Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2008 iii Paper 59 2 i Solution Created 2026-10-03 Updated 2026-10-14
Consider two spacelike-separated measurement regions and , with locally chosen settings and recorded outcomes . A relevant past region supplies a sufficient specification of the common preparation and other hidden physical information needed to screen the outcomes. This is not necessarily just a quantum state written at the source, nor a conditioning on arbitrary records which already contain the future choices. The spacetime shielding and sufficiency requirements are substantive causal assumptions.
Use Bell local causality: once the relevant past is sufficiently specified, learning facts in the remote measurement region changes no local outcome probability. In particular, requirewhere conditional probabilities are defined. The probability chain rule givesThis factorization combines parameter independence with outcome independence. Neither probability is required to be zero or one: the argument includes stochastic local hidden-variable theories.
Also assume measurement independence, , so all four setting pairs average over one normalized nonnegative past-variable distribution. This is a statistical condition on the setting procedure and relevant hidden information, not a proof of a metaphysical doctrine of free will. Finally the recorded outcomes must represent the same ensemble of trials. One can include nondetections in a specified bounded-outcome rule; if instead one discards events depending on setting or outcome, a further sampling assumption is required. Setting-dependent postselection is not covered silently by the argument.
Let and . They lie in , and the factorization givesFor each ,Averaging with the same proves the CHSH inequalityNo separate assumption of simultaneous predetermined values for incompatible quantum observables was needed. The common probability model and its screening relations did the work.
A Reichenbach common cause principle can motivate the same calculation: a complete classical common cause in the past screens the two outcomes, while each setting affects only its own wing. Together with setting-independent sampling this gives the displayed factorization. It is not enough to provide a different screening variable for each pair of settings: those constructions need not form one compatible common-cause model for the four correlations.
A stochastic Einstein locality formulation instead constrains objective chances by facts in the appropriate causal past. To use it as a sufficient premise here, specify both local dependence on settings and a joint screening condition for the two outcomes. Merely requiring local marginal chances not to depend on a remote setting gives parameter independence, which is weaker than factorization. Thus the precise stochastic locality version matters; one should not infer a Bell inequality from every condition loosely described as no superluminal influence.
Stochastic Einstein locality 2026-10-13
A formulation of stochastic Einstein locality restricts an event's objective chance to its relevant causal past, rather than spacelike-separated interventions or facts. Different versions constrain either marginal chances or joint conditional probabilities. A one-wing marginal condition alone does not supply outcome independence. To derive a Bell theorem by this route, the proposed locality assumptions must include the appropriate screening-off relation for the two outcomes, together with a common setting-independent past distribution.