Friday, 21 March 2008
Classical Random Fields as Models for Quantum Experiments
Peter Morgan, Yale University
12:05 pm, 817R Cathedral of Learning

Abstract:The literature on the relationship between quantum theory and classical physics has focused almost exclusively on the relationship between quantum mechanics and classical particle property models, but the standard no-go theorems have various unpleasant consequences for such discussions. In contrast, a classical random field approach that explicitly models quantum fluctuations follows John Bell's advocacy that models should be of complete experiments. To a first approximation, the preparation apparatus and the measurement apparatus act as a global boundary condition for the classical random field they contain, so that nonlocality and contextuality are natural for classical random fields (in a second approximation, quantum fluctuations of both the experimental apparatus and the field have to be taken into account). It is unfortunate that a classical field approach to quantum experiments has been discounted, apparently because of a general, but unfounded certainty that Bell's "The theory of local beables" is a robust argument against them. I will also visit briefly the Fine/Accardi argument that the violation of Bell inequalities forces us to introduce only contextuality, without nonlocality being directly at issue.