Abstract
Our aim is to understand the role of implicit assumptions which has been used by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen (EPR) in their famous article [Phys. Rev., 47, 777 (1935)] devoted to the so-called EPR paradox. We found that the projection postulate plays a crucial role in the EPR argument. It seems that EPR made a mistake in this paper — the projection postulate was applied not in its original form (as it has been formulated in von Neumann's book [Mathematical Foundations of Quantum mechanics, Princeton University Press (1955)] but in the form which was later formalized as Lüders' postulate [Ann. Phys., Lpz. 8, 322 (1951)]. Von Neumann's postulate was crucially modified by extending it to observables with degenerate spectra. This modification is the real source of “quantum nonlocality.” The use of the original von Neumann postulate eliminates this problem — instead of (an action at a distance)-nonlocality, we obtain a classical measurement nonlocality, which is related to the synchronization of two measurements (produced on the two parts of a composite system). If one uses correctly von Neumann's projection postulate, no “elements of reality” can be assigned to entangled systems.
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Talk presented at the oral issue of J. Russ. Laser Res. dedicated to the memory of Professor Vladimir A. Isakov, Professor Alexander S. Shumovsky, and Professor Andrei V. Vinogradov held in Moscow February 21–22, 2008.
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Khrennikov, A. Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, Bell's inequality, and the projection postulate. J Russ Laser Res 29, 101–113 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10946-008-9003-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10946-008-9003-8