A Simplified Basis for Bell-Kochen-Specker Theorems

Abstract

We show that a reduced form of the structural requirements for deterministic hidden variables used in Bell-Kochen-Specker theorems is already sufficient for the no-go results. Those requirements are captured by the following principle: an observable takes a spectral value x if and only if the spectral projector associated with x takes the value 1. We show that the only if part of this condition suffices. The proof identifies an important structural feature behind the no-go results; namely, if at least one projector is assigned the value 1 in any resolution of the identity, then at most one is.