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Bell’s theorem allows local theories of quantum mechanics

Nature Physics volume 18, page 1382 (2022)Cite this article

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Your Editorial ‘Survey the foundations’ makes the valuable point that with so much of modern science and technology dependent on quantum mechanics, trying to understand its foundations is time well spent1. However, we see the need to correct an unfortunate mistake in the Editorial, which is the statement: “One route out of this paradox could be an undetected, so-called hidden variable associated with both particles that underlies the correlated behaviour. However, John Stewart Bell proved that such an approach cannot explain the quantum mechanical outcomes. Any theory that uses hidden variables still requires non-local physics.”

This passage reflects a common misconception2,3 that Bell’s theorem proves that hidden variable theories reproducing quantum mechanics require non-local physics. In fact, locally causal completions of quantum mechanics are possible, if they violate the assumption that the hidden variables do not in any way depend on measurement settings.

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Acknowledgements

J.R.H. acknowledges support by the University of York’s EPSRC DTP grant EP/R513386/1, and the Quantum Communications Hub funded by EPSRC grants EP/M013472/1 and EP/T001011/1. S.H. acknowledges support by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under grant no. HO 2601/8-1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Quantum Engineering Technology Laboratories, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Jonte R. Hance

  2. Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, Frankfurt, Germany

    Sabine Hossenfelder

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  1. Jonte R. Hance
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  2. Sabine Hossenfelder
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Correspondence to Jonte R. Hance.

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Hance, J.R., Hossenfelder, S. Bell’s theorem allows local theories of quantum mechanics. Nat. Phys. 18, 1382 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01831-5

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