Physics Emeritus Professor Art Hobson on Resolving the Quantum Measurement Problem

Physics Emiritus Professor Dr. Art Hobson had his paper "A suggested resolution of the problem of definite outcomes" recently published by The International Journal of Quantum Foundations. Dr. Hobson states that this paper is "One of the most important accomplishments of my professional life." Long after his retirement from the U of A in 1999, at the age of 91, Dr. Hobson's passion for physics and his research still burns bright. 

Dr. Hobson explains his paper below:

"The cat problem was pointed out by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935.  As Schrodinger put it, quantum physics seems to imply that a simple experiment can create a cat that is simultaneously dead and alive. Physicists agree that this problem shows that quantum physics is flawed, but that flaw has never been clearly identified or rectified.  

Schrodinger imagined an experiment in which a radioactive atom is hooked up to a radiation detector, and the detector is hooked up to a cat in such a way that, if the atom emits a radiation particle within one hour, the cat dies, and if the atom does not emit  a radiation particle during that time, the cat lives. Quantum theory appears to predict a very odd result of this experiment, namely that, at the end of the hour-long experiment, the cat is simultaneously dead and alive, and the nucleus is both decayed and undecayed. The physics community knows that this prediction is absurd, and that the problem lies within quantum theory, but nobody has been able to put their finger on the source of this incorrect prediction.  My paper finds the source of the prediction and suggests an obvious way to fix it by re-interpreting a certain aspect of the mathematical theory.  

The solution is that the so-called "Schrodinger's cat state" has been misinterpreted. This stat does not describe a nucleus that is both decayed and undecayed and a cat that is dead and alive. Instead, it describes a nucleus and a cat whose situation (or "quantum state") is correlated in a certain way: a live cat is correlated with an undecayed nucleus, and a dead cat is correlated with a decayed nucleus. Thus the "cat state" is a superposition of correlations between the cat and the nucleus, not a superposition of states of the cat and the nucleus.

I discovered this misinterpretation of the "cat state" by studying two experiments that were performed in 1990. The experiments involved photons that were connected to each other in the same way that Schrodinger's cat is connected with a radioactive nucleus. This way of connecting quantum objects is called "entanglement." The experiment showed, in no uncertain terms, that the entanglement of the two photons was what I call a "superposition of correlations" rather than an impossible superposition quantum states. Similarly, the cat state describes an entanglement of the cat with the nucleus.  

To put it briefly, this paper shows that the entangled state of the cat and the nucleus is not a superposition of states but merely a superposition of correlations between states, and this resolves the problem."  

Dr. Hobson is happy to recieve comments on this claim! You can find his publication here: "A suggested resolution of the problem of definite outcomes."