Quantum Nonlocality And Reality

A collaboration between distinguished physicists and philosophers of physics, this important anthology surveys the deep implications of Bell's nonlocality theorem.

The third edition of Quantum Non-Locality and Relativity has been carefully updated to reflect significant developments, including a new chapter covering important recent work in the foundations of physics. A new edition of the premier philosophical study of Bell’s Theorem and its implication for the relativistic account of space and time Discusses Roderich Tumiulka’s explicit, relativistic theory that can reproduce the quantum mechanical violation of Bell’s inequality. Discusses the "Free Will Theorem" of John Conway and Simon Kochen Introduces philosophers to the relevant physics and demonstrates how philosophical analysis can help inform physics

Quantum physics is believed to be the fundamental theory underlying our understanding of the physical universe. However, it is based on concepts and principles that have always been difficult to understand and controversial in their interpretation. This book aims to explain these issues using a minimum of technical language and mathematics. After a brief introduction to the ideas of quantum physics, the problems of interpretation are identified and explained. The rest of the book surveys, describes and criticises a range of suggestions that have been made with the aim of resolving these problems; these include the traditional, or 'Copenhagen' interpretation, the possible role of the conscious mind in measurement, and the postulate of parallel universes. This new edition has been revised throughout to take into account developments in this field over the past fifteen years, including the idea of 'consistent histories' to which a completely new chapter is devoted.

This clearly explained layman's introduction to quantum physics is an accessible excursion into metaphysics and the meaning of reality. Herbert exposes the quantum world and the scientific and philosophical controversy about its interpretation.

The nonlocality phenomena exhibited by entangled quantum systems are certainly one of the most extraordinary aspects of quantum theory. This book discusses this phe nomenon according to several points of view, i.e., according to different interpretations of the mathematics of the quantum formalism. The several interpretations of the Copenhagen interpretation, the many worlds, the de Broglie-Bohm, quantum logics, the decohering by the environment approach and the histories approach interpretations are scrutinized and criticized in detail. Recent results on cryptography, quantum bit commitment, quantum erasers and teleportation are also presented and discussed. In preparing the book we benefited from discussions with many people, but we would like, in particular, to express our gratitude to Professor B. d'Espagnat for his useful comments and suggestions. We are grateful also to Ms. L. Gentry EI-Dash for the English revision, to Dr. 1. E. Maiorino for the production of the figures and a careful reading of the manuscript, and for the statI of Plenum for advice and for having produced a nice book. Finally, the authors thank FAPESP (contract no. I 99612657-0) for a grant making this book possible. A. A. ORIB AND W. A. RODRIGUES, JR.

Classical physics states that physical reality is local--a point in space cannot influence another point beyond a relatively short distance. However, In 1997, experiments were conducted in which light particles (photons) originated under certain conditions and traveled in opposite directions to detectors located about seven miles apart. The amazing results indicated that the photons "interacted" or "communicated" with one another instantly or "in no time." Since a distance of seven miles is quite vast in quantum physics, this led physicists to an extraordinary conclusion--even if experiments could somehow be conducted in which the distance between the detectors was half-way across the known universe, the results would indicate that interaction or communication between the photons would be instantaneous. What was revealed in these little-known experiments in 1997 is that physical reality is non-local--a discovery that Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos view as "the most momentous in the history of science." In The Non-Local Universe, Nadeau and Kafatos offer a revolutionary look at the breathtaking implications of non-locality. They argue that since every particle in the universe has been "entangled" with other particles like the two photons in the 1997 experiments, physical reality on the most basic level is an undivided wholeness. In addition to demonstrating that physical processes are vastly interdependent and interactive, they also show that more complex systems in both physics and biology display emergent properties and/or behaviors that cannot be explained in the terms of the sum of parts. One of the most startling implications of non-locality in human terms, claim the authors, is that there is no longer any basis for believing in the stark division between mind and world that has preoccupied much of western thought since the seventeenth century. And they also make a convincing case that human consciousness can now be viewed as emergent from and seamlessly connected with the entire cosmos. In pursuing this groundbreaking argument, the authors not only provide a fascinating history of developments that led to the discovery of non-locality and the sometimes heated debate between the great scientists responsible for these discoveries. They also argue that advances in scientific knowledge have further eroded the boundaries between physics and biology, and that recent studies on the evolution of the human brain suggest that the logical foundations of mathematics and ordinary language are much more similar than we previously imagined. What this new knowledge reveals, the authors conclude, is that the connection between mind and nature is far more intimate than we previously dared to imagine. What they offer is a revolutionary look at the implications of non-locality, implications that reach deep into that most intimate aspect of humanity--consciousness.

In July 2006, a major international conference was held at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada, to celebrate the career and work of a remarkable man of letters. Abner Shimony, who is well known for his pioneering contributions to foundations of quantum mechanics, is a physicist as well as a philosopher, and is highly respected among the intellectuals of both communities. In line with Shimony’s conviction that philosophical investigation is not to be divorced from theoretical and empirical work in the sciences, the conference brought together leading theoretical physicists, experimentalists, as well as philosophers. This book collects twenty-three original essays stemming from the conference, on topics including history and methodology of science, Bell's theorem, probability theory, the uncertainty principle, stochastic modifications of quantum mechanics, and relativity theory. It ends with a transcript of a fascinating discussion between Lee Smolin and Shimony, ranging over the entire spectrum of Shimony's wide-ranging contributions to philosophy, science, and philosophy of science.

Modern physics was born from two great revolutions: relativity and the quantum theory. Relativity imposed a locality constraint on physical theories: since nothing can go faster than light, very distant events cannot influence one another. Only in the last few decades has it become clear that the quantum theory violates this constraint. The work of J.S. Bell has demonstrated that no local theory can return the predictions of quantum theory. Thus it would seem that the central pillars of modern physics are contradictory.