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Part of the book series: Fundamental Theories of Physics ((FTPH,volume 81))

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Abstract

The no-go theorems (I have in mind the Kochen-Specker and Bell type theorems) purport to tell us that the oldest interpretive idea for quantum mechanics fails; we cannot assign definite premeasurement values to the quantum mechanical observables, in particular to pairs of non-commuting observables. In fact, the no-go theorems are less categorical than that. They are a kind of quantum economics, a cost-benefit analysis that shows the cost involved for getting the benefit of premeasurement values. Conventionally, the cost is said to be contextualism (the Kochen-Specker theorem) or non-locality (the Bell theorem). My purpose here is to show that we do not actually need to pay quite so high a price. (It is not my purpose to urge one to buy.)

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© 1997 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Fine, A. (1997). Contextualism, Locality and the No-Go Theorems. In: Ferrero, M., van der Merwe, A. (eds) New Developments on Fundamental Problems in Quantum Physics. Fundamental Theories of Physics, vol 81. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5886-2_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-5886-2_16

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-6487-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-5886-2

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