Quantum entanglement’s long journey from ‘spooky’ to law of nature

Knowable

Quantum mechanics has always included mind-bending ideas. But the concept of quantum entanglement, famously termed “spooky at a distance” by Albert Einstein in a 1947 letter, seemed to challenge the limits of belief. It remained well on the edges of modern physics until John Stewart Bell’s 1964 paper suggesting a way to actually test the baffling idea that two particles can somehow share a measured property even when well separated.

Host Adam Levy chats with Nicolas Gisin of the University of Geneva about Einstein’s quote, Bell’s test and why it took so many decades for entanglement, the focus on the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, to go mainstream. Plus, how the phenomenon could help secure communications with your bank.

Find the transcript and additional resources at knowablemagazine.org/podcast.