Bell on Bohm

doi:10.1017/CBO9781316219393.024

22 - Bell on Bohm

from Part IV - Nonlocal Realistic Theories

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2016

Sheldon Goldstein

Edited by

Mary Bell and

Shan Gao

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Sheldon Goldstein: Affiliation:
Rutgers University
Shan Gao: Affiliation:
Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

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Summary

Prologue

A memorial conference for John Bell, open to the public, was held at Rutgers University around 20 years ago. I gave a short talk there on Bell's views about David Bohm's “hidden variables” formulation of quantum mechanics, a version of quantum mechanics often called the de Broglie–Bohm theory or Bohmian mechanics. This theory was in fact discovered by Louis de Broglie in 1927. In 1952, it was rediscovered and developed by Bohm, who was the first to appreciate its connection to the predictions of standard quantum mechanics. I did not publish the talk.

I have decided that it would be appropriate to publish a very lightly edited version of it here, in this volume devoted to the work of Bell on the foundation of quantum mechanics. One reason for doing so is that the connection between Bell and Bohm continues to be somewhat underplayed, with the strength of his advocacy of Bohmian mechanics not properly appreciated. For example, about half of the papers in Bell's collected works on the foundations of quantum mechanics deal with Bohmian mechanics. But in his fine introduction to the revised edition of this great book [1], Alain Aspect mentions this theory in only a single sentence, and parenthetically at that.

For several decades after Bell proved his nonlocality theorem, based in part on Bell's inequality, it was widely claimed that Bell had shown that hidden variables – and Bohmian mechanics in particular – were impossible, that they were incompatible with the predictions of quantum mechanics. For example, the great physicist Eugene Wigner, who, unlike most of his contemporaries, was profoundly concerned with the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and usually wrote on the subject with great clarity and insight, has written that

This [hidden variables] is an interesting idea and even though few of us were ready to accept it, it must be admitted that the truly telling argument against it was produced as late as 1965, by J. S. Bell … This appears to give a convincing argument against the hidden variables theory.

Type: Chapter
Information: Quantum Nonlocality and Reality
50 Years of Bell's Theorem
, pp. 363 - 371

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781316219393.024 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2016

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References

[1] Bell, J.S. (2004), Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

[2] Wigner, E.P. (1983), Review of quantum mechanical measurement problem, In P., Meystre and M.O., Scully (eds.), Quantum Optics, Experimental Gravity and Measurement Theory, New York: Plenum Press, pp. 43–63.

[3] Hawking, S. (1999), Does God play dice? www.hawking.org.uk/does-god-play-dice.html.

[4] Speiser, D. (1988), Ce qu'il est possible de dire et ce qui ne peut etre dit en mecanique quantique (d'apres J.S., Bell), Revue des questions scientifiques 159, 365–9.Google Scholar

[5] Bell, J.S. (1982), On the impossible pilot wave, Foundations of Physics 12, 989–99. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 159–68.Google Scholar

[6] Mermin, N.D. (1981), Quantum mysteries for anyone, Journal of Philosophy 78, p. 397.Google Scholar

[7] Stove, D.C. (1991), The Plato Cult, Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.

[8] Bell, J.S. (1986), Beables for quantum field theory, Physics Reports 137, 49–54. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 173–80.Google Scholar

[9] Bell, J.S. (1989), Are there quantum jumps?. In C.W., Kilmister (ed.), Schrödinger. Centenary Celebration of a Polymath, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 201–12.

[10] Bell, J.S. (1966), On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics, Reviews of Modern Physics 38, 447–52. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 1–13.

[11] Bell, J.S. (1964), On the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox, Physics 1, 195–200. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 14–21.Google Scholar

[12] Bell, J.S. (1980), De Broglie–Bohm, delayed-choice double-slit experiment, and density matrix, in Quantum Chemistry Symposium, International Journal of Quantum Chemistry 14, 155–9. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 111–16.Google Scholar

[13] Aspect, A., Grangier, P. and Roger, G. (1982), Experimental realization of Einstein– Podolsky–Rosen–Bohm Gedankenexperiment: A new violation of Bell's inequalities, Physical Review Letters 49, 91–4.Google Scholar

[14] Ghirardi, G.C., Rimini, A., and Weber, T. (1986), Unified dynamics for microscopic and macroscopic systems, Physical Review D 34, 470–91.Google Scholar

[15] Bell, J.S. (1990a), Against “measurement,” in A.I., Miller (ed.), Sixty-Two Years of Uncertainty: Historical Philosophical, and Physical Enquiries into the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, New York: Plenum Press. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 213– 31.

[16] Bell, J.S. (1990b), La nouvelle cuisine, in A., Sarlemijn and P., Kroes (eds.), Between Science and Technology, Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers. Reprinted in (Bell, 2004), pp. 232–48.

[17] Tumulka, R. (2006), Arelativistic version of the Ghirardi–Rimini–Weber model, Journal of Statistical Physics 125, 821–40.Google Scholar

[18] Bedingham, D., Durr, D., Ghirardi, G.C., Goldstein, S. N., Zanghi, N. (2014), Matter density and relativistic models of wave function collapse, Journal of Statistical Physics 154, 623–31.Google Scholar

[19] Durr, D., Goldstein, S., Norsen, T., Struyve, W., N., Zanghi (2013), Can Bohmian mechanics be made relativistic? Proceedings of the Royal Society A 470, 20130699.Google Scholar

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22 - Bell on Bohm

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