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PDF (double-sided) - Physics Department, UCSB - University of ...

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He does not throw dice” [Einstein et al., 1971], which is commonly paraphrased<br />

as “God does not play dice with the universe”. The fact that quantum mechanics<br />

does not provide a way to predict outcomes <strong>of</strong> all possible measurements with<br />

certainty lead to the suspicion that quantum mechanics had to be incomplete [Einstein<br />

et al., 1935], i.e. the wave-function representation <strong>of</strong> a system’s state does<br />

not contain all relevant information about the system. To complete the theory,<br />

a way must be found to capture the missing information in extra variables, <strong>of</strong>ten<br />

called “hidden variables” as they could not be measured. A deterministic alternate<br />

theory to quantum mechanics would therefore be called a “Hidden Variable<br />

Theory” (HVT).<br />

10.1.2 Is Quantum Mechanics Wrong?<br />

In 1964, John S. Bell investigated the theoretical implications <strong>of</strong> a possible<br />

local HVT and showed that quantum mechanics could not be derived from such<br />

a theory to arbitrary accuracy [Bell, 1964]. With this, a hidden variable theory<br />

could no longer be a compatible extension to quantum mechanics, but would<br />

instead refute quantum mechanics altogether.<br />

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