What is It Like to be a Relativistic GRW Theory? Or: Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, Still in Conflict After All These Years

Foundations of Physics 52 (4):1-28 (2022)
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Abstract

The violation of Bell’s inequality has shown that quantum theory and relativity are in tension: reality is nonlocal. Nonetheless, many have argued that GRW-type theories are to be preferred to pilot-wave theories as they are more compatible with relativity: while relativistic pilot-wave theories require a preferred slicing of space-time, foliation-free relativistic GRW-type theories have been proposed. In this paper I discuss various meanings of ‘relativistic invariance,’ and I show how GRW-type theories, while being more relativistic in one sense, are less relativistic in another. If so, the initial claim that GRW-type theories have a greater compatibility with relativity is unwarranted: both type of theories violate relativity, one way or another.

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Valia Allori
University of Bergamo

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References found in this work

Philosophy of Physics: Quantum Theory.Tim Maudlin - 2019 - Princeton: Princeton University Press.
After Physics.David Z. Albert - 2015 - Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Explanation and scientific understanding.Michael Friedman - 1974 - Journal of Philosophy 71 (1):5-19.

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