Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics by Amir D. Aczel (PDF)

Description

Since cyberspace became reality, the lines between “science” and “science fiction” have become increasingly blurred. Now, quantum mechanics promises that some of humanity’s wildest dreams may be realized. Serious scientists, working from Einstein’s theories, have been investigating the phenomenon known as “entanglement,” one of the strangest aspects of our strange universe. According to Einstein, quantum mechanics required entanglement — the idea that subatomic particles could become linked, and that a change to one such particle would instantly be reflected in its counterpart, even if separated by a universe. Einstein felt that if quantum theory could produce such bizarre effects, then it had to be invalid. But new experiments show that not only does it happen, but that it may lead to unbreakable codes, and even teleportation, perhaps in our lifetime.

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: From Publishers Weekly In his newest book, Aczel (Fermat’s Last Theorem) discusses a great mystery in physics: the concept of entanglement in quantum physics. He begins by explaining that “entanglement” occurs when two subatomic particles are somehow connected or “entangled” with one another, so that when something happens to one particle, the same thing simultaneously happens to the other particle, even if it’s miles away. However, this concept violates the theory of special relativity, since communication between two places cannot occur faster than the speed of light. Einstein knew that the mathematics of quantum theory predicted that this could happen, but he didn’t believe it. In the last decade, researchers have shown in laboratory experiments that entanglement does indeed happen, and in one case it occurred over a distance of almost 10 miles. Aczel explores how a Star Trek-like teleportation may be possible via entanglement (however, a particle’s quantum state, not the entire particle, is teleported to its mate), though perhaps at the expense of demonstrating entanglement’s more real-world applications to cryptography. General readers may need to skim over his technical explanations, whereas more advanced readers will be interested in only the last third of the book. While the book won’t satisfy dedicated science buffs, it will be an accessible entry into this concept of quantum physics.Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Library Journal “Entanglement” is one of the more remarkable aspects of quantum mechanics, a field that has produced a number of counterintuitive phenomena. Entangled particles are created in the same process and retain a connection even if they become far separated physically. If a change is later imposed on one of these particles, then there instantaneously occurs a change with its entangled partner, even if that partner is very far away in another part of the universe. Thus, the news of the change is transmitted with infinite velocity by an unknown means. Einstein aptly referred to this phenomenon as “spooky.” In recent decades, researchers have shown entanglement to be a physical fact, thereby vindicating quantum mechanics, spooky though it may be. Aczel (Fermat’s Last Theorem) tells most of this story at a pace that is slow enough and understandable for lay readers, but the last few chapters are more technical. Some sections read awkwardly and would have benefited from better editing, but on the whole this is recommended for college and large public libraries.Jack W. Weigel, Ann Arbor, MI Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. About the Author Amir D. Aczel is a professor at Bentley College in Wallham, MA. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I found this book to be interesting, but not the easiest book that is devoted to the idea of quantum entanglement. I also have a problem with the subtitle, which I think is highly misleading. The spookiness referred to was not Einstein’s idea, and the book is about how he was wrong in his objection to the spookiness inherent in others’ interpretation of quantum mechanics, an interpretation that he did not believe in, but one that has stood the test of experimental verification. Since the publisher generally writes titles and subtitles I will try to ignore this misrepresentation.The first half of the book is concerned with background material covering the Thomas Young double slit experiment, the beginnings of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s objection to the standard interpretation of the peculiarities of the double slit experiment performed on individual photons or electrons. This is a general treatment, with no mathematics, but one that I found a little more complex than that in Rosenblum and Kuttner’s “The Quantum Enigma”, and not as detailed as that given by John Gribben in “In Search of Schroodingers Cat”. Among these books, I prefer the one in Gribbin’s book the best, but for someone with no math or physics background at all I would recommend “the Quantum Enigma” for this sort of background material.The last half of Entanglement is concerned with Bell’s Inequality, the idea of entangled quantum states and the experimental verification of Bell’s ideas. I would recommend this book for someone who is specifically interested in this material. This book provides a very personal account, gained from interviews with the participants. It is quite interesting and shows the interactions between physicists and how they went about designing and performing their experiments. It contains a fair amount of detail regarding their work, but it may not be enough for a physicist and perhaps too much for a general reader. There are several general treatments of the complex experiments that were needed to verify Bell and show that the universe obeys quantum mechanics, as strange as its predictions are. Physicists and those interested in this subject may enjoy these details, but it is likely to be way over the head of most general readers. The final part of this section focuses on the idea of entanglement and on the results of producing an entangled quantum state.I would recommend this book to someone who is seriously interested in the strange underpinnings of quantum mechanics. Those with a very limited background may find the book a bit hard going (particularly much of the last half) and those who are just intrigued by the title should read more about this book to see if it is something that they really want to take on.

⭐Currently driven by the intense interest in quantum computation and quantum information theory, the subject of the entanglement of quantum states has been widely discussed in both the research literature and the popular press. Most of this discussion has been uncritically supportive of the reality of entangled states, and any views to the contrary have not made their way into refereed physics journals, but instead have appeared on physics blogs or preprint servers. This book is no different than most of the literature on entanglement, for it approaches the subject from a spirit of uncritical adulation for those who are or have been actively involved in research in entanglement. The book would have been a lot more useful if the author had discussed at least some of the criticism regarding the experimental verification of entangled states.In addition to the omission of critical arguments, there are many conclusions that are made in the book that are contingent on a certain philosophy of mathematical proof. When this philosophy is abandoned, these conclusions do not hold. For example, a reader who is sympathetic with the intuitionistic, constructive philosophy of mathematics will reject proofs by contradiction. This would not be an issue if it were not for the fact that proof by contradiction is used to prove many of the results on entangled states. For example, the GHZ theorem in the context of 3-particle entanglement is proved by contradiction in the book. It would be interesting to see a constructive proof of this result. Lacking such a proof would cause some to question the conclusions of the GHZ theorem that the Einstein “local elements of reality” and quantum mechanics are incompatible.In the context of the GHZ result, it is interesting to read in the book of the connection between knot theory and quantum mechanics. The author reports work by one physicist who has found a correspondence between the GHZ entangled state of three particles and the Borromean rings of knot theory. The Borromean rings are a three-component link wherein the components are topologically linked but the removal of any single component results in a pair of unlinked rings. The GHZ state can be viewed as an entangled superposition of three particles will all of their spins aligned in the z direction. If one measures the spin of one of the three particles, then the state of the entire system collapses into a tensor product and thus becomes “disentangled.” The author points out though that this result is dependent on the basis that is chosen. If one writes the state in terms of spin alignment in the x-direction, then the state behaves like the Hopf rings. The author gives a very brief discussion of how to generalize this to the case of N particles. These are intriguing results, especially if one remembers the belief of the famous physicist Lord Kelvin that the periodic table can be derived from considerations of knot theory.The book has much more material, most of it extremely controversial if viewed in a skeptical frame of mind. Entanglement is certainly an interesting phenomenon if it truly exists in the physical world, and is not just a consequence of mathematical musings in the Hilbert space formalism chosen for quantum physics. The author does give a fine account of the history behind the study of entanglement, along with discussion of the Bell inequality and the experiments that were constructed to test it. Unfortunately this book, like all the other books and scientific papers on the subject, failed completely to convince this reviewer of the reality of entanglement. Seeing the raw data of the experiments would alleviate the skepticism perhaps, or maybe witnessing the actual experiments. It is the opinion of this reviewer that there is no convincing evidence of entanglement in any of the research literature, and this book, along with this literature, would have to be radically revised to make the case for entanglement sound and without controversy.

⭐The author makes the subject comprehensible. Easy reading. Some background in physics necessary. A good read for those interested in quantum computing. Historical treatment of the subject including the debates between the giants of physics.

⭐Just as described, and, prompt delivery.

⭐Il libro ricostruisce, con episodi particolari e personali dei protagonisti, lo studio dell’entanglement e come sia divenuto, da caratteristica ritenuta bizzarra ma troppo ideale, un fenomeno assolutamente reale, riproducibile in laboratorio e tratto distintivo dei processi quantistici.Qualcuno si lamenta di non avere capito che cosa è l’entanglement dalla lettura di questo libro. E’ una critica ingenersoa: il libro lo spiega nel modo migliore che si possa immaginare a livello divulgativo. Per comprendere davvero l’entanglement, è necessaria (e non sufficiente) una laurea in fisica.

⭐

⭐I am a lay person with limited knowledge in general physics, forget particle physics. This book has been written so well that it was a breeze to wrap my head around the foundation concepts of a really futuristic pursuit that started way back when, in the early days of physics research. Highly recommended.

⭐Wiederholt sich immer wieder – nichts für ungeduldige Leser.

⭐

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