Just a quick reminder that the next seminar in the Foundations of Physics seminar series will be this Wednesday the 27th of May at 11:30am in the philosophy common room in the Main Quad building.
Speaking will be Jossi Berkovitz "On Fine's interpretation of Bell's theorem." Abstract: Famously, Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (1935) argued that quantum mechanics is incomplete. In his celebrated theorem, Bell considers the complete theory EPR had in mind, the so-called local 'hidden-variables' theories. He demonstrates that, granted certain plausible assumptions, any such local theory predicts that the probabilities of measurement outcomes in the EPR/Bohm experiment will be constrained by the Bell inequalities, which are violated by standard quantum mechanics. The violation of these inequalities is usually interpreted as implying that the quantum realm involves some type of non-local influences. Arthur Fine (1982) challenges this interpretation. He argues that what the Bell inequalities are all about is the dubious requirement of making "well defined precisely those probability distributions for non-commuting observables whose rejection is the very essence of quantum mechanics". In this paper, we argue that Fine's challenge is unsuccessful. Hope to see you all there, Pete --- Peter Evans Centre for Time University of Sydney
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