NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/physics/22052

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-03 | 3.7 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!mtnmath!paul
From: [e-mail] (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: temporally undecided states (was: hidden variables)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 3 Jan 93 16:12:06 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070
Lines: 60

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] writes:
> 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.)

I do not understand your comment. My claim is that the time delays can
be measured experimentally. Note it is the delay between changing the
relative angle of *both* polarizers and a resulting change in the
probability of joint detections. My argument makes no assumptions about
any microscopic events. It only describes *macroscopic* experimental
result that can be measured and that any complete theory must predict.

> > 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.

I am glad you agree with this, but you seem to be missing my main point.
QM does not predict what these delays are. Note they cannot be 0 or you
can reconfigure the experiment to use this effect for superluminal
communication. The delays must be at least as long as it takes light to
travel from *each* polarizer to its *local* detector. Ordinarily such
delays are predictable because they are mediated by the structure and
propagation of the wave function. For tests of Bell's inequality you must
use the assumption that the wave function changes instantaneously
when an observation is made. This assumption is too vague to predict
these delays.

> [...] 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.

I would not be so certain that such simplifications are valid.
My point about rationalization is that the physics community on the whole
does not take a sufficiently skeptical viewpoint towards these issues.
Much more effort is put into explaining them away then in trying to fully
understand their implications. If my proof that quantum mechanics is
incomplete is correct, and I'm reasonably certain it is, it is simple result
that many people could have come up with had they just been a bit more
skeptical.

Paul Budnik