Answering Mermin's Challenge with the Relativity Principle: An Underlying Coherence Between SR and QM

In 1981, Mermin published a paper in American Journal of Physics that Feynman called, “One of the most beautiful papers in physics that I know.” Therein, Mermin explained the mystery of quantum entanglement per the Bell spin states to the “general reader” without recourse to the formalism of quantum mechanics. He then challenged the “physicist reader” to resolve the mystery in equally accessible terms. In this talk, I will show how the relativity principle, i.e., “no preferred reference frame” (NPRF), answers Mermin’s challenge. Accordingly, NPRF with the fundamental constants c and h, renders special relativity (SR) and non-relativistic quantum mechanics (QM) mutually coherent and comprehensive, contrary to what some believe. Essentially, NPRF applied to the speed of light c leads to the counterintuitive aspects (“mysteries”) of time dilation and length contraction for SR, and NPRF applied to Planck’s constant h leads to the “mysteries” of Bell state entanglement and the Tsirelson bound for QM. Thus, we see an underlying coherence and integrity between SR and QM via its “mysteries” stemming from the relativity principle.