JOURNAL OF PHY334

J. Phy334 1, Art#11 (2007). Publication date

A Review:
"Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?"
A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen vs. N. Bohr

J. Hilts
Department of Physics and Computer Science, Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, ON, Canada N2L 3C5
(July 26, 2007; published date)
The EPR paradox is a thought experiment which was first introduced by A. Einstein, B.
Podolsky, and N. Rosen through a paper with the above title.[1] Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen,
collectively known as EPR, used philosophical arguments based on locality, realism, and
counterfactual definiteness to prove by contradiction that the above question is in the negative.
One of the father’s of quantum mechanics, Neils Bohr, advocated the Copenhagen
interpretation of quantum mechanics. It is well known that N. Bohr and A. Einstein did not share
the same views regarding the interpretation of quantum mechanics and had many discussions
regarding the “nature of nature”.[3] It is then no surprise that Bohr refuted the results of EPR,
claiming an ambiguity in the assumptions made by EPR regarding the “criterion of physical
reality”.

PACS numbers: 01.70.+w and 03.65.Ud

AS the theory of quantum mechanics was
being developed, the philosophy surrounding it
was the focus of many debates and discussions.
The implications of a statistical universe did not
sit well with many physicists, made famous by
Albert Einstein’s quote, “God does not play
dice.” [Figure 1] He believed for every
measured value of an observable, the observable
had that value before the measurement took
place. 1 How do you know if the particle really
did have that value before the measurement?
The Copenhagen, or orthodox, interpretation of
quantum mechanics regards this question as
meaningless.[4] Physicists who hold this view
claim that the particle did not have any value
before the measurement; it was the act of
measurement which made the particle “choose”
a value. That is, the wave function describing
the particle collapsed into a particular state.
Even stranger than how and why the particle
did not have a value (which is still in debate [4])
is the concept of an entangled state. Using the
1
An observable is a property of a system that can be
determined by a sequence of operations performed on the
system. Every observable in Quantum Mechanics has an
associated operator. See footnote 4.
following example I shall explain the concept of
entanglement [Figure 2]: Suppose Alice, Bob,
and Charlie would like to conduct an
experiment using two spin-1/2 particles
prepared in the singlet state: 2
00 = 1
2
( 01 − 10 ) (1)
These particles can be in either the spin up state,
0 , or the spin down state, 1 , represented by
the observables v z+ and v z− , respectively. In this
case spin can only be measured along the z-axis.
Now suppose Alice and Bob are spatially
separated and Charlie prepares these two
particles in some manner (it doesn’t matter how
just as long as he can reproduce the
experimental procedure [5]) and sends one
towards Alice, call it u1, and one towards Bob,
call it u2. Alice and Bob then make one
measurement on their particles at the exact same
time; it turns out that no matter what value Alice
gets when she measures u1, Bob will always get
2
Refers to two or more particles prepared in a correlated
state, such that their total angular momentum is zero.[7]
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J. Phy334 1, Art#11 (2007).
the opposite value for his measurement. Thus,
Alice can predict with certainty what value Bob
will get, and vice versa. How did Bob’s particle
know what value Alice’s particle had at the time
of measurement? This result was dubbed
“spooky action at a distance” by Einstein, but is
formally known as non-locality. 3 This result
demonstrates the quantum mechanical
phenomenon known as Quantum Entanglement;
the quantum states of two or more objects have
to be described with reference to each other.[8]
Entanglement is proving to be very useful for
Quantum Computation and Quantum
Information as it realizes information processing
tasks which are impossible or much more
difficult with classical resources.[5]
FIG. 1. A cartoon depicting the conflicting
views of Einstein and Bohr.
The fundamental arguments of EPR are based
on (1) the elements of physical reality and (2)
the completeness of quantum mechanical theory.
Even though EPRs argument is philosophical in
nature they fail to address what the elements of
physical reality are in this context. They instead
make the assumption that if without in anyway
disturbing the system the value of a particle can
be known before measurement then that element
corresponds to an element of physical reality.
3
Refers to the possibility of instant interaction between
two distant particles. The Principal of Locality states that
this is not possible and only a particle’s immediate
surroundings can influence it.
Publication date
EPR used a similar thought experiment to the
one above by noting that (classically), at any
given time, we know both the relative position
of the particles to one another, x1-x2, and the
total angular momentum of the system, p1+p2.
Note that x1-x2 and p1+p2 are commutable. 4 [8]
Suppose now that Alice and Bob can measure
either the position of their particle, x1 and x2, or
the momentum, p1 and p2, respectively, along
the z-axis. Since x and p are non-commuting
operators, a state describing both of these
observables cannot possess a definite value for
each operator. 5 If Alice decides to measure x,
then from the above example we know with
certainty the value of x for Bob’s particle, and
hence it is an element of physical reality.
Similarly, if Alice decides to measure p, then we
know with certainty what the value of p will be
for Bob’s particle. Since we cannot know both
the x and p with certainty, Alice’s decision to
measure the position or momentum has an
instantaneous effect on the elements of physical
reality at Bob’s location.[6]
EPR stated that if two systems were prepared
to be identical and in one of which Alice
measured x1 and in the other p1, one could
simultaneously know both the position and the
momentum of both particles. This obviously
violates the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle 6 ,
thus EPR “[were] forced to conclude that the
quantum mechanical description of physical
reality given by wave functions is not
complete.”[1]
Neils Bohr did not agree with these results,
stating that one cannot use the results from two
4
Suppose we have two operators A and B. If the
commutator of A and B is non-zero, namely [A,B]=AB-
BA≠0, then A and B cannot have simultaneous reality.
The more precise we measure the value of A, the less
precise we can know the value of B.
5
The operator x represents position and the operator
p = (h i )(∂ ∂x ) represents momentum. Note, [x, p] = ih ,
which is known as the canonical commutator.
6
ΔxΔp ≥ h 2 where Δx is the uncertainty in the
position and Δp is the uncertainty in the momentum.
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J. Phy334 1, Art#11 (2007).
different systems as if the measurements were
made on one system; the wave function
collapses into a specific state which describes
the system at the time of, say, measuring the
position of particle, and hence changes the value
of the momentum of particle 1. He believed
that there was a possibility of non-local
interaction occurring between two particles,
something Einstein could never accept.
Bohr saw an ambiguity in the assumptions of
the criterion describing the elements of reality
given by EPR; how can a particle interact with a
system but not disturb it in anyway? 7 In
response to this Bohr devised his own thought
experiment involving an apparatus comprised of
two free particles and a rigid diaphragm with
two parallel slits; through each of these slits one
particle with given initial momentum passes
independently of the other. We then have a free
choice to measure either the position or the
momentum after the particles have passed
through the slit.
If the momentum of the diaphragm is
measured before and after the passing of the
particles through the slits then one can
determine the total momentum of the two
particles perpendicular to the slits, as well as the
positions of the particles relative to one
another.[2] Thus, the measurement of the
momentum or position of one particle will
determine the momentum or position of the
other particle, respectively. We could define the
position of a particle to be nothing more then a
correlation between its behavior and some
apparatus which defines the space frame of
reference.
The conclusions Bohr drew from his
experiment he said best himself and so I quote:
7
It is from this that Bohr describes a system as
complementary, which arises in a system when one
consider the circumstances under which one measures
properties of that system; Bohr noted that this implies
impossibility of any sharp separation between the
behavior of atomic objects and the interaction with the
measuring instruments which serve to define the
conditions under which the phenomena appear.[6]
Publication date
“By allowing an essentially uncontrollable
momentum to pass from the first particle into
the mentioned support, … we have by this
procedure cut ourselves off from any future
possibility of applying the law of conservation
of momentum to the system consisting of the
diaphragm and the two particles and therefore
have lost our only basis for an unambiguous
application of the idea of momentum in
predictions regarding the behavior of the second
particle. Conversely, if we choose to measure
the momentum of one of the particles, we lose
through the uncontrollable displacement
inevitable in such a measurement any possibility
of deducing from the behavior of this particle
the position of the diaphragm relative to the rest
of the apparatus, and have thus no basis
whatever for predictions regarding the location
of the other particle.”[2]
With these results Bohr claimed that the
description of physical reality given by EPR
was wrong. Their conclusion regarding the
quantum mechanical incompleteness of the
description of reality is thus also false.
FIG. 2. A visual representation of the Alice,
Bob, and Charlie experiment.
The conclusions of the EPR paper try to
resolve this paradox by stating that quantum
mechanics is merely a statistical approximation
of a more complete description of nature which
has yet to be discovered. In this more complete
description there exist variables pertaining to
every element of physical reality. There must
be, however, some unknown mechanism acting
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J. Phy334 1, Art#11 (2007). Publication date

on these variables to give rise to the observed

effects of "non-commuting quantum
observables." Such a theory is called hidden
variable theory. [6]
John S. Bell derived a set of inequalities,
known as Bell Inequalities, which showed that
the predications of quantum mechanics through
the EPR thought experiment actually differed
from the predictions of various hidden variable
theories.[9] These predictions have much
stronger statistical correlations between
measurement results performed on different
axes than the hidden variable theories.[6] These
theories are generally non-local; recall the EPR
paper used locality as one of their arguments.
Today most physicists believe that the EPR
“paradox” is only a paradox because our
classical intuitions do not correspond to physical
reality in the realm of quantum mechanics.

Acknowledgements – I would like to thank Neil

Sinclair and Dr. Shohini Ghose for the insightful
discussions which helped me better understand this
topic and Quantum Mechanics in general.

[1] A. Einstein, B. Podolsky, and N. Rosen, Phys. Rev. 47,

777 (1935).
[2] N. Bohr, Phys. Rev. 48, 696 (1935)
[3] Malone, Michael, Michigan State University
www.msu.edu/user/malonemi/lbs333/quantum03.html,
1998.
[4] Griffiths, David J., Introduction to Quantum
Mechanics, Second Edition. New Jersey, 2005.
[5] Neilsen, Michael A. and Chuang, Isaac L., Quantum
Computation and Quantum Information. Cambridge
University Press, 2003.
[6] Wikipedia.org – EPR Paradox
[7] Wikipedia.org – Singlet State
[8] Peres, A., Quantum Theory – Concepts and Methods.
Kluwer Academic Publishers, New York, 2002.
[9] Bell, J. S. "On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox."
Physics 1, 195-200, 1964