In May 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published an argument that quantum mechanics fails to provide a complete description of physical reality. Today, 50 years later, the EPR paper and the theoretical and experimental work it inspired remain remarkable for the vivid illustration they provide of one of the most bizarre aspects of the world revealed to us by the quantum theory.
In May 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen published an argument that quantum mechanics fails to provide a complete description of physical reality. Today, 50 years later, the EPR paper and the theoretical and experimental work it inspired remain remarkable for the vivid illustration they provide of one of the most bizarre aspects of the world revealed to us by the quantum theory.
In 1935, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen ('EPR') reported on a thought experiment that they believed showed that quantum theory provided an incomplete description of reality. Today we know that quantum theory is a complete and correct description of Nature (in flat space-time). The EPR thought experiment is predicted by quantum theory and has since been experimentally confirmed. However, EPR experiments have no physical pictorial explanation, and are considered part of a "paradox". Here I resolve the "paradox". I show independently of any interpretation of quantum theory that EPR (thought) experiments are a direct and compelling consequence of the existence of true randomness and the conservation of energy. It becomes obvious why EPR (thought) experiments allow for the precise prediction of truly random measurement values. Local hidden variables are not motivated.
The third round of the Bohr-Einstein debate was conducted by way of the journals rather than in person. Five years after Bohr’s victory at the Sixth Solvay Conference, Einstein, working with two younger colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, finally achieved a sharp formulation of the argument that quantum mechanics is an incomplete description of reality. They published in the American journal The Physical Review , in 1935. As one expects in a paper bearing Einstein’s name, the argument is simple but very clever. An improvement by Schrödinger speeds up the exposition. These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
In loving memory of Asher Peres, we discuss a most important and influential paper written in 1935 by his thesis supervisor and mentor Nathan Rosen, together with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky. In that paper, the trio known as EPR questioned the completeness of quantum mechanics. The authors argued that the then-new theory should not be considered final because they believed it incapable of describing physical reality. The epic battle between Einstein and Bohr intensified following the latter's response later the same year. Three decades elapsed before John S. Bell gave a devastating proof that the EPR argument was fatally flawed. The modest purpose of our paper is to give a critical analysis of the original EPR paper and point out its logical shortcomings in a way that could have been done 70 years ago, with no need to wait for Bell's theorem. We also present an overview of Bohr's response in the interest of showing how it failed to address the gist of the EPR argument.
In loving memory of Asher Peres, we discuss a most important and influential paper written in 1935 by his thesis supervisor and mentor Nathan Rosen, together with Albert Einstein and Boris Podolsky. In that paper, the trio known as EPR questioned the completeness of quantum mechanics. The authors argued that the then-new theory should not be considered final because they believed it incapable of describing physical reality. The epic battle between Einstein and Bohr intensified following the latter's response later the same year. Three decades elapsed before John S. Bell gave a devastating proof that the EPR argument was fatally flawed. The modest purpose of our paper is to give a critical analysis of the original EPR paper and point out its logical shortcomings in a way that could have been done 70 years ago, with no need to wait for Bell's theorem. We also present an overview of Bohr's response in the interest of showing how it failed to address the gist of the EPR argument.
On 25 March 1935, the Physical Review received a paper from Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen, with the title “Can Quantum-Mechanical Description of Physical Reality Be Considered Complete?” A few days later, on 30 March 1935, I was born. My life with Einstein was off to a promising start. Some would call it an inauspicious start. Abraham Pais, for example, says in his otherwise admirable biography of Einstein [1] that “the only part of this article that will ultimately survive, I believe, is this last phrase [ No reasonable definition of reality could be expected to permit this ], which so poignantly summarizes Einstein's views on quantum mechanics in his later years.” But today, in this centenary of the Einstein annus mirabilis, as the EPR paper and I both turn 70, it is, in fact, the most cited of all Einstein's papers [2]. The debate over its conceptual implications rages hotter than ever, and for the first time, practical (well, for the moment still gedanken practical) applications of the EPR effect have emerged in cryptography and in other areas of quantum information processing. Being only five weeks old, I was unprepared to pay attention to the article that appeared in the New York Times on 4 May 1935 under an elaborate set of headlines and subheads: And I was completely oblivious to the stern rebuke from Einstein himself, published three days later in the Times , which declared that “any information upon which the article … is based was given to you without my authority. It is my invariable practice to discuss scientific matters only in the appropriate forum and I deprecate advance publication of any announcement in regard to such matters in the secular press.” Apparently Podolsky had tipped off the Times to the article, which did not appear in the sacred press until the 15 May issue of Physical Review. It is not clear that Einstein ever forgave him, and I wish I had been old enough to send Podolsky a cross letter myself. Anyone growing up in America in the 1940s knew that the preeminent genius of our age, and perhaps of any other, lived in Princeton, New Jersey, had a predilection for baggy sweaters, and was always badly in need of a haircut—as far ahead of his time in dress and grooming as he was ahead in science during his 1905 annus mirabilis.
ZusammenfassungIn 1935 there appeared a paper with the above title (Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen 1935) in The Physical Review. This paper was the outgrowth of a number of discussions held by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and myself at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The purpose of the discussions was to help us understand the concepts and principles of quantum mechanics, and what we thought we understood troubled us. For the conclusion we reached in these discussions was that the answer to the above question is, “No”.