Via Physics Today
Theories that incorporate hidden variables are consistent with quantum mechanics only if the systems they describe can store unlimited information.
John Stewart Bell’s famous theorem is a statement about the nature of any theory whose predictions are compatible with those of quantum mechanics: If the theory is governed by hidden variables, unknown parameters that determine the results of measurements, it must also admit action at a distance. Now an international collaboration led by Adán Cabello has invoked a fundamental thermodynamics result, the Landauer erasure principle, to show that systems in hidden-variable theories must have an infinite memory to be compatible with quantum mechanics.
Advertisements
