User:Johnjbarton/sandbox/Hidden-variable theory

Motivation
Macroscopic physics requires classical mechanics which allows accurate predictions of mechanical motion with reproducible, high precision. Quantum phenomena requires quantum mechanics which allows accurate predictions of only statistical averages. If quantum states had hidden-variables awaiting ingenious new measurement technologies, then the statistical averages might be converted to classical-mechanics like motions.

Such a classical mechanics would eliminate unsettling characteristics of quantum theory like the uncertainty principle. More fundamental however, the successful model of quantum phenomena with hidden variables implies quantum entities with intrinsic values independent of measurements. Existing quantum mechanics asserts that state properties can only be known after a measurement. As N. David Mermin puts it: ""It is a fundamental quantum doctrine that a measurement does not, in general, reveal a pre-existing value of the measured property. On the contrary, the outcome of a measurement is brought into being by the act of measurement itself...""

Thus an electron has no definite position and velocity in quantum mechanics to be revealed by any kind of technology. A hidden-variable theory would sweep away all these issues.