Re: A quote concerning randomness

From: Bill Unruh (unruh_at_string.physics.ubc.ca)
Date: 10/11/04 

Date: 11 Oct 2004 08:28:20 GMT

Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> writes:

]Bill Unruh wrote:

]> Mok-Kong Shen <mok-kong.shen@t-online.de> writes:
]>
]>
]> ]The following is quoted from a popular-scientific article of
]> ]Ian Stewart in New Scientist, 25th September, entitled 'In
]> ]the lap of the Gods':
]>
]> ] As far as most physicists are concerned, experiments based
]> ] on Bell's work have confirmed that, in quantum systems,
]> ] randomness -- and the bizarre "action at a distance" --
]> ] rules. ......... Bell's work, though brilliant, is not as
]> ] conclusive as they imagine. ......... mathematical theorems
]> ] involve assumptions. Bell makes his main assumptions
]> ] explicit, but the proof of his theorems involves some
]> ] implicit assumptions too. ......... Time Palmer .........
]> ] has published a paper in which he explains these implicit
]> ] assumptions. ......... His paper also shows that the
]> ] observed properties of the quantum world are consistent
]> ] with deterministic hidden-variable theories that allow
]> ] only "local" influence, rather than an ability to influence
]> ] systems from the other side of the universe. .........
]> ] So, despite the vast weight of opinion, the door is still
]> ] open for a deterministic explanation of quantum
]> ] indeterminancy.
]>
]>
]> You should read the papers themselves.
]>
]> www.arxiv.org--quant-ph/0404041 and quant-ph/0205053
]>
]> They have nothing to do with predictability, just what he calls
]> indeterminacy. Quantum mechanics also does not have "an ability to
]> influence systems from the other side of the universe."
]> This is a standard misreading of Bell, sometimes promulgated by people who
]> should know better in order to make QM seem more sexy.

]Do you think Stewart (who is a mathematician not a physicist,
]as far as I am aware) gravely erred on the topic? In that case
]it would be nice that you write a letter to the editor of New
]Scientist to correct his mistaken message to a wide public
](since that periodical is quite widely read).

That would be the sixth unpublished letter in as many months. New Scientist
is getting to be highly unreliable on quantum matters.

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