Emilio Santos Corchero
Emilio Santos Corchero | |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Spanish |
| Known for | Local realistic and stochastic interpretations of quantum mechanics |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Theoretical physics, Foundations of quantum mechanics |
| Institutions | University of Cantabria |
Emilio Santos Corchero (born 1935) is a Spanish theoretical physicist and Professor Emeritus at the University of Cantabria, known for his long-standing defence of realist and local interpretations of quantum mechanics against the standard interpretation. He is listed in The Worldwide List of Dissident Scientists.
Career
Santos held professorships at the University of Costa Rica, the University of Valladolid and the University of Cantabria in Santander. In 1998 he received the medal of the Real Sociedad Española de Física (Royal Spanish Physical Society). Over a career spanning some hundred journal articles, his work has centred on the foundations of quantum theory, stochastic electrodynamics, and quantum-vacuum effects in cosmology and astrophysics.
Ideas
Santos argues that quantum mechanics should be given a realistic and local interpretation, and he has been a persistent critic of the claim that experiments definitively establish nonlocality. He contends that a misuse of the photon concept has led to a mistaken acceptance of "nonlocal" phenomena, and he has analysed loopholes in Bell-inequality experiments and the requirements for a genuinely decisive empirical test. Much of his programme develops a stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics preserving strict causality, in sympathy with Einstein's objections to an irreducibly indeterministic theory. These positions, set out in his book Realistic Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, run counter to the mainstream consensus that Bell tests have closed the question in favour of nonlocality.