Sam Harrelson

Was there a cat in the box I had in the classroom? Maybe.

Today’s New York Times newspaper has a great article about Einstein, Bohr and quantum theory. The main point is that we are still frustratingly very confused about how quantum theory works.

String theory only takes us so far, and Einstein’s dream of a unified theory that would connect the quantum world with the big world that we live and experience (which is also called Classical Mechanics, or Newtonian Mechanics… that’s what we’re studying next semester!)…

Quantum Trickery: Testing Einstein’s Strangest Theory - New York Times:

“Nary a week goes by that does not bring news of another feat of quantum trickery once only dreamed of in thought experiments: particles (or at least all their properties) being teleported across the room in a microscopic version of Star Trek beaming; electrical ‘cat’ currents that circle a loop in opposite directions at the same time; more and more particles farther and farther apart bound together in Einstein’s spooky embrace now known as ‘entanglement.’ At the University of California, Santa Barbara, researchers are planning an experiment in which a small mirror will be in two places at once.

Niels Bohr, the Danish philosopher king of quantum theory, dismissed any attempts to lift the quantum veil as meaningless, saying that science was about the results of experiments, not ultimate reality. But now that quantum weirdness is not confined to thought experiments, physicists have begun arguing again about what this weirdness means, whether the theory needs changing, and whether in fact there is any problem.”

Read the full article!

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