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Re: [Phys-l] paper: "The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically"



Some physicists have recently said that they are not totally satisfied that 'quantum entanglement' has been satisfactorily demonstrated (via Bell's Inequality) in the lab.

Is this pertinent to this paper's discussion?

Are these skeptical physicists just wacko?


At 11:56 AM -0700 11/18/11, John Denker wrote:
Hi --

Have y'all seen this?
http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/1111.3328

The quantum state cannot be interpreted statistically
Matthew F. Pusey, Jonathan Barrett, Terry Rudolph
(Submitted on 14 Nov 2011)

Quantum states are the key mathematical objects in quantum theory. It
is therefore surprising that physicists have been unable to agree on
what a quantum state represents. There are at least two opposing
schools of thought, each almost as old as quantum theory itself. One
is that a pure state is a physical property of system, much like
position and momentum in classical mechanics. Another is that even a
pure state has only a statistical significance, akin to a probability
distribution in statistical mechanics. Here we show that, given only
very mild assumptions, the statistical interpretation of the quantum
state is inconsistent with the predictions of quantum theory. This
result holds even in the presence of small amounts of experimental
noise, and is therefore amenable to experimental test using present
or near-future technology. If the predictions of quantum theory are
confirmed, such a test would show that distinct quantum states must
correspond to physically distinct states of reality.

It's been getting a lot of press in the last day or so, e.g.
http://www.nature.com/news/quantum-theorem-shakes-foundations-1.9392

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