Path: cactus.org!milano!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mtnmath!paul
From: paul@mtnmath.UUCP (Paul Budnik)
Newsgroups: sci.crypt

Subject: Re: Are there truly random phenomena?
Summary: Locality and determinism are independent issues.
Message-ID: <150@mtnmath.UUCP>
Date: 6 Aug 91 20:36:40 GMT
References: <44901@cup.portal.com> <15218@ulysses.att.com> <148@mtnmath.UUCP>
+           <16951@smoke.brl.mil>
Organization: Mountain Math Software, P. O. Box 2124, Saratoga, CA 95070
Lines: 36

In article <16951@smoke.brl.mil>, gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn) writes:
> ...
> As a theoretical physicist (who happens to follow Einstein in this and
> thus is not overly sympathetic to the consensus view), I feel obliged to
> point out that Budnick's arguments misrepresent the situation and indeed
> to the contrary, Bell's work, plus recent experimental results, have
> firmly established that the known phenomena of quantum physics are
> incompatible with local determinism.  I.e., the "probability amplitudes"
> that embody fundamental quantum properties are NOT simply "probability"
> in the classical sense of uncertainty reflecting incomplete information.
> 
Local determinism in general is not equivalent to the determinism advocated
by Einstein in EPR. Futher locality and determinism are completely independent
questions. I agree that the classical determinism that you describe
has been refuted.

Bell treated the issues of locality and determinism separately.
His refutation of von Neuman's proof is in: John S. Bell,
Reviews of Modern Physics, pgs. 447-452, Vol. 38, No. 3, July 1966.

The recent experimental results relating to Bell's work that I am familiar
with have nothing to do with determinism but only locality. If you are
aware of any related to determinism I would appreciate a reference. The
results all support quantum mechanics but they are inconclusive
about locality for reasons I gave in a previous post.

> Recursive function theory has nothing to do with physics.

If you wish to claim the no *possible* deterministic model is compatible
with current theory or experimental results, then recursive function
theory is the branch of mathematics you better be working in. Studying this
branch of mathematics would help you avoid errors like assuming because
one particular class of local deterministic models are inconsistent with
known experimental results all possible local deterministic models are.

Paul Budnik