Einstein held that the formalism of quantum mechanics involves “spooky actions at a distance.” In the 1960s, Bell amplified this by showing that the predictions of quantum mechanics disagree with the results of any locally causal description. It should be appreciated that accepting nonlocal descriptions while retaining causality leads to a clash with relativity. Furthermore, the causal arrow of time by definition contradicts time-reversal symmetry. For these reasons, Wheeler and Feynman, Costa de Beauregard, Cramer, Price, and others have advocated abandoning microscopic causality. In this paper, a simplistic but concrete example of this line of thought is presented, in the form of a retro-causal toy model that is stochastic and provides an appealing description of the quantum correlations discussed by Bell. It is concluded that Einstein’s “spooky actions” may occur “in the past” rather than “at a distance,” resolving the tension between quantum mechanics and relativity and opening unexplored possibilities for future reformulations of quantum mechanics.
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October 2010
PAPERS|
October 01 2010
Bell’s theorem and the causal arrow of time
Nathan Argaman
Nathan Argaman
a)
Department of Physics,
Nuclear Research Center—Negev
, P.O. Box 9001, Be’er Sheva 84190, Israel
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Electronic mail: argaman@mailaps.org
Am. J. Phys. 78, 1007–1013 (2010)
Article history
Received:
February 11 2009
Accepted:
June 03 2010
Citation
Nathan Argaman; Bell’s theorem and the causal arrow of time. Am. J. Phys. 1 October 2010; 78 (10): 1007–1013. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.3456564
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