Title: Making Sense of Bell's Theorem and Quantum Nonlocality,
Abstract: Bell's theorem has fascinated physicists and philosophers since his 1964
paper, which was written in response to the 1935 paper of Einstein, Podolsky,
and Rosen. Bell's theorem and its many extensions have led to the claim that
quantum mechanics and by inference nature herself are nonlocal in the sense
that a measurement on a system by an observer at one location has an immediate
effect on a distant "entangled" system (one with which the original system has
previously interacted). Einstein was repulsed by such "spooky action at a
distance" and was led to question whether quantum mechanics could provide a
complete description of physical reality. In this paper I argue that quantum
mechanics does not require spooky action at a distance of any kind and yet it
is entirely reasonable to question the assumption that quantum mechanics can
provide a complete description of physical reality. The magic of entangled
quantum states has little to do with entanglement and everything to do with
superposition, a property of all quantum systems and a foundational tenet of
quantum mechanics.