IOP PUBLISHING REPORTS ON PROGRESS IN PHYSICS

Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001 (6pp) doi:10.1088/0034-4885/71/2/022001

Realism and the physical world

A J Leggett
Department of Physics, National University of Singapore, Block S 12, 2 Science Drive 3,
Singapore 117542
and
Department of Physics, University of Illinois, 1110 W Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801-3080, USA

Received 19 December 2007

Published 29 January 2008
Online at stacks.iop.org/RoPP/71/022001

Abstract
I consider the extent to which the applicability of the concept of classical realism is
constrained, irrespective of the validity or not of the quantum formalism, by existing
experiments both in the EPR–Bell setup, including recent experiments testing ‘nonlocal
realistic’ theories, and in the area of ‘macroscopic quantum coherence’. Unless we are willing
to sacrifice one or more other intuitively plausible notions such as that of the conventional
‘arrow of time’, it appears impossible, in either context, to maintain the classical notion of
realism.
This article was invited by Professor L H Greene

Ever since the earliest days of quantum mechanics (hereafter
QM) it has been appreciated that there are major difficulties
in reconciling the account it gives of the behaviour of the
microscopic world of atoms and electrons with the classic
notion of ‘realism’, which crudely speaking is the postulate that
physical objects have definite properties, and occupy definite
states, independently of whether or not they are observed.
This was, of course, explicitly realized by Nils Bohr, whose
solution was to postulate that microscopic objects (such as
electrons, photons and atoms) are simply not the kind of thing
that can possess properties independently of the macroscopic
apparatus used to observe them; thus, for example, in the
standard Young’s slits experimental setup, an electron which
is inspected to see which of the two slits in the intermediate
screen it passed through is simply not the same object as
an electron which passed through uninspected, and thus it
is not at all surprising that the diffraction pattern (or lack of
it) which is produced on the final screen differs in the two
cases. If one accepts, as Bohr seems to, a division of the
world into the ‘microscopic’ regime of atoms and electrons
and the ‘macroscopic’ level of measuring apparatus, which
is postulated to behave classically, then this picture seems
internally consistent, and it certainly seems to have satisfied
a generation of physicists and even of philosophers.
However, as pointed out by Schrödinger in 1935 in his
famous ‘cat’ paper [1], there is no good reason to accept this
division of the world into a microscopic regime where QM
reigns and a macroscopic one governed by classical physics;
QM is a very ‘totalitarian’ theory, and if it applies to individual
atoms and electrons, then it should prima facie equally apply
to the macroscopic objects made up of them, including any
devices which we have set up as measuring apparatus. Thus,
we are forced to conclude, with Schrödinger, that under
appropriate circumstances the description of a macroscopic
object (measuring apparatus, cat . . .) is inconsistent with the
hypothesis that it is in a definite macroscopic state (in the case
of the cat, is either ‘dead’ or ‘alive’).
It is worth stating the ‘cat’ (‘measurement,’ or better
‘realization’) paradox a little more formally. At the
microscopic level, the formalism of QM assigns probability
amplitudes to various possible behaviors of the system (e.g. in
a Young’s slits experiment, to passage through each of the two
slits in the intermediate screen). In view of the experimentally
observed phenomenon of interference at the final screen (the
total diffraction pattern is not the sum of the two patterns which
would result from passage through one slit, the other being
blocked), we can prima facie draw, in a situation in which
the assigned amplitude at each slit is nonzero, the (negative)
conclusion that it is incorrect to say that each electron of
the ensemble in question passed either through the upper or
through the lower slit. The same conclusion can be drawn for
other microscopic-level examples when we have simultaneous
nonzero amplitudes for different behaviors and see the effects
of interference between them, e.g. oscillations in the Ko –K̄o
system. Now, when we extrapolate the QM formalism to
the macroscopic level of cats and detectors, it is unarguable
that in suitable circumstances (such as those postulated by
Schrödinger in his original paper) it assigns simultaneous
nonzero amplitudes to two or more macroscopically distinct
states. Of course, it is generally agreed that, as a result

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Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001
of the decoherence predicted, under any normally realistic
conditions, by the QM formalism itself, it is no longer possible
to see the effects of interference between the two or more
‘branches’ of the superposition. However, the quantum
formalism is exactly the same at the microscopic and the
macroscopic level; if, therefore, a given interpretation is
excluded in the former case, it cannot become permitted in
the latter! The above formulation shows clearly that the
phenomenon of decoherence, while it may no doubt be an
essential ingredient in any future resolution of the realization
paradox, cannot by itself constitute such a resolution.
In the rest of this paper, I shall not be concerned with
the numerous attempts to resolve the cat paradox within
the assumption of the universal validity of QM which have
appeared in the literature over the last 70 years. Rather, I shall
use the paradox as a motivation for the question: irrespective
of the validity or not of QM, what can we say from experiment
about the validity, or not, of the concept of realism as applied
to the physical world? And what can we expect to be able to
say in the foreseeable future?
Two cautions before we start: first, we will never, by any
finite sense of experiments, be able to establish unequivocally
the truth either of realism or of any specific alternative to it
(e.g. QM). This is a matter of simple logic: the fact that theory
T predicts experimental consequence E, and that experiment
finds E, does not establish that T is correct. (The contrary
assertion is known to logicians as the fallacy of ‘affirmation of
the consequent’: that so many papers in experimental physics
appear to commit this fallacy probably signals that there is
an extra unspoken assumption in the authors’ minds, namely
something like ‘E is so surprising that it is highly unlikely that it
would be predicted by any theory other than T.’ Depending on
context, such an implicit argument may no doubt be somewhat
persuasive, but it is hardly logically conclusive.) On the
other hand, it may be possible to establish unequivocally, by
experiment, the falsity of a set of propositions (the fact that
theory T predicts experimental consequence E, and that ‘not-
E’ is found, does logically establish the falsity of T).
Secondly, I deliberately said in the last sentence ‘a set of
propositions.’ I know of no set of experiments, and can imagine
none, which could establish that the hypothesis of realism taken
in isolation is false. Indeed, the Bohm–de Broglie ‘pilot wave’
(or ‘hidden variable’) interpretation of the QM formalism
reproduces all the standard experimental predictions of that
formalism, yet claims to maintain the concept of realism; thus,
even if we should find that the experiments continue forever
to verify the predictions of QM, realism per se would not be
refuted. (Whether the additional assumptions which have to
be made in the Bohm–de Broglie interpretation effectively
devalue the concept of ‘realism’ to the point where it is as
it were no longer recognizable is a matter of opinion.) Thus,
we shall never attempt to test realism alone, but always in
conjunction with one or more other prima facie plausible
assumptions about the world.
The best known set of experiments which examine the
question of realism are those which stem from the theoretical
work of Einstein et al [2] and of Bell [3], and are usually known
as ‘EPR–Bell’ experiments. They refer to measurements
2
A J Leggett
Ma Mb
~ ~
switch switch
(a)
Ma′ M b′
(+)
= Da
Ma
(-)
Da Pa
(b)
Figure 1. (a) Schematic diagram of an EPR–Bell experiment.
(b) Details of the ‘measurement device’ Ma . The devices Ma
, Mb
and Mb
are similar mutatis mutandis.
made on a pair of systems which have interacted in the past
but are now separated to a distance such that, according
to the postulates of special relativity, the outcome of a
measurement as one system cannot be causally influenced by
the choice of what to measure on the other. A schematic
diagram of an idealized EPR–Bell experiment is shown in
figure 1. The essential points are (1) the atomic source emits
photons in pairs: while in real life most of the pairs are not
emitted back-to-back, we concentrate on the subensemble
which is. (2) At each ‘station’ (S1 or S2) a randomly
activated device makes a choice to switch the corresponding
photon into one of two different measuring devices, which
will measure different properties (e.g. the device Ma consists
of a polarizer Pa with transmission axis set in direction a
(and the nontransmitted photons reflected), plus detectors
Da(+) , Da(−) to register the transmitted and the reflected photons,
respectively, (see figure 1); the device Ma
is similar except
that the transmission axis of the polarizer is set in direction
a
). (3) The spatial dimensions are such that the ‘event’ of
detection at station S2 is spacelike separated from the ‘event’
of switching (choice of measurement) at S1 (and vice versa).
(4) The detectors are 100% efficient. No existing experiment
satisfies (at least to my knowledge) all of the above conditions
simultaneously, but it is useful to consider this idealized version
as a basis for discussion.
Let us first set up a notation to describe the data obtained in
this experiment. Suppose that a given photon 1 is switched into
the measuring device Ma , and the ‘transmission’ counter Da(+)
clicks: then we define the variable A to take the value +1 for
that photon. If the ‘reflection’ counter Da(−) clicks, we define
A to take the value −1. We take it as an experimental fact (of
course easily verified) that for each photon switched into Ma
either Da(+) or Da(−) clicks (but not both); hence for each photon
switched into Ma , either A = +1 or A = −1. Similarly, for
photon 1 switched into device Ma
, we define the variable A
to
take the value +1(−1) accordingly as the counter Da(+) (−)

(Da
)
clicks. A similar definition is made for the variables B and
B
measured on photon 2 at station S2 . Note carefully that
if, for example, photon 1 is switched into device Ma
, then
while the variable A
is defined for this photon the variable A
is not (and vice versa). In this way, one can of course obtain
Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001
the mean value A of A, for the subensemble of photon 1
which is switched into Ma (let us denote averages taken on this
subensemble by Aa ); similarly we can measure A
a
, Bb
,
etc. More interestingly, we can measure the correlation
N++ + N−− − N+− − N−+
ABab ≡ , (1)
N++ + N−− + N+− + N−+
where N++ is the number of pairs for which both A and B were
measured to be +1, etc. Note that this correlation (average) is
defined on a particular subensemble, namely that set of pairs
for which photon 1 was switched into Ma and photon 2 into
Mb . Although this paper is not concerned with QM as such, we
note as an aside that that theory gives unambiguous predictions
for the quantity ABab for any given type of atomic source:
for instance, if the pair of atomic transitions involved in the
emission of the photon pair is of the ‘0+ ’ type (no change of
atomic angular momentum or parity) then a simple argument
shows that the prediction is
ABab = cos(2θab ), (2)
where θab is the angle between the polarizer settings a and b at
S1 and S2 , respectively.
The class of theories about the physical world with
whose predictions the experimental data are most commonly
compared is that of ‘objective local theories’ (OLTs) [4]. This
class is defined by the conjunction of three postulates, which
may be labeled crudely as
(1) locality
(2) induction
(3) realism.
Locality (often denoted ‘Einstein locality’ in the literature)
is the postulate that an event (in the sense of special relativity)
cannot be causally affected by any past events which lie outside
its past light cone (i.e. which cannot transmit information to the
spacetime point of the event in question by any signal whose
velocity is less than or equal to that of light). This is, of course,
a fundamental postulate of the theory of special relativity as
the latter is usually formulated.
Induction is, crudely speaking, the postulate that ‘causality
propagates only forward in time,’ that is, that an event cannot be
offered by any future events, whether or not the latter lie inside
its light cone. Since within the framework of special relativity
this postulate can be derived as a consequence of locality
and ‘transitivity of causality,’ it is often not listed separately;
however, since we wish to examine the implications of the
experimental data with a minimum of a priori assumptions,
it is convenient to list it explicitly. In the present context,
its significance is that the statistical properties of the complete
ensemble of emitted pairs are determined only by conditions at
the source. In particular, the photons of the ‘ab’ subensemble
do not know in advance that they will be switched into
Ma and Mb , respectively, so the statistical properties of this
subensemble cannot be affected by this fact and so must be
identical to those of the ensemble of all pairs.
Let us move then to the trickiest, and in the present context
most interesting, ingredient in an OLT, namely ‘realism’
3
A J Leggett
(or ‘objectivity’). A crude definition of this concept would
be that ‘each photon of a given pair possesses (a complete
set of) properties in its own right.’ In other words, each
photon 1 (say) carries with it information which is sufficient
to decide, either deterministically or statistically, how it will
behave both if switched into Ma and if switched into Ma
. It is
natural to think of the information in question as embodied in
a set of ‘hidden’ variables, thus OLTs are often loosely known
as ‘hidden-variable’ theories, but this is not essential to the
argument to be developed below. If one phrases the concept
of realism in this way, so that the properties of interest are
possessed by microscopic objects (photons, as in other variants
of the experiment atoms, etc), it is natural to add to the word
‘realism’ the adjective ‘microscopic.’ Thus, it is microscopic
realism, in conjunction with locality and induction, which is
tested by the Bell–EPR experiments.
There is, however, an interesting alternative formulation
of postulates (3), which is usually called the hypothesis of
‘macroscopic counterfactual definiteness’ (MCFD). To explain
it, let us imagine that a given photon 1 was actually switched
into Ma
, thereby realizing a value of A
. Given the ‘random’
nature of the switching process, it could equally well have
been switched into Ma , and would then have realized a value
of A. The postulate of MCFD then states that the value of A
which ‘would have’ been realized is definite. That is, it can be
treated as a ‘fact’ about the physical world. It is fairly clear
that microscopic realism implies MCFD (if the photon carried
with it sufficient ‘instructions’ to determine the value of A,
then we can say that this value ‘would have’ occurred), but the
converse is not true: it is entirely conceivable that properties are
indeterminate at the microscopic level but become determinate
when as it were amplified, as in a photodetector, to some
level of ‘macroscopicness’; indeed, many people hold (in the
opinion of the present author incorrectly) that the formalism of
QM itself somehow achieves this result. In any case, it is clear
that the hypothesis of MCFD is somewhat weaker than that of
microscopic realism, so that any experiment which excludes
the former must automatically exclude the latter. It is also
worth noticing that the postulate of MCFD is insensitive to
whether the way in which the instructions carried by the photon
decide the value of A is deterministic or only statistical.
It is well known that any theory satisfying the conjunction
of postulates (1)–(3) (with either form of (3)) must predict
values of the experimentally measured correlations ABab ,
which satisfy the celebrated ‘CHSH’ inequality, derived by
Clauser et al [5] by extending the result of Bell:
ABab + AB
ab
+ A
Ba
b − A
B
a
b

2. (3)
A simple proof (one of many) goes as follows:
1. By postulate (3) (in either form) the values of A and
A
simultaneously exist for each photon 1, and similarly
values of B and B
exist for each photon 2.
2. By postulate (1), the value of A cannot be affected
by whether it was B or B
which was chosen for the
measurement in S2 and vice versa.
3. Therefore, the quantities AB, AB
, A
B, A
B
exist for
each photon pair, with A, A
, B, B
each taking the same
value ±1 in each of the combinations in which it occurs.
Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001
4. By trivial algebra it then follows that for each pair AB +
AB
+ A
B − A
B

2.
5. If ABall indicates the average over the complete
ensemble of pairs emitted by the photon source, then (4)
leads directly to the result
ABall + AB
all + A
Ball − A
B
all
2.
6. Finally, by postulate (2), ABab is identical to ABall ,
etc, and thus we obtain the CHSH inequality, equation (3).
Thus, if an ideal EPR–Bell experiment were to produce
results which violate the inequality (3) (in particular, were it
to reproduce the QM prediction (2), which violates (3) for
(example) settings such that a · b = a
· b = a · b
= π/8, a
·
b
= 3π/8), then we should know for sure that one of the
postulates (1)–(3) cannot hold in the real world. Unfortunately,
there is at present no single experiment which satisfies all
of the defining criteria for an ‘ideal’ experiment; there are
always various ‘loopholes’ (imperfect detector efficiencies,
lack of adequate spatial separation, questionable ‘randomness’
in the switching process, etc). However, while no existing
experiment has blocked all existing loopholes simultaneously,
with one exception each of them individually has been blocked
in at least one experiment, so that it would seem to require
a very peculiar conspiracy of nature to allow an OLT to be
maintained. The exception is what is sometimes called the
‘collapse locality’ loophole: if one postpones the ‘event’ of
realization of a particular outcome at each of the stations to
a sufficiently late stage (perhaps long after the dectector has,
in our usual way of thinking, produced a macroscopic output)
then the ‘events’ at the two stations would not have fulfilled the
condition of spacelike separation in any existing experiment,
and indeed to fulfill it would require conditions which border
on science fiction: cf for example [6]. For the purposes of this
discussion, let me from now on assume that such an ‘ideal’
(loophole-free) Bell–EPR experiment will someday be done,
will turn out consistently with the QM prediction (2) and will
thereby definitively invalidate the whole class of OLTs. What
are the implications?
Of the three defining postulates (1)–(3) of the class of
OLTs, the most impervious to challenge would seem at first
sight to be (2), in the sense that once we give up our ‘common-
sense’ notions concerning the ‘arrow of time’ it seems very
difficult to continue to do physics at all in the mold to
which we have been accustomed. Actually, in this writer’s
opinion it is entirely possible, indeed probable, that the next
major revolution in physics will force us to do just that,
but unfortunately it is in the nature of scientific revolutions
that their content is difficult or impossible to forecast, so
speculation along these lines seems pointless at this time. We
are then left with postulates (1) and (3), and it is an amusing
sociological observation that while popular writers on the
subject of the EPR–Bell experiments almost without exception
choose to give up (1) (locality), professional physicists usually
opt to sacrifice realism. Is there any experimental way of
deciding the question?
A partial answer comes from a very recent experiment and
the associated theory. Consider the standard ‘ideal’ setup of
4
A J Leggett
figure 1, and relax postulate (1) by allowing arbitrary nonlocal
effects in the detection process. On the other hand, we will in
some sense strengthen postulate (3), in the following sense: we
require that the ensemble of pairs of photons emitted by the
source is a disjoint union of subensembles in each of which
each photon of the pair has a definite polarization, a statement
which is operationally defined by the requirement that the
photon obeys Malus’s law, i.e. for any given photon there
exists a (complex) unit polarization vector e such that when it
is presented with a polarizer set with (complex) transmission
‘axis’ c, the probability of transmission is |e ∗ ·c|2 . (In such
a theory the transmission/rejection of any individual photon
is determined inter alia by nonlocal effects, but the statistics
for the ensemble of photons, obtained by averaging over these
effects and others, is required to satisfy Malus’s law.) Using the
elementary inequalities, applicable for variables A, B taking
values ±1
− 1 + |A + B|
AB
1 − |A − B|,
it is straightforward to show [7] that such a theory, called
a ‘crypto-nonlocal hidden-variable (CNLHV) theory’ must
predict inequalities for the experimental correlations which
are violated by the QM predictions. These inequalities are
however of a different nature from the Bell–CHSH inequalities,
and a test of them requires a set of measurements with
elliptically polarized analyzers which had not been previously
done. Recently, the experimental group in Vienna carried
out just such an experiment [8], finding agreement with the
predictions of QM and violation of the CNLHV predictions by
several standard deviations. Actually, to obtain this violation
it was necessary for the authors of [8] to assume that the
experimental correlations, while a function of the relative angle
a · b of the polarizer settings, are independent of the ‘center-
of-mass’ variable, i.e. invariant under simultaneous rotation of
a and b through the same angle, something which is certainly
plausible but is not directly tested. However, in very recent
work both these authors [9] and the Singapore group [10] have
generalized the CNLHV inequalities and conducted further
experiments so as to eliminate this loophole; once again the
data are consistent with the QM predictions and violate those of
the CNLHV class of theories, in the Vienna case by more than
80 standard deviations. While those experiments are subject to
some of the same ‘loopholes’ as the standard EPR–Bell ones,
the outcome makes it extremely plausible that CNLHV theories
cannot describe the physical world. What is the significance
of this result? Can we regard it as establishing (subject, of
course, to the above reservations concerning induction) that it
is indeed realism rather than locality which has to be sacrificed?
It is certainly suggestive in this respect; on the other hand, a
critic might argue that by formulating our ‘realistic’ postulate
in a way which requires the realism to refer to the properties
of individual photons of the pair rather than to the pair as a
whole, we have in effect smuggled the concept of locality
back in again. Perhaps the lesson is that while the concept
of ‘local realism’ is clear-cut, to try to analyze it in terms
of its two prima facie components may not in the end be a
particularly meaningful exercise. Certainly, in QM itself the
Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001
two concepts, or rather their absence, in some sense appear
blended, in that once one has the (nonrealistic) concept of
a quantum superposition then the idea of applying it to the
coupled state of two spatially remote objects is an entirely
natural development.
I now turn to a different class of experiments, which
attempts to examine the question of realism at a level much
closer to our own everyday consciousness than that of electrons
and atoms. Since I wrote a review [11] of this area of research
in 2002 and not much has changed qualitatively since then, I
will be rather brief. The experiments of this type done to date
look, explicitly or implicitly, for evidence that the predictions
of the QM formalism continue to work when the states involved
are quantum superpositions of two or more states which
are in some intuitively reasonable sense ‘macroscopically’
distinct; in most cases, the evidence for this conclusion comes
from the time-dependent behavior, in particular from the
‘Ramsey-fringe’ effects which are the characteristic signature
of a quantum superposition. The systems in question range
from fullerenes and other complex molecules to magnetic
biomolecules, quantum-optical systems and superconducting
devices such as SQUIDs; for details see [11]. It should be
emphasized that from the point of view of the ‘logic’ of realism
this class of experiments is less advanced than the EPR–Bell
ones, in the following sense: in the EPR–Bell case the existing
experiments not only establish that the QM predictions are
correct, but also (modulo the ‘loopholes’, see above) refute
those of the class of OLTs (and, now, of CNLHV theories). In
the case of the present class of experiments (sometimes called
‘macroscopic quantum coherence’ (MQC) experiments), what
has been established so far is that if the raw data are interpreted
according to the QM formalism, then the states generated
must be coherent quantum superpositions of macroscopically
distinct states rather than classical mixtures of such states (the
latter description would be entirely consistent with a picture
in which each system of the ensemble has realized a definite
state). One might then go on to argue as follows: ‘The notion
of QM superpositions at any given level is inconsistent with
the assumption of realism at that level: we see evidence for QM
superposition at the level of SQUIDs (etc): therefore, realism
is false at the level of SQUIDs.’ As pointed out above, this
argument, while perhaps plausible, is logically unsound; in
order to exclude realism at the level of SQUIDs, we need to
do an experiment which goes beyond the existing ones (just
as in the EPR–Bell case, it was necessary to do more than
simply verify that the QM predictions were correct for a few
randomly chosen polarizer settings). Such an experiment was
proposed by Garg and the present author in [12], and I believe
that a number of experimental groups are currently working
towards it.
The general structure of the experiment is conceptually
very similar to that of the EPR–Bell experiments. One deals
with a single system, e.g. a SQUID ring in an appropriate
external magnetic flux, which possesses a dichotomic variable
Q(t) (in practice the value of the circulating current in the
ring), i.e. one which can take only one of two discrete values
which we label by convention +1 and −1, respectively. We
verify in a preliminary experiment that measurement of Q(t)
5
A J Leggett
does indeed always produce the value ±1. We then note that
for this simple ‘2-state’ system, if it is ideally isolated from
its environment (a term which in this context includes any
internal dissipative mechanism), QM predicts, independently
of the density matrix of the system (or more accurately of the
‘time ensemble’ formed by a sequence of experiments starting
from the same initial conditions) 2-time correlations of the
form
Q(t)Q(t
) = cos (t − t
), (4)
where  is a tunneling frequency between the two states
Q = ±1. The formal similarity of equation (4) to equation (2)
above suggests that it might be possible to devise a CHSH-
type inequality for this system, with the different times of
measurement playing the role of the different polarizer settings,
and we shall now see that this is so.
The class of theories whose predictions we propose to
compare with those of QM and with experiment go under
the name of ‘macrorealism.’ Similarly to the case of OLTs,
this class of theories is defined by the conjunction of three
postulates:
(1) macroscopic realism per se
(2) noninvasive measurability
(3) induction.
The third postulate needs no special comment; it plays
essentially the same role as in the EPR–Bell case, assuring
us that the outcome of a measurement on the system cannot
be affected by what will or will not be measured on it later.
The assumption of macroscopic realism simply says that: a
macroscopic object which has available to it two or more
macroscopically distinct states is at ‘almost all’ times in one
of these states (the ‘almost all’ is necessary because one has to
allow, in such a theory, for transits between the states; however,
this complication can be taken into account in the analysis,
see [12]). In the present context, the postulate of macroscopic
realism is equivalent to the statement that Q(t) possesses either
the value +1 or the value −1 at (almost) all times t, irrespective
of whether or not it is actually measured (we saw above that
when measured, it certainly realizes one or other of these two
values).
In this case, in contrast to the EPR–Bell experiments, all
measurements are made on a single system, so there is no
question of invoking locality. Instead, one uses in a rather
similar role the postulate of ‘noninvasive measurability.’ This
postulate (which is emphatically not a QM one!) states that it
is possible, at least in principle, to perform a measurement
of Q(t) in such a way that neither the state of the system
at time t nor its subsequent behavior is influenced by the
measurement. Given the generally very invasive nature of most
measurement procedures on macroscopic solid-state systems
such as SQUIIDs, this postulate might at first sight seem rather
unlikely to be fulfilled in a real-life situation. However, we can
make it a lot more plausible by invoking an ‘ideal negative
result’ procedure: we arrange our measuring apparatus so
that if Q(t) is (say) +1 it is triggered, while if Q(t) = −1
nothing happens. We then do a series of runs in which Q
is measured at some time to ; these runs on which Q(to ) is
measured to be +1 we throw away, the rest we keep. We
Rep. Prog. Phys. 71 (2008) 022001
then ‘invert’ the measuring setup, so that a value of Q(t)
equal to −1 triggers it while Q(t) = +1 does not; this time
we keep the runs on which Q(to ) is measured to be +1 and
throw the rest away. In this way we can construct the 2-time
correlations which we are giving to require in the argument
below. (Note that it is only the first measurement of any pair
which needs to be noninvasive.) Conceptually, the postulate
of noninvasive measurability seems a very natural corollary
to that of macroscopic realism: would there be any sense in
affirming that the system ‘really has’ the value Q = +1 at some
time t, if a measuring device which is activated only when
Q = −1 could nevertheless affect its behavior? Of course,
in real life it may well be difficult to guarantee that ‘nothing
happens’ in the literal sense, and one may have to be content
with replacing it by the statement that whatever happens when
Q(t) has the ‘negative’ value is reliably calculable. (On
a possible procedure for setting up an ideal-negative-result
measurement, and for further discussion, see [13].)
Given the above three postulates, the argument for a CHSH
inequality of the form
Q(t1 )Q(t2 )t1 t2 + Q(t2 )Q(t3 )t2 t3 + Q(t3 )Q(t4 )t3 t4
−Q(t1 )Q(t4 )t1 t4
2, (5)
(where the subscript ti tj indicates that the averages are taken,
as they must be, on the subensemble on which measurements
are made at times ti and tj (only)) goes through analogously to
the EPR–Bell case: postulates (1) and (2) justify the statement
that provided the first measurement of any pair is conducted in
an ideally noninvasive way, Q(ti ) has for each run a definite
value which is unaffected, according to postulate (3), by what
will or will not be measured subsequently. Thus, for each
run the quantities Q(ti )Q(tj ) exist, with Q(ti ) having the
same value for any tj . The trivial algebra of step (4) of
the proof of the original CHSH theorem goes through, so
equation (5) is satisfied provided the averages are replaced by
Q(ti )Q(tj )all , where ‘all’ indicates that they are taken over
all runs. Finally, postulates (2) and (3) together justify the
replacement of Q(ti )Q(tj )all by the experimentally measured
correlation Q(ti )Q(tj )ti tj , giving the inequality (5).
I will not discuss here the rather delicate question of
exactly how ‘macroscopically distinct’ are the two circulating-
current states realized in a typical SQUID ring; this is at least
partly a matter of subjective definition, and in this context it is
sufficient to note that by any reasonable definition these two
states differ in the behavior of, at a minimum, several million
electrons. Rather, I would like to close by asking the question:
if the proposed experiment is done, and comes out according
to QM (hence in violation of the inequality (5)), what will we
have learned over and above what is already known from the
EPR–Bell experiments?
A J Leggett
To answer this question, it is essential to appreciate
that the hypothesis of MCFD, which is refuted by the
EPR–Bell experiments, while it is as noted weaker than
that of microscopic realism, is stronger than the postulate
of macroscopic realism. MCFD is a statement about a
macroscopic event which ‘would have’ happened (or not) in a
situation which did not in fact arise; by contrast, macroscopic
realism is a statement about what actually happens in a
situation which is realized. Of course, the hypothesis of
macroscopic realism does presumably imply that a second
macroscopic object, set up explicitly as a measuring device,
‘would have,’ had it been activated at time ti , have given the
output corresponding to Q(ti ), and thus, one could, if desired,
replace postulate (1) by an MCFD formulation similar to the
one given in the microscopic case. However, it is clear that
MCFD in a situation where the measured object is macroscopic
is a much weaker assertion than MCFD in the microscopic
(e.g. EPR–Bell) case, and thus its denial is a much stronger
statement. Hence the experiment proposed in [12], should it
be done and come out according to the predictions of QM, will
be a considerably stronger denial of realism than follows from
the existing EPR–Bell work.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported in part by the National Science
Foundation through grant no. NSF-EIA-03-50842.
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