From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: temporally undecided states (was: hidden variables)
Date: 2 Jan 93 17:22:45 GMT
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga. CA 95070

In article <1993Jan2.055743.26499@asl.dl.nec.com>, terry@asl.dl.nec.com writes:
> In article <461@mtnmath.UUCP> paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik) writes:
> 
> > ... I believe there is a serious problem with the current QM model when
> > you start asking what happens in the time domain in tests of Bell's
> > inequality... At what time does QM predict that one will see a change in
> > probability of joint detections as a result of changing the angles between
> > polarizers? QM does not make a clear prediction about this.
> 
> You are correct;  QM does not (to my knowledge at least) make any statements
> about the "timing" of such things.  But more subtly, QM implies that such
> questions have no real physical significance -- that is, they do not lead to
> any testable predictions.  If you try to "find" the order of events though
> any kind of direct testing, poof! -- the very act of trying to force such
> timing issues to be physically meaningful causes the events to cease to be
> quantum in nature.

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. The way to do this is to record the
times when the polarizers change and to record the sequence of detections
at both sites. This must be repeated for a large number of trials. It is
a technically difficult experiment because the delays will be dominated by
the lack of synchronization between when singlet state particles are emitted
and when the polarizer angles change. One can factor this out statistically
to some degree, but one would like to have the particles emitted rapidly to
minimize this effect. If they are emitted too rapidly it becomes difficult
to distinguish joint detections from detections of two separate singlet state
pairs of particles.

In spite of these technical difficulties the experiment can be done and
will yield some definite probability distribution for these delays.
Quantum mechanics does *not* predict what the distribution of these delays
are. It is an provably incomplete theory. That QM fails to predict
these delays casts considerable doubt on its prediction that locality is
violated. I now have a paper under review that makes this case. I am very
interrested in any refutations of this argument.

> 
>                   TEMPORALLY UNDECIDED QUANTUM STATES
>[...]

You and a number of physicists have gone to some trouble to concoct various
interresting rationalizations to preserve the current framework of QM. It is
only the assumption that the wave function changes instantaneously when an
observation is made that needs rationalization. Nothing else in QM or
physics violates locality. I suspect all your efforts are in vain. Nature
has a erected a giant billboard with Bell's inequality saying:
SOMETHING IS FISHY HERE. It is just about time to stop rationalizing and
to start fishing.

Paul Budnik