The Importance of Spooky Action at a Distance

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Einstein and Podolsky and Rosen make this point about spooky action at a distance. They wanted to make the case that if you believe there really is something actually happening in every location in space, then quantum mechanics couldn't be complete. Then John Bell comes along and says that, okay, Einstein is basically sketching out an aspiration. Some day we'll have a better theory that explains all this without spooky actionAt a distance. And Bell basically proved that no such theory can ever reproduce the predictions of quantum mechanics.

There are many mysteries surrounding quantum mechanics. To me, the biggest mysteries are why physicists haven’t yet agreed on a complete understanding of the theory, and even more why they mostly seem content not to try. This puzzling attitude has historical roots that go back to the Bohr-Einstein debates. Adam Becker, in his book What Is Real?, looks at this history, and discusses how physicists have shied away from the foundations of quantum mechanics in the subsequent years. We discuss why this has been the case, and talk about some of the stubborn iconoclasts who insisted on thinking about it anyway.

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Adam Becker received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Michigan. He is currently a science writer and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society at UC Berkeley. His book What Is Real? The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics comes out in paperback on Sept. 3, 2019.

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