Most interpretations of quantum mechanics have taken non-locality – “spooky action at a distance” – as a brute fact about the way the world is. But there is another way. Take seriously quantum theory’s higher-dimensional models, and we could make sense of the strange, "spooky" phenomenon of entanglement and restore some order to cause and effect. Perhaps the wave function is all there is, writes Alyssa Ney.
Since the first Bell tests in the 1980s by Alain Aspect and his collaborators, experiments have confirmed again and again what quantum mechanics predicts: our three-dimensional reality is nonlocal. Particles or atoms - quantum systems - created in entangled states can continue to influence each other instantaneously, even when separated over great distances. For those wanting to understand what physics tells us about the nature of our world, these experiments cry out for explanation. How could the world fundamentally be so as to allow instantaneous effects over great spatial distances?
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