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Einstein, in particular, is an interesting case. He was 26 when he had his annus mirabilis (1905) in which he published 5 ground-breaking papers in physics, inc

Einstein, in particular, is an interesting case. He was 26 when he had his annus mirabilis (1905) in which he published 5 ground-breaking papers in physics, including the Special Theory of Relativity. However it took another 11 years until he was able to grasp enough of the mathematics to finally formulate the General Theory of Relativity in 1916, at age 37. Of course, if you're going to use statistics from Nobel Prize winners' works, you have to keep in mind that Einstein won not for the General Theory nor the Special Theory of relativity with which we usually associate him. He won for his paper on the photoelectric effect, one of the other papers he published in 1905...at age 26. Edit: It's probably also worth pointing out that, someday in the future, it's not inconceivable that we may eventually place the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox in the same league as Relativity. That paper was published in 1935, when Einstein was already 56 years old. If it is not currently considered of the same merit as Relativity, that is only because we still don't have a good handle on the full implications of that work. (And, yes, I realize that ultimately EPR will likely prove to be wrong, but a great scientist teaches as much by being wrong as by being right.)

elteto 13y ago
Could you elaborate a little on why is (or might be in the future) the EPR paradox as important as Relativity?
- jballanc 13y ago
  I can give it a shot... So Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen were sitting around (presumably) looking over the mathematical foundations of Quantum Mechanics, when they noticed something. In certain situations, you could end up with one wave function describing two physically separated particles in a mutual superposition of states. The consequence is that altering the state of one particle would instantaneously cause the state of the other to become resolved. Effectively they "discovered" quantum entanglement (which has since been verified as a real phenomenon, not just a mathematical curiosity). What really makes the EPR paradox important, though, is what it implies about reality. Einstein, et al. realized that there were only two ways to explain quantum entanglement. One possibility is that the entangled particles contain extra information, inaccessible to normal observation, about their respective states and which way the superposition will resolve. This is the so-called "hidden variables" solution. The other possibility is that an action on one particle is, in fact, instantaneously causing an effect on the other particle. While this is not, strictly speaking, a violation of General Relativity as no information is exchanged, Einstein found this possibility so unsettling that he famously coined it "spooky action at a distance". The conclusion from the EPR paper was that the "hidden variables" solution was more likely, implying that Quantum Mechanics was an as-yet incomplete theory. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and we're just beginning to appreciate that "spooky action at a distance" is actually more likely to be the correct explanation. As I mentioned before, what this implies about reality itself is pretty mind blowing. To go even further, we've since learned that entanglement can not only occur between particles separated in space, but also between particles separated in time. Quite literally, the future and the past may be linked by this "spooky action at a distance". We still don't fully grasp what, exactly, this means. One possible implication of this is that our existence as sentient beings may simultaneously be a consequence and the cause of a universe that can give rise to sentient beings. Needless to say, even though it's likely that Einstein was wrong about "hidden variables", the course of investigation that the EPR paper set the physics community down is at least as important as Relativity.
  - lindenr 13y ago
    The EPR paradox was resolved a while ago, strongly in favour of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". The first experiments were done in the 70's. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem Also the last paragraph of the introduction at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
    - jballanc 13y ago
      Yes, but as with most things in physics, the first signs that an idea is dead usually come decades before the ghost is truly given up. Take, for example, this work from 2012 that was still dealing with a variation on the "hidden variables" formulation: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-shows-that-reality-cant-be-local/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-...
      - einhverfr 13y ago
        I think you have a larger problem though. A theory is (as Heisenberg explained in his book "Physics and Philosophy") an interpretation of data based upon unscientific, non-falsifiable, a priori assumptions on the part of the theorist. You can't really disprove something as nebulous as "hidden variables." That's not a falsifiable statement. What you can do is disprove some theory based on hidden variables. Such evidence does not apply to the possibility of other theories of hidden variables that are yet unformulated.
        dllthomas 13y ago
        My understanding is that any sort of local hidden variables have been ruled out (at least, if you want to preserve causality).
        GregBuchholz 13y ago
        I'm not a physicist, but I'd be interested in people's opinions on: "Chaotic Ball" model,local realism and the Bell test loopholes. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210150 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210150

elteto 13y ago

Could you elaborate a little on why is (or might be in the future) the EPR paradox as important as Relativity?

jballanc 13y ago
I can give it a shot... So Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen were sitting around (presumably) looking over the mathematical foundations of Quantum Mechanics, when they noticed something. In certain situations, you could end up with one wave function describing two physically separated particles in a mutual superposition of states. The consequence is that altering the state of one particle would instantaneously cause the state of the other to become resolved. Effectively they "discovered" quantum entanglement (which has since been verified as a real phenomenon, not just a mathematical curiosity). What really makes the EPR paradox important, though, is what it implies about reality. Einstein, et al. realized that there were only two ways to explain quantum entanglement. One possibility is that the entangled particles contain extra information, inaccessible to normal observation, about their respective states and which way the superposition will resolve. This is the so-called "hidden variables" solution. The other possibility is that an action on one particle is, in fact, instantaneously causing an effect on the other particle. While this is not, strictly speaking, a violation of General Relativity as no information is exchanged, Einstein found this possibility so unsettling that he famously coined it "spooky action at a distance". The conclusion from the EPR paper was that the "hidden variables" solution was more likely, implying that Quantum Mechanics was an as-yet incomplete theory. Fast-forward a couple of decades, and we're just beginning to appreciate that "spooky action at a distance" is actually more likely to be the correct explanation. As I mentioned before, what this implies about reality itself is pretty mind blowing. To go even further, we've since learned that entanglement can not only occur between particles separated in space, but also between particles separated in time. Quite literally, the future and the past may be linked by this "spooky action at a distance". We still don't fully grasp what, exactly, this means. One possible implication of this is that our existence as sentient beings may simultaneously be a consequence and the cause of a universe that can give rise to sentient beings. Needless to say, even though it's likely that Einstein was wrong about "hidden variables", the course of investigation that the EPR paper set the physics community down is at least as important as Relativity.
- lindenr 13y ago
  The EPR paradox was resolved a while ago, strongly in favour of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". The first experiments were done in the 70's. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem Also the last paragraph of the introduction at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPR_paradox
  - jballanc 13y ago
    Yes, but as with most things in physics, the first signs that an idea is dead usually come decades before the ghost is truly given up. Take, for example, this work from 2012 that was still dealing with a variation on the "hidden variables" formulation: http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-shows-that-reality-cant-be-local/ http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/10/quantum-entanglement-...
    - einhverfr 13y ago
      I think you have a larger problem though. A theory is (as Heisenberg explained in his book "Physics and Philosophy") an interpretation of data based upon unscientific, non-falsifiable, a priori assumptions on the part of the theorist. You can't really disprove something as nebulous as "hidden variables." That's not a falsifiable statement. What you can do is disprove some theory based on hidden variables. Such evidence does not apply to the possibility of other theories of hidden variables that are yet unformulated.
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        My understanding is that any sort of local hidden variables have been ruled out (at least, if you want to preserve causality).
        GregBuchholz 13y ago
        I'm not a physicist, but I'd be interested in people's opinions on: "Chaotic Ball" model,local realism and the Bell test loopholes. http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210150 http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0210150