QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT

Last year, the world resonated with the certification of "quantum entanglement". On October 4, 2022, John Clauser, Anton Zeilinger and Alain Aspect, who experimentally proved quantum entanglement, received the Nobel Prize in Physics. Of course, with another hero behind them: John Stewart Bell. In this article, we will examine what Einstein's scientific defeat means to us.

Nothing, not even light itself, can exceed the speed of light, right? At least that's what we thought. But "knowledge" achieved this.

First of all, I should point out that in order to understand entanglement in all its aspects, it is necessary to learn how spacetime, which is the fabric of the universe, derives from quantum fields and random quantum oscillations based on Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Quantum entanglement is, briefly and quite simply, like the proverbial cat being both dead and alive. The function of language is important here because I say dead "and" alive, not dead "or" alive. If we put a cat and a toxic substance in a box that we do not know when it will poison it and close the box, the cat's situation is uncertain from that moment on. In quantum physics, we call this "superposition". Electrons in superposition exist in a blurred state in both spin-down and spin-up states. That's why electron spin only becomes apparent when you measure it. Of course, the entangled partner of the electron you measure will have the opposite spin, but this is determined by the spin of the electron you measure.

In other words, we know that when we entangle electrons, they will definitely be in opposite spin. However, we cannot know or determine in advance which electron will be in the spin-up state.

"If we measure one of the electrons and see that it is in a spin-up state, the other will definitely be in a spin-down state." you may think. But this is only true in classical physics, not in quantum physics; Because the spin of the electron you measure will only be known after you measure it! This is what classical physics cannot explain.

The interesting part is that this information transfer must occur faster than the speed of light. However, it was impossible for humanity to use it to transmit information because we only saw the transmission after making measurements.

John Clauser, the first winner of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics. He turned Bell's idea into a practical experiment. In this way, the violation of Bell inequality was clearly demonstrated and quantum mechanics received support. Although it seemed impossible, John Clauser completed the thought experiment by completing the path developed by Bell with "Bell inequalities".

Alain Aspect built his work on Clauser's work and closed the loopholes where hidden variables could potentially still interfere with an experiment. He developed a way to change measurement settings after an entangled pair of photons leaves the source.

You know, we couldn't use all this we learned to transfer knowledge? Most recently, Anton Zeilinger discovered that quantum teleportation, that is, the teleportation of information over long distances, is possible using entangled photons. This is how new fields such as quantum computers, encryption, and communication networks were born.

"Okay, I understand quantum entanglement, so what?" If you ask, let's look at what this term says about the determinism of the universe.

Quantum points out that the universe may be random. Free will is independent of quantum randomness. Because consciousness is an "emergent concept", that is, free will is independent of neurology and biology.

Events such as the random vibration of atoms due to the uncertainty principle show that information can describe the universe, but does not correspond to the entire universe. So the universe is not deterministic but predictable. In this context, one of the most important rules in quantum physics is the "conservation principle of quantum information". You cannot create or destroy information from nothing.

One end of the uncertainty principle is based on the Planck length. The "Planck length" is the shortest length we can measure in the universe. We cannot measure shorter lengths; because the energy required for this causes dazzling gamma ray bursts.

This doesn't mean that nothing happens at distances shorter than the Planck length, but it does mean that there is 100 percent uncertainty. Another consequence of this uncertainty is that quantum field theory does not contradict general relativity. Below the Planck length, purely random quantum oscillations occur. This means that we cannot measure the entire universe precisely. Our measurement resolution is the Planck length. Because the universe is not precise, it is impossible to measure the entire universe precisely. That's why quantum mechanics is indeterministic.

In January 2023, a new type of quantum entanglement was discovered at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). Generally, quantum entanglement observations are made with the same type of photon and electron pairs, but now, for the first time, in BNL, an ion that existed in the young universe and collided with gold atoms was entangled with an ion that did not collide.

Besides the fact that this will revolutionize our understanding of quantum physics, the generation of entangled pairs through gold ions may also have possible engineering applications in the future, especially in the field of quantum computers.

While we thought it was impossible to exceed the speed of light, information transfer achieved this. In the information age, knowledge has defeated both time and experience.