Taturana said:
My question is: why is the hidden variable theory wrong? How was that proven? How do he knows that probability is something intrinsic in nature?
Despite what you might read, the idea of hidden variables
per se has not been proven wrong - statements to the contrary are either just ignorance or wish-fulfillment (though the variables have to be contextual and non-local - look this up).
All the idea of hidden variables actually amounts to - at least in the successful theories we have so far such as de Broglie-Bohm - is that particles still have positions (and hence trajectories) even when you don't look at them. From a normal human perspective believing otherwise would be seen as essentially bizarre - but the idea was trampled on by some Nobel-prize winners in the late 1920s who were unduly influenced by the since discredited philosophical ideas of logical positivism (which, taken to its extreme, implies that if you can't see or measure something then it doesn't exist..). Since then, most people have taken their cue from them (how could Bohr and Heisenberg ever be wrong, after all?).
In fact, it can be shown that quantum mechanics is
entirely analagous to classical statistical mechanics (where we also work with probability distributions of particles) the sole difference being that the dynamics of the particles are affected by an 'extra force' due to an objectively-existing 'wave field' (hence wave-particle duality - there is a particle
and a wave, geddit? - a solution for some reason never normally contemplated..
)
The idea that ordinary QM demonstrates unequivocally that nature is fundamentally probabilistic is simply horsegarbage. Though I admit that not a lot of people know that. See the book "Quantum mechanics: historical contingency and the Copenhagen hegemony" by James Cushing for more discussion as to why.
schip666! said:
Hidden variable theory is not popular these days. It is still not "wrong" but the consensus seems to be that it doesn't provide any more utility than more accepted QM hypotheses. At the bottom of it is the de Broglie–Bohm theory, which might get you started. I asked a similar question on another thread recently and got this link in reply:
http://www.vallico.net/tti/deBB_10/conference.html
It's the papers delivered at a recent small conference at the "Towler Institute" in Italy on the subject. I haven't had the nerve to dive into the papers, but it looks like they could be illuminating as well.
The supposed 'consensus' ignores the fact that 95% of physicists have never even heard of de Broglie-Bohm or similar - therefore when the idea is presented to them they simply assume that it must be wrong. It's like asking the general public if they 'believe' in anthropogenic climate change.
According to a recent thread, Maaneli and Demystifier who hang around in the Quantum Physics forum went to the conference you mention - perhaps you could ask them what they thought? The introductory lectures by Towler and Valentini on that page give a good summary of the points I tried to make above.
