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Kochen-Specker and the Measurement Problem, 5 pages.

Abstract

The Kochen-Specker theorem rules out hidden-variable theories that are analogous to requiring a coin flip landing on heads to be heads both before and after the flip. Using a photon’s linear polarization as a hidden variable, it is possible for the polarization to be in a definite state, at any angle, before a measurement. A polarizer then forces it to one of the two stable states that correspond to measurement outcomes. Such an approach might resolve the measurement problem in a general way for finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, while a local variant of Bohmian mechanics can apply to infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Entanglement can then be seen as particles that have been synchronized in the past, and decoherence as forces acting to disrupt that synchronization. The result is a noncontextual and local-realist hidden-variable interpretation.