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Yakk · 05-01-2004, 04:41 PM

Quote:

As I understand it, the view presented in this book is that a quantum state does *not* apply to a single system (like your single electron), but to a (large or infinite) ensemble of similarly prepared systems. The implication would seem to be that the individual particle does have definite values of whatever dynamical quantities you're interested in - it's just that you won't know what they are until you measure them, and when you do, and if you repeat the measurement for a sufficiently large ensemble of similarly prepared systems, you will find your probability distribution emerging - which is the only thing you *can* predict. The most obvious example is the double-slit experiment. Trying it with a normal light source is essentially trying it with gazillions of similar systems at once. Try it with single photons, but repeatedly, and you still get the interference pattern building up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics

Quote:

Albert Einstein, himself one of the founders of quantum theory, disliked this loss of determinism in measurement. He held that quantum mechanics must be incomplete, and produced a series of objections to the theory. The most famous of these was the EPR paradox. John Stewart Bell's theoretical solution to the EPR paradox, and its later experimental verification, disproved a large class of such hidden variable theories and persuaded the majority of physicists that quantum mechanics is not an approximation to a nominally classical hidden-variable theory.

Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpr...ntum_mechanics

I assume he is ok with faster-than-light communication between particles?

It sounds like the Bohm interpretation.