This year’s Nobel prize for physics awards yet another milestone in quantum physics. Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger have each conducted groundbreaking experiments using entangled quantum states, where two particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated. Their results have cleared the way for new technology based upon quantum information.
An important part of the research being rewarded with this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics is a theoretical insight called Bell inequalities. Bell inequalities make it possible to differentiate between quantum mechanics’ indeterminacy and an alternative description using secret instructions, or hidden variables.
Experiments have shown that nature behaves as predicted by quantum mechanics. The balls are grey, with no secret information, and chance determines which becomes black and which becomes white in an experiment.
Press release: The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022
Quantum mechanics’ most important resource
Entangled quantum states hold the potential for new ways of storing, transferring and processing information.