scholarly journals Causal Intuition and Delayed-Choice Experiments

Entropy ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 23
Author(s):  
Michael B. Heaney

The conventional explanation of delayed-choice experiments appears to violate our causal intuition at the quantum level. I reanalyze these experiments using time-reversed and time-symmetric formulations of quantum mechanics. The time-reversed formulation does not give the same experimental predictions. The time-symmetric formulation gives the same experimental predictions but actually violates our causal intuition at the quantum level. I explore the reasons why our causal intuition may be wrong at the quantum level, suggest how conventional causation might be recovered in the classical limit, propose a quantum analog to the classical block universe viewpoint, and speculate on implications of the time-symmetric formulation for cosmological boundary conditions.

Author(s):  
Michael B. Heaney

The conventional explanation of delayed-choice experiments seems to violate our causal intuition. This apparent violation is caused by a misinterpretation of the conventional formulation of quantum mechanics. I reanalyze these experiments using advanced and time-symmetric formulations of quantum mechanics. All three formulations give the same experimental predictions, but the advanced and time-symmetric formulations violate our causal intuition that effects only happen after causes. I explore reasons why our causal intuition may be wrong at the quantum level. I also suggest how conventional causation might be recovered in the classical limit, and speculate on cosmological boundary conditions.


Author(s):  
Michael Silberstein ◽  
W.M. Stuckey ◽  
Timothy McDevitt

The main thread of chapter 4 introduces some of the major mysteries and interpretational issues of quantum mechanics (QM). These mysteries and issues include: quantum superposition, quantum nonlocality, Bell’s inequality, entanglement, delayed choice, the measurement problem, and the lack of counterfactual definiteness. All these mysteries and interpretational issues of QM result from dynamical explanation in the mechanical universe and are dispatched using the authors’ adynamical explanation in the block universe, called Relational Blockworld (RBW). A possible link between RBW and quantum information theory is provided. The metaphysical underpinnings of RBW, such as contextual emergence, spatiotemporal ontological contextuality, and adynamical global constraints, are provided in Philosophy of Physics for Chapter 4. That is also where RBW is situated with respect to retrocausal accounts and it is shown that RBW is a realist, psi-epistemic account of QM. All the relevant formalism for this chapter is provided in Foundational Physics for Chapter 4.


2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (11) ◽  
pp. 2130
Author(s):  
С.В. Ганцевич ◽  
В.Л. Гуревич

The bra+ket quantum language introduced earlier by the authors for the explanation of quantum correlation at macroscopic distances permit to understand the physical mechanism of the interference of separate quantum particles without the concepts of the transformation of a wave into a particle or vice versa as well as to avoid the assertions of retrocausality, nonlocality, instantaneous interaction or other similar phenomena allegedly inherent to quantum mechanics. Using the bra+ket approach we consider the experiments with two and three slits, the delayed choice experiments and some more complicated interference experiments with changing parameters the results of which caused the vivid many year discussion with adverse conclusions on particle trajectories in the interferometers.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-67
Author(s):  
Ghenadie Mardari

The phenomenon of quantum erasure exposed a remarkable ambiguity in the interpretation of quantum entanglement. On the one hand, the data is compatible with the possibility of arrow-of-time violations. On the other hand, it is also possible that temporal non-locality is an artifact of post-selection. Twenty years later, this problem can be solved with a quantum monogamy experiment, in which four entangled quanta are measured in a delayed-choice arrangement. If Bell violations can be recovered from a “monogamous” quantum system, then the arrow of time is obeyed at the quantum level.


Physica B+C ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 137 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 266-269
Author(s):  
Herbert J. Bernstein

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document