Two No-Go Theorems for Modal Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics

✍ Scribed by Pieter E Vermaas

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 211 KB
• Volume: 30
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1355-2198
• DOI: 10.1016/s1355-2198(99)00011-8

✦ Synopsis

Modal interpretations take quantum mechanics as a theory which assigns at all times de"nite values to magnitudes of quantum systems. In the case of single systems, modal interpretations manage to do so without falling prey to the Kochen and Specker no-go theorem, because they assign values only to a limited set of magnitudes. In this paper I present two further no-go theorems which prove that two modal interpretations become nevertheless problematic when applied to more than one system. The "rst theorem proves that the modal interpretation proposed by Kochen and by Dieks cannot correlate the values simultaneously assigned to three systems. The second and new theorem proves that the atomic modal interpretation proposed by Bacciagaluppi and Dickson and by Dieks cannot correlate the values simultaneously and sequentially assigned to two systems if one assumes that these correlations are uniquely related to the dynamics of the state of the systems.