NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/physics/22031

Text File | 1993-01-02 | 3.6 KB | 72 lines

Newsgroups: sci.physics
Path: sparky!uunet!seas.smu.edu!vivaldi!aslws01!aslss01!terry
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: temporally undecided states (was: hidden variables)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Originator: terry@aslss01
Sender: [e-mail]
Nntp-Posting-Host: aslss01
Organization: (Speaking only for myself)
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 18:45:06 GMT
Lines: 58

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Paul Budnik) writes:

> The issue I am raising is not to determine the order of events. I am saying
> that to do an effective test of Bell's inequality you must directly measure
> the time between when the polarizers change angle and this influences
> the probability of joint detections.

Fair enough.  My V-spookies are just one interpretation by which to propose
an interpretation for that issue.  (I believe the implication would simply
be that for V-spookies, the time delays will not be a relevent parameter.)

> You and a number of physicists have gone to some trouble to concoct various
> interesting rationalizations to preserve the current framework of QM.

Nah.  Only experiments will determine such things, and I heartily agree that
folks need to bang a lot harder on QM experimentally (vs. theoretically) than
has been done to date.  I would thing that the timing issues you mentioned
are in fact a very good area in which to do a little hard-nosed experimental
banging, just to see if there is something more complex than the "minimal"
model of standard QM.

Please note that my reason for posting an "interpretation" has more to do
with heuristics than assertions of "fact."  We don't have enough experimental
facts yet to make really strong assertions about the details of such events
(which is remarkable considering the 60+ year history of QM.)  What we do
have is a "simplest form" theory of QM that works very, _very_ well for
predicting ordinary phenomena, and has perhaps led to too much complacency
about the details of that theory.

The V-spookies are a "heuristic" interpretation in the sense that they try
to take the standard, simplest-form QM and re-represent it in a form that
shows where there may be some redundancy and needless "noise" in the way
those predictions are usually presented.  For example, I honestly do think
that the usual procedure of distinguishing the _order_ of detection in
correlated, spacelike separated quantum events is "noisy" in the sense that
it creates some illusory artifacts.  I have little doubt that you could
reformulate that one in terms of the "interaction" idea that I mentioned
and wind up with a formalism that, like the real (relativistic) world,
does not bother to _try_ to point out which event comes first.

That sort of simplification, if it exists (I'm quite sure it does, actually),
does not hurt your case at all;  indeed, it would simply give you a more
specific, concise formalism to argue _against_ and thus perhaps derive some
new insights for experimental verification.

Bottom line:  Neither you nor I nor anyone else has the final answer on some
of this stuff, as you (I believe) have stated before.  But folks can say "Hey,
I think this might provide a framework for some interesting _real experiments_
to determine what matches reality the best."  (And three cheers for those in
the physics community who are taking the time and effort to do just that sort
of try-to-rock-the-boat experiments.)

                Cheers,
                Terry Bollinger

P.S -- My thanks to Robert Firth for an intriguing reference on some work
       that appears to be similar to V-spookies.  Interesting!