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Reversibility and the Interpretation of Mixtures in Quantum Mechanics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Osvaldo Pessoa Jr.
Osvaldo Pessoa Jr.*
Affiliation:
Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Brazil
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Extract

The term “experimental philosophy” has been used to refer to the solution of what were considered philosophical problems by means of laboratory experiments. A recent example of this was the experimental violation of the Bell inequality, which ruled out certain philosophically appealing “realist local” theories as alternatives to quantum mechanics (QM).

Following the spirit of such experimental philosophy, this paper proposes a feasible test between two different interpretations concerning the nature of “mixtures” in QM. The use of delayed coincidence techniques seems to show that the process of mixing beams of light in different polarizations is reversible, favoring a weak version of the so-called “ignorance interpretation” over the “instrumentalist” view.

Type
Part X. Quantum Theory II
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1992 , Issue 1: Volume One: Contributed Papers 1992 , 1992 , pp. 381 - 392
Copyright
Copyright © 1992 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I wish to thank Linda Wessels and Stephen Kellert for discussions on the subject of this paper. Financial support was provided by the “Funda(No de Amparo “ Pesquisa do Estado de SNo Paulo” (FAPESP).

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