Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Correct?

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 463-468
Author(s):  
Gilles Brassard ◽  
André Allan Méthot
2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
Kunihisa Morita

This study posits that Bohr failed to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality against Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen’s (EPR) paper. Although there are many papers in the literature that focus on Bohr’s argument in his reply to the EPR paper, the purpose of the current paper is not to clarify Bohr’s argument. Instead, I contend that regardless of which interpretation of Bohr’s argument is correct, his defense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality remained incomplete. For example, a recent trend in studies of Bohr’s work is to suggest he considered the wave-function description to be epistemic. However, such an interpretation cannot be used to defend the completeness of the quantum mechanical description.


2006 ◽  
Vol 04 (01) ◽  
pp. 45-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
GILLES BRASSARD ◽  
ANDRÉ ALLAN MÉTHOT

In loving memory of Asher Peres, we discuss a most important and influential paper written in 1935 by his thesis supervisor and mentor Nathan Rosen, together with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky. In that paper, the trio known as EPR questioned the completeness of quantum mechanics. The authors argued that the then-new theory should not be considered final because they believed it incapable of describing physical reality. The epic battle between Einstein and Bohr intensified following the latter's response later the same year. Three decades elapsed before John S. Bell gave a devastating proof that the EPR argument was fatally flawed. The modest purpose of our paper is to give a critical analysis of the original EPR paper and point out its logical shortcomings in a way that could have been done 70 years ago, with no need to wait for Bell's theorem. We also present an overview of Bohr's response in the interest of showing how it failed to address the gist of the EPR argument.


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