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SYRP: Intersectional Symposium The Concept of Reality in Physics

SYRP 1: The Concept of Reality in Physics I

SYRP 1.3: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 16, 2011, 15:30–16:00, HSZ 01

Special relativity and quantum entanglement: How compatible are they? — •Tim Maudlin — Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

It is the entanglement of quantum systems--not issues concerning either determinism or uncertainty--that marks the strongest break between classical and quantum physics. The tension between entanglement and Relativity was the source of both Einstein's and Schrödinger's dissatisfaction with the standard understanding of quantum theory, on account of the "magical" or "spooky" effect that the measurement of one system was claimed to have on the physical condition of a distant entangled system. Bell proved that this non-locality of standard quantum theory is not eliminable: any theory capable of reproducing the standard predictions must be non-local. The import of Bell's work has even today not been universally appreciated. A full reconciliation between quantum theory and Relativity requires an exact formulation of quantum theory--including "measurement"--that makes use only of Relativistic space-time structure. The non-locality cannot be eliminated, but perhaps it can be made completely Lorentz covariant. It is worth considering whether such a full reconciliation is possible, and, if so, whether it is worth the price.