The age of entanglement : when quantum physics was reborn PDF
Preview The age of entanglement : when quantum physics was reborn
CONTENTS Title Page Dedication Epigraph List of Illustrations A Note to the Reader Introduction: Entanglement 1:The Socks1978 and 1981 The Arguments 1909–1935 2:Quantized LightSeptember 1909–June 1913 3:The Quantized AtomNovember 1913 4:The Unpicturable Quantum WorldSummer 1921 5:On the StreetcarSummer 1923 6:Light Waves and Matter WavesNovember 1923–December 1924 7:Pauli and Heisenberg at the MoviesJanuary 8, 1925 8:Heisenberg in HelgolandJune 1925 9:Schrödinger in ArosaChristmas and New Year’s Day 1925–1926 10:What You Can ObserveApril 28 and Summer 1926 11:This Damned Quantum JumpingOctober 1926 12:UncertaintyWinter 1926–1927 13:Solvay1927 14:The Spinning World1927–1929 15:Solvay1930 INTERLUDE:Things Fall Apart1931–1933 16:The Quantum-Mechanical Description of Reality1934–1935 The Search and the Indictment 1940–1952 17:PrincetonApril–June 10, 1949 18:Berkeley1941–1945 19:Quantum Theoryat Princeton1946–1948 192 20:PrincetonJune 15–December 194 21: Quantum Theory 1951 22:Hidden Variables and Hiding Out1951–1952 23:Brazil1952 24:Letters from the World1952 25:Standing Up to Oppenheimer1952–1957 26:Letters from Einstein1952–1954 Epilogue to the Story of Bohm1954 The Discovery 1952–1979 27:Things Change1952 28:What Is Proved by Impossibility Proofs1963–1964 29:A Little Imagination1969 30:Nothing Simple About Experimental Physics1971–1975 31:In Which the Settings Are Changed1975–1982 Entanglement Comes of Age 1981–2005 32:Schrödinger’s Centennial1987 33:Counting to Three1985–1988 34:“Against ‘Measurement’”1989–1990 35:Are You Telling Me This Could Be Practical?1989–1991 36:The Turn of the Millennium1997–2002 37:A Mystery, Perhaps1981–2006 Epilogue: Back in Vienna 2005 Glossary Longer Summaries Notes Bibliography Acknowledgments Permissions About the Author Copyright For my father If people do not believe that mathematics is simple, it is only because they do not realize how complicated life is. —John von Neumann LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS ALL BY THE AUTHOR UNLESS NOTED John Stewart Bell Reinhold Bertlmann Fig.1:Bertlmann’ssocksandthenatureofreality,1980(JohnBell,courtesyofJournaldephysique C2, Tome 42, 1981) AlbertEinsteinandPaulEhrenfest,ca.1920(OriginalwatercolorbyMarykeKammerlinghOnnes, courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives) Niels Bohr Werner Heisenberg Wolfgang Pauli, 1930(Gregor Rabinovitch) Erwin Schrödinger Max Born P.A.M. Dirac in The Copenhagen Faust, 1932 (George Gamow, reproduced in Thirty Years That Shook Physics,1985, courtesy of Dover Publications, Inc.) David Bohm John F. Clauser with his machine inspired by John S. Bell(Courtesy of LBL Graphic Arts, 1976) Abner Shimony John Clauser, Stuart J. Freedman, and their machine Inside Freedman and Clauser’s Bell-machine Richard Holt Alain Aspect Anton Zeilinger, Daniel Greenberger, and Michael Horne’s hat John Bell’s self-portrait (Courtesy of Reinhold Bertlmann) Michael Horne Artur Ekert Nicolas Gisin A NOTE TO THE READER WernerHeisenberg,thepioneerwhofirstlaiddownthelawsofthefundamentalbehaviorofmatter and light, was an old man when he sat down to write about his life. The book he wrote is not an autobiography of the man but an autobiography of his intellect, entirely a series of reconstructed conversations. His two most famous papers are solo affairs—one introducing quantum mechanics (thelawsofthefundamentalbehaviorofmatterandlight)andtheotherontheuncertaintyprinciple (which declares that at any given time, the more specific a particle’s position, the more vague its speedanddirection,andviceversa).Buttherootsofeachsolitarypaperreachdeepintomonthsof heated and careful conversation with most of the great names of quantum physics. “Science rests on experiments,” wrote Heisenberg, but “science is rooted in conversations.” Nothingcouldbefurtherfromtheimpressionphysicstextbooksgivetostudents.There,physics seems to be a perfect sculpture sitting in a vacuum-sealed case, as if brains, only tenuously con- nectedtobodies,hadgivenbirthtoinsightsfullyformed.TheseAthena-liketheoriesandZeus-like theoristsseemshiny,glassy,smooth—sometimes,ifthelightisright,youcanseethroughtheminto themysteriesandbeautiesofthephysicaluniverse;butthereishardlyatraceofhumanity,orany sense of questions still to be answered. Physics, in actuality, is a never-ending search made by human beings. Gods and angels do not comebearingperfectlyformedtheoriestodisembodiedprophetswhoinstantlywritetextbooks.The schoolbooksimplificationsobscurethecrooked,strange,andfascinatingpathsthatstretchoutfrom eachidea,notonlybackintothepastbutalsoonwardintothefuture.Whileweaspiretouniversal- ity and perfection, we are lying if we write as if we have achieved it. Conversations are essential to science. But the off-the-cuff nature of conversation poses a dif- ficulty. It is rare, even in these digital times, to have a complete transcript of every word spoken betweentwopeopleonagivenday,evenifthatconversationsomedayleadstoanewunderstanding oftheworld.Theresultisthathistorybooksrarelyhavemuchoftheto-and-froofhumaninterac- tion. Heisenberg’s statement suggests that something is therefore lost. WhenIfirststartedporingthroughthememoirsandbiographiesofthequantumphysicistsofthe twentiethcentury,IfeltasifIwerewatchingamovie—thecastofcharacterswassovividandthe plottwistssounexpected.Whilethestrengthofscienceisitsabilitytosloughoffthecontingencies ofhistoryandreachtowardpureknowledge,thisknowledgeisbuilt,onepuzzlepieceatatime,by peoplelivingtheirlivesinspecifictimesandplaceswithspecificpassions.Scienceunfoldsinsome directionsratherthaninothersbecauseofcircumstances.Characters(notdisembodiedbrains)and plot twists (not the relentless forward march of truth) almost guarantee that this is true. AsTomWolfewroteatthebeginningofTheElectricKool-AidAcidTest:“Ihavetriednotonly to tell what the Pranksters did but to re-create the mental atmosphere or subjective reality of it. I
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