Tuesday 6 November 2007

Bell Theorem disprooved?

Writing the Country of Blindfolded is a task that is an never ending story, it seems.

Some time ago, I have found a clearly pseudoscientific work of Ilia Barukčić. The first link to it (through a search at google) was in a short note on a mail archive of the mailing list for the cygwin project. Far, far away from quantum mechanics. But the link has led me to a WEB page of supposedly peer reviewed Causation: International Journal Of Science. The front page boasts exploding graphics with a title Bell's theorem ... refuted! in one inch letters. Inside one finds two papers (claimed to be peer reviewed) by Ilija Barukčić: Bell's theorem. A fallacy of the excluded middle} and Helicobacter pylori: the cause of human gastric cancer. Perhaps not surprisingly, the Editorial Board consists of - you probably guessed - Ilija Barukčić!


With a great surprise I have opened the new issue (Nov 3rd) of New Scientist. In only slightly smaller letters the cover declared `NOT SO SPOOKY. Was Einstein right about quantum theory?'

And the article pointed to a disproof of Bell Theorem by Joy Christian. The disproof is, according to the New Scientist, based on the use, for the observed values, not `normal numbers' but Clifford algebra. Well, I have not yet read the original papers (which might be found here and here and here).
When I do, I'll try to grok some sense out of the whole matter.

1 comment:

Wanderer in the country of blindfolded said...

As a few days have passed I know a little more about Clifford Algebras now. There are a few links that I can recommend, or example
http://staff.science.uva.nl/~leo/clifford/talknew.pdf
http://www.av8n.com/physics/clifford-intro.pdf
http://www.mrao.cam.ac.uk/~clifford/publications/ps/imag_numbs.pdf

I have already formed some opinion about Christian's prood (disproof), but letsss not make hassste, my prcioussss.