2015 saw the first three bell test experiments that claimed to contain no
loopholes surely spooky action at a distance
must really be happening. The use of the CHSH inequality for a photon based Bell
test is problematic because it requires a hundred-percent detection
which we cannot achieve with photons but if we remove one detector at each side
then we can use the Eberhard inequality which takes account of detection at one
side only but could the observed violations of this inequality be
explained by classical physics?
If forty photons enter a polarizing filter then the natural assumption is that only
half of them pass through. But one possible way we could make use of
Einsteins hidden variables would be to suggest that all photons might actually
pass through and then a hidden property would cause just half of them to be
detected. Can a model using this approach produce the observed results? Yes it can.
Would it also predict the observed one-sided detections? Yes it would,
whereas quantum mechanics does not predict any one-sided detections. The
very first Bell test experiments were also photon based and so you might well
wonder why a classical physics explanation was dismissed
well the undetected photons were dismissed as not being important
they made the assumption that undetected photons had the same properties as the
detected photons which seems a bit strange surely it would be more
reasonable to assume they had different properties otherwise they should have
been detected it was claimed that the detected photons were a fair sample of
all the photons this gave them license to ignore the fact that the CHSH
inequality requires 100% detection and so in order to explain why photons
with exactly the same properties behave differently
we have to then assume that some mysterious unspecified thing that is
external to the photons is determining which ones get detected using this
so-called fair sampling assumption it was declared that experimental results
confirmed the quantum mechanics predictions and all counter arguments
were dismissed as being highly unlikely loopholes. John Clauser had a lot to do
with the first-ever Bell test he was one of the authors of the CHSH inequality
and working with Stuart Friedman he performed the first Bell test experiment
in 1972. Later he enjoyed discussing entanglement with the Fundamental
Fysics Group who wanted to use entanglement to promote Eastern
mysticism. There was a very simple way to explain the results which is this if an
entangled photon has a polarization angle close to an axis of the filter
then it has a higher probability of being detected but if it was fair to
assume that the undetected photons could be dismissed then this was a sensational
and highly newsworthy result that appeared to support the very weird idea
the spooky action at a distance was real and it would question the fundamental
nature of reality. Arguably the CHSH inequality was inadequate for
experiments like this where a lot of photons are not detected and it could be
claimed that it was unfair to assume fair sampling but the sensational news
of spooky action was very appealing and so entanglement soon gained general
acceptance. This meant that only experimental results that appeared to
confirm spooky action were get reported possibly given a completely
false impression that quantum mechanics was highly successful all
counter-arguments were now dismissed as mere loopholes. If an experiment produces
some exceptional result then we might expect our scientists to change various
aspects of the experiment to see how they altered the results with the
ultimate goal of trying to identify the cause of the strange result. If someone
claimed to be able to read your mind then hopefully we would not just believe
them based on the result of a simple trick but bizarrely the scientific
method of drilling down into the detail to find a cause was no longer required
because our scientists were believers in spooky action. Regardless of whether or
not spooky action is really going on there can be no excuse for not
performing extensive and rigorous investigations to try to identify the
cause to simply accept these results as evidence of spooky action is not the
action of a scientific investigator it's the action of believers in mysticism
it's the action of people who want to believe that there are weird things out
there that are beyond human comprehension
instead it's left up to the rest of us to try to guess at what the cause might
be. This video was brought to you by Extreme Finitism dot com