Wednesday Wisdom

WHO?

John Stewart Bell was an Irish physicist born in 1928 and is best known for his work on the foundations of quantum mechanics. He worked at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, in Switzerland. He became fascinated with the EPR Paradox, which was a paper published in 1935 by Princeton physicists Albert Einstein, Boris Poldosy, and Nathan Rosen, spending nights and weekends trying to mathematically come up with a solution to this Paradox.

What he produced

The fifth Solvay Conference on Quantum Mechanics was held in Brussels, Belgium in 1927. It was arguably the greatest meeting of minds as 17 of the 29 participants went on to win Nobel prizes. The conference was set up by Belgium industrialist and philanthropist Ernest Solvay who brought together many of the most prominent physicists of the time. The list of the 29 included Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Max Born, Marie Curie, and Erwin Schrödinger. The conference was notable for the intense debates that took place between the different participants over the interpretation of quantum mechanics, particularly the ongoing debate between Einstein and Bohr over the nature of reality. ( METAPHYSICS)

Newtonian physics, also known as classical physics, is the physics of the macro-world and is based on the laws of motion and gravitation formulated by Isaac Newton in the late 17th century. It describes how objects move and interact with one another. In contrast, quantum physics, also known as quantum mechanics, is how subatomic particles such as electrons and photons behave and interact with one another. While in classic Newtonian physics, objects can be observed and calculated, in quantum physics the sub-atomic objects can only be measured using delicate instrumentation.

In 1905 Albert Einstein published his theory of Special Relativity in a paper "On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies". He was dealing with the physical laws that govern motion at constant speed in a straight line. In describing this law Einstein's famous equation of E=MC2, or Energy=Mass*the Speed of Light squared. In this theory, nothing can travel faster than the speed of light because of its relationship to mass and energy. His paper and further work set off a fury of research as scientists and philosophers embarked on unlocking the mysteries of the large (cosmos) and the small (sub-atomic) worlds.

The Copenhagen interpretation is a philosophy of quantum mechanics, proposed in the 1920s by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. It is the most widely accepted interpretation of quantum mechanics and states that quantum systems do not have definite properties until they are measured or observed. It also holds that the act of measuring or observing a quantum system changes the system in a fundamental way. The interpretation is called "Copenhagen" because Niels Bohr, who was one of the primary proponents of the interpretation, was from Copenhagen, Denmark. Their conclusion is that particles existed in a fuzzy state until they were observed, causing Einstein to retort 'the moon does not exist if nobody is looking at it.' This set off what is known as the friendly but fierce Einstien-Bohr debates over the essence of quantum physics.

Quantum mechanics is so strange that even the concepts of reality are debated. Bohr and Heisenberg believed in the "uncertainty" of a physical state until it was observed while Einstein believed in "observational reality" or that the physical state exists. This philosophy of science spilled into EPISTEMOLOGY and METAPHYSICS as Bohr and Einstein continued the friendly debate over the years. Responding to one of Bohr's concepts, Einstein said "God doesn't play dice", with Bohr's clever retort, "Don't tell God what to do".

In the mid-1930's as more research was done on Quantum physics, a strange effect was observed by Einstein and Erwin Schrödinger called Quantum Entanglement. The observation of how one particle correlates or changes with another entangled particle, instantaneously and over any distance, seemed to defy LOGIC and looks more like a magic trick. An example, using the magic trick metaphor, if you have two playing cards and you flip one over, you know the identity of the other playing card right away and no matter where it is in the universe. For the Copenhagen camp, this seemed to make sense in the "uncertainty" and observable principle of Quantum mechanics. Einstein was troubled by the effect in that it broke the laws of physics, namely, something traveling faster than the speed of light. Einstein called this observation "spooky things in a distance". Einstein and his Princeton colleagues released the EPR Paradox paper in 1935 and reasoned that quantum physics is incomplete because there must be hidden variables that account for this entangled action of particles. Over the next 30 years, industries grew as nuclear fusion, laser technology, computing power, and silicon chips became reality from quantum physics. However, Quantum Entanglement was largely ignored for the next 30 years until 1964 when John Bell tackled APR Paradox.

Bell's Theorem, also known as Bell's Inequality set out to prove or reject the APR Paradox by coming up with a mathematical equation to test Entanglement against the laws of physics. He tested them against two of Einstein's truths, "localism" meaning nothing travels faster than the speed of light, and "realism" meaning definite properties before they are observed. Bell's equation resulted in proving that the entangled particles either defied localism by traveling faster than the speed of light or defied realism and therefore had no defined attributes. To put it in simpler terms, these entangled particles are connected by an umbilical cord-like energy wave that could stretch through galaxies. Spooky? Indeed-

2023: why do we care?

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 was awarded to John Clauser, Alan Aspect, and Anton Zellinger “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science”. They have cleared the way and forged a path for new technology based on quantum information. This may include new quantum computers, entangled encrypted communications, new 3-D elements, and new molecular compositions.

The further study of Quantum Entanglement may also lead to a greater understanding of the cosmos and redefine how we think of space and time and perhaps even bring clarity to the age-old metaphysical question of who we are.

And now you know John Bell who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1990, unfortunately after his death several months earlier.

Philosophy is the art of thinking, the building block of progress that shapes critical thinking across economics, ethics, religion, and science.

METAPHYSICS: Literally, the term metaphysics means ‘beyond the physical.’ Typically, this is the branch that most people think of when they picture philosophy. In metaphysics, the goal is to answer the what and how questions in life. Who are we, and what are time and space?

LOGIC: The study of reasoning. Much like metaphysics, understanding logic helps to understand and appreciate how we perceive the rest of our world. More than that, it provides a foundation for which to build and interpret arguments and analyses.

ETHICS: The study of morality, right and wrong, good and evil. Ethics tackles difficult conversations by adding weight to actions and decisions. Politics takes ethics to a larger scale, applying it to a group (or groups) of people. Political philosophers study political governments, laws, justice, authority, rights, liberty, ethics, and much more.

AESTHETICS: What is beautiful? Philosophers try to understand, qualify, and quantify what makes art what it is. Aesthetics also takes a deeper look at the artwork itself, trying to understand the meaning behind it, both art as a whole and art on an individual level. A question an aesthetics philosopher would seek to address is whether or not beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder.

EPISTEMOLOGY: This is the study and understanding of knowledge. The main question is how do we know? We can question the limitations of logic, how comprehension works, and the ability (or perception) to be certain.