mechanics can be said to involve the use of counterfactual definiteness if it includes in the mathematical modelling outcomes of measurements that are counterfactual; in particular, those that are excluded according to quantum mechanics by the fact that quantum mechanics does not contain a description of simultaneous measurement of conjugate pairs of properties. For example, the uncertainty principle states that one cannot simultaneously know, with arbitrarily high precision, both the position and momentum of a particle. Suppose one measures the position of a particle. This act destroys any information about its momentum. Is it then possible to talk about the outcome that one would have obtained if one had measured its momentum instead of its position? In terms of mathematical formalism, is such a counterfactual momentum measurement to be included, together with the factual position measurement, in the statistical population of possible outcomes describing the particle? If the position were found to be r0 then in an interpretation that permits counterfactual definiteness, the statistical population describing position and momentum would contain all pairs (r0,p) for every possible momentum value p, whereas an interpretation that rejects counterfactual values completely would only have the pair (r0,⊥) where ⊥ denotes an undefined value. To use a macroscopic analogy, an interpretation which rejects counterfactual definiteness views measuring the position as akin to asking where in a room a person is located, while measuring the momentum is akin to asking whether the person's lap is empty or has something on it. If the person's position has changed by making him or her stand rather than sit, then that person has no lap and neither the statement "the person's lap is empty" nor "there is something on the person's lap" is true. Any statistical calculation based on values where the person is standing at some place in the room and simultaneously has a lap as if sitting would be meaningless. The dependability of counterfactually definite values is a basic assumption, which, together with "time asymmetry" and "local causality" led to the Bell inequalities. Bell showed that the results of experiments intended to test the idea of hidden variables would be predicted to fall within certain limits based on all three of these assumptions, which are considered principles fundamental to classical physics, but that the results found within those limits would be inconsistent with the predictions of quantum mechanical theory. Experiments have shown that quantum mechanical results