Back to Search Start Over

Constraints on determinism: Bell versus Conway-Kochen

Authors :
Cator, Eric
Landsman, Klaas
Publication Year :
2014

Abstract

Bell's Theorem from 1964 and the (Strong) Free Will Theorem of Conway and Kochen from 2009 both exclude deterministic hidden variable theories (or, in modern parlance, `ontological models') that are compatible with some small fragment of quantum mechanics, admit `free' settings of the archetypal Alice & Bob experiment, and satisfy a locality condition called Parameter Independence. We clarify the relationship between these theorems by giving reformulations of both that exactly pinpoint their resemblance and their differences. Our reformulation imposes determinism in what we see as the only consistent way, in which the `ontological state' initially determines both the settings and the outcome of the experiment. The usual status of the settings as `free' parameters is subsequently recovered from independence assumptions on the pertinent (random) variables. Our reformulation also clarifies the role of the settings in Bell's later generalization of his theorem to stochastic hidden variable theories.<br />Comment: 10 pages, v2: references [19] and [37] added, footnote 2 expanded. Accepted by Foundations of Physics

Subjects

Subjects :
Quantum Physics
81Q99

Details

Database :
arXiv
Publication Type :
Report
Accession number :
edsarx.1402.1972
Document Type :
Working Paper
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-014-9815-z