Einstein Was Wrong about ‘Spooky Action at a Distance,’ According to Study Involving 100,000 Gamers
The research—which was led by the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Barcelona—was conducted by an international team of physicists who managed to close a loophole found in a common test of quantum mechanics.
The
phenomenon in question, known as quantum entanglement, occurs when
pairs, or groups, of particles interact with each other in such a way
that they defy the classical laws of physics. One object can seemingly
influence another simultaneously, even if they have no direct physical
connection and are separated by vast distances—the length of the
universe, for example.
While Einstein didn’t disagree with quantum
mechanics entirely, he did find the idea of quantum entanglement to be
problematic, once famously describing it as “spooky action at a
distance." He suggested this quantum behavior was impossible and that it
could be explained by hidden “instructions” in the entangled
particles—an argument based on two fundamental principles: locality and
realism.
Locality says objects can only be influenced by causes in their
immediate vicinity. (Part of this concept is that nothing can travel
faster than light.) Realism, meanwhile, holds that objects in the
universe have well-defined properties even when we are not looking at
them—in other words, matter has a reality independent of ourselves.
Together, these principles came to be known as “local realism.”
While the concepts expressed by local realism may seem natural to us, growing evidence
suggests that they are incompatible with quantum mechanics. Firstly,
quantum mechanics shows the simple act of observing particles in the
universe can change their characteristics, thereby violating the
principle of realism.
Secondly, particles that are linked or can
communicate over vast distances in an instant—the “spooky action at a
distance”—clearly violate the principle of locality. (In this case, some
hidden form of information must be traveling faster than light between
the two particles.)
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The
standard way to test quantum mechanics in relation to the principle of
local realism is to use something called a Bell test, which was first
developed by the CERN physicist John Stewart Bell in 1964. This is an
experiment that determines whether the real-world is really as strange
as quantum physics says it is. It does this by looking for the presence
of “hidden” variables, that are not part of quantum theory, to explain
the behavior of subatomic particles.
According to a website set up
by the researchers who conducted the latest study, Bell tests involve
producing a pair of entangled particles and sending them to two
separated measurement stations, traditionally called “Alice” and
“Bob.” (Entanglement means that their properties are strongly
correlated—for example, if one particle spins left, the other must spin
left, too, no matter how far away they are from each other).
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“Alice and Bob make simultaneous, unpredictable measurements on the particles,” the authors wrote on the website.
“Quantum mechanics says that the measurement Alice makes will instantly
influence Bob’s particle, with the effect that the measurement results
agree. In local realism, this influence cannot happen, and Bob and
Alice’s measurement results will often disagree. This agreement or
disagreement, called correlation, is the signal that allows an
experiment to decide about local realism.”
While many Bell tests
over the decades have appeared to confirm the ideas of quantum mechanics
over those of local realism, there is an issue here. The Bell test
requires random and independently generated number sequences to
determine which measurements to perform on quantum objects. But
generating truly random numbers is difficult. Researchers could be
influenced by unknown biases, and most computerized random number
generators are not truly random, among other factors.
This flaw in
the Bell test is known as the “freedom of choice” loophole—the
possibility that these “hidden” variables could be influencing the
experiments. This then casts doubt that the measurements are truly
random, meaning it would not be possible to completely rule out the
explanation offered by local realism for the behavior of any given
particles.
For the new study, published in the journal Nature,
the physicists enlisted more than 100,000 volunteer gamers from all
around the world to try to close this loophole by generating random
numbers with sheer manpower.
They were asked to play a custom-made online game called The Big Bell Quest, in
which players had to tap two buttons repeatedly on a screen,
representing the values one and zero. Players leveled up by creating
unpredictable strings of these ones and zeros.
This provided the
scientists with more than 90 million randomly human-generated binary
digits, or bits—the smallest unit of computer data—which were then used
in lab experiments around the world to determine how entangled particles
were measured.
“People are unpredictable, and when using
smartphones even more so,” Andrew White from the University of
Queensland, in Australia, who was involved in the study, said in a statement.
“These
random bits then determined how various entangled atoms, photons and
superconductors were measured in the experiments, closing a stubborn
loophole in tests of Einstein’s principle of local realism.”
German-born physicist Albert Einstein (left) with American physicist
Arthur Compton at the University of Chicago, circa 1940. A new study has
contradicted Einstein’s ideas on quantum entanglement. Photo by Keystone/Getty Images
The
findings of the study showed that quantum particles that are separated
by large distances can still instantly affect each other, contradicting
Einstein’s principle of local realism.
And because the experiment made use of so many people, the researchers can be sure that their results were precise.
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“A
common way to reduce the uncertainty on the result of an experiment is
to repeat it many times and then check if the results are statistically
significant,” they wrote on the website. “Every random number the
community contributes allows the scientists to perform another run of
the experiment, and to reach a more precise result. Moreover, the more
different individuals are participating, the more we are assuring the
statistical independence that is so important for this kind of
experiments.”
Furthermore, these results resonate with those of advanced experiments conducted in 2015, in which other groups of researchers also developed loophole-free Bell tests.
But
let’s not take too much away from the great German physicist. After
all, he did come up with the groundbreaking special theory of
relativity, which revolutionized physics and transformed our
understanding of the universe as we know it.
(The institutions
involved in the latest study were: ICFO and the University of Seville,
Spain; Griffith University, the Centre of Excellence for Engineered
Quantum Systems and the University of Queensland, Australia; the
University of Concepción, Chile; Linköping University, Sweden; Sapienza
University of Rome, Italy; the Federal University of Rio Grande do
Norte, Brazil; the University of Science and Technology of China; the
University of Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Austrian Academy of Sciences;
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany; the University of Nice
Sophia Antipolis and The National Center for Scientific Research,
France; the National Institute of Standards and Technology, United
States; and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.)
This article has been updated to include the names of all the institutions that participated in the new research.
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http://www.newsweek.com/einstein-was-wrong-about-spooky-action-distance-according-study-involving-920022
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https://www.sciencealert.com/gamers-massive-experiment-shows-einstein-got-reality-wrong
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-_imuasY2k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuvK-od647c
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https://www.icfo.eu/research
Un nuevo estudio que involucró a mas 100.000 jugadores de todo el mundo ha contradicho las ideas de Albert Einstein sobre un fenómeno alucinante que es una piedra angular de la mecánica cuántica La investigación, que fue dirigida por el Instituto de Ciencias Fotónicas (ICFO) en Barcelona, fue realizada por un equipo internacional de físicos que lograron cerrar una laguna encontrada en una prueba común de mecánica cuántica. El fenómeno en cuestión, conocido como enredo cuántico, ocurre cuando pares, o grupos, de partículas interactúan entre sí de tal manera que desafían las leyes clásicas de la física. Un objeto Aparentemente puede influir en otro simultáneamente, incluso si no tienen una conexión física directa y están separados por grandes distancias: la longitud del universo. Aunque Einstein no estuvo en desacuerdo totalmente con la mecánica cuántica, sí encontró la idea de que el enredo cuántico es problemático, y una vez lo describió como una "acción espeluznante a distancia". Sugirió que este comportamiento cuántico era imposible y que podría explicarse por "instrucciones" ocultas en las partículas enredadas, un argumento basado en dos principios fundamentales: localidad y realismo. La localidad dice que los objetos solo pueden ser influenciados por causas en sus inmediaciones. (Parte de este concepto es que nada puede viajar más rápido que la luz). El realismo, por su parte, sostiene que los objetos en el universo tienen propiedades bien definidas incluso cuando no los estamos mirando; en otras palabras, la materia tiene una realidad independiente de nosotros mismos. . Juntos, estos principios llegaron a ser conocidos como "realismo local". La forma estándar de probar la mecánica cuántica en relación con el principio del realismo local es usar algo llamado prueba de Bell, que fue desarrollada por primera vez por el físico del CERN John Stewart Bell en 1964. Este es un experimento que determina si el mundo real es realmente tan extraño como dice la física cuántica. Lo hace buscando la presencia de variables "ocultas", que no son parte de la teoría cuántica, para explicar el comportamiento de las partículas subatómicas. Según un sitio web creado por los investigadores que llevaron a cabo el último estudio, las pruebas de Bell implican producir un par de partículas enredadas y enviarlas a dos estaciones de medición separadas, tradicionalmente llamadas "Alicia" y "Bob". (Enredo significa que sus propiedades son fuertemente correlacionado, por ejemplo, si una partícula gira hacia la izquierda, la otra debe girar hacia la izquierda también, sin importar qué tan lejos estén entre sí).
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