The scope and generality of Bell's theorem

DOI10.1007/S10701-013-9737-1MaRDI QIDQ385643zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors James Owen Weatherall

Publication date 2 December 2013

Published in Foundations of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.4854

zbMATH Keywords

Bell's theoremhidden variable theoryJoy Christian

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General and philosophical questions in quantum theory (81P05) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Quantum coherence, entanglement, quantum correlations (81P40) Stochastic mechanics (including stochastic electrodynamics) (81P20) Alternative quantum mechanics (including hidden variables, etc.) (81Q65)

Abstract: I present what might seem to be a local, deterministic model of the EPR-Bohm experiment, inspired by recent work by Joy Christian, that appears at first blush to be in tension with Bell-type theorems. I argue that the model ultimately fails to do what a hidden variable theory needs to do, but that it is interesting nonetheless because the way it fails helps clarify the scope and generality of Bell-type theorems. I formulate and prove a minor proposition that makes explicit how Bell-type theorems rule out models of the sort I describe here.

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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4084477 (Why is no real title available?)
• On the Physical Significance of the Locality Conditions in the Bell Arguments
• On the Problem of Hidden Variables in Quantum Mechanics
• Proposed experiment to test local hidden-variable theories
• Quantum probability - quantum logic
• Speakable and unspeakable in quantum mechanics
• Topics in the foundations of general relativity and Newtonian gravitation theory.

Cited in

(9)

• Is Bell's `theory' the biggest mistake in the history of physics?
• A local deterministic model of quantum spin measurement
• Bell's theorem and the problem of decidability between the views of Einstein and Bohr
• The Bell-Kochen-Specker theorem
• Charting the labyrinth of Bell-type theorems
• Bell's theorem and the issue of determinism and indeterminism
• Macroscopic unobservability of spinorial sign changes
• A deterministic Bell model
• The Bell theorem as a special case of a theorem of Bass

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