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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bohr–Einstein debates | 7/7 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohr–Einstein_debates | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:35:15.514856+00:00 | kb-cron |
Years after the exposition of Einstein via his EPR experiment, many physicists started performing experiments to show that Einstein's view of a spooky action in a distance is indeed consistent with the laws of physics. The first experiment to definitively prove that this was the case was in 1949, when physicists Chien-Shiung Wu and her colleague Irving Shaknov showcased this theory in real time using photons. Their work was published in the new year of the succeeding decade. Later in 1975, Alain Aspect proposed in an article, an experiment meticulous enough to be irrefutable: Proposed experiment to test the non-separability of quantum mechanics. This led Aspect, together with his assistant Gérard Roger, and Jean Dalibard and Philippe Grangier (two young physics students at the time) to set up several increasingly complex experiments between 1980 and 1982 that further established quantum entanglement. Finally in 1998, the Geneva experiment tested the correlation between two detectors set 30 kilometres apart, virtually across the whole city, using the Swiss optical fibre telecommunication network. The distance gave the necessary time to commute the angles of the polarizers. It was therefore possible to have a completely random electrical shunting. Furthermore, the two distant polarizers were entirely independent. The measurements were recorded on each side, and compared after each experiment by dating each measurement using an atomic clock. The experiment once again verified entanglement under the strictest and most ideal conditions possible. If Aspect's experiment implied that a hypothetical coordination signal travel twice as fast as c, Geneva's reached 10 million times c.
== Post-revolution: Fourth stage == In his last writing on the topic, Einstein further refined his position, making it completely clear that what really disturbed him about the quantum theory was the problem of the total renunciation of all minimal standards of realism, even at the microscopic level, that the acceptance of the completeness of the theory implied. Since the early days of quantum theory the assumption of locality and Lorentz invariance guided his thoughts and led to his determination that if we demand strict locality then hidden variables are naturally implied apropos EPR. Bell, starting from this EPR logic (which is widely misunderstood or forgotten) showed that local hidden variables imply a conflict with experiment. In an interview in the 1970s, Bell summarized his view of the decades long debates:
Bohr was inconsistent, unclear, willfully obscure and right. Einstein was consistent, clear, down-to-earth and wrong. Ultimately what was at stake for Einstein was the assumption that physical reality be universally local. Although the majority of experts in the field agree that Einstein was wrong, the current understanding is still not complete (see Interpretation of quantum mechanics).
== See also ==
== References ==
== Further reading == Boniolo, G., (1997) Filosofia della Fisica, Mondadori, Milan. Bolles, Edmund Blair (2004) Einstein Defiant, Joseph Henry Press, Washington, D.C. Born, M. (1973) The Born Einstein Letters, Walker and Company, New York, 1971. Ghirardi, Giancarlo, (1997) Un'Occhiata alle Carte di Dio, Il Saggiatore, Milan. Schilpp, P.A., (1958) Albert Einstein: Philosopher-Scientist, Northwestern University and Southern Illinois University, Open Court, 1951.