Abstract
The origins of the thought experiment that became the basis for the actual experiments testing the predictions of Bell’s theorem can be traced to central issues in a debate between Bohr and Einstein. This debate began at the fifth Solvay Congress in 1927 and continued intermittently until Einstein’s death in 1955. The argument took the form of thought experiments in which Einstein would try to demonstrate that it was theoretically possible to measure, or at least determine precise values for, two complementary constructs in quantum physics, like position and momentum, simultaneously. Bohr would then respond with a careful analysis of the conditions and results in Einstein’s thought experiments and demonstrate that there were fundamental ambiguities he had failed to resolve. Although both men would have despised the use of the term, Bohr was the “winner” on all counts. Eventually, the dialog revolved around the issue of “realism,” and it is this issue that Einstein felt would decide the correctness of quantum theory.
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We may safely say that nonseparability is now one of the most certain general concepts in physics.
Bernard d’Espagnat
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Reffences
Abraham Pais, Subtle is the Lord( New York: Oxford University Press, 1982 )
A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?” Physical Review, 1935, 47, p. 777. Paper was reprinted in Physical Reality, ed. S. Toulmin (New York: Harper and Row, 1970).
Albert Einstein, Ibid.
Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, An Excursion into Metaphysics and the Meaning of Reality (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1987), p. 216ff.
Bernard d’Espagnat, Physical Review Letters, 1981, 49, p. 1804
See A. Aspect, J. Dalibard, and G. Roger, Physical Review Letters, 1981, 47, p. 460
See Henry P. Stapp, “Quantum Physics and the Physicist’s View of Nature: Philosophical Implications of Bell’s Theorem,” in The World View of Contemporary Physics, ed. Richard E. Kitchener (Albany, N.Y.: S.U.N.Y. Press, 1988 ), p. 40
D.M. Greenberger, M.A. Home, and A. Zeilinger, “Going Beyond Bell’s Theorem,” in Bell’s Theorem, Quantum Theory and Conceptions of the Universe, ed. M. Kafatos (Dordrecht, Holland: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989 ), pp. 69–72
See Bernard d’Espagnat, In Search of Reality (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1981), pp. 43–8.
N. David Mermin, “Extreme Quantum Entanglement in a Superposition of Macroscopically Distinct States” Physical Review Letters, October 3, 1990, 65, no. 15, pp. 1838–40
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Kafatos, M., Nadeau, R. (2000). Confronting a New Fact of Nature: Bell’s Theorem and the Aspect and Gisin Experiments. In: The Conscious Universe. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1308-6_4
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