Proposed test would offer strongest evidence yet that the quantum state is real

I hope this bears out. Perhaps it will shut up some of the philosophers.
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Phys.org)—Physicists are getting a little bit closer to answering one of the oldest and most basic questions of quantum theory: does the quantum state represent reality or just our knowledge of reality? George C. Knee, a theoretical physicist at the University of Oxford and the University of Warwick, has created an algorithm for designing optimal experiments that could provide the strongest evidence yet that the quantum state is an ontic state (a state of reality) and not an epistemic state (a state of knowledge). Knee has published a paper on the new strategy in a recent issue of the New Journal of Physics. While physicists have debated about the nature of the quantum state since the early days of quantum theory (with, most famously, Bohr being in favor of the ontic interpretation and Einstein arguing for the epistemic one), most modern evidence has supported the view that the quantum state does indeed represent reality. Philosophically, this interpretation can be hard to swallow, as it means that the many counterintuitive features of quantum theory are properties of reality, and not due to limitations of theory. One of the most notable of these features is superposition. Before a quantum object is measured, quantum theory says that the object simultaneously exists in more than one state, each with a particular probability. If these states are ontic, it means that a particle really does occupy two states at once, not merely that it appears that way due to our limited ability to prepare particles, as in the epistemic view. Read more at: http://ift.tt/2lJxN37

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