Is action at a distance possible as envisaged by the EPR Paradox.

[DevilsAvocado]

...didn’t we run this debate previously – about the 'detection' loophole...??

Anyhow for myself and any other layman out there, let’s reconcile:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malus'_law#Malus.27_law_and_other_properties"
Malus' law, which is named after Etienne-Louis Malus, says that when a perfect polarizer is placed in a polarized beam of light, the intensity, I, of the light that passes through is given by ... (yada, yada, yada) ... In practice, some light is lost in the polarizer and the actual transmission of unpolarized light will be somewhat lower than this, around 38% for Polaroid-type polarizers but considerably higher (>49.9%) for some birefringent prism types.

Who is Etienne-Louis Malus? Well, he’s this guy:

A participant in Napoleon's expedition into Egypt (1798 to 1801)​

Can we start a poll... if this Napoleon-guy is going to win the battle between QM and ... and ... the Waterloophole Theory Fernwirkung (!?WTF!?) ...

 

[Frame Dragger]

...didn’t we run this debate previously – about the 'detection' loophole...??

Anyhow for myself and any other layman out there, let’s reconcile:

Who is Etienne-Louis Malus? Well, he’s this guy:

A participant in Napoleon's expedition into Egypt (1798 to 1801)​

Can we start a poll... if this Napoleon-guy is going to win the battle between QM and ... and ... the Waterloophole Theory Fernwirkung (!?WTF!?) ...

Oooh... for a guy who's said that English is not your first language, you have a keen sense of wielding it for the sake of humour and making a point. I think yours was a fairly... direct way of explaining the "apples and oranges" concept to ThomasT. Malus' Law is certainly useful (sort of)... it just has nothing at all to do with the issue at hand!

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Hehe, of course Etienne-Louis Malus is completely innocent – he’s just a victim to his "apples" being used to prove that "oranges" do not exist, by "someone"...

English is not your first language

Correct, but the "Swedish Chef" has taught me almost everything there is to know!

Thanks!

 

[SpectraCat]

..

Correct, but the "Swedish Chef" has taught me almost everything there is to know!

Bork Bork Bork!

At his finest:

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Bork Bork Bork!

Hahaha! "After that – I’m running away!"


(but I’ll be back to reply the rest ASAP)

 

[yoda jedi]

No. The properties, motion(s) of the entangled particles that are being jointly analyzed are either identical or closely related in some way due to past interaction(s), a common source, or they're parts of an encompassing system.

So there really doesn't need to be any communication or causal link of any sort between the separated particles in order to understand why joint detections of them are correlated wrt some global measurement parameter(s).

That's right, but that statement needs some qualification. In the contexts where joint detection attributes are correlated to global measurement parameters the hidden variable that would, if it were known, allow more precise prediction of individual results is simply not relevant.

What's relevant in the joint context is the relationship between the two separated particles.

The oft repeated statement that QM is incompatible with local hidden variables isn't quite true. QM is compatible with lhv formulations of certain setups, such as wrt the individual arms of optical Bell tests. QM is incompatible with lhv formulations of setups where the lhv is irrelevant wrt determining the results, such as wrt the correlations of joint results with some global measurement parameter.

'Way out' of what -- nonlocality? What nonlocality? If you think that it can be inferred via experimental violations of Bell inequalities or via GHZ inconsistencies, then consider that the physical meaning attributed to BIs and GHZ manipulations associated with Bell tests is rather questionable.

You might start a separate thread exploring exactly how BIs are derived and exactly how the limits imposed by them are connected with the reality of the experimental setups -- and also exactly how the detection attributes (+1s and -1s) involved in GHZ manipulations are connected to EPR elements of reality.

It isn't at all a foregone conclusion, nor has it been definitively demonstrated, that experimental violations of BIs or GHZ inconsistencies have the physical meaning that's been attributed to them by some -- that is, quantum entanglement should not be taken as being synonymous with nonlocality or ftl propagations.

and not the only, to rule out locality.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Now, Bob may have tried to place external controls on Alice's environment by trapping her in a box with a death-device, but how did he set up the measurement that was to take place. Whatever arrangements he made, once he goes away to make his measurement (at a suitably large distance to make this test case meaningful and interesting), he can only assume without knowing that his arrangements went off without a hitch. Confirmation must wait for the information to arrive by normal light-speed comms.

Of course you’re right – the "hitch-factor" can never be ruled out.

Doesn’t this also have influence on Schrödinger's cat? Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead until the box is opened (= 50/50), but if we apply the "hitch-factor", we get Alive 33% / Dead 33% / Hitch 33% = Dead 33% and Alive 66% ...?

And the ('new') Copenhagen interpretation would then be – the cat is more alive than dead until the box is opened!

(dead serious discovery! )

Hmmm .. not sure why it should be 'simple and understandable' .. and to whom should it be so? What level of education and familiarity with physics should they have? How many years of schooling?

To everyone! To make a 'slightly' sensational allegory (FTL=false):

A father is standing with his son on the lawn, and the son suddenly squeals. Then father & son observe a wasp flying towards them, landing on the arm of the son and sting him. After the traumatic event, son is asking – What happened!?

In a logical world, the father says – Well son, this is absolutely nothing to worry about. Science can explain these things, and if you do what I tell you and become a physicist, you will understand this 100%.

In an illogical world, the father says – Well son, sh*t happens all the time before you know it! And if I can live with this, so can you! Be quiet and GO TO BED!

Get it?

See .. this is why you should have listened to your mother and not gotten involved with those seedy looking QM interpretations!

All joking aside, I guess I see what you are saying here, and suppose it might be a real issue. I am not sure, because I am not sure what "arriving at the same time" means in this context. I'll think about it some more, but it seems like the only way you might be able to define it absolutely is when both photons were impingent on the same detector. Even in that case I think you get into trouble with the HUP when you try to nail things down precisely for the two measurement events. Like I said .. I need to think about it more ...

On final point is that it seems to me that all of your objections are inherently local in character ... don't they all just go away if you accept that the wavefunction of the entangled pair is inherently non-local?

Well yes, sort of... but it does seem to me we a slight 'problem' on our hands... When A & B are far away from each other, we refer to SR and RoS. When A & B are at the 'same parallel place', separated by an 'insulator', we refer to QM and HUP...? Hmmm...

Anyhow, since the last post I have had some kind of 'revelation'. Last night I watched public television, to get my mind of the EPR stuff, and what do they show?? The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics - The Quantum Tamers, with Stephen Hawking, Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger, Gerard Milburn, Wojciech Zurek, Raymond Laflamme, Peter Shor, Seth Lloyd, Lucien Hardy, Daniel Gottesman, et al! Is this just a COINCIDENCE!?

In the program Anton Zeilinger talks about entanglement, and that Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 (in the course of developing "Schrödinger's cat") coined the term Verschränkung.

Entanglement in English means something like 'spaghetti', but Verschränkung in German means "very strong, very well defined connection", according to Zeilinger.

I looked up http://www.dict.cc/german-english/Verschränkung.html" in a German-English dictionary and got:

interleave
interconnection
folding
crossing
clasping

This is obviously something completely different than 'spaghetti', which is not that well-defined! Zeilinger visualize Verschränkung like this:

In this new light, there is no doubt that the entangled pair is a (combined?) wavefunction, not two separate particles!

Now I have a question: How can we know that the wavefunction has this property of opposite spin? According to QM we can’t apply any property to a wavefunction before measurement?? And some say – the wavefunction doesn’t even 'exist'!?



For those curios about "The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics - The Quantum Tamers", here is a link to the first episode. The part about entanglement and EPR starts at 15:50 and ends at 25:40. Don’t worry about the Swedish speaker, it’s just a few sec, and the important stuff comes from the scientist in English:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ur.se%2Fplay%2F156548&sl=sv&tl=en"
http://www.ur.se/play/156548"

Enjoy! It’s available until 25-oct-2010.


P.S. Check out http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/Outreach/Quantum_Tamers/The_Quantum_Tamers/" .

 

[SpectraCat]

Wait ... what happened to Frame Dragger? Did he get banned?

 

[DevilsAvocado]

I dunno... ...really hope not...

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Whether the polarizer settings are not varied during a run, or varied nonrandomly, or varied randomly, or varied randomly after emission, the result (the correlation between the angular difference of the polarizers and rate of coincidental detection) doesn't vary.

So, the fact that Bell's lhv ansatz "just doesn't work" is NOT "due to the fact that the receiving polarizers are randomly rotated 'AFTER' the photons left the source".

'AFTER' was the last nail in the coffin for LHV. There was a theoretical possibility that the entangled photons had 'spooky tentacles' that could 'sense' the settings of the polarizer, to pre-agree on LHV, and then run to 'mimic' the QM predictions. Why else all this work on randomizing the polarizers??

(I googled "Bell's lhv ansatz" and got 2 hits, both pointing at you at PF... is this your own 'invention'?)

The problem with getting an lhv formulation that fits the experimental results has nothing to do with loopholes.

Correct, it has to do with Bell's theorem – "No physical theory of local hidden variables can ever reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics". Here’s one of Alain Aspect’s own slides:

It’s hard to understand what your 'solution' actually is. As I understand you dismiss LHV and "spooky action at a distance" and loopholes. What’s left? Etienne-Louis Malus Law from the 18th century? You mentioned Local Hidden Constants in an earlier post, but that doesn’t work either...

It’s quite strange to see the strong argumentation against Alain Aspect et al. We all seem to agree on the theory. When Alain Aspect performed his very first experiment with 2-channel polarizers, the result matched exactly the QM predictions, as Alain Aspect’s own slide shows:

Don’t you think it’s quite farfetched to dismiss the official conclusion, and replace it with your 'personal speculations', based on an optical law from 18th century – basically saying "some light is lost in the polarizer"...?

I can’t do the calculations, but I suspect that the probabilities for the 18th century Malus Law too by chance reproduce exactly the expected results predicted by QM, is even more 'miraculous' than "Spukhafte Fernwirkung"...

 

[DevilsAvocado]

I do not see connection with your post #108 but yes this is my personal speculation that illustrates problems with your personal speculation about this overlapping effect.

Hehe, we’re all a bunch of 'grumpy laymen' here, aren’t we?

About your statement in post #108

From wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superposition_principle" states that, for all linear systems,
The net response at a given place and time caused by two or more stimuli is the sum of the responses which would have been caused by each stimulus individually.

So I would restate what you said this way: The condition for superposition of the particle (photon) is that it should pass both slits concurrently.

Okay, but to be fair we should maybe refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition" : "Quantum superposition is a fundamental property of quantum mechanics. It defines the collection of all possible states that an object can have."

Niels Bohr would turn in his grave if someone tried to stipulate a wavefunction as an object...

But as I said, this is maybe not important. What is important is if the wavefunction of the entangled pair is considered one wavefunction, or two. I don’t think two wavefunctions creates one interference pattern... maybe some of the pros can inform us?

First, scientist do not to say things like "Hey! I can prove some weird stuff!" because they relay on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method" . They say things like "Results of experiment is in agreement with some weird hypothesis."

Okay, I will put smileys after all 'bad jokes' from now on...

This is because you can not prove theory with experiment but only disprove competing theories.

Okay, so Eddington's 1919 solar eclipse experiment were actually disproving Newton, not confirming Einstein??

Second, you don't have to be considered swindler if you make some error. Everybody makes errors but not everybody is swindler.

Sounds logical. What don’t sound logical is that every scientist in the 'EPR business' is making the same 'correlated' mistake...??

There is nice picture that I spied in another thread:

Yeah, that is funny! The question is – Is it Einstein, Aspect & Bell wearing the tin foil hat, or is it "someone" else??

You are not very careful with your statement.
The theory states that if X, Y, Z and determinism then certain inequalities hold.
Besides Counterfactual Definiteness is in conflict with Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle contrary to what you are implying.

You’re right. Sorry, layman error...

This is quite loose statement. There are things in QM that are not very strictly established like correspondence between certain things in mathematical formalism and physical reality. Because of that QM still can accommodate quite different interpretations.
So I would say that with some minor changes in interpretation it can still be compatible with (contextual) LHV.

Humm... "things" ... "certain things" ... "physical reality" ... "quite" ... "minor changes" ... "contextual" ...

To me, 'tin foil warning' is now flashing all red.

Could you please explain how you fit in contextual LHV with this slide from Alain Aspect:

 

[inflector]

Wait ... what happened to Frame Dragger? Did he get banned?

I sure hope not. I think I may have jinxed him accidentally:

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=397935

Fortunately, there is hope for Frame Dragger. It seems there is some sort of temporary banning and demerit system whereby you can be warned or penalized for infractions against the rules.

My guess is that Frame Dragger is under a temporary ban. Perhaps not though, he may have reached the 10 point automatic permanent ban threshold.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

... Perhaps not though, he may have reached the 10 point automatic permanent ban threshold.

? ?

I’m totally confused... is it the "h-word" in post https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2690682&postcount=175" ??

... a sad mad bad day ...

 

[DrChinese]

Wait ... what happened to Frame Dragger? Did he get banned?

I hope not as well! I didn't see anything that was weird posted, maybe it's the post Devil indicated. But that would surprise me.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

maybe it's the post Devil indicated

DrC, if that’s the case – it must be a complete misunderstanding! You and FD are friends, right? And this was kind of an "insider joke", right? Then it must be corrected.

 

[DrChinese]

DrC, if that’s the case – it must be a complete misunderstanding! You and FD are friends, right? And this was kind of an "insider joke", right? Then it must be corrected.

Hey, I would never take that as anything other than light-hearted. I hope FD returns asap. I miss him already [sniff].

Besides, I am friends with everyone.

I will say this: as far as I know, the moderators never comment on suspensions. I actually think that is the best policy all the way around. The intent is to keep the focus on the subject matter.

So with that in mind, I say that EPR-like spooky action at a distance is possible. Did I mention that yet?

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Right on DrC! We, all friends on PF, want him back NOW!

Okay, got ya! Let’s hope for the best!

EPR = spooky action = TRUE ;)

 

[glengarry]

I think FD got pretty fed up with me to the point of following me to an old topic on the Number Theory forum and saying that my ideas should be taken as "Independent Research." I take it that "Independent Research" is a euphemism for "Not now relevant and never will be relevant"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=393577

... I want to be sure here... are you saying that you think the code you've written is novel, and somehow more elucidating and efficient than existing methods? You mention "1mil"... so I assume you are referring to a Nobel? Other than appreciating patterns which have been studied for a VERY long time, and taking a (new to you) approach, why do you think this is in any way... new to anyone else? This also seems like something for "Indipendant Research", not Number Theory.

But anyways... EPR, spookiness, good stuff...

 

[jtbell]

I take it that "Independent Research" is a euphemism for "Not now relevant and never will be relevant"

No, he's referring to our Independent Research forum:

https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=146

which is the only forum where we permit discussion of "new theories" that have not already been published in one of the professional physics venues. See the PF Guidelines (click on the "Rules" link at the top of any page) and note the section Overly Speculative Posts.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

... I take it that "Independent Research" is a euphemism for "Not now relevant and never will be relevant"

Thanks for sharing glengarry, but if the phrase "Indipendant Research" is enough to be banned, my confusion is now googolplex¹⁰⁰⁰ ...

? ? ?​

Edit: Okay, jtbell explains it, still a mystery...

 

[glengarry]

No, he's referring to our Independent Research forum:

https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=146

which is the only forum where we permit discussion of "new theories" that have not already been published in one of the professional physics venues. See the PF Guidelines (click on the "Rules" link at the top of any page) and note the section Overly Speculative Posts.

Yes, I understand that "Independent Research" is a subforum here at PF, and I understand that "speculation" is generally not tolerated here at PF, for very obvious reasons. However, I tried to state an https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2691133&postcount=36" in another thread so that people would ask me to show them, by way of mathematics, to prove to them what I was talking about. And I complied with the request immediately. If you are now saying that mathematical proof is itself "speculative," then I would be very much inclined to disagree. I would simply consider myself to be a thoroughly mathematically minded person who is also interested in questions of how constructive mathematical systems can, qua themselves, provide a believable account for the way that a universe such as ours is indeed possible.

My only "agenda" around here is to try to talk all of the "empiricists" out there into becoming more "idealistic" like us mathematicians. I truly mean no harm, and I just hope that we can all get along :)

 

[DrChinese]

Yes, I understand that "Independent Research" is a subforum here at PF, and I understand that "speculation" is generally not tolerated here at PF, for very obvious reasons. However, I tried to state an https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2691133&postcount=36" in another thread so that people would ask me to show them, by way of mathematics, to prove to them what I was talking about. And I complied with the request immediately...

I never saw any math at all. Nor anything more than a sly reference implying you know something worthwhile but are witholding it. I invited you to share. Of course, it should follow guidelines if you decide to post it.

And just because you think your math seems good to you, if it leads to a speculative conclusion, it still belongs in IR.

IR can be junk, or it can be good. Depends I would say.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

... My only "agenda" around here is to try to talk all of the "empiricists" out there into becoming more "idealistic" like us mathematicians. I truly mean no harm, and I just hope that we can all get along :)

Well, now we are in the QM forum and as far as I know the mathematics works perfectly fine. The only 'trouble' is that it doesn’t make any 'empirical' sense; (to many of us) it’s completely nuts! One particle here and there, and at two places simultaneously, and it knows if we are looking at it, and if not, it interfere with itself = pure schizo! As if this isn’t enough, the latest discoveries by Bell & Aspect prove that if we look at one particle here – it immediately settles the properties of a twin particle, on the other side of the universe!

IMO, now it’s time to: "Shut up and talk!"

... about this strange world ...

 

[DevilsAvocado]

... As to the Relativity of Simultaneity: If you accept an acausal interpretation such as RBW, that goes away as an issue.

I read the paper http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003247/" , and I got the creepy 'MWI feeling'. (Is RUTA the author? If that’s the case – no offence.)


Feels like we get rid of one strange phenomenon, by the cost of an almost stranger 'beast':

The ontology of this interpretation is one in which constructive objects (entities such as particles or waves with worldlines in spacetime) are not fundamental constituents of reality.

Not only reality gets a blow, the arrow of time is a non-question.

Keep in mind that in our blockworld setting, talk of “actions performed” gets only a purely logicalcounterfactual meaning—the entire experimental EPR set-up, its past, present and future, and the spacetime symmetries of that set-up are all just ‘there’—no one could really perform some alternative measurement on the other wing of the experiment without changing the entire spatiotemporal description of the experiment.

(RUTA, are you there?) What happens if want to set up my personal "Omelet Experiment"?

The Omelet Experiment
Four eggs are place in a pipeline that is 1 ly long. When the eggs have traveled to 'detector', they are crushed, whipped and fried in a pan.

Are the past, present and future just 'there' in the "Omelet Experiment"? How do we turn the omelet into eggs?

 

[yoda jedi]

I think FD got pretty fed up with me to the point of following me to an old topic on the Number Theory forum and saying that my ideas should be taken as "Independent Research." I take it that "Independent Research" is a euphemism for "Not now relevant and never will be relevant"

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=393577

are you kidding ? .....laughs...

My only "agenda" around here is to try to talk all of the "empiricists" out there into becoming more "idealistic" like us mathematicians.

oh ! you have agenda...
oh so romantic ideas...

 

[RUTA]

I read the paper http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00003247/" , and I got the creepy 'MWI feeling'. (Is RUTA the author? If that’s the case – no offence.)

Yes, I'm one of the authors (the physicist, Stuckey). I've never tried to hide my identity, you can easily figure out who I am from the personal info on my profile and I've posted my name in other threads. I don't like to make comments in any context that I won't stand behind, I even demand my name accompany all my referee reports.

I hope you don't think RBW is a version of MWI. If so, we failed miserably :-)

Feels like we get rid of one strange phenomenon, by the cost of an almost stranger 'beast':
Not only reality gets a blow, the arrow of time is a non-question.

I admit, you're right, the RBW ontology is a "strange beast." It's contrary to everything people want in an "explanation," i.e., entities moving in space as a function of time. It may be Hilbert space or Fock space, etc, but people want a story about some'thing' moving in some space. RBW is a rule for co-constructing space, time and matter, and this rule is not a story about matter in spacetime.

(RUTA, are you there?) What happens if want to set up my personal "Omelet Experiment"? Are the past, present and future just 'there' in the "Omelet Experiment"? How do we turn the omelet into eggs?

Certainly, any story about eggs is best told using classical mechanics. However, at the most fundamental level, RBW says the eggs are not subatomic particles or quantum waves interacting via forces, i.e., matter in spacetime. At the fundamental level, one must follow the RBW rule for co-constructing space, time and matter to obtain a spacetimematter view of the phenomenon in question. This is done with a distribution of relations over the appropriate graph. If one wants to study the distribution of individual relations, one is doing quantum physics. If one wants to study the behavior of trans-temporal objects in spacetime, one uses the average values of the relations and is doing classical physics.

 

[DrChinese]

Are the past, present and future just 'there' in the "Omelet Experiment"? How do we turn the omelet into eggs?

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The problem is that our way of seeing things creates problems where there may be none. Remember Zeno's paradox? Same kind of issue, where we "prove" something is impossible.

In RBW, time is essentially treated as symmetric and c is respected. Events have no cause. So pick your poison.

 

[zonde]

Okay, so Eddington's 1919 solar eclipse experiment were actually disproving Newton, not confirming Einstein??

Confirming GR - yes. Proving GR - no.
About Newton it is not quite disproving as well. Thats because it's still usable and GR is no a match in usability for simple cases. So it's rather establishing domain of applicability for Newton theory.

Sounds logical. What don’t sound logical is that every scientist in the 'EPR business' is making the same 'correlated' mistake...??

Yes that seems strange. So for me it's part of the puzle.
My version is that approaching LHV limit has similar manifestation as presence of experimental imperfections so that without explicit quantitative analysis you can't separate two effects.
Or more detailed version is that sucessful violation of Bell inequalities requires as low as possible coincidence rate for equal settings but any experimenter assumes (quite naturally) that any increase in coincidence rate for equal settings is result of imperfections (decoherence) and does not bother to do quantitative analysis.
And that way it does not seem so strange anymore.

Yeah, that is funny! The question is – Is it Einstein, Aspect & Bell wearing the tin foil hat, or is it "someone" else??

No, it's the one who talks about non-locality as proven thing.

Could you please explain how you fit in contextual LHV with this slide from Alain Aspect:

My explanation is that QM works for ensembles in deterministic way and for idividual particles in probabilistic way.
So when we use detector at say 10% efficiency we acctualy are detecting small ensembles of 10 photons on average. After each "click" detector state is washed away and detection process starts anew from base state.
If you increase detector efficiency you decrease ensemble size of individual detection and approach probabilistic limit.
That way QM prediction with interference term present is for the limit of infinite ensemble size for each detection but classical product state (like QM prediction but without interference term) is for the limit of ensemble size of 1 (100% efficiency limit).
In other words it depends from the influence of ensemble on measurement context versus influence of local randomness.

Two probabilities I am talking about:
$$P_{QM}(\alpha,\beta) = \frac{1}{2}sin^{2}\alpha\, sin^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}\alpha\, cos^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{4}sin 2\alpha\, sin 2\beta = \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}(\alpha-\beta)$$
$$P_{C}(\alpha,\beta) = \frac{1}{2}sin^{2}\alpha\, sin^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}\alpha\, cos^{2}\beta$$
Second equation is classical product of probabilities and does not produce 0 coincidence rate for all matching angles.

 

[DrChinese]

My explanation is that QM works for ensembles in deterministic way and for idividual particles in probabilistic way.
So when we use detector at say 10% efficiency we acctualy are detecting small ensembles of 10 photons on average. After each "click" detector state is washed away and detection process starts anew from base state.
If you increase detector efficiency you decrease ensemble size of individual detection and approach probabilistic limit.
That way QM prediction with interference term present is for the limit of infinite ensemble size for each detection but classical product state (like QM prediction but without interference term) is for the limit of ensemble size of 1 (100% efficiency limit).
In other words it depends from the influence of ensemble on measurement context versus influence of local randomness.

Two probabilities I am talking about:
$$P_{QM}(\alpha,\beta) = \frac{1}{2}sin^{2}\alpha\, sin^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}\alpha\, cos^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{4}sin 2\alpha\, sin 2\beta = \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}(\alpha-\beta)$$
$$P_{C}(\alpha,\beta) = \frac{1}{2}sin^{2}\alpha\, sin^{2}\beta + \frac{1}{2}cos^{2}\alpha\, cos^{2}\beta$$
Second equation is classical product of probabilities and does not produce 0 coincidence rate for all matching angles.

That isn't so. There is absolutely no evidence (cite it if you think I am wrong) whatsoever that the classical Product state is the limit as efficiency approaches 100%.

 

[yoda jedi]

Are the past, present and future just 'there' in the "Omelet Experiment"? How do we turn the omelet into eggs?

the REALITY is poly-ordered or omni-ordered, can coexist (in principle or possibily) the past, present and the future.

establishes order without time (no determinism or a convoluted determinism, non chronological determinism).
(nonlocal determinism requires nonlocal influences in time ordered manner).

....​

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Yes, I'm one of the authors (the physicist, Stuckey).

That is cool! Physics Forums is a fantastic place (except when they ban friends ), where people "like me" get a chance to talk with the "source" of what may be the next 'paradigm' in science. PF = + :!)

I hope you don't think RBW is a version of MWI. If so, we failed miserably :-)

Nonono! I am a layman, but I FGS hope that a least three neurons, or so, are properly wired...

When I say "creepy MWI feeling" I mean the feeling you get when smart people have build a model of the world that seems to work just fine – and could be the real solution – it still feels like you landed a bit 'uncomfortably' in a weird mix of; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest + The Exorcist + The Matrix + Alice in Wonderland... ()

I admit, you're right, the RBW ontology is a "strange beast." It's contrary to everything people want in an "explanation," i.e., entities moving in space as a function of time. It may be Hilbert space or Fock space, etc, but people want a story about some'thing' moving in some space. RBW is a rule for co-constructing space, time and matter, and this rule is not a story about matter in spacetime.

Think I got it... When you move from A to B, you’re not moving a distance in space – you’re moving in spacetimematter, right? Still it’s weird... do you mean there is no way to 'filter out' just space (to 'move around' in)... we always carry the 'whole package'...?

Certainly, any story about eggs is best told using classical mechanics. However, at the most fundamental level, RBW says the eggs are not subatomic particles or quantum waves interacting via forces, i.e., matter in spacetime.
...
If one wants to study the distribution of individual relations, one is doing quantum physics. If one wants to study the behavior of trans-temporal objects in spacetime, one uses the average values of the relations and is doing classical physics.

And this is exactly what’s so weird, if we imagine subatomic particles in the 'QM world' as Lego bricks:

And the macroscopic 'Classical world' as the 'stuff' built by Lego bricks:

[PLAIN]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Trafalgar_legoland_Copyright2003KTai.jpg

And realize that a single Lego brick obey Law of Nature I, and a complete Lego building obey Law of Nature II, then IMO we do have some sort of 'problem'... especially if I & II is somewhat a contradiction...

Personally, I can only see two ways out of this:

1) Law of Nature I (QM) is incomplete.

2) Our brains are 'incomplete' and are fooling us all the time and every day – the world doesn’t work the way we perceive it (="creepy MWI feeling").


PS: What’s your opinion on various attempts to scale up superposition to macroscopic scale (cooling of billions of atoms), will it ever work...? And if it works, could we thereby learn anything more about "Law of Nature I"...?

 

[DevilsAvocado]

Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I dunno? I just want an omelet!

Seriously, the "Arrow of Time" is a macro/micro 'problem', as RUTA points out, but it’s nevertheless very strange...

Remember Zeno's paradox? Same kind of issue, where we "prove" something is impossible.

You mean "Achilles and the tortoise"? But, if I'm not mistaken, Richard Feynman in "The Feynman Lectures on Physics" solves this paradox in a couple of sec using infinitesimals... I could be wrong though...

Events have no cause.

We do know "one guy" who absolutely suffers bad right now from this very fact...

 

[DevilsAvocado]

does not bother to do quantitative analysis.

I’m sorry zonde, but this doesn’t make any sense. I watched a lecture by Alain Aspect, where the audience could ask questions afterwards, and Aspect gets the question:

"You said that when you got the result from your first experiment in 1982, you wished that you would not get the result, that perfectly matched the predicted (QM) curve – What had you wished you would get??"

Aspect explains that, in today’s perspective, he wished that the result had not matched the predictions of QM, because that would mean that he had found the limit of QM – which would be fantastic! And Aspect is convinced that this will happen one day.

Therefore, your "not bother" assumption is quite farfetched. The man or woman, who does find this limit of QM will get a Nobel, lots of fame, and money – besides the scientific thrill and satisfaction.

To "not bother" in this case, is to not be a real scientist. I’m sorry.

No, it's the one who talks about non-locality as proven thing.

That must be Alain Aspect!

My explanation is that QM works for ensembles in deterministic way and for idividual particles in probabilistic way.

This sounds like the "Ensemble Interpretation". IMO you have trouble explaining the double slit experiment, that interference fringes seen require repeated trials to be observed. We all know it’s going to be there, and the first and last electron can have no knowledge of any "Ensemble", unless you want to introduce "spooky action in time"...!?

I think DrC can handle this better than me.


Edit: I think it’s a mistake to do a parable to macroscopic objects like an "ensemble of billiard balls", that acts in a deterministic way – photons are not "billiard balls" whether it’s one or googolplex photons – HUP run the business in both cases.

 

[DevilsAvocado]

the REALITY is poly-ordered or omni-ordered, can coexist (in principle or possibily) the past, present and the future.

Okay yoda jedi, can you help me reconvert my omelet into 4 eggs, I want to return to the past future?

 

[RUTA]

When I say "creepy MWI feeling" I mean the feeling you get when smart people have build a model of the world that seems to work just fine – and could be the real solution – it still feels like you landed a bit 'uncomfortably' in a weird mix of; One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest + The Exorcist + The Matrix + Alice in Wonderland... ()

Unfortunately for us, your reaction is typical :-)

Think I got it... When you move from A to B, you’re not moving a distance in space – you’re moving in spacetimematter, right? Still it’s weird... do you mean there is no way to 'filter out' just space (to 'move around' in)... we always carry the 'whole package'...?

I'm afraid it's worse -- there is no "movement," of any 'thing' any 'where'. When you want to describe an experiment, you have to do so as an entire block of spacetime (when dealing with past, present and future "at once" you've what is called "blockworld"). And, instead of placing material objects (beam splitters, mirrors, source, detectors, etc) into the otherwise empty spacetime block, you have to explicitly build those objects "concurrently" with their spacetime. This means there is no empty spacetime -- there are no material objects without space and time, and there are no space and time without material objects. This is just a relational view of spacetime.

And this is exactly what’s so weird, if we imagine subatomic particles in the 'QM world' as Lego bricks

There are no "quantum objects" (sometimes referred to as "screened off" objects) in our interpretation -- all material objects have trajectories and are therefore "classical." However, you don't model objects via ever smaller objects, you build them with their commensurate spacetime using graphical relations in an "all at once" (blockworld) fashion. Just look at the first four figures of our QFT paper in the arXiv.

And realize that a single Lego brick obey Law of Nature I, and a complete Lego building obey Law of Nature II, then IMO we do have some sort of 'problem'... especially if I & II is somewhat a contradiction...

When you want to explore the distribution of relations comprising some objects (typically, beam splitters, sources, detectors, etc), then you're doing quantum physics. If you want to discuss large-scale average behavior, then you're doing classical physics. Again, look at those first four figures and their captions. The two formalisms are distinct, but there is no "Schnitt" or quantum "cut" between two ontologically distinct realms. The classical (average) description gets better with larger collections of relations, just as the accuracy of thermodynamics as an average from statistical mechanics gets better with more particles, even though you can talk about pressure and temperature when dealing with a single particle.

Personally, I can only see two ways out of this:

1) Law of Nature I (QM) is incomplete.

2) Our brains are 'incomplete' and are fooling us all the time and every day – the world doesn’t work the way we perceive it (="creepy MWI feeling").

I don't know what the "right" answer is. All I can say is that our interpretation solves all the quantum mysteries and is now being used to solve those of QFT as well. If it's successful (ultimately accounts for all quantum and all classical phenomena), then we're stuck with an adynamical picture. I don't care what the picture is as long as it accounts for all our experiments in a coherent fashion. We don't have such a picture now, so we must switch between incongruous pictures when working in formally incongruous theories (quantum and GR).

PS: What’s your opinion on various attempts to scale up superposition to macroscopic scale (cooling of billions of atoms), will it ever work...? And if it works, could we thereby learn anything more about "Law of Nature I"...?

Zeilinger has created interference patterns with buckyballs (buckminsterfullerene C60, a molecule with 60 carbon atoms). I don't think there is a Schnitt, you can create interference patterns with elephants if you can "screen them off."