Reality or Locality? Proposed Test to Decide How Nature Breaks Bell's Inequality

Abstract

Bell's theorem, and its experimental tests, has shown that the two premises for Bell's inequality—locality and objective reality—cannot both hold in nature, as Bell's inequality is broken. A simple test is proposed, which for the first time may decide which alternative nature actually prefers on the fundamental, quantum level. If each microscopic event is truly random (e.g., as assumed in orthodox quantum mechanics) objective reality is not valid whereas if each event is described by an unknown but deterministic mechanism (“hidden variables”) locality is not valid. This may be analyzed and decided by the well-known reconstruction method of Ruelle and Takens; in the former case no structure should be discerned, in the latter a reconstructed structure should be visible. This could in principle be tested by comparing individual “hits” in a double-slit experiment, but in practice a single fluorescent atom, and its (seemingly random) temporal switching between active/inactive states would possibly be better/more practical, easier to set up, observe, and analyze. However, only imagination limits the list of possible experimental setups.