The blog run by Sascha Vongehr is unscholarly and unprofessional. It vilifies and attempts to belittle anyone whose ideas about the foundations of quantum mechanics differ from his. When I voiced support for Joy Christian as a comment to his blog, I also took issue with Vongehr for calling Christian dishonest. He deleted my comment with the explanation:
“Yes, I just deleted your "comment" below. Stop posting insults, thinly veiled threads (sic), and links to pseudo science. For the last time: I will not give you yet another stage to spread nonsense.”
The “pseudo science” link was
http://challengingbell.blogspot.com/2011/02/clallenging-bell-with-local-realistic.html
where programs for simulating the EPR data can be found—not nonsense to me.
1. He also misrepresents individuals.
Vongehr misleadingly states that he emailed Christian to bait him for his crackpot bog entry:
“It showshow seriously he took my bait and how he quite agreed with my main point, namely that the “Quantum CrackpotRandi Challenge” should be earnestly attempted.”
But it seems clear from Vongehr’s first email to Christian that he was looking to do a research project with Christian, likely looking for a post doc position. He was clearly not trying to bait Christian but to impress him, but to no avail.
Whatever Vongehr ‘s reasons, subsequently misrepresenting Joy Christian and quoting him out of context is reprehensible. Character attacks on others that do not share his views are arrogant and certainly not science. This blog is an attempt to set the matter straight.
2. Having reviewed the emails between Vongehr and Christian, it is clear that Vongehr freely changes Christian’s quotes; takes them out of context, and attempts to make Christian look foolish:
"This great man’s great insight is that the so called “co-domain” is not the usual three dimensional XYZ space “R-cubed”, but a three dimensional sphere that happens to be theequator of a four dimensional sphere."
It appears that Vongehr accepts three angles only (R3), but the above quote shows that he has not understood the basics of the Clifford algebra used by Christian. Nor does Vongehr accept any hidden variables in a discussion. At the mention of quaternions and a bit of topology about spheres he becomes uneasy.
I have a video blog on the algebraic approach of Christian, which visualizes those spheres:
http://quantummechanics.mchmultimedia.com/2011/quantum-mechanics/009-disproof-of-bells-theorem/
With such deep-seated prejudices expressed in Vongehr’s blog, it is difficult to have meaningful dialogues about science of which he claims himself to be an advocate.
3. Vongehr goeson to say:
"Here is the great news that I have for all who believe in local realism; I also already told Joy and he was excited about it – no joke(!):
Local realism of a model, any model, implies that a classical computer model must (must!) be possible!”
But let’s be clear. No-one said that a sub-quantum or LHV theory has to be classical. In fact it is quite the contrary. All that is asked of a sub-quantum theory is that the attributes of a system be ontic and complete in the precise sense defined by EPR. Moreover, a simulation is not an experiment but merely an implementation of a model. But Vongehr does not distinguish the two.
4. Vongehr puts words in Christian’s mouth:
“The news become better and better: Joy’s claim is that if you just take care of that the computer simulation does not simulate Bell’s “simple minded hidden variables”,but instead use his ‘advanced minded’ four dimensional sphere, then you will be able to simulate quantum behavior with the help of his formulas.”
Nowhere does Christian use the words “advanced minded”. These are Vongehr’s misrepresentation of what Christian actually says inhis emails.
5. Vongehr’s fabricated the following sentence which heattributes to Christian:
“If the Bell inequality is violatedin this way, it will be a huge confirmation that is going to spread over theinternet like a firestorm.”
Christian never said any such thing.
6. Christian is quoted out of context and made to look silly.
Vongehr:
"Whatare you trying to say? That the recorded data change inside Bob’s lab-log whilehe drives to Alice’s place?"
Christian:
“Yes! In a sense, that is exactly what ishappening.” (Vongehr’semphasis) but he does not give the whole quote, thereby misrepresenting Christian’s full meaning:
“Yes! In a sense, that is exactly what is happening. But not in amysterious way. It is simply a matter of rescaling. Clearly, Alice and Bob mustuse the same scale to analyze the two sets of data for their comparison to bemeaningful.”
7. Looking over the rest of the exchange between Vongehr and Christian, Vongehr freely distorts Christian’s views, edits what Christian has actually stated, and sprinkles them in derogatory commentary. He also seems to have cutoff the exchange just when Christian is about to explain the merits of his approach and give a quantitative answer to Vongehr’s queries. He has no interest in really understanding what Christian has done.
Finally his several referrals to Christian as “dishonest” are unacceptable and in my opinion libelous. Vongehr blog does not show a modicum of the collegiality and civility needed in order to carry on a scientific exchange, even if you agree with his point of view.
In that regard, it is best to ignore Vongehr.
I call on Comrade Sascha Vongehr to apologize to Joy Christian.
P.S. I use the word comrade not as the Chinese tong zhi (common aspirations) but as tong shi (common interests as in colleague)
