What Does It Mean?

From the Afterword of D J Griffiths Introduction

to Quantum Mechanics

Da Big Question
Did

the physical system actually have the

eigenvalue in question prior to the
measurement? (REALIST)
OR
Did the act of measurement create the
eigenvalue (constrained by the wavefunction)?
(ORTHODOX)
OR
Can we completely duck the question?
(AGNOSTIC)
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Realist View
If

the realist view is true, QM is an

incomplete theory because:
Even

if you know everything that QM has to

tell you about the system, you STILL cannot
determine all of its features!

Orthodox Position
Measurement

forces the system to

make a stand helping create an
attribute that was not there previously
Since repeated measurements yield the
same result, the act of measurement
collapses the wavefunctions.
This is strange but not mystical

Agnostic Response
I

refuse to answer
I ignore these problems

EPR Paradox
1935-

Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen came up

with the EPR Paradox
Designed to prove that the realist postion is
the only possible one
A simplified version goes like this:

Assume that a pion at rest decays into an electron

and positron

0->e- + e+

The positron and electron fly off in opposite

directions and the pion has spin=0
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EPR Contd

Since pion is spin 0,

then electron and
positron are in singlet
configuration |00>
So if the positron is spin
up then electron must be
down or vice versa.
QM cant tell you which
you will get, but that they
will be correlated

1

2

Movin On Up to the Big Time, the

Deluxe Apartment in the Sky!
Now

one)

move the electron far apart (pick

10

meters
10 light years

Now

say you measure electron spin

down, then IMMEDIATELY you know
that the positron is spin up
BTW, this is an INSTANTANEOUS
knowledge!
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The 3 views again

Realist:

This is not surprising, the

positron was always up since the decay
Orthodox: Hmmm electron was
neither up or down until measurement.
The measurement caused the wave
function to collapse and that knowledge
was transmitted instantaneously across
the gulf to the corresponding particle.
Agnostic: I dont have an opinion
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EPR Says
Orthodox

view is spooky action at a

distance
Ergo, says EPR, the realist have it
correct and the spins were
predetermined at the decay
Of course, this is all predicated on the
argument that nothing, not even
information, can go faster than the speed
of light called the principle of locality
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Bells Thm
EPR

did not doubt that QM is correct, just

incomplete
Some other hidden variable is needed to
completely quantify the system.

The hidden variable could be a single number or a

whole collection of numbers; it doesnt matter

J.

S. Bell proved that ANY hidden variable

theory is INCOMPATIBLE with QM

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The Gedunken
Instead

of having the electron and positron

detectors along the same direction, allow them
to be rotated independently
The first detector measures the component of
the electron spin in the direction of unit vector
a and the second along the direction of b
For simplicity, we will record the spins as +1
(up) and -1(down)
e-

e+
b
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The Results of the Experiment

electron positron product

+1

-1

-1

+1

+1

+1

-1

+1

-1

+1

-1

-1

-1

-1

+1

Bell proposed to
calculate the average
value of the product of
the spins called P(a,b)
If detectors are parallel,
then we have original
EPR configuration so
always +1 and -1 and
therefore P(a,a)= -1
(and so is the average)

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However
If

they are anti-parallel, then P(a,-a)=+1

For any arbitrary orientation then
P(a,b)=-a b
This result is IMPOSSIBLE for any
hidden variable theory

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Why?
Assume,

that the hidden variable is called k

k varies in some way that we neither
understand nor control from one decay to the
next
Suppose that the outcome of the electron
measurement is independent of the orientation
(b) of the positron detector. b is chosen after
the decay but before measurement of electron
and thus is hindered by speed of light (locality
condition).
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Lets do some math

So

there is a function A(a,k) which gives

the result of the electron measurement
and B(b,k) which gives the result of the
positron measurement
A(a,k)=+/- 1 and B(b,k)=+/-1
When detectors are aligned, the results
are perfectly anti-correlated A(a,k)=B(b,k) for all k
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So
P (a, b) (k ) A(a, k ) B (b, k )dk
Where rho is the probability density of k
Now lets eliminate B(b,k) by using our
correlation function

P (a, b) (k ) A(a, k ) A(a, k )dk

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If c is an other unit vector then

P (a, b) P (a, c) (k )[ A(a, k ) A(b, k ) A(a, k ) A(c, k )]dk
Since [ A(b, k )]2 1 :
P (a, b) P (a, c) (k )[1 A(b, k ) A(c, k )] A(a, k ) A(b, k )dk

Since 1 [ A(a, k ) A(b, k )] 1 and

(k )[1 A(b, k ) A(c, k )] 0

P (a, b) P (a, c) (k )[1 A(b, k ) A(c, k )]dk
P (a, b) P (a, c) 1 P (b, c)
Bells Inequality:
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|P(a,b)-P(a,c)|<= 1+P(b,c)
It

is easy to show that P(a,b)=-ab (the

QM prediction) is incompatible with Bells
Inequality
Suppose all three vectors, a, b, and c lie
in a plane with c at 450 to a and b (a
perpendicular to b)
Then P(a,b)=0 and P(a,c)=P(b,c)=-.707
Obviously .707 is not greater than 10.707 (.293)
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But What does it Mean?

If EPR is correct, then QM is completely WRONG!

On the other hand, NO hidden variable is going to
rescue us from the nonlocality that Einstein considered
preposterous
Many experiments were performed to test Bells
inequality: the results were compatible with QM and
incompatible with Bells Inequality
In other words, the realists are wrong and there is
spooky action at a distance
Or in the lingo: there is the possibility of superluminal
influences

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Supernaturally Superluminal
A causal

influence that propagates faster than

light is bad news

Because relativity says that anything going faster

than light is going backward in time!

Faster

than light things: any geometric point

We dont get upset that geometric points move

faster than light

So

is this influence casual or is just information

like a geometric point?
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Two types of influence

Causal:

subluminal or luminal
ethereal: neither energy or information
and for which the only evidence is a
correlation in the data of two different
subsystems

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Here, kitty, kitty .

What

is a measurement and why is it so

different from other physical processes?
And how can we tell when a
measurement has occurred?
Schroedinger attempted to answer this
in his famous thought experiment
formally titled The cat paradox

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The Cat Paradox

A cat is placed in steel chamber, together with the following
hellish contraption: In a Geiger counter there is a tiny
amount of radioactive material so tiny that maybe within 1
hour one of the atoms decays but equally probable none of
them decays. If one decays then the counter triggers and
via a relay activates a little hammer which breaks a container
of cyanide. If one has let this entire system for one hour,
then one would say the cat is living if no atom has decayed.
The first decay would have poisoned it. The wave function
of the entire system would express this by containing equal
parts of the living and dead cat. At then end of an hour, the
wave function of the cat has the form of

( Alive Dead )
2
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Its ALIVE! Its Dead! Etc. etc.

So

according to the paradox, the cat is

trapped between life and death: a linear
combination until
You look! And the cat is:
ALIVE:

You saved it by measuring it

DEAD: You killed it by measuring it
Schroedinger

thought this whole blame

game was nonsense
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Out of the Paradox

Most widely accepted answer: the Geiger counter is

the measurer, not you and it will make the statistical
determination, not you
Wigner and others say that it is the intervention of
human consciousness that constitutes measurement
in QM
Wigner was Diracs brother in law and was associated
with the Maharishi Institute and the Natural Law party.
Unfortunately, the term measurement seems to imply
human intervention but it does is not necessarily so

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My Answer to All These Difficult

Dilemmas

I refuse to answer.

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