Talk:Bell's theorem/Archive 4
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Bell's assumptions
Throughout this article, references are made variously to tricky philosophical concepts like hidden variables, realism and counterfactual definiteness. Indeed, these are almost all mentioned as soon as possible within the introduction. I have found a similar issue on the page "Nonlocality" and it doubtless occurs on many other pages discussing quantum foundations.
There is some debate in the literature over the exact assumptions of Bell's Theorem and many, many physicists use the term "local realism" in their papers (without really thinking about it, in my opinion). However, after some thought and research it seems apparent that the only real assumption Bell makes in his theorem, is Locality. That is, the statement of Bell's Theorem should really be:
- no physical theory satisfying locality (or local causality) can reproduce all of the predictions of quantum mechanics.
To quote Tim Maudlin (cited below):
- "Bell did prove that no local deterministic theory, no local hidden variables theory, and no local realistic theory can make The Predictions [i.e. the same predictions as quantum theory] because he proved that no local theory can make The Predictions. But the addition of the unnecessary adjective yields a highly misleading result."
Counterfactual definiteness is just as misleading. The confusion appears to have arisen out of Bell's inference that results of spin measurements in a local theory predicting EPR correlations, must be predetermined. To quote Maudlin again (he expresses the argument very succintly, so I don't feel bad about this!):
- "Bell cites exactly the EPR correlations (for any chosen direction a to measure spin) and a locality condition (“if two measurements are made at places remote from one another the orientation of one magnet does not influence the result obtained by the other”) and concludes (“it follows that”) that the theory must postulate an initial state for the particles that predetermines the results of all possible spin measurements and therefore must assign a more complete state than the singlet state. No invocation, either explicit or implicit, of any assumption of counterfactual definiteness appears in this argument. Rather, a form of counterfactual definiteness (that is, the claim that the initial state of the particles must determine what the result of any spin measurement would have been) follows from the argument."
Also, for good measure, a quote from Bell in "Bertlmann's socks..." which has the same meaning if you replace "determinism" with "counterfactual definiteness":
- “It is important to note that to the limited degree to which determinism plays a role in the EPR argument, it is not assumed but inferred. What is held sacred is the principle of ‘local causality’ or ‘no action at a distance…’ It is remarkably difficult to get this point across, that determinism is not a presupposition of the analysis."
I propose that the article replaces any mention of hidden variables, realism, counterfactual definiteness etc... with the word "locality", unless it is otherwise relevent (for instance, when discussing exactly this kind of confusion). It might be argued that since a lot of physicists explicitly use the words "local realism" this is too one-sided for Wikipedia - this annoys me since then Wikipedia is contributing greatly to the confusion. At the very least, I propose to add a section clarifying these assumptions in the context of the theorem, and outlining arguments from both sides (however much it pains me).
Sources:
- Bell's "Speakable and Unspeakable...": The papers "La Nouvelle Cuisine" and "Bertlmann's socks..." have many pertinent comments along these lines.
- Travis Norsen "Against Realism" http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0607057: cites a barrage of arguments against using words like "realism" and "counterfactual definiteness". Convincingly argued.
- Tim Maudlin "What Bell proved..." http://ajp.aapt.org/resource/1/ajpias/v78/i1/p121_s1?view=fulltext
Sabri Al-Safi (talk) 14:37, 21 March 2011 (UTC)
- Personally I think that Bell is making three assumptions.
1. Freedom, in the sense of the freedom of the experimenter to choose measurement settings. You can get mixed up in discussions of free will and or existence of physical randomness here, but the point is that there is an assumption that the measurement setting chosen at location A is not "available" at location B till after the measurement outcome there has become definitive.
2. Realism, in the sense that we are considering classical-like theories that allow us to consider at the same time not only the outcome of the measurement which was actually made, but also the outcome of the other measurement which *could* have been made.
3. Locality, in the sense that neither factual nor counterfactual outcome at location A is in any way influenced by *which* measurement was performed at location B, and vice versa.
Well, this is my own opinion, and not everyone may agree, but my point is that the word "local" has to refer to things which apparently "ought to be localized". If you reduce the number of things which you consider as "real", it is easier for a theory to be thought of as local. If you say that the outcomes of the measurements which were not done are not part of physical reality (or at least, not localized at the places where you would instinctively like to place them), there is no violation of locality at all.
One reason why I like this collection of three basic ingredients (freedom, realism, locality) is that it is the minimal set of assumptions from which one can derive the CHSH inequality. See for instance http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0208187.pdf.
Sorry to cite again my own work. I am not trying to get it cited on the wikipedia page, just trying to contribute to the discussion. Richard Gill (talk) 13:49, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- By the way, I think that "counterfactual definiteness" is simply a more technical and precise way to describe "realism". Every derivation of Bell's theorem makes assumptions which imply counterfactual definiteness. But counterfactual definiteness is enough. There is also a converse: satisfaction of all CHSH inequalities implies counterfactual definiteness.
I agree though, that Maudlin would disagree. On the other and, plenty of authorities agree (Mermin, Gisin, ...).
The issue is complicated by the fact that the quantum predictions in the singlet state include a perfect anti-correlation when the same measurement is done on both particles. This allows one to bring in the EPR reality criterion as a way, assuming locality, to argue for counterfactual definiteness. But it is for good reasons that Bell moved from his original argument to an argument based on CHSH. His model assumptions, which he makes on general physical grounds, imply counterfactual definiteness. And as I mentioned, with locality and freedom assumed, counterfactual definiteness is necessary and sufficient for CHSH. Richard Gill (talk) 17:00, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Joy Christian
I put this man's name in to replace a [who?] tag. It has now been removed and the man has been called a "fringe lunatic". I don't think such language should be used about an academic. Faith versus heresy is back. Myrvin (talk) 10:27, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
- The "fringe lunatic" part was meant to be humourous. Is it enough to add references for the statement concerned, or do we really have to put down names in the article itself? The reason I ask is that there aren't any reputable practising academics who doubt Bell violations (as far as I can see). For example, looking at the arxiv (since I don't think he has any peer-reviewed published work on the matter), Christian's papers since about 2007 have repeatedly propounded the same argument with varying degrees of comprehensibility. There have been several papers by more reputable authors with simple refutations of his argument, after which the vast majority of academics have moved on. Essentially, it seems bizarre to explicitly state names, since it appears to promote their thoughts on the matter to a level of significance equal to those of Einsten, Bell, CHSH etc... --Sabri Al-Safi (talk) 11:13, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
- I read on Wikipedia's style guidelines that "The templates [who?], [which?], [by whom?], or [attribution needed] are available for editors to request that an individual statement be more clearly attributed." I think the attribution is fairly clear as it stands? --Sabri Al-Safi (talk) 11:24, 4 May 2011 (UTC))
- Reference 9 on the wikipeda article page, by Caroline Thompson, is an example of an approach which exploits the detection loophole. She allows her spin half particles to be not detected at all, on occasion, in a way which depends both on the local hidden variables and the measurement setting. She has a pretty and completelly classical physical picture involving spinning balls which accomplishes this in a way which even appears quite natural.
The point here is that it is easy to see that if half of the photons (or whatever) on either side of the experiment are allowed to go undetected, then the two photons together can easily arrange to generate whatever four pairs of correlations they like (I'm thinking of the CHSH experiment). At the source the photons together decide what pair of settings they want in this run, and what their two outcomes will be. Each one, on arrival at the detector, compares his "desired setting" with the real setting, and if they disagree, he decides not to be detected at all. More clever schemes allow photons only to go undetected about 5% of the time at each detector and still together exactly reproduce the correlations which quantum physics predicts, in a totally local realistic way. The best experiments to date, by the way, have *detection rates* around 5%, so non-detection rates of around 95%! There is still a long way to go before we see a loophole free experiment. This is not just a question of detector engineering. The detection rate we are talking about is the detection rate which belongs to the entire process of generation, transmission and detection. Richard Gill (talk) 13:59, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- Reference 9 on the wikipeda article page, by Caroline Thompson, is an example of an approach which exploits the detection loophole. She allows her spin half particles to be not detected at all, on occasion, in a way which depends both on the local hidden variables and the measurement setting. She has a pretty and completelly classical physical picture involving spinning balls which accomplishes this in a way which even appears quite natural.
- Here's another recent refutation of Bell: http://www.m-hikari.com/astp/astp2010/astp17-20-2010/geurdesASTP17-20-2010.pdf. It's by J.F. Geurdes: CHSH and local hidden causality, Adv. Studies Theor. Phys., Vol. 4, 2010, no. 17-20, 945-949. I think the wikipedia article shouldn't refer specifically to Thompson and to Christian's work, but should mention that several such works appear per year and are usually refuted quite quickly if not completely ignored. If you want a specific example you could consider the Hess and Philipp case - authors are (were) respected US scientists, even members of the academy of sciences, article published in PNAS, mentioned in Nature, reached several quality newspaper science pages. Refuted within a year. Now forgotten. Richard Gill (talk) 14:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
The facts are quite different from how Gill has presented them here. In truth, Gill is well known among my colleagues to be an incompetent mathematician and a fanatical supporter of Bell’s theorem. He did not know anything about geometric algebra when he came to Oxford to learn from me. He still does not know much about it. As a result, Gill has made a very foolish and silly mistake in his criticism of my one-page paper. What is more, he had not bothered to read any of my other papers on the subject before he attempted to criticize the one-page summary of my model. Sadly, even after I have explicitly pointed out his mistake to him here http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2529, he remains incapable of recognizing it himself. The reason, again, has to do with his total lack of mathematical background for understanding my model. The error he has made is trivial. It is in Eq.(2) of his preprint. This equation is an incorrect counterfeit of the Eq.(4) of my one-page paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1879. Instead of recognizing his silly mistake, however, he has been aggressively trolling me, both in private emails as well as on various blogs and websites that have been discussing my work. I find this quite disturbing, and do not consider it to be a proper behavior of a professional scholar. Some of my colleagues have confirmed, however, that they have had to endure similar harassment form him when they challenged Bell’s theorem in the past. Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.121.130 (talk) 10:28, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- One wonders who are Christian's colleagues, and how competent in mathematics they are. The concept of "fanatical supporter of Bell's theorem" is also fascinating. How can an elementary mathematical argument need fanatical supporters? It stands on its own feet. It's the metaphysical consequences, and the physical interpretation of the mathematics, which have been intensively discussed for close on 50 years now, and no doubt will continue to be the subject of debate for many years to come.
My short paper analysing Christian's one page paper does not enter into that debate. It just points out what appears to me to be an elementary mathematical error in Christian's one-page paper. That paper is self-contained, and does not contain any advanced mathematics at all. Christian now says that what I (and all scientists with whom I have discussed this matter, including David Hestenes, the "father of geometric algebra") think is an error, is in fact a daring new postulate.
It's interesting that a daring new postulate is introduced without any mention of the fact, in the middle of a subtle computation; and it's interesting that the daring new postulate contradicts early made, and used, postulates. I think the reader can be excused from imagining that it was an accidental error, but if was deliberate, then things are even worse.
Anyway, my personal opinion about this work is of no significance at all for wikipedia. So far, as far as I know, no researchers have followed up on Christian's work, none of his papers have been published, though a collection of papers has just appeared as a book. (By the way, I have read them all, and moreover I have studied the standard work on geometric algebra: Doran and Lasenby's "Geometric Algebra For Physicists". I recommend it highly). Richard Gill (talk) 11:43, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
On the FQXi blog Gill now admits that he has lied in his paper. In his paper he claimed that his equation (2) is my equation (4). He did this either because of his incompetence in mathematics, or deliberately and calculatedly to derail my research program. The simplest explanation is that his equation (2) is a silly mistake because he is an incompetent mathematician. One only has to read his abstract to recognize this fact. Further lies (or at least assertions without evidence) appear in what he has writen above. He is abusing the good name of David Hestenes whom he has never met or spoken to. I, on the other hand, have been in touch with David since 2008, and have discussed my paper with him only a few months ago at a FQXi conference. Gill writes that I have introduced “a daring new postulate” “without any mention of the fact.” This is yet another lie. What Gill calls "a daring new postulate" is explicitly stated right at the start of my model, both in my one-page paper and my very first paper, which was written in 2007. The same postulate in the first paper is stated in two different ways. First in words: "Thus, in essence, the intrinsic freedom of choice in the initial orientation of the unit pseudoscalar mu would be our "local hidden variable."" And then as an equation (cf. eq.(15) of the 2007 paper):
mu . n = +/- I . n = L { n_j B_j }.
This is the same as the equation
B_j(L) = L B_j
appearing in the one-page paper. Gill does not recognize that these two equations are one and the same equation, because he does not know anything about geometric algebra. I am amazed how shamelessly Gill is able to spread such a lie. One has to wonder what could be the real motivation behind spreading such a patent lie. Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.150.121.130 (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
- Joy Christian is the author of a self-published book and a large number of unpublished e-prints claiming he has disproved Bell's theorem. This means there is a major conflict of interest with him being an editor of a wikipedia article on Bell's theorem.
Now, regarding independent corroboration of the importance and reliability of Christian's work: David Hestenes, the "father of geometric algebra" has gone on record as saying that Joy Christian's derivation of the singlet correlations within Christian's "model" is based on an elementary algebraic mistake (a careless undergraduate sign error). Half a dozen authorities in quantum information theory and in foundations of quantum theory have gone on record as saying that Joy Christian's model is built around a fundamental conceptual error (see arXiv.org). The arXiv.org preprint by Florin Moldoveanu contains a compete list of references and a meticulous analysis of the error in Christian's derivation, as he has moved it about, like a bump over the carpet, over the years. Moldoveanu's paper has been the subject of intensive discussion on various recent internet blogs. No single academic authority has taken the side of Christian, whie a large number of "heavyweights" have taken the side of Moldoveanu. Richard Gill (talk) 15:09, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
What Gill writes above is a shameless fabrication of facts and propaganda. There does not exist a single peer-reviewed criticism of my work on Bell's theorem. Moreover, contrary to the claim made by Gill, not a single expert in geometric algebra, let alone David Hestenes, has criticised my work on record. I have refuted and completely debunked all of the so-called criticisms of my work -- especially that by Gill. His preprint is full of silly mistakes, which are quite easy for anyone to see. All one has to do is to read his abstract to see how incompetent a mathematician he is. His criticism of my work, as well as that by Moldoveanu, is based on a classic straw-man strategy. Since they are unable to find a single problem with my work, what they do is replace my model with a counterfeit and then refute the counterfeit with a great pomp. The details of my rebuttal can be found in this preprint: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2529, and on this FQXi blog: http://www.fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1247. A compete account of my refutation of Bell's theorem (and much more) can be found in my recently published book: http://www.brownwalker.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599425645. It is quite sad that Gill resorts to such propaganda when he should be actually acknowledging his own mistakes. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 20:20, 28 May 2012 (UTC)
I can personally confirm the above propaganda tactics taken by Richard Gill against Dr. Christian. What is more, Gill has been consistently proven wrong in many online debates with Dr. Christian, myself and others. All this for a theorem that has never been shown to be true emperically. The quantum experiments that many take as validation of Bell's theorem only show that quantum mechanics does in fact violate the inequalities. They do not actually validate the theorem itself physically. Bell's theorem is really junk science with an almost religious following. Richard Gill is obviously one of its fanatical worshippers. He wouldn't be paying this much attention to Dr. Christian's work if it wasn't a real threat to the established paradigm. It is a real threat because Dr. Christian's model is a valid local realistic counter-example to Bell's theorem. Fred Diether 22:37, 28 May 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by FrediFizzx (talk • contribs)
- Seems that the article on Bell's Theorem has now been hijacked by Joy Christian (Interintel?) and his henchman Fred Diether (FrediFizzx). Both of whom have a big conflict of interest on ths topic. Neither of whom have made any contributions to wikipedia except on this artcle. I hope other Wikipedia editors will act to prevent their vandalism. Richard Gill (talk) 18:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
- Do you have diffs to show who they are? If so, a conflict of interest template could be added to the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
- In fact it is Gill that is trying to hijack this article after he has been consistently proven wrong. The conflict of interest is all based on Gill's wrong interpretations. The article was fine before he started changing it. Fred Diether (talk) 00:01, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- Over the last years a various editors have attempted to remove references in the article to unpublished work of dubious importance. This is reverted every time by User Interintel, who I imagine is Joy Christian himself, author of one of those references. See Interintel's Talk page. FrediFizzx is the pseudonym of Carl F. Diether who is moderator of the news groups sci.physics.foundations. Diether is a long time supporter of Christian's work, and has strongly supported it on sci.physics.foundations. As you can see above, Joy Christian himself has been writing abusive comments about my own work on this Talk page. I was one of a number of scientists who exposed the conceptual and algebraic errors in Christian's work, which has received just about zero point zero recognition in the academic world.
I have recently been involved in various blog debates concerning Christian's work so it can be thought that I too have a conflict of interest in this matter.
It is up to the community of less directly personally involved wikipedia editors to come to editorial conclusions on whether or not Christian's work deserves any mention in the article on Bell's theorem. Please look at the wikipedia editing history of InterIntel and of FrediFizzx. Their only contributions to wikipedia are connected to the promotion of Christian's work. In my opinion there is a strong conflict of interest in their being active on these pages. Richard Gill (talk) 07:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- Over the last years a various editors have attempted to remove references in the article to unpublished work of dubious importance. This is reverted every time by User Interintel, who I imagine is Joy Christian himself, author of one of those references. See Interintel's Talk page. FrediFizzx is the pseudonym of Carl F. Diether who is moderator of the news groups sci.physics.foundations. Diether is a long time supporter of Christian's work, and has strongly supported it on sci.physics.foundations. As you can see above, Joy Christian himself has been writing abusive comments about my own work on this Talk page. I was one of a number of scientists who exposed the conceptual and algebraic errors in Christian's work, which has received just about zero point zero recognition in the academic world.
Gill claims that he was one of a number of scientists who exposed the conceptual and algebraic errors in my work. This is an absurd and laughable claim by a demonstrably incompetent mathematician. It is well known to the community that he is an extremist in the debate over the validity of Bell's theorem. Any competent mathematician has to read only his abstract to recognize that he has no qualification to understand my work, which requires highly sophisticated knowledge of physics and philosophy in addition to advance mathematics. Gill has obviously taken the law in his own hands by removing published and cited work from the article and by making false accusations based on pure fabrication and speculations. He is deliberately curtailing open scientific discussion by removing published references that go against his own ideology and undermine his own work. He is the vandal here, who began by calling names and removing published references from the article. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 09:45, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- Please, the talk page is to discuss the article, not to attack people (this goes for everybody here). The sentence that seems to spark the edit war is "However, no principle of physics can ever be proved absolutely beyond question; some theorists argue that experimental loopholes or hidden assumptions refute the theorem's validity, [3 refs] though most physicists accept that experiments confirm the violation of Bell inequalities.[ref]" The issue seems to concentrate on the reference: Joy Christian (2011). "Disproof of Bell's Theorem". arXiv:1103.1879 [quant-ph].. I would argue that arxiv papers, which have not undergone peer review, have no place in an article about a well-established result (see Wikipedia:Verifiability). -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 10:49, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
The paper in question, "Disproof of Bell's Theorem". arXiv:1103.1879, is published in my peer-reviewed book, http://www.brownwalker.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599425645, and is widely discussed on the Internet. My work has also been cited in several *published* articles (at least two of them in Physical Review). The book itself is only just published, and citations to it will undoubtedly follow in due course. Gill’s motivations for doing what he is doing are neither honorable nor justified. For example he claims that the work of Caroline Thompson is a work of a “fringe lunatic.” But her work has been cited and discussed by none other than the eminent professor Abner Shimony (the “S” in CHSH) in his authoritative review of Bell’s theorem in Stanford Encyclopedia. Her work is also cited and discussed in several published papers by none other than Arthur Fine, another well known authority on Bell’s theorem. The claims of Gill are thus demonstrably false and motivated purely by his desire to take the law in his own hand. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 11:25, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- An earlier wikipedia editor, not me, referred to Joy Christian as a "fringe lunatic". It is true that a survey of opinions in the quantum foundations community would probably confirm that that is a widely held view today. On the other hand, Joy Christian himself writing on Scott Aaronson's blog recently spouted personal abuse of a far worse nature at anybody who dared to criticise him.
Participating in the discussion here, I wrote that I had met and talked with Christian several times and that he's a nice guy, but in my opinion badly mistaken.
About Caroline Thompson, who had a nice detection loophole model exhibiting the singlet correlations, no one at all wrote here that she was a "fringe lunatic". Her work did not have much impact and for obvious reasons has little interest. The possibility to used biased selection of which photons to measure in order to recreate quantum correlations in a classical way has been widely known since Pearle, 1970. Richard Gill (talk) 07:12, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- An earlier wikipedia editor, not me, referred to Joy Christian as a "fringe lunatic". It is true that a survey of opinions in the quantum foundations community would probably confirm that that is a widely held view today. On the other hand, Joy Christian himself writing on Scott Aaronson's blog recently spouted personal abuse of a far worse nature at anybody who dared to criticise him.
- The publisher gives no indication of any meaningful peer review and it appears to be a publisher of fringe works, i.e it appears to be a small time self-publishing company (I notice they mention selling books on the order of a thousand) or a vanity press. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:35, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
What appears to you must be right, then. That is all what matters, of course, for the open and balanced scientific presentation in the article. I wonder, however, which publisher has published all the wild claims against my work made by Richard Gill. It must be Physical Review Letters, or the Oxford University Press, I suppose. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 14:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- Since none of Christian's arXiv.org papers ever made it through peer review, I doubt that any of the half dozen papers on arXiv.org exposing conceptual and mathematical errors therein will ever be even submitted to journals.
I proposed to Christian that we jointly submit his "one page paper" (2011) and my critique thereof (2012), both on arXiv.org, to a serious journal on foundational issues in quantum physics. He declined, saying that arXiv.org already constituted a publication. So I'm afraid my own criticism is only supported by its actual content, together with my personal academic credibility, and by the support (on various Internet fora) of various authorities in the field. As fas as I know, no single authority has found errors in my analysis. Richard Gill (talk) 07:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I did not decline saying that arXiv.org already constituted a publication. I declined saying that Richard Gill’s preprint is so full of sophomoric errors that there is no way I will let my work appear anywhere near his preprint. In any case my work of the past five years is now published in a peer-reviewed book: http://www.brownwalker.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599425645. What is more, ALL of Richard Gill’s erroneous and unpublished arguments against my work have been comprehensively debunked, many times over, not only by me but also by several other knowledgeable people on the FQXi blogs. I myself have given a systematic refutation of his misguided arguments in the following two papers: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2529 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.5876 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 10:28, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Certainly, I am not the only one who is saddened by the low level of debate that this important subject has attracted. I do think, however, it bears noting that the widely held position expressed by Sabri Al-Safi " ... there aren't any reputable practising academics who doubt Bell violations ..." is not the issue. The issue is whether there exists a constructive alternative to the conclusion that no mathematically complete physical theory can be both local and realistic. Another confirmation of Bell-Aspect doesn't settle the issue, because the proof of Bell's theorem is nonconstructive. If one claims to have a constructive framework to match all elements of mathematical theory to all elments of physical reality, it deserves more than a mere counterargument from authority. Thomas h ray (talk) 14:07, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, the issue is precisely whether there are reliable secondary sources on this topic. This is supposed to be an encyclopedia, documenting things that are already "well-known", not a physics blog. Sławomir Biały (talk) 14:25, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
It is well known that Bell's theorem is experimentally validated by Bell-Aspect. It is also well-known that the proof of Bell's theorem is nonconstructive. Your position is like saying that because it's well known that the Earth is flat, we should ignore any evidence or conjecture (e.g., how ship's masts appear first on the horizon, Eratosthenes' estimate of the Earth's circumference, etc.) for a spherical Earth. Thomas h ray (talk) 14:46, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a scientific institute, we are here to document sources etc that are already out there. We do not aim to create original thought in any form. IRWolfie- (talk) 14:57, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Dude, I get that. I'm a strong supporter of Wikipedia (and open access in general), both in article contributions and financial contributions. I recognize the difference, however, between subjects that are in dispute and those that are not. Don't preach to me.Thomas h ray (talk) 17:08, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Classical simulation is possible and simple
BenRG told: "The important thing is that the quantum statistics of the measurement outcomes can't be simulated by any classical algorithm applied independently to the two subsystems that are measured. It can be simulated by a classical algorithm that gets to choose the outcome for both subsystems together, but you can set things up such that that requires faster-than-light communication."
Completely wrong.
Just transmit correlated data to two remote computers.
If both perform the same algorithm on these data (correlated), then the results must be strongly correlated, and the Bell inequality is sometimes violated.
The important thing: each computer has also its own local data, which allow you to change the results of calculations.
As you can see we have here an exact copy of the EPR-type experiments.
Bell's Theorem is a typical product of a layman - lack of experience in mathematical statistics and theory of computation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.27.38.107 (talk) 23:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- A brief and elementary logical analysis and a reference to the law of large numbers explains why the Bell (CHSH) inequality will almost never be violated if the number of simulated outcomes is large enough and if the measurement settings in each wing of the experiment are chosen randomly, again and again, one new pair of settings for each new pair of measurements. Richard Gill (talk) 13:17, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- PS here's a reference to a published paper by myself which explicitly considers networked computer simulation. It uses some decent mathematical statistics and some elementary but uncontroversial ideas about computation. http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/0110137.pdf Richard Gill (talk) 13:26, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- The discussion by 83.27.38.107 is however important because it corresponds to how many laypersons and even many science journalists see the situation. The correlations themselves are not problematic at all. It is the relation between the correlations which is difficult to understand. You have two different possible measurement settings in each wing of the experiment. So you have four different correlations, one for each pair of settings (one choice on each side). The point is that QM allows three of those correlations to be extremely large and positive, while the remaining one is extremely large and negative. This is what is amazing. How can the measurement set-up in one wing of the experiment know what measurement is being performed on the other side? In one case it should be trying to get a strong positive correlation, in the other case a strong negative correlation. It is almost impossible to get across in a non-technical way why it is extraordinary that it can be done with photons or electrons, but not with "ordinary" things like ordinary computers (which have been talking to one another in the past, but which are disconnected from one another just before they are given a measurement setting and forced to deliver a measurement outcome). Richard Gill (talk) 14:20, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
- Here's another reference with important modern insight: http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0508016 . The existence of quantum correlations without the possibility of using them for signalling implies that measurement outcomes *must* be random (nondeterminism). And several other nice equivalences and/or implications. Richard Gill (talk) 14:24, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
--- Experiments EPR-Bell type are completely meaningless.
Interference of two streams can be more easily achieved in practice - using the interferometer. The result is the same.
QM correlations are also calculated from the waves, not points - photons.
Tale of the EPR paradox: Alice and Bill decided to calculate their mutual distance, without communication. Alice measures her coordinates 'a', while Bill his - 'b' ...
In this world there are relationships between events, bodies, systems - immediate and from any distance.
Quantum mechanics are blind, because even such trivial matters did not recognize. QM - a device to fool students. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.4.89.173 (talk) 01:25, 17 March 2012 (UTC)
- There is a nice challenge to anyone who thinks they can do a classical simulation at http://www.science20.com/alpha_meme/official_quantum_randi_challenge-80168, the quantum Randi challenge. It's clear that anyone who succeeds in doing such a simulation will become immediately world famous. Richard Gill (talk) 11:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)
Nothing is more telling, that one completely misinterprets Joy Christian's framework, than lending support to Vongehr's ill-conceived "quantum Randi challenge." The classical limit 1/2 for a two-player "guess what I'm thinking" psychic game is identical to the quantum limit of Bell-Aspect, but completely irrelevant. Measures made at a time are discontinuous and not reversible in either case, while Christian's framework is based on a measurement function continuous from the initial condition; in other words, from a continuous range of input values. Thomas h ray (talk) 14:32, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
We REALLY need to overhaul this. So much has been attached to this article that it now says the equivalent of "Bell is very important" and "Bell is trivial". All references to loopholes were intended years ago to be moved such that there would be separate articles on "Bell's Theorem", "Tests of Bell's Theorem", and "Loopholes in Tests of Bell's Theorem" in order to give proper weighting to these somewhat independent topics. Perhaps we can take a cue from some of the work performed in Scholarpedia on the subject, without some of the slant added in the last half of the article there.DrChinese (talk) 20:41, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
- I agree. But it's a very hard job. I will take a look at Scholarpedia. Richard Gill (talk) 16:47, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
- The scholarpedia article is very comprehensive, precise ... scholarly.
Also, it does promote a particular point of view. Nothing wrong with that in the context of Scholarpedia: one asks experts to write about a subject and what they write will fit in with their point of view. The authors are named, they are chosen for their good reputation. On wikipedia it would be a problem, where it is not the "authority" of the authors (editors) which counts, but of their sources.
For example: I noticed the following statement: "in order to explain (without violation of locality) the fact that the outcomes will be perfectly anti-correlated if the experimenters both measure spin along the z-axis, one has to assume that these outcomes are pre-determined". This is easy to say, but why is it true? It certainly is hard to imagine that the outcomes are not pre-determined, but could that be rather a reflection on how our brains work, rather than on physical reality? I think this comes down to the choice between "realism" and "locality". The author(s) of the Scholarpedia article prefer to abandon locality than realism. Indeed, the main author is a proponent of Bohmian mechanics. Nothing wrong with that, but it is only one of a number of options. Richard Gill (talk) 17:24, 10 April 2012 (UTC)
Inaccuracy regarding expectation of EPR
The article included the following:
"Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen expected their proposed experiment to agree with the predictions of quantum mechanical theory;"
This is inaccurate, so I removed it. In the EPR paper, they wrote:
"This makes the [properties of the second system] depend upon the process of measurement carried out on the first system, which does not in any way disturb the second system. No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this."
In a letter to Max Born in 1947, Einstein further criticized the concept of entanglement:
I cannot seriously believe in [quantum mechanics] because the theory cannot be reconciled with the idea that physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky actions at a distance.
J-Wiki (talk) 02:22, 16 May 2012 (UTC)
References to Thompson, Christian, Kumar removed
I removed the literature references to the Bell critics Caroline Thomson and Joy Christian. Thompson's article uses the detection loophole to exhibit a local realist violation of Bell's theorem. It is not a notable article and is pretty much forgotten. Pearle (1970) already drew attention to the detection loophole and in Bell's later articles he was careful to describe experimental protocols which would prevent the detection loophole (selection bias) from giving an alternative explanation of the observed results. Joy Christian got some publicity with an article in the New Scientist in 2007 when he first announced his disproof of Bell's theorem, but since then none of his papers was published in mainstream journals and his work is not cited by anyone, except perhaps by a few writers who exposed the many errors in his work. Richard Gill (talk) 13:23, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Here is the material I removed: "However, no principle of physics can ever be proved absolutely beyond question; some theorists argue that experimental loopholes or hidden assumptions refute the theorem's validity (Mark Buchanan, 2 November 2007, Quantum Untanglement: Is spookiness under threat? http://www.ipod.org.uk/reality/reality_quantum_untanglement.asp, New Scientist; arxiv, eprint=1103.1879, Joy Christian, Disproof of Bell's Theorem, 2011; Caroline Thompson, The Chaotic Ball: An Intuitive Analogy for EPR Experiments, 1996, Foundations of Physics Letters, 9, pages=357–382, arxiv quant-ph/9611037) though most physicists accept that experiments confirm the violation of Bell inequalities (Kumar, 2009, Quantum, Icon Books, page 350)."
Interintel whose activitity on wikipedia is restricted to this article, has put it back again twice already. I've asked him/her to discuss this on the Talk page here, but no response. The third time we shall be able to invoke the three-revert-rule. He wrote "Undid revision 494472046 by Richard Gill who is personally motivated to derail the ongoing and lively scientific debate on local realism. The references he is trying to delete are both published and being widely discussed across the Internet." Personal criticism like this does not belong on wikipedia. Moreover, it is incorrect, since personally I am enthusiastic to support (and contribute to) the ongoing and lively scientific and popular debate on local realism. However, wikipedia is an encyclopedia whose task is to summarize existing accepted knowledge, not to promote controversial points of view. The three references I deleted are not notable references on the topic of Bell's theorem. Thompson's model is a pretty variant of the detection loophole. It is not widely cited and has not been followed up. It's 15 years onld. A popular scence magazine article from 2007 is not a notable scientific publication. Joy Christian's many preprints on arXiv have never been published in peer reviewed journals. Richard Gill (talk) 19:20, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I also removed the material "The conditions Bell imposes on any "reasonable" local hidden variables have been criticized in the work of Masao Nagasawa and Jörg Schröder. (Nagasawa, Masao and Jörg Schröder, "A note on the Locality of Gudder's Hidden-Variable Theory", Chaos, Solutions & Fractals, vol. 8, no. 11, pp. 1793-1805, 1997; Nagasawa, Masao, "On the locality of hidden variable theories," Lecture Notes at the University of Zurich, 1995.) In addition to demonstrating that Bell's conditions are overly restrictive, Nagasawa has proven that local hidden variable theories are possible by developing such a theory.(Nagasawa, Masao.Stochastic Processes in Quantum Physics. Basel: Birkhauser Verlag: 2000.)". These papers are hardly ever cited and the author's ideas have not entered into the mainstream. Richard Gill (talk) 15:29, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- joy Christian himself, and Fred Diether (one of Joy Christian's truest supporters), continually undo all revisions to this article which demote the importance of Christian's work. Maybe somebody else who cares about this article will take action. I'm going on vacation. Richard Gill (talk) 18:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Possibility to reject realism rather than locality
I added at the start of the article remarks to the effect that Bell's argument does not necessarily lead us to reject locality. We might equally well choose to reject realism, which is of course actually a kind of idealism: we add to our mathematical representation of the world outcomes of experiments which were not performed, alongside of those which were performed. Note that Bell himself drew attention to this possibility in his famous "Bertlmann's socks" article. It is nowadays espoused by a number of authorities, for instance, N. Gisin. (References should be added). Richard Gill (talk) 15:53, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- Also, superdeterminsism could be mentioned. Bell himself also mentioned this possibility, but he rejected that as unphysical. However, this idea has recently been revived by 't Hooft and it is discussed in a recent article by Hossenfelder. Count Iblis (talk) 17:35, 26 May 2012 (UTC)
- I agree it could be mentioned. 't Hooft says that at the Planck scale we cannot choose between experiments and hence that at this scale superdeterminism is an option. However he seems not to realise that in Bell type experiments we are not at the Planck scale and superdeterminism requires exquisite coordination between the physical processes which select measurement settings (which might be classical coin tosses or a list of pseudo random numbers) and those which determine measurement outcomes in a distant and completely different kind of physical system. And this exquisite coordination allows nature exactly to simulate the non-locality (if that is what you want to call it) which we see in these special experiments, while at the same time not manifesting itself in any other way. I think the general consensus is that superdeterminism is not considered a serious option.
But as an earlier editor mentioned, the whole loophole discussion should be concentrated in a separate article. The detection and the communication loopholes are practical issues - they are practical and hopefully surmountable problems of experimental procedure. The superdeterminism loophole is a purely metaphysical loophole. It can never be ruled out, but the concensus is that invoking this loophole is essentially denying the possibility of learning from nature by experiment. It's not a constructive approach to physics. Richard Gill (talk) 19:29, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
- I agree it could be mentioned. 't Hooft says that at the Planck scale we cannot choose between experiments and hence that at this scale superdeterminism is an option. However he seems not to realise that in Bell type experiments we are not at the Planck scale and superdeterminism requires exquisite coordination between the physical processes which select measurement settings (which might be classical coin tosses or a list of pseudo random numbers) and those which determine measurement outcomes in a distant and completely different kind of physical system. And this exquisite coordination allows nature exactly to simulate the non-locality (if that is what you want to call it) which we see in these special experiments, while at the same time not manifesting itself in any other way. I think the general consensus is that superdeterminism is not considered a serious option.
undue
The controversial claim sourced to a "ipod.org.uk" and arxiv and a paper with only one citation is undue for the article. IRWolfie- (talk) 18:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
- I agree. Joy Christian himself (user Interintel?) or his close supporters (Fred Diether:User FrediFizzx) continually put this reference back after I removed it. They do not enter into discussion here, I'm getting tired io this (and am going on vacation, and arguably have a conflict of interested too, since I recently posted a critique of Christian's work on arXiv.org. It has been well received). Richard Gill (talk) 18:58, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
- Definitely agree it is totally undue for an article like this. When their stuff has been peer reviewed and got some people to comment on it then there would be grounds for inclusion. Dmcq (talk) 10:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- The New Scientist article could however I believe be used in a popular science reception section, like cultural impact. Perhaps there's a way of putting those together. I think it gives weight for that even if the original paper doesn't yet have enough weight for the theoretical challenges section. It just doesn't have any place in the overview. Dmcq (talk) 10:42, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- I might have a look at it and try make what I can out of it. IRWolfie- (talk) 10:47, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- The #Joy Christian section above now contains evidence of a book and peer review. Together with that outside interest shown by the New Scientist that sounds like plenty enough to go into the theoretical challenges section I think. Dmcq (talk) 13:20, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- I checked the book out, I see no indication of peer review and the publisher seems an odd choice for a scientific work. Other books in the "pure science" section include this [1] book by the former President of the Para-psychological Association. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- In fact it appears to print mostly fringe theories, here is another [2] on "universal relativity". I think it's rather doubtful there is any meaningful peer review. It looks like vanity press [3]. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- It certainly does look that way. The stuff just hasn't been accepted by a science journal and he can't be counted as an authority by WP:SPS. Scrub what I said about the book then unless he can produce something about this 'peer review' being far more than the publishers correcting spelling mistakes. As far as its future reception is concerned I believe WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL is relevant. Dmcq (talk) 14:24, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- In fact it appears to print mostly fringe theories, here is another [2] on "universal relativity". I think it's rather doubtful there is any meaningful peer review. It looks like vanity press [3]. IRWolfie- (talk) 13:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
I think we're dealing with this problem in the wrong way. One option is not to include Joy's stuff here which we tried to do (and perhaps with some enforcement action we can succeed), but another option is to include a few sentences in the article that gives the right perspective on this issue. We could e.g. say that while almost all physicists have given up on local determinstic theories, there are a few attempts made to develop such theories. Then we can refer to 't Hooft, Christian etc., perhaps only in a footnote. That none of these attempts get any traction within the scientific community also as to be mentioned. Count Iblis (talk) 19:34, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
- It simply wouldn't be fair to refer to Christian because it's completely undue in this high priorty article. Gerard 't Hooft on the other hand would be due something due to his large notability, if we can do it right that is. I might do some searching and see what I can dig up. IRWolfie- (talk) 20:26, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Perhaps one of you fine people can suggest a respected peer-reviewed journal that would ever publish a theory that disproves Bell's theorem. I don't think there is one that you might call respectable. Dr. Christian's model is a valid theoretical challenge to Bell's theorem and there is in fact a section titled "Theoretical Challenges" in the article. So what is the problem? Fred Diether (talk) 01:52, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Because it's undue as has already been pointed out, I suggest you re-read this section. Your editing pattern suggests a close association with Christian. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
The “problem” has nothing to do with my work, or my publisher. They are both perfectly fine and respectable. Clearly there was no problem with them for months and years until the three published and widely discussed references were arbitrarily removed by Richard Gill for personal and non-scientific reasons. The references which were perfectly fine for months and years then all of a sudden became unacceptable. That is the problem. The problem of perception, brought about by the unhealthy interference by Richard Gill. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 05:53, 31 May 2012 (UTC) Separate issues:
- Are user:Interintel and IP 86.148... in Birmingham the same? That needs to be established. Only one account should to be used, per policy.
- Joy Christian must stop using terms such as "unhealthy interference" to refer to well intentioned edits by users such as Richard Gill.
- It appears that some ideas discussed here are subject to WP:Fringe in any case, as well as WP:Due and can be excluded on that basis.
- A potential solution was suggested by Count Iblis, and may be suitable, in that a brief mention is made to the existence of fringe/extreme views among a very small number of people, without significant elaboration. That would fall under policy, and any attempt to expand them further could then be viewed as a breach. I should, however, say that given that these are fringe views and not "minority views" they may also be totally excluded if WP:CON is used to decide that.
In view of the history of this page, if this continues, procedural remedies to enact blocks on Interintel and related IPs may be suitably sought (e.g. per WP:TE, etc.) to end this situation. History2007 (talk) 07:22, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
There is nothing “well intentioned” about the edits of Richard Gill. You do not know the history of the dispute between him and me or the full details of the facts about his intentions. In any case, ALL of his erroneous and unpublished arguments against my work have been comprehensively debunked, many times over, not only by me but also by several other knowledgeable people on the FQXi blogs. I myself have given a systematic refutation of his misguided arguments in the following two papers: http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.2529 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1110.5876 -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 09:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Saying you think somebody's work is flawed is fine on Wikipedia especially when reasons are provided. Saying they are not well intentioned is a personal attack. Please see WP:NPA. Dmcq (talk) 09:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- This is irrelevant, the content is undue and should not have been included. It doesn't matter if your theoretical arguments on Bell's theorem are valid or not, that is not what is at issue here. The issue is that your views have not been picked up by reliable sources and do not have sufficient WP:WEIGHT for this article. IRWolfie- (talk) 09:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I am afraid I cannot agree. The paper in question, "Disproof of Bell's Theorem". arXiv:1103.1879, is published in my peer-reviewed book, http://www.brownwalker.com/book.php?method=ISBN&book=1599425645, and is widely discussed on the Internet. My work has also been cited in several *published* articles, at least two of them in the Physical Review (not to mention its citations in some lesser known journals). I have given invited talks about my work on several occasions during the past five years. The book itself is only just published, and citations to it will undoubtedly follow in due course. So, again, I cannot agree with your comments. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 09:54, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- You are going in circles, being in arxiv doesn't give something due weight, nor does a self published book by a publisher with no evidence of peer review. I also suggest you stop pushing for content when you have a strong conflict of interest like this. IRWolfie- (talk) 12:43, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- I agree with IRWolfie. In any case, if and when results are "directly published" in Physical Review and elsewhere the nature of the situation will change. That has not happened yet. If/when that happens Wikipedia can address that. For now, that has not happened yet. History2007 (talk) 13:02, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
I am no longer “pushing for content.” Although I have provided more than sufficient evidence for the scientific validity of my content, it is abundantly clear that -- just as he has done elsewhere -- Gill has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of mistrust against me and my work. Thus there is no point in my “pushing for content.” However, I do wish to register my observation here that my work is being treated unjustly and with bias. You may see whatever grounds you may see, I myself see no grounds for rejecting my content other than preconception and prejudice. -- Joy Christian — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 13:06, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Actually Wikipedia runs based on its policies. None of the editors here is being paid to take sides, and they aim to improve the quality of the encyclopedia. Regarding the "validity" of your work, based on the WP:V policy, that is in fact outside the scope of Wikipedia discussions. Inclusion is not based on the determination of validity, but "verifiability", per WP:V. The easiest (and indeed the only) way to include your views in Wikipedia is to have them published in a source such as Physical Review. If/when your work is published in Physical Review, the situation will change and it will become a "minority view" and per policy should be mentioned if it is significant. That has not happened yet, and as of this writing it is subject to WP:Fringe issues. If Bell is/was incorrect, I am sure Physical Review will understand that and publish your work, and we can resume this discussion in 18-24 months with that paper in hand. History2007 (talk) 13:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- You are missing the point. Physical Review (or any other journal like PR) will never publish any kind of disproof of Bell's theorem because of extreme prejudices that exist. Wikipedia is supposed to be neutral and should always include balanced arguments for controversial issues. Fred Diether (talk) 23:30, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- No, I am sorry, Wikipedia does not work that way. If almost all major scientific journals "refuse" to publish a paper, that paper is automatically within WP:Fringe territory. By virtue of your statement, you have labelled the disproof of Bell's theorem a a WP:Fringe item, and hence it can not be included until it is published in WP:RS sources (e.g. Physical Review) and receives citations in mainstream sources to deal with WP:Due issues.
- Believe me, I know the policies. Wikipedia can not be used as a "launch pad" for ideas rejected by mainstream scientific publications, per WP:Fringe. And should you continue to argue this issue again and again, you will be entering WP:TE territory, and there are remedies for that. There are Wikipedia policies for avoiding repeated talk page arguments against consensus, and I feel that point is within reach. I think you need to get your ideas published in WP:RS journals, and stop using Wikipedia to promote them before that happens. Else your access may be blocked per WP:TE. That is Wikipedia policy. History2007 (talk) 00:26, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
WP:COIN thread
FYI: I posted on Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest/Noticeboard#Bell.27s_theorem about this page. History2007 (talk) 15:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Removal of talk page content on libel grounds
Talk page content [4] has been removed on libel grounds. I fail to see any libel. I have said on User talk:86.148.6.36 that I believe if a person feels they are being maligned it is far better normally to identify what they think the problem is. I believe there have been multiple incidents of user contributions on this talk page being removed. If they are of this libel type then perhaps 86.148.6.36 should consider raising it at WP:AN/I to get action to stop the editor doing it. If they continue such removal without some justification or appeal for admin action then perhaps it is time to block 86.148.6.36 instead. Dmcq (talk) 09:27, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- If any of the content which I wrote about the scientific history of Joy Christian's work, and about the author's academic credentials, was untrue and/or libelous I should like to know, and I will correct it.
Regarding the content: Bell's theorem is close to 50 years old now. The metaphysical implications of Bell's completely elementary mathematical results have been vigorously debated all these 50 years. When a new-comer comes along with claims that John Bell's assumptions were fundamentally wrong, his or her work and his or her credentials are both going to be investigated closely. Since 2007, half a dozen researchers, including several rather eminent persons, placed papers on arXiv.org expressing total disagreement with Christian's rewriting of the mathematical expression of local realism. More recently, Moldoveanu and Gill independently placed papers on arXiv in which they argue that Christian makes elementary mistakes in his algebra. On several internet blogs, a whole string of authorities (among them Adrian Kent, Scott Aaronson, Davd Hestenes) expressed agreement that Christan's work is both (meta)-physically misguided and mathematically flawed. They all came up for severe personal abuse by Joy Christian and to a lesser extent by Fred Diether. Too obscene to be repeated here, but this certainly got a lot of influential people rather pissed off, which was the source of quite some amusement to those at the receiving end.
Regarding Christian's academic credentials, his book and his arxiv.org papers suggest he is affiliated with Perimeter Institute and/or Wolfson college Oxford and/or unnamed Oxford University physics departments, but no one has been unable to find any evidence of such affiliation at all. Some years ago he received a grant from FQXi.org, and subsequent to that, a number of mini-grants. The original grant application was presumably subject to some peer-evaluation. Mini-grants are allocated by lottery among applicants who are previous grant holders, without any peer evaluation procedure.Richard Gill (talk) 15:33, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- If any of the content which I wrote about the scientific history of Joy Christian's work, and about the author's academic credentials, was untrue and/or libelous I should like to know, and I will correct it.
- This is all irrelevant to why we put content into the article or not. Reasoning should be based on wikipedia policies and guidelines. IRWolfie- (talk) 15:36, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree. I am sorry Richard Gill, but the arguments you are presenting are not going to affect the Wikipedia page. The determining factor, per WP:V is not your assessment of another editor, but the appearance of the views in WP:RS sources. As stated above, given that the material has not been published in sources such as Physical Review, that and WP:CON are sufficient for excluding it from the page. My suggestion would be to focus on the WP:RS appearances of the claims rather than the scholarly affiliations of the author. I think you can avoid further brouhaha by avoiding the material Dmcq deleted and let us move on until Physical Review Letters publishes a paper that states Bell was incorrect. That would be the best use everyone's energy. History2007 (talk) 15:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- I would further argue that if the paper is uncited or does not have many citations once published then it still probably has no due weight (This is a very notable, high importance topic). IRWolfie- (talk) 16:11, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I agree. I am sorry Richard Gill, but the arguments you are presenting are not going to affect the Wikipedia page. The determining factor, per WP:V is not your assessment of another editor, but the appearance of the views in WP:RS sources. As stated above, given that the material has not been published in sources such as Physical Review, that and WP:CON are sufficient for excluding it from the page. My suggestion would be to focus on the WP:RS appearances of the claims rather than the scholarly affiliations of the author. I think you can avoid further brouhaha by avoiding the material Dmcq deleted and let us move on until Physical Review Letters publishes a paper that states Bell was incorrect. That would be the best use everyone's energy. History2007 (talk) 15:44, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Partly so, but we are about to get into a heated agreement on the exclusion of the views now, so I will stop. History2007 (talk) 16:15, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I do understand this perfectly well. I was not trying to assess a wikipedia editor, but the work of a scientist called Joy Christian on Bell's Theorem. Coincidentally, a wikipedia editor of the same name has been resisting attempts by a succession of editors to remove the citations of this work. Which we did precisely on the grounds of these standard and fundamental Wikipedia principles. (I admit: I don't know if User Interintel and the non-registered editor who calls himself Joy Christian are the same person or not, but it seems a reasonable guess, and neither Interintel nor J C have denied it).
Soon we are going to be discussing whether or not to refer to Gerard 't Hooft's "fringe" support for super determinism, and how. This will also involve some discussion of the impact of that work, and the notability of that work. Reporting published criticism of Gerard 't Hooft's work, or mentioning his academic status, would not constitute criticism of a Wikipedia editor of the same name, if there were one.Richard Gill (talk) 16:26, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, I do understand this perfectly well. I was not trying to assess a wikipedia editor, but the work of a scientist called Joy Christian on Bell's Theorem. Coincidentally, a wikipedia editor of the same name has been resisting attempts by a succession of editors to remove the citations of this work. Which we did precisely on the grounds of these standard and fundamental Wikipedia principles. (I admit: I don't know if User Interintel and the non-registered editor who calls himself Joy Christian are the same person or not, but it seems a reasonable guess, and neither Interintel nor J C have denied it).
- We don't critique on wikipedia, we defer to reliable sources for critiques, we base decisions of what we do on the existence or absence of reliable sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed. *We* don't *do* critique. I don't *do* critique here on J C's work. But we do frequently have to report critique by reliable sources of other reliable sources. I have been reporting on the publicly stated and publicly argued opinions of notable scientists on J C's work. In my opinion this discussion is actually quite superfluous, the case seems to me to be clear cut. However, not everyone agrees yet. One editor thinks that mention by a science journalist in New Scientist in 2007 is evidence of notability. Another, Joy Christian himself, is accusing me of being on some personal vendetta and spreading malicious rumours. So I think I'm justified in pointing out that it is not just one mean guy who is trying to suppress that work. Richard Gill (talk) 17:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- We don't critique on wikipedia, we defer to reliable sources for critiques, we base decisions of what we do on the existence or absence of reliable sources. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Just to clarify your actions on the actual page have been fine -- removing fairly fringe things sourced only to arxiv papers. You don't, however, need to debate the scientific merits of material which clearly fails WP:RS on the talk page though -- it's not like you're going to convince that guy anyways, and the rest of us know how to follow guidelines. Cheers a13ean (talk) 15:57, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- A separate agf/npa issue was also addressed on that IP's talk page. Is this the same as the other editor? No response was provided, but you may want to ask for a check on that, given that the other user was also advised as such. History2007 (talk) 12:59, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Since Richard Gill continues to spread malicious rumours about me and my work, let me point out my credentials here rather than refuting his libellous claims. The latter I have already done on a FQXi blog: http://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/1247. Here are my credentials:
Dr. Joy Christian obtained his Ph.D. from Boston University in Foundations of Quantum Theory in 1991 under the supervision of the renowned philosopher and physicist Professor Abner Shimony (the “S” in Bell-CHSH-inequality). He then received a Research Fellowship from the Wolfson College of the University of Oxford, where he has remained affiliated both with the college and a number of departments of the university. He is an invited member of the prestigious Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi), and has been a Long Term Visitor of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Canada. He is well known for his contributions to the foundations of quantum and gravitational physics, including quantization of Newton-Cartan theory of gravity, generalization of Special Theory of Relativity to incorporate the objective passage of time, and elimination of non-locality from the foundations of quantum physics. A partial list of his publications can be found here: http://arxiv.org/find/all/1/au:+Christian_Joy/0/1/0/all/0/1 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.148.6.36 (talk) 16:35, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- The decision to include content or not in this article does not reflect badly on you. You do not need to defend yourself. The content merely does not meet the guidelines and policies we have for inclusion. IRWolfie- (talk) 16:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- The claim by 86.148.6.36 (who claims to be Joy Christian) that one Richard Gill is spreading malicious rumours and making libelous claims ought to be removed from here, it seems to me. Richard Gill (talk) 17:25, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- I think both personal-level statements need to be removed, yours and the IP. This is an encyclopedic topic of importance and notability. Personal like/dislike issues have no place here. Please remove your personal comments about Christian, and we will ask the IP to remove the others, so we can move on. The discussion should focus on the technical merits and WP:RS issues, not these diversions. History2007 (talk) 19:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
- Please let me know (on my talk page) which comments by me you consider "personal" and I will gladly remove them. Personally I prefer common sense and open sharing of information to lead to resolution of conflicts on Wikipedia. I believe I have only brought relevant, objective, unbiased, verifiable information to this discussion. Richard Gill (talk) 13:50, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
- I think both personal-level statements need to be removed, yours and the IP. This is an encyclopedic topic of importance and notability. Personal like/dislike issues have no place here. Please remove your personal comments about Christian, and we will ask the IP to remove the others, so we can move on. The discussion should focus on the technical merits and WP:RS issues, not these diversions. History2007 (talk) 19:14, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Seeking consensus to exclude the disproof of Bell's theorem
- I agree - Wikipedia's guidelines are clear here. It's over. SteveBaker (talk) 15:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
| This is an archive of past discussions about Bell's theorem. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
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