a la MWI or the misunderstood version of decoherence, where the collapse is swept under the carpet), and local and realistic solutions to Schrodinger's equation.

        In a similar vein, people don't like singularities in GR and come with radically new theories. But when singularities are understood, we see that not only they are not bad, but they are even helpful (my other video is about this).

        So I don't think physics lacks revolutionary ideas and new paradigms. Every day you will find on arxiv a new revolution, a new paradigm. The problem is that there are some that always win, when the math is checked, or when the experiments are performed. And that's why it seems that physicist are so short sighted and can't replace them with better ones: because they already found long time ago the best theories up to date. It doesn't mean that in the future we will not realize that something radically new is better, but this day is not today.

        Cristi

        Hi Teresa,

        Top marks, and Especial's proof isn't the only one. I showed in my essay this year how a real local classical mechanism can produce the effects considered as 'non-local', summarised here; Classical reproduction of quantum correlations.

        It's achieved just by changing one fundamental assumption inherited by Bell.I hope you'll read it and comment. I'm quite convinced it will contribute to the long overdue paradigm shift, if entrenched academic inertia will now allow any such shifts at all!

        Best of luck

        Peter

          Hi Peter,

          I followed your link and found lots of interesting articles to read.

          This one https://www.academia.edu/1917950/SUBJUGATION_OF_SCEPTICISM_IN_SCIENCE stroke my curiosity: man, you write much better than me ... hehe

          I will comment on your Classical Reproduction ...soon, but meanwhile let me try to put my ideas in one sentence.

          What I think the fastest way to promote a paradigm shift in Physics is when scientists (and deciders of research funds ) accept that for the quantum phenomena there is a limit - like in Special Relativity there is a limit, the speed of light - and that limit is local realism.

          That is the importance of recognizing, and not teaching the opposite, in what regards the experimental results of Bell tests.

          Because local realism has not been rejected, Physicists should FIRST find a solution within that limitation, and not search for that solution all over the place.

          Don't you think? (Ok. It was 3 sentences.)

          Thank you, I think I will need a little bit of luck.

          Teresa

          Hi Christi

          Thank you for answering.

          You say: "And there are so many physicists working at local or realistic versions of QM. Your manifesto comes a bit late, because there are already so many trying to do this."

          See my point?

          So let me rephrase:

          What I think the fastest way to promote a paradigm shift in Physics is when scientists (and deciders of research funds ) accept that for the quantum phenomena there is a limit - like in Special Relativity there is a limit, nothing goes faster than the speed of light - and that limit is Local Realism. (and not local or realism)

          That is the importance of recognizing, and not teaching the opposite, in what regards the experimental results of Bell tests.

          Because local realism has not been rejected, Physicists should FIRST find a solution within that limitation, and not search for that solution all over the place.

          Can I ask you something? It makes any sense for you, the claim J.Especial made, that in Bell tests under non-ideal detection, the respective inequalities, all, confused Fair Sampling with Perfect Correlation between Contrafactual Detections?

          Looking forward for your answer

          Teresa

          Teresa,

          I watched your video and I want to thank you for bringing to my attention the fact that experiments (like Aspect's) that attempt to disprove the possibility of local realism are subject to loopholes such as Fair Sampling and Measurement Crosstalk. I found J. Especial's paper "Bell inequalities under non-ideal conditions" too technical for me, but I have been "enlightened" on the subject by reading Wikipedia's articles "Loopholes in Bell test experiments", "Local hidden variable theory" and "Superdeterminism".

          Of course, the fact that there are loopholes in these experiments do not prove that local realism holds, so entanglement and "spooky action at a distance" are very much still in the running... All we can say with certainty is that the jury is still out... but isn't it always the case in science?! As Cristinel Stoica pointed in his post on your forum, there will always be physicists who try to imagine new theories, and it is a good thing. We know that, at some point, there will have to be some major shift, since General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics are incompatible. As we say in french, "Qui vivra verra!"

          I rated your video... and when you come around to rating videos, if you could take a look at my video "Physics Into Darkness", who is one vote short of getting 10 votes, it would be quite appreciated. Here's the direct link:

          http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/2197

          Good luck in the contest, and keep thinking outside of the box!

          Marc