Answering Mermin’s Challenge

Dear Robert,

whatever your code does, why should this be proof that nature does the same for the experiments in question? For me that is similar to confusing a map with the territory. The territory is the physical world with its quantum experiments. You have to show via a clever experiment that it is indeed your claimed mechanisms that are responsible for the known results. Otherwise in my opinion your claims aren't falsifiable.

Stefan

Stefan,

I think you are mistaking McEachern's programed simulation (code) for something else. It is easily seen without running it, that it would output he statistical probabilities of the results that would physically result from less than perfectly correlated alignments of spatial orientation of spin angular momentum axes. The point being (and properly so) is that the only preferred reference frame is that of each of any pair of particles being detected in relation to the angle settings of the receiving device. jrc

John,

i do not doubt that the computer progam, when run, gives the same statistics quantum theory does give. So please do not misunderstand me.

But unless nature is a kind of computer with the above mentioned computer program (and we living in a computer simulation) running, i doubt that McEachern's program code reaveals the missing pieces (forces, interactions, particle properties etc.) that nature uses to produce the statistics in question.

If McEachern or you know these pieces, please tell the world - and hopefully the world then will accept the pieces as convincing. If not, please say so for the sake of clarity.

Stefan

Stefan,

That is the whole point in experimental physics, isn't it? But no single type of experiment can do more than reveal what is looked for. What can be done, is to look at results to find a pertinent question and in the case of the original Stern-Gerlach experiment, the deduction was that the neutral silver atoms (and subsequent variations with free electrons) had intrinsic physical rotation and was seen at the time as advancing the QM model over the classicism model where-in particles were not envisioned as having such. That question is open in classicism today and arguments range from induced rotation to a mathematically intrinsic argument. Be that as it may, the duration, and bandwidth, are valid arguments in this SG scenario given what is accepted as 'knowns'. A higher velocity gives a shorter duration under influence of magnetic flux density in the length of span of the magnet group (read bandwidth). And those two parameters can be strategically varied as an experimenter might desire. The catalogue of observed results from numerous redundant experiments of the type, makes predictability a matter of strong assurance.

So I suppose that in answer to your own search, a theoretical question could be posited despite the fact that there is yet no real definition of what 'electric charge' might physically be. Given that admitted lack of knowledge we could still ask (?); how would polarity arise that is evidenced as magnetic moment in a rotating particle? If you have followed much of what the respondents in this thread have put forth in the past, all (including myself) consider the basic form of a particle to be "fuzzy", not simply a distinct hard chunk. Steve Agnew has posited an electron to be a composite of three bound quarks, for instance. Variations of field theory models abound. So perhaps a question we could propose would be essentially that the uniform negative charge of the electron might develop a differentiated polarity (combing the hair on a coconut) if it has some sort of core region that when rotating, drags the charge and/or flux density along with it. Similar to 'slippage' in an electric motor where the rotar lags behind the rotation of the field.

I can understand your contention that math is first and foremost a tool, not necessarily an existential essence. So the experimental question presents itself as; what could be used to probe the depths of an electron, and how could it quantitatively be deducted that there exists a differentiable core region? I am personally more a classical bench-top sort, myself. Does that come close to your thinking? :-) jrc

John,

McEachern uses many terms without explaining what they - according to his theory - physically mean. For example the term "noise". Or "bit-flip". I would wish that someone could explain me to what physically known processes these terms do refer - given that they refer to already known physical processes/mechanisms. If they do not refer to already known physical processes/mechanisms it would be helpful to explain the newly introduced mechanisms.

After that, one can think about how the consequences of these processes/mechanisms could be tested experimentally. That way of proceeding does come close to my thinking.

Stefan

Stefan,

Read up a bit on Claude Shannon, if it can be said that there is a 'father of the electronics revolution', it would be he. Shannon's definition of information, and what constitutes 'one bit' is central to Robert's argument. Keeping in mind that it is a step in the direction that you want to go; the QM correlations assume a perfectly symmetrical particle space that is uniform to any particle of the same sort, for any sort. And Bell's Theorem is taken as QM's article of faith that a classical theory of local realism cannot replicate the results of statistical probabilities observed in innumerable experiments, as QM does. Robert's argument refutes that and as he frequently states; singlet pair production physically produces 'fraternal twins' not 'identical twins'. All of this goes to arguments between different mathematical methods of geometric measurements, and many today question the long primacy of arbitrarily chosen measurement space as a utilitarian expedient in the early development of that highly productive theoretical approach. The symmetry is baked into the math of QM, and is held fast by many because it provides a high level of mathematical precision. At present, technical limits on observation leave physics with far too many events happening too quickly at such tiny differences of distance and parametric values, to sort things out individually. Probabilities in aggregate is the order of the day, and however QM itself evolves, its not going away anytime soon.

It's autumn chore time, winter comes fast when it arrives. later - jrc

It may be helpful to think about the origins and aims of any physical theory, and quantum theory in particular. The theories are intended to describe either what "reality" and "matter" are, or at least, how they behave.

But quantum theory ended-up describing neither what matter is, nor even how it behaves. The theory ended-up, only describing the statistical behavior of a "drug test" for matter, rather than how matter itself (the "drug") behaves.

This happened for several reasons, the most important being the introduction and complete misinterpretation of the "Born Rule" which is in fact, just the mathematical description of a Matched Filter for the Detection of Identical Particles.

Rob McEachern

John, Robert,

You both did not answer my questions. If a bit flips in the experiments in question, then something physical must happen that represents this bit and its flip. It must be a mechanism - or it happens without cause, randomly. You assume the first case, so please explain the mechanism(s). In both of your cited references it isn't explained. Once you explained it, one can think about testing the theory.

Stefan

Stefan,

point taken. Counter-point: how would you explain it, given what you know (or perhaps do not) about the protocols of Stern-Gerlach, the orthogonal relationship of electro-motive force (the right hand rule) discovered by Faraday, the characteristics of spin angular momentum as distinct from orbital angular momentum, the peculiar gyroscopic idiosyncrasies of rotating objects in a gravitational field (try tilting a spinning bicycle wheel from axel horizontal to vertical), the lack of a Unified Theory relating gravitational mass to electromagnetism, the limits of observation denying direct evidence of individual atomic structure and behavioral response, the fairly well known macroscopic sizes of magnetic domains (which is why the politics of rare earth elements has become critical these days), and the statistical methodologies of teasing out any real possible picture of what any single atom or subatomic particle is actually doing in the cluster of time dependent projections of less than perfect purity of kinds of particles which constitute any projected cluster... and etc. What do you think might physically be happening in the course of a Stern-Gerlach type experiment? Is spatial orientation determined by gyroscopic response of the mass, or by polarity of electromagnetic response? Does the bit flip 90* or 180*? How do you choose, and how would you prove? jrc

Stefan,

Think about a set of stationary (relative to each other), but otherwise randomly oriented coins, floating in outer space, as a single encrypted message to be "read", from left to right, rather than as a set of physical objects to be "measured". Your job as an astronaut, is to go up, rendezvous with that message, and correctly read it as a series of bits, such as HHTHTHTTTTH. But the observed message (bit sequence) will appear to change, whenever the coins are viewed from different angles in 3D space. So what is the correct viewing angle (frame of reference)? The astronaut must either know that a priori, or be able to determine it upon arrival at the message. Otherwise bit-errors will occur, while attempting to read the message, as the result of attempting to view the message from the wrong frame of reference. But that is not the only mechanism that might cause a bit-error. Something else may have tampered with (disturbed) the message before the astronaut arrived, in such a manner that one or more of the coins will appeared to be "flipped", even when viewed from the correct frame of reference.

But now imagine that you, the poor astronaut tasked with this mission, had ignorantly assumed that all the coins were going to be beautifully pristine, newly minted coins, that were all exactly identical, and that could, consequently, each be easily and accurately "measured", even in the cases in which some of them appear nearly "edge-on" within the message. But to your absolute horror, when you finally arrive at the message, you observe that all the coins are worn-down, dirty, blurry and consequently very hard to discern, especially whenever they are anywhere near to being edge-on when viewed from the correct angle.

So you call mission control and say "What the &%$#!! where you people thinking! You never told me that all these bloody coins were going to be so beat-up and really hard to make out!" And mission control then responds "Sorry! We never considered that possibility ourselves! Sorry! But maybe we can all work together and save this mission anyhow, because there just so happens to be another duplicate message, and another astronaut, Alice, with the same problem. Maybe you and Alice can get together and study the correlation statistics between your two sets of observed bit-values and figure out the correct values for all the dirty, blurry, worn-down, edge-on coins, by comparing your results." To which you respond "But some of these things are so hard to make-out, that I'm not sure that I even know how many coins there are in the message!" To which, mission control responds "Yeah. We understand. Alice is having the same problem. But maybe you two can still work it all out - try coincidence detection analysis of something like that. We sure hope you can! And Good Luck with that! Over and out."

Rob McEachern

There is another angle to the Mermin results which obtain as average incidence of correlations in different reference frames, produced by the choice of 120 degree rotations rather than the typical 90* and 45* rotations of detectors and/or filters in both SG and Bell Aspect experiments. The relevant symmetry plane naturally follows physically and mathematically from the orthogonal relationship observed in electromagnetism, so the explicit A & B correlations are common to the same reference frame, but not to the non-typical 1/3 circular arc of 120 degrees.

Now, if we were to take that symmetry plane as the square base of a pyramid made up of four equilateral triangles and put two of those base to base we construct an octahedron which shares properties of both a cube and a sphere. It also shares an internal angle with that of a Brewster Window which polarizes the light in a Laser, so it must have (well, may have) some physical relationship with the Up/Down direction of Spin Angular Momentum. That angle is 52 !/2 degrees and is found as the angle from the square symmetry plane to the slope of an adjacent equilateral triangle. In Lasers, the angle of the Brewster Windows varies with wavelength (frequency if you prefer) but within narrow bounds which bracket 52 !/2 degrees.

That would also be a different reference frame than 1/2 and 1/4 pi rotations common to the orthogonality of the symmetry plane. I have more than occasionally puzzled on what results would be observed in Bell-Aspect experiments with filters set in juxtaposition to that Brewster Angle. And if they depart from the norms, would they jibe with the same juxtaposition of detector angles in an SG type apparatus ??? jrc

John, Robert,

part of what i asked for is an answer to whether or not Robert's theory is falsifiable. In my opinion there are only 3 options: yes, no, "we do not know".

If the answer is "no", then maybe a detailed description of the theories assumptions can alter the picture (if some clever person comes the way).

If the answer is "yes", that would be great, because the theory can be tested or already has been tested in the past.

If the answer is "we do not know", again a detailed description of the - hitherto developed assumptions - may help some person to find a way to test the theory.

By "testing" i do not mean a computer program, but an experimental test with real physical "quanta" (or "partices" or whatever you like to name it).

Concerning all your questions John, i would say i have the opinion that causality as we know it (timely ordered etc.) breaks down at a certain level within the microcosm. What makes our world stable then must lie beyond our familiar space-time (the latter's assumptions being deeply engraved into our ways of thinking). This is another reason why i consider the falsifiability of Robert's theory interesting, because if some predictions of that theory could be verified, this would obviously speak against my rather "transcendental" view of space-time and all the rest.

Stefan

If the particles produced as a pair have the same orientation of magnetic moment and are then exposed to the same orientation of magnetic field , the same response can be expected from each member of the pair. They remain correlated- shown as 1/2 and 1/2 of the same orientation possibilities. if anticorrelated they remain anticorrelated.)

If instead a pair is exposed to different orientations of field they will respond to the field they individually experience. As only 'spin up" and 'spin down" results are "measured" 1/4 of each kind of pairing is what should be expected for lost correlation-as if random.

Rather than there being two types of the particle with different spin characteristic there is one. Orientation producing the resulting bit is nurtured during exposure to the magnetic field. There is no equivalent isolated bit prior to the execution of the "measurement" protocol.

The Bell's statistics assume the spins to be inherent characteristics, measured not generated by the apparatus.

Dear Georgina,

trying to trace your argument.

Particles are produced as a pair. By production, they always have the same orientation of a pre-measurement property. Then they are exposed to the same physical forces. This then results in the same response. This is the case for the angles 0 degree as well as 180 degree.

If we have a relative angle of 90 degree, it seems that the "correlation" is random, but this is only so because we have no way to know the original orientation of the particle pair at the time of its production. But according to this scheme, we at least assume that both particles have both the same inherent orientations of some inherent property.

So far we have at least figured out that at the angles of 0, 90 and 180 degrees, there could be a physical mechanism to explain the results.

But how do results for the intermediate angles come about? In your scheme the individual particle's inherent properties simply respond to different angles of the individual measurement devices - relative to a particle. That's a local scheme of course - every particle's response is only determined by its original orientation at the time of production and its relative angle to the local measurement device. Since the influence of the measurement device is thought to be non-linear when it is not aligned at the same orientation as the particle's original orientation (at the time of pair production), one then could eventually explain this non-linearity of statistical outcomes (bell curve) by the relative angle between measurement device (aka magnetic field) and the particle's magnetic moment (or something like that) - what is exclusively only then the case when both magnets are neither oriented 0 or 180 degrees relative to each other - because if they are orientated 0 or 180 degrees relative to each other, in these cases the responses are always linear due to the production of perfectly correlated pairs.

So if the non-linearity in question (bell curve) stems from the non-linear forces of a measurement device's magnetic field relative to a starting orientation of a particle (and its magnetic component), one could expect that even for the strong correlations at 0 and 180 degrees, the particle pairs could well be *initially* orientated such that the magnetic field of the measurement devices exhibit the same amount (and directions!) of forces to the particles as it would be the case for the intermediate relative angles (the angles not being 0 or 180 degrees). If that would be the case, the statistics of course would be altered from the well known bell curve to something other. In your scheme I see no reason so far why the source should only produce pairs that have only two options to be orientated in space: either "up" relative to the source, or "down" relative to the source (this kind of explanation would use a preferred reference frame). But let's figure it out:

Can this explanation via a preferred reference frame be tested? Yes, according to your scheme there is a difference in the amount and directions of the forces of the measurement devices (and therefore there must also be a difference in the resulting statistics) that act on the particle's for different relative orientations.

So to test the hypothesis that the non-linearity in question (bell curve) stems from different forces (amount and directions) of the measurement magnets, one theoretically could make a series of measurements with perfectly aligned magnets, but with different orientations relative to the source. This may at first glance appear to be nonsense, since measuring always only with the help of relative magnet angles of 0 or 180 degrees (but both changed from time to time relative to the *source*) will not alter the perfect correlations (the latter means that for 0 degree there is predictable "anti-correlation, for 180 degree there is predictable "correlation").

But nonetheless I think there are consequences for your scheme here. Assume we orient both magnets relative to the source such that we define that angle "0". Keep in mind that both magnets are nonetheless still always orientated at, say, 180 degrees relative to each other as the starting point of our measurements. With these settings then we make the full circle of bell measurements.

After that, we only change the relative angle in space of the magnets to the source by a certain degree (the magnets nonetheless are still oriented 180 degrees relative to each other) and again take this as the starting point to make the full circle of bell measurements.

This goes on till we arrive at an angle of 180 degrees for the relative orientation of source with magnets (our starting point was "0" degrees).

Finally we compare the measurement results of all the different settings. According to your scheme there must be significant differences for the different runs of full circle bell measurements. And this conclusion is independent of whether you assume a preferred reference frame relative to the source or not.

For the case that the source only has two options to align the perfectly correlated pairs in space (relative to itself, the source), changing the whole measurement settings angle relative to the source (as just described) should result in dramatic differences compared to the well known bell curve. This should be so because your scheme aims to be local and is dependent on the relative angle (amount and direction of forces) of the magnets to explain the peculiar non-linearities apart from the trivial angles 0 and 180.

For the case that the source does orient the correlated pairs randomly over say, 360 degrees (relative to the source itself), the comparison of the results of the above mentioned different full circle runs should also result in some dramatic deviations from the well known bell curve - at least for some settings.

If I am right, the question now is whether or not that sophisticated series of experiments has already been done or not. Apart from that I would bet that once done, it would not alter the well known bell curve in any case - what would be in conflict with your local explanation. But my guess isn't really important for what nature does.

Please write back what you think about all of this.

Greetings,

Stefan

Stefan, that is a long reply. I'll read it carefully tomorrow.

As I understand the issue- there are three different angles of orientation of the magnetic fields of the magnets and a choice of same orientation for "measuring" each of the pair OR choice of different orientations for "measuring" each of what was a matched pair but will now not give a certainly same state outcome. The two different environments causes them to be uncorrelated. Though by probability still giving the same/matched state outcome 1/4 of the time.

You ask why only up and down [outcomes}? Because that is the options allowed by the apparatus. The bits, ups and downs are not particles but tell something about the particle's prior behaviour; that led to the outcome.

Dear Georgina,

"Though by probability still giving the same/matched state outcome 1/4 of the time. "

No no, the ¼ you speak of are only the case if the two measurement magnets have a relative angle of 90 degrees (or 270 degrees) to each other. In all other cases the probabilities behave according to the bell curve, not linear. Look at that Bell-curve (roughly speaking the orange line):

https://fqxi.org/data/forum-attachments/MceachernMissedDetections.JPG

Hi Stefan. I think we are talking about different experiments.

Just to clarify as I can't edit -I should have said - Though by probability still giving each same/matched state outcome 1/4 of the time.

You ask why just spin up or spin down particles are produced. I don't think thy are oriented as such but spin up , spin down are outcomes from the Stern Gerlach analyzer. I think the magnetic moment is a dipole . So if one end is given a designation ,say N. Then the pole opposite will be S. Which is up or down does not make two different kinds of particle. If electrons vibrate along the magnetic moment (speculation) then according to orientation it can be in phase with a magnet, leading to attraction .Or out of phase, giving repulsion.

Treating a pair of particles in the same way after production maintains their relation to each other. Treat them differently, the relation is broken and the outcome appears to be random. Given enough runs there should by probability be 1/4 of each of the 4 possible outcomes. Showing that spin up and spin down are not fived types like blue or green socks. But can change according to the environment encountered. Bell's inequalities apply to fixed characteristics, like sock colour. The magnetic moment is a fixed characteristic of the particle alone but orientation of it, giving the interaction producing the outcome isn't.

I only know about 3 different orientation of the SG apparatus, X,Y and Z being used. When you talk about a full circle of rotation relative to the source, I think that is something completely different. Maybe to do with whether or not the particles are intercepted.

Let me clarify what I meant by "The magnetic moment is a fixed characteristic of the particle alone but orientation of it, giving the interaction producing the outcome isn't."

Having a magnetic moment is a part of the nature of the particle. Interaction of that nature with the environmental exposure gives the orientation, which will lead to the output state (bit) from the SG apparatus.

The apparatus us not measuring the orientation of the particles on production from the source. That does not need to be known. If the correlated (or anticorrelated) pair are treated the same the outcome states (bits) will be correlated (or anticorrelated); whatever same orientation of apparatus is chosen.

Hi Georgina,

I am talking about the SG entanglement experiment. I strongly assume you too refer to that experiment so I take that as a given.

"Just to clarify as I can't edit -I should have said - Though by probability still giving each same/matched state outcome 1/4 of the time. "

At a relative angle of 90 degree between the two SG magnets, the chance to find the possible combinations up/up, down/down, up/down, down/up are each ¼. So if you define "same/matched" as up/up or down/down, the chances to find such correlated pairs are ½. ½ is then equal to a random coin tossing with a chance of 50:50 to obtain a matched pair. So at 90 degrees it seems to be a matter of coin tossing to obtain what in the case of 0 degrees was guaranteed, namely a correlation that could be a hint that both particles initially had been given opposite orientations by the source.

The picture I attached is a plot of the experimental results of the SG entanglement experiment. It shows the degree of correlations, starting with a relative angle of the two magnets of 0 degrees. Since the two "spins" are always generated by the source such that one is up and the other is down (we just do not know in advance which one is up or down), at a relative magnet angle of 0 degrees, there is always "anti-correlation" (not a good term because it suggests that there is nothing correlated here. But as you may know, that anti-correlation is such stable that one concludes due to energy-conservation of spin that the source only can produce up/down pairs, no up/up or down/down pairs).

So at a relative angle of 0 degrees, this correlation doesn't appear randomly, but regularly. At 90 degrees it appears to be random. At 180 degrees there is again always the correlation, either the results are up/up or they are down/down. Only the signs here have a 50:50 chance to change and could be labelled random, but that could be explained by not knowing in advance the initial orientations for each particle. Up to this point all this is pretty local.

Now, apart form these special angles, in an SG experiment other angles are measured as well. The results are also depicted in the plot. The angles form 0 to 360 are depicted horizontally from left to right. The orange line depicts the experimental results whereas the red line depicts the predictions of Bell's inequality.

The question now is how the orange line comes about for a hidden variable theory (or more generally speaking, how it comes about in any theory that aims to explain the orange line). In your scheme the magnetic moment is changed by interaction with the measurement apparatus. More precise, the magnetic moment's orientation is changed. For different relative angles of the two magnets, the chance to find an up/up or down/down pair increases from 0 to 180 degrees. Further it decreases from beyond 180 degrees to 360 degrees. But it does not increase or decrease linearly. Obviously, the probabilities (frequencies) of producing up/up and down/down pairs at the magnets is a function of the relative angles of these magnets. That's a perfectly rational explanation since we assume that the produced (by the source) and pre-measured pairs are always strongly correlated (up/down or down/up) until the correlation is eventually altered by some measurement settings.

Now the question for me (in my first long reply to explain what I consider an explanatory problem) was why at an angle of, say, 0 degrees, the results are always "anti-correlated" and not in the area of the orange line that differs from the red line. If I imagine a particle pair being produced by the source, according to your scheme there must be a certain relative angle of the initial magnetic moments relative to the orientation of the two magnets in space. The magnets are both perfectly aligned (0 degrees of relative angle between them), so whatever happens to both particles at their respective magnets, the result will always be "anti-correlation" (means up/down or down/up). BUT, since in your scheme all the measurement results are a function of the relative angle between the initial magnetic moment and magnets, for obtaining the results depicted in the plot the source must create the initial magnetic moments such that the up-down axis is a fixed parameter in the laboratory space for all particle pairs - or equivalently, it should be a fixed feature for the pair production at the source. Because otherwise the initial orientations relative to the magnets would be randomly distributed over 360 degrees (for the whole experimental series) and this would counteract the function of magnetic angle(s) relative to the incoming particle's orientations of magnetic moment. Because of that I wrote in my first long reply

"For the case that the source only has two options to align the perfectly correlated pairs in space (relative to itself, the source), changing the whole measurement settings angle relative to the source (as just described) should result in dramatic differences compared to the well known bell curve. "

Do you see the paradox? If the source produces the pair's up/down features always along the same axis in space relative to itself and during flight these orientations remain fixed in space, why should measurements at a relative angle of 0 degrees at the magnets always result in perfect "anti-correlation" if these two magnets aren't deliberately oriented such that they fully match the pair's initial orientations? You may say that this is irrelevant since both magnets are perfectly aligned. But on the other hand you explain any deviation from perfect "correlation" (or likewise "anti-correlation") by a deviation of the relative angle between particle's magnetic moment and magnet. Why should this angle initially be such that for the case of our 0 degrees, no deviations are measured?

Hope to have clarified my rather long first reply. Sorry for that rather longer reply :-) - I tried to explain my case as detailed as possible.

I would be happy if you would again reply to see if I understood your scheme correctly.

Greetings

Stefan