John Stewart Bell

"To know the quantum mechanical state of a system implies, in general, only statistical restrictions on the results of measurements. It seems interesting to ask if this statistical element be thought o…"

"More generally, the hidden variable account of a given system becomes entirely different when we remember that it has undoubtedly interacted with numerous other systems in the past and that the total …"

"The orthodox approaches, whether the authors think they have made derivations or assumptions, are just fine FAPP — when used with the good taste and discretion picked up from exposure to good examples…"

"The theorem tells you that maybe there must be something happening faster than light, although it pains me even to say that much. The theorem certainly implies that Einstein's concept of space and tim…"

"The first charge against 'measurement', in the fundamental axioms of quantum mechanics, is that it anchors there the shifty split of the world into 'system' and 'apparatus'. A second charge is that th…"

"While the founding fathers agonized over the question 'particle' or 'wave', de Broglie in 1925 proposed the obvious answer 'particle' and 'wave'. Is it not clear from the smallness of the scintillatio…"

"I agree with them about that: ORDINARY QUANTUM MECHANICS IS JUST FINE FOR ALL PRACTICAL PURPOSES. Even when I begin by insisting on this myself, and in capital letters, it is likely to be insisted on …"

"The concepts 'system', 'apparatus', 'environment', immediately imply an artificial division of the world, and an intention to neglect, or take only schematic account of, the interaction across the spl…"