On October 4th, our land aspect John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger were awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for proving that the Universe isn’t locally real. What I love about this story is that it’s a story of some of the smartest people who have ever lived being confused and how eventually Einstein was proven wrong, which doesn’t happen all that often. Locality is the idea that things are only affected by their local environment; you can’t flip a switch in another galaxy hundreds of light years away and instantly see the results here because nothing, not even information, can travel faster than light. Realness, on the other hand, is much more difficult to explain, and that is the focus of the Nobel Prize foreign. two ways of thinking about the physics of small objects such as particles, atoms, electrons, photons, and so on The view of Einstein and many others was that the universe is real, that particles such as atoms and electrons have definite properties that are inherent to them regardless of whether they are measured, that if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, that it does indeed make a noise, and that there was a counter group.
According to anti-realists such as Bohr and many others, particles have properties that haven’t really made up their minds until you go out and measure them, that they exist in a wave function of possible states, and that only when you take a measurement do they really make up their minds. The famous example here is Schrodinger’s cat, which is both alive and dead until you look in the box, and then you go to prison foreign culminated in a famous paper called the epr paper, in which Einstein podolki and Rosen put forward a thought experiment that they thought perfectly highlighted the quantum mechanics at best was incomplete, and at worst may be completely wrong. Their thought experiment focused on an idea in quantum mechanics known as entanglement, which states that the properties of two particles can be inherently related. Their line of reasoning for their thought experiment began with well, we know that energy is conserved, and things don’t suddenly start moving in a direction unless someone or something pushes or pulls them, nor do they suddenly start spinning rotating jumping up and down or doing anything else unless someone else is direct. Number two, suppose we start with a small quantum mechanical particle that isn’t spinning, moving, or doing anything else. If we look at one of those pieces it breaks into and find that it’s moving to the right, we know instantly that the other particle must be moving to the left to conserve momentum. Similarly, if we looked at it and found that it was spinning one way, perhaps clockwise, we would know instantly that the other p If you looked at this system and saw both particles suddenly moving to the right, your intuition would tell you that some outside force must have hit them.
Similarly, because most people don’t think about angular momentum or spin, you’d be equally surprised if you saw both particles rotating in the same direction, your intuition would tell you that something must have hit them and caused them both to start spinning. Step 3 quantum mechanics says that these states are impossible to know before you measure them. If you separated these particles light years apart and measured one and found that it was spinning clockwise, you’d know instantly even if that particle was a universal way a that its counterpart must be spinning counterclockwise but how could this be if they only take on a definite value when you measure them and the other one always needs to be the opposi What is interesting here is that if you place a third polarizer between these two, you suddenly and I believe quite counter-intuitively start to see more light. This is because fundamentally measuring a particle changes its state, allowing light to slip through the final polarizer where it normally wouldn’t be able to, so you start to see more light than you would otherwise expect. Physicists were desperate to find a way to complete an experimental measurement. The chsh inequality by John Clauser, the Nobel Prize winner we’re discussing here, is one of the early and most elegant and now heavily evidenced extensions of Belle’s theorem work.
Michael Horn, Abner Shimini, and Richard Holt’s work here makes Bell’s theorem experimentally testable. The scenario they describe is similar to what we’ve discussed before, in which two entangled photons are sent in opposite directions. There are two observers. Both Bob and Alice are given a polarizer to use in their setup to help them determine which polarization the light is in. Finally, Alice and or Bob are told at random to rotate their polarizers over time and record where the photons arrive successfully or not at their detectors. What we’re interested in here is how frequently Alice and Bob agree on whether they’ve seen or not seen a photon. If Alice and Bob perfectly anti-aligned their polarizers, they should always both either see a photon or neither should see a photon they should always agree on whether photons arrived or photons didn’t arrive Now, let’s get to some real physics. The other Nobel laureates, Elaine Aspect and Anton Zollinger, closed important loopholes that remained in this experiment while also demonstrating that quantum entanglement can be transferred to other particles in a process known as quantum teleportation. All of this to say that the universe proved to be Stranger than even Einstein had imagined. All of these phenomena are really the backbone of what is driving the modern Quantum Computing Revolution the idea that at some point in the hopefully near future quantum computers will outperform classical computers because they have this inherent baked in advantage that down at their core their particles that run them are communicating to each other while this doesn’t prove and I can absolutely forgive anyone for thinking it on first hearing.
FAQ
What does it mean that the universe not locally real?
The claim that there is no local reality in the cosmos is frequently linked to ideas from quantum physics, which holds that particles lack specific qualities until they are detected. Particles in quantum theory can exist in more than one state at once thanks to the superposition principle. The superposition subsequently “collapses” into one of the potential states as a result of the observation or measurement. This lack of locality calls into question traditional intuitions about a deterministic and locally real cosmos by implying that particle attributes are not fixed or predefined until detected. Non-locality is further highlighted by the phenomena of quantum entanglement, which shows that particles can instantly affect one another’s states regardless of their distance from one another. Although these ideas have been verified by experiments, there is still philosophical discussion and disagreement within the scientific community regarding the implications of this for the nature of reality.
Did the universe just always exist?
In theoretical physics and cosmology, the question of whether the cosmos has always existed is deep and intricate. Although the majority of scientific knowledge is that the universe began with an explosion known as the Big Bang some 13.8 billion years ago, it is difficult to fathom what time was like before this occurrence. According to certain ideas, the universe may be undergoing cyclical processes that involve repeated rounds of expansion and contraction. Some propose the idea of a multiverse, in which the universe we can see is only one of several linked universes with various sets of physical laws. In the effort to solve the mysteries of cosmic origins, these theories are still theoretical and the nature of what, if anything, existed before the observable world is still unknown. Although the majority of scientists now agree that the Big Bang marked the beginning of the universe, there is still much to learn about the precise nature of anything that existed before the Big Bang.
How does the universe exist?
The existential question of the cosmos is a complex one with philosophical and cosmological components. From a cosmological perspective, the conventional wisdom in science holds that the Big Bang, which started the expansion of space, time, and matter, occurred some 13.8 billion years ago. Today’s complex and diversified universe is the result of the evolution of galaxies, stars, and cosmic structures that came before it. Nonetheless, a crucial and difficult part of cosmological research is still to be resolved: what caused the Big Bang or what, if anything, came before it? Philosophically speaking, the nature of existence entails more extensive investigations into the underlying nature of reality itself, as well as the fundamental rules and principles that govern the universe and their beginnings. The questions of whether the cosmos is a lone, unique event, a component of a multiverse, or a cyclic process are still being thought about and explored at the nexus of science and philosophy. One of the most profound and fascinating aspects of human curiosity and inquiry is the ongoing effort to understand how the universe functions.
Do other universes exist?
In theoretical physics and cosmology, the existence of additional universes—often posited as a component of a multiverse—is an intriguing and speculative idea. According to the theory, there are several worlds, each with its own unique set of physical laws, constants, and characteristics, and our observable reality is just one of them. This theoretical framework aims to explain several cosmic riddles, like the seeming anthropomorphic nature of our world and the fine-tuning of fundamental constants. Different multiverse theories, such as cosmic inflation, bubble universes, and string theory landscapes, offer various explanations for how these universes form and split apart. It’s important to remember, though, that there is yet no concrete evidence of other universes existing, and the multiverse theory is still being investigated and debated within science. The topic of whether other universes actually exist remains an exciting and unexplored field of science as our knowledge of fundamental physics grows.
Is the multiverse real in real life?
In the fields of theoretical physics and cosmology, the idea of a multiverse is still only a theory. Although the concept is fascinating and has been put out as a potential explanation for some phenomena, direct observable proof of the multiverse’s existence is not yet available. The multiverse hypothesis is a collection of theoretical frameworks that all point to the potential of numerous universes, each with unique attributes. These theoretical frameworks include cosmic inflation, string theory, and various cosmological models. But since there is no scientific evidence to support the multiverse theory, it is a theoretical concept rather than a proven part of our knowledge of the universe.
