The ideas and results that are in the background of the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics had an immense impact on our understanding of reality. Therefore, it is crucial that these implications reach also the general public, not only the scientists in the related fields of quantum mechanics. The purpose of this review is to attempt to elucidate these revolutionary changes in our worldview that were eventually acknowledged also by the Nobel's committee, and to do it with very few references to mathematical details (which could be even ignored without undermining the take-away essence of the text). We first look into the foundational disputes between Einstein and Bohr about the nature of quantum mechanics, which culminated in the so-called EPR paradox -- the main impetus for all the research that would ensue in this context. Next, we try to explain the statement of the famous Bell's theorem -- the theorem that relocated the Einstain-Bohr discussions from the realm of philosophy and metaphysics to hard-core physics verifiable by experiments (we also give a brief derivation of the theorem's proof). Then we overview the experimental work of the last year's laureates, that had the final say about who was right in the debate. The outcome of these experiments forced us to profoundly revise our understanding of the universe. Finally, we discuss in more detail the implications of such outcomes, and what are the possible ways that our worldviews can be modified to account for the experimental facts. As we will see, the standard mechanist picture of the universe is no longer a viable option, and can be never again. Nowadays, we know this with certainty unusual for physics, that only a strict mathematical theorem could provide.
The ideas and results that are in the background of the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics had an immense impact on our understanding of reality. Therefore, it is crucial that these implications reach also the general public, not only the scientists in the related fields of quantum mechanics. The purpose of this review is to attempt to elucidate these revolutionary changes in our worldview that were eventually acknowledged also by the Nobel's committee, and to do it with very few references to mathematical details (which could be even ignored without undermining the take-away essence of the text). We first look into the foundational disputes between Einstein and Bohr about the nature of quantum mechanics, which culminated in the so-called EPR paradox -- the main impetus for all the research that would ensue in this context. Next, we try to explain the statement of the famous Bell's theorem -- the theorem that relocated the Einstain-Bohr discussions from the realm of philosophy and metaphysics to hard-core physics verifiable by experiments (we also give a brief derivation of the theorem's proof). Then we overview the experimental work of the last year's laureates, that had the final say about who was right in the debate. The outcome of these experiments forced us to profoundly revise our understanding of the universe. Finally, we discuss in more detail the implications of such outcomes, and what are the possible ways that our worldviews can be modified to account for the experimental facts. As we will see, the standard mechanist picture of the universe is no longer a viable option, and can be never again. Nowadays, we know this with certainty unusual for physics, that only a strict mathematical theorem could provide.
The ideas and results that are in the background of the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics had an immense impact on our understanding of reality. Therefore, it is crucial that these implications reach also the general public, not only the scientists in the related fi elds of quantum mechanics. The purpose of this review is to attempt to elucidate these revolutionary changes in our worldview that were eventually acknowledged also by the Nobel’s committee, and to do it with very few references to mathematical details (which could be even ignored without undermining the take-away essence of the text). We fi rst look into the foundational disputes between Einstein and Bohr about the nature of quantum mechanics, which culminated in the so-called EPR paradox – the main impetus for all the research that would ensue in this context. Next, we try to explain the statement of the famous Bell’s theorem – the theorem that relocated the Einstein-Bohr discussions from the realm of philosophy and metaphysics to hard-core physics verifi able by experiments (we also give a brief derivation of the theorem’s proof). Then we overview the experimental work of 2022 year’s Nobel laureates, which had the fi nal say about who was right in the debate. The outcome of these experiments forced us to profoundly revise our understanding of the universe.
Here we discuss in more detail the implications of such outcomes, and what are the possible ways that our worldviews can be modified to account for the experimental facts. As we will see, the standard mechanistic picture of the universe is no longer a viable option, and it will never be again. Nowadays, we know this with certainty unusual for physics, that only a strict mathematical theorem could provide. We hope, that the 2022 Nobel Prizes in Physics will help to draw attention to the scientific and philosophical revolution that took place almost half a century ago (with the first Bell tests), and that the clock-like picture of reality will soon be widely recognized for what it is – the “flat Earth” of the philosophy of science.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded to three experiment physicists: Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger, for their contributions to “experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. In this paper, the history, basics, and applications related with the Bell inequalities are reviewed. The discussion of fundamental issues on quantum mechanics dated back to the year 1927 when the fifth Solvay conference was held, highlighting intense arguments between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. At the time, Einstein expressed, publicly for the first time, his critical attitude towards quantum mechanics. While the arguments did not reach a decisive conclusion, Bohr’s probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics, the Copenhagen interpretation, had since been well circulated among the community. Einstein’s arguments with Bohr lasted many years after the conference. The arguably most famous one was the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, proposed in a 1935 paper written by the three authors. They stated, by flawless reasoning, that quantum mechanics is ‘incomplete’. Bohr replied immediately. So did Erwin Schrödinger, who, in particular, coined the term ‘entangled’ for the first time to describe the bizarre quantum mechanical property. Nevertheless, the EPR paper received few citations at its publication, until 1990’s when quantum information science started blossoming. From today’s perspective, the paper resembles the ‘sleeping beauty’ who slumbered for decades before fully awakening. It has been widely accepted that it was John S. Bell who eventually resolved the EPR paradox. But many important figures before him should not go unnoticed, including John A. Wheeler, Chien-Shiung Wu, David Bohm, to name a few. In 1964, Bell wrote down a mathematical inequality which satisfies local hidden variable theory but which can be violated in quantum mechanics. The significance is that Bell’s inequality brings the rather philosophic debates on the EPR paradox down to be experimentally testable. Hence, an experiment is here appealing, as is the case in all fields of physics. To the end, John F. Clauser, alongside Stuart J. Freedman, conducted an experiment in 1972 to test a Bell inequality, the Bell-Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality, proposed by him and his collaborators in 1969. The results, however, leaves loopholes open. One of the loopholes was closed in a later experiment led by Alain Aspect in 1982. The Bell-CHSH inequality was later tested under a much stricter condition by Anton Zeilinger’s team. Two most important loopholes were both closed by three teams in 2015 independently. Zeilinger’s team was among them. Almost all experiments to date have confirmed quantum mechanical predictions. Zeilinger’s team also performed the first teleportation of unknown quantum states, the first entanglement swapping, along with other contributions pioneering the quantum information science. In retrospect, the foundational study of quantum theory has been developed over a century. It once drew much of quantum physics founders’ attention, went virtually unnoticed while other physical fields advanced, had for quite a while been considered to have very weak relationship with major physics, and finally revived in recent decades leading to rapid progress in quantum information science and quantum technology. We believe that the Nobel Prize in Physics this year is not only an award and recognition to past achievements, but also heralds a new era of science in future.
Abstract Our drama lies not only in the clash of ideas, but also in the human passions and social contexts in which the ideas were conceived, debated, refined, accepted, or rejected. Like artists and musicians, the creators of quantum mechanics approached their work with the full range of human emotions. In 2022, Clauser, Aspect, and Zeilinger were at last recognized by the Nobel institution, ‘for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science’. Their prize came exactly 100 years after those of Einstein and Bohr. Experiment moved the debate to a new level, but it has by no means removed or resolved the fundamental question. There will be no Nobel prize for an answer. That will not shut off discussion. Our drama will continue beyond our telling of it and is unlikely to reach its final scene before science ceases or the world ends.
Quantum information technology mainly includes quantum communication, quantum radar, quantum computer these three aspects, in recent years, rapid development, many countries invested heavily in development. The awarding of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022 to three scientists for their work in quantum informatics has further stimulated people's interest in quantum theory, which has been studied and discussed. This paper not only reviews the historical situation, but also thinks and innovates in theory. The main contents of this paper are as follows: It is pointed out that there are fundamental contradictions between relativity and quantum mechanics; The wave function, quantum statistics and uncertainty principle are discussed in detail. The hidden variable theory is reviewed and the Bell inequality is discussed. The Aspect two-photon experiment was analyzed. The rationality of Bohm experiment scheme is discussed. The development of Bell type experiment is discussed. It is pointed out that the entangled state is not acting at a distance but propagating faster than the speed of light. Reviews the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics; Quantum communication and Wootters theorem are discussed. etc. This paper holds that quantum mechanics has been finalized from 1926 to 1928, and its basic content has not changed much. But for some of the accusations, it is necessary to answer them theoretically. For example, we believe that the Copenhagen interpretation fundamentally changes our understanding of nature and marks a profound revolution in physics. And no other theory has since emerged that has such a profound understanding and wide application of microscopic phenomena as this interpretation. Another example is Bohm's two-particle correlation spin scheme in quantum entanglement experiments, which has been proved to be effective in a series of experiments, which is an important contribution in Bohm's life. This paper holds that the so-called quantum field theory is a failure, and the original quantum mechanics should still be advocated today. Current theoretical research should pay great attention to quantum entangled states, because its nature is still unclear. Understanding this "first mystery of the physical world" not only has scientific significance, but also has great philosophical significance for understanding the universe.
The Nobel prize in physics for 2022 was given for performing Bell experiments with varying degree of sophistication. The interpretation of this experiment is discussed by first recalling Bell's simple argument behind his inequalities, in particular the CHSH inequality. It is argued that any independent observer must have a limitation: He is not able to keep all relevant variables in his mind at the same time when trying to model the experiment. This is contrasted to the solution proposed by Tim Maudlin, where nonlocality is crucial.Maudlin criticizes the Nobel price committee, but this critique is countered. Finally, a related new approach to the foundation of quantum mechanics is briefly sketched, giving references to the relevant literature.