APS » PROLA » Phys. Rev. Lett. » Volume 83 » Issue 19

Phys. Rev. Lett. 83, 3751 - 3754 (1999)

Finite Precision Measurement Nullifies the Kochen-Specker Theorem

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David A. Meyer *
Project in Geometry and Physics, Department of Mathematics, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0112
and Institute for Physical Sciences, Los Alamos, New Mexico

Received 9 April 1999

Only finite precision measurements are experimentally reasonable, and they cannot distinguish a dense subset from its closure. We show that the rational vectors, which are dense in S2, can be colored so that the contradiction with hidden variable theories provided by Kochen-Specker constructions does not obtain. Thus, in contrast to violation of the Bell inequalities, no quantum-overclassical advantage for information processing can be derived from the Kochen-Specker theorem alone.


©1999 The American Physical Society

URL: http://link.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v83/p3751
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.83.3751
PACS: 03.65.Bz, 03.67.Hk, 03.67.Lx

* Electronic address: dmeyer@chonji.ucsd.edu

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