Is there spookiness around us?

|Difficulty level: Easy|

There are few outcomes one could come up with the EPR paradox. Though it a favoured one in principle, there are quite a few instances where we could essentially think upon the originality of quantum theory. Comparing the scenario in ordinary life, this article shares some general concerns.

What is the paradox?

In their remarkable paper, Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky, and Nathan Rosen (EPR) theoretically proved the incompleteness of quantum mechanics. Their claims were against the foundation of quantum mechanics i.e., the uncertainty principle. From the principle, it is accepted that the position and momentum of a particle can’t be measured simultaneously with precision. But it isn’t the best conclusion for some. Einstein had spent a long time figuring it out, about the locality that he was expecting from the theory. Though he is one of the founding fathers of the modern theory, things didn’t go pretty well in his terms.

Is spookiness local?

The spookiness is not local for sure. Bells theorem proved that the local assumption or the hidden variable argument can’t be true for two correlated particles separated by a vast distance. On the other hand, Einstein’s theories are working effectively on a large scale. And it is hard to violate the relativity principles for any physical theory. If that is the case, some unique laws are yet to be discovered, or perhaps the quantumness is not physical at all.

Consider a case of two strange couples A and B separated by a distance of few light-years. For the person, A to receive a reply from B, it will take at least double the time the message takes to reach the point from A to B (assuming a constant distance). Even if the message/signal is travelling at the speed of light, the case is not a different one. But nature is also very strange as the couples are. If A possesses some sort of communication where the signal from A is entangled with the signal of B, instantaneous communication between the couples is possible. The distance in such a case doesn’t consider any casualty, no matter how much the couples feel they are separated. This is the spooky action at a distance in the words of Einstein.

“If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics”- Richard Feynman.

There is an ontological aspect to it. In a series of debates done by Bohr and Einstein, there were several remarks about the completeness of the newly accepted quantum theory. One among them represents the ontology the theory has within itself. The standard interpretation of quantum mechanics is very drowsy to understand. About the nature of being, explicitly for a physical theory to act like one is very hard as it is for Quantum theory. Apart from the mathematical model, most of the people who are working on it, however, don’t understand to the fullest of what they signify from the theory. Unfortunately, most of them are happy that the applications are enormously impressive. In cases, where the foundation is not impressive enough for the empirical success of the theory, the outcomes are ontological issues.

But it is not over yet. Whenever Physicists try to combine Quantum Mechanics with the theory of gravity they rather find it difficult or struggle to maintain the consequences of the model. From four-dimensions in relativity, the mathematics of the unification (One example is string theory) are taking them up to 13 dimensions.  It is quite hard to imagine in that way without knowing what the model catches up in nature. So, understanding the theory is as important as the progress one can come up with the theory. But some do believe that such a unification represents an impossible task. Freeman Dyson is one prime person who believes Quantum Mechanics cannot obtain a comprehensive description of nature, therefore the unification (Dyson, 2002).

What does such spookiness have in our ordinary life?

Apart from Quantum Mechanics, take for instance the Newtonian mechanics, or General relativity. We could somewhat experience it with our senses. We could follow a ball taking the trajectory of a projectile or the moon orbiting in the curved geometry caused by the earth. Everything makes sense until we reach the quantum level. We don’t follow what’s happening in the subtle structure of our world. It constantly requires an interpretation. And the interpretation can cause causal issues. It is hard in one sense to believe that subtle things exist like a ball or the moon on a level beyond our experience. But if you think this subtlety has nothing to produce with your experiences of ordinary life, you are quite wrong from a realistic perspective.

Is it possible to encounter spookiness in our day to day routine?

We can if there is no arrow of time. We do perceive things coming from the past and going towards the future. The most general perception about the present has to come from the past. We do perceive in a way where everything that we endure at present obtains an outcome of what we were in the past. But it can’t be absolutely right.

A recent experiment on the delayed choice quantum eraser showed it wasn’t exactly the past that is influencing us in the present, but our future (Carroll, 2019). It is reasonably firm to think in that way. It is when things are pretty weird at the subtlest level of what we are made off. The most plausible explanation of spookiness should next come from our understanding of it. There are good reasons to believe, therefore. The first one among them is the physicality of it. If Bell’s theorem only gives room for communication faster than the speed of light, Quantum Mechanics should then be a proper primitive theory of nature. Quantum Mechanics then needs to signify the importance of understanding in terms of quantum correlations and the impossibility of non-invasive measurements that do challenge the ordinary behaviour of a physical theory.  

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