Painting--MC
The Nobel Prize for Physics given to Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger for their pioneering work in quantum mechanics has prompted me to revisit some of my many ruminations on the subject.
The idea that two particles, irrespective of how far apart they are from each other, can get entangled or in a sense affect each other’s behavior instantly remains a truly bizarre one despite the passage of so many decades after its inception. That very idea has won the three physicists the Nobel Prize in Physics and it is only appropriate to make a few observations.
In 2018, I wrote a line in a slightly different context which I then thought and still do is a brilliant construct. “With time the universe becomes familiar but not comprehensible”, I wrote. I put quantum entanglement under that category. It feels familiar but not comprehensible.
Albert Einstein famously described quantum entanglement as “spooky action at a distance” primarily because he thought in order for an action on one system or particle to affect another at a distance a wave or a signal or information had to travel between them. And that travel by a wave or a signal or information ought to obey the speed limit of light. According to Einstein, that is equally true of gravity. The speed of limit of light requirement meant that changing the behavior of one system or particle could not possibly impact that of another simply because some time will pass between the two given that a wave or a signal took time to travel. If the claim about instantaneous effect was real, then it would be spooky to think that it could happen.
Quantum entanglement works only at quantum levels. It could not, for instance, possibly work among humans. If I slap myself right now, it is impossible that someone entangled with me would feel the hurt. However, there are those who have said telepathy, to the extent anyone believes in it, is a manifestation of quantum entanglement. I have also written about how consciousness is quantum.
On the question of quantum entanglement Einstein had this to say, “There is one supposition we should, in my opinion, absolutely hold fast: the real factual situation of the system, S2 is independent of what is done to the system S1, which is spatially separated from the former.” By system Einstein meant particles.
It was in his interaction with the physicist Max Born, that Einstein came up with the enduring phrase when he said, “Physics should represent a reality in time and space, free from spooky action at a distance.”
Experiments by the three Nobel laureates, and in some sense by others earlier, have shown that quantum entanglement is real and not just theoretical. The Nobel citation said, “Using groundbreaking experiments, Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have demonstrated the potential to investigate and control particles that are in entangled states. What happens to one particle in an entangled pair determines what happens to the other, even if they are really too far apart to affect each other. The laureates’ development of experimental tools has laid the foundation for a new era of quantum technology.”
The Nobel committee also said, “Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information. The ineffable effects of quantum mechanics are starting to find applications. There is now a large field of research that includes quantum computers, quantum networks and secure quantum encrypted communication.”
It would have been fascinating to see how Einstein might have reacted to this.
Irrespective of whether it works in real life, I am still keeping quantum entanglement under my original idea that with time the universe becomes familiar but not comprehensible.