arXiv:1912.06462quant-ph
Rethinking Superdeterminism
Abstract
Quantum mechanics has irked physicists ever since its conception more than 100 years ago. While some of the misgivings, such as it being unintuitive, are merely aesthetic, quantum mechanics has one serious shortcoming: it lacks a physical description of the measurement process. This "measurement problem" indicates that quantum mechanics is at least an incomplete theory -- good as far as it goes, but missing a piece -- or, more radically, is in need of complete overhaul. Here we describe an approach which may provide this sought-for completion or replacement: Superdeterminism. A superdeterministic theory is one which violates the assumption of Statistical Independence (that distributions of hidden variables are independent of measurement settings). Intuition suggests that Statistical Independence is an essential ingredient of any theory of science (never mind physics), and for this reason Superdeterminism is typically discarded swiftly in any discussion of quantum foundations. The purpose of this paper is to explain why the existing objections to Superdeterminism are based on experience with classical physics and linear systems, but that this experience misleads us. Superdeterminism is a promising approach not only to solve the measurement problem, but also to understand the apparent nonlocality of quantum physics. Most importantly, we will discuss how it may be possible to test this hypothesis in an (almost) model independent way.
Funny, a couple of days ago I googled about superdeterminism again to see if there are any developments and came across Hossenfelder's and Palmer's paper on arxiv https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06462 . Strangely enough, even though I've studied theoretical Physics, the fact that…
GrieverheartView on HNParent context
No, you actually can. The authors of this article discuss the issue more in their longer paper here: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06462 The idea is that superdeterminstic theories are deterministic, while quantum mechanical measurements are random, so you should be able to set up…
vilhelm_sView on HNParent context
All these people working on the foundations of quantum mechanics must somehow have missed the fact that quantum mechanics has been superseded by quantum field theory. Quantum field theory resolves basically all of the typically interpretation of quantum mechanics questions in a…
orbifoldView on HNParent context
Hossenfelder and Palmer have a nice, accessible paper about it: https://arxiv.org/abs/1912.06462 It makes a strong case IMHO that there is some meat here. The main idea is that Bell inequalities make ~4 assumptions, which Hossenfelder and Palmer argue can be meanifully weakened…
xelxebarView on HNParent context