How Physicists Proved The Universe Isn't Locally Real - Nobel Prize in Physics 2022 EXPLAINED

I met a theoretical physicist the other day. I was surprised to learn they actually exist.

I think it will be a very long time before anyone can explain what this video is trying to explain in a manner that actually does explain.

This was really good. As an expert PhD in the field of theoretical physics, I am glad to see such explanations. Just kidding, I failed pre-al in high school... but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night

Thank you for this! Clears up, for me, a lot of misrepresented popularized interpretations of laypeople with major "Tartuffe"-like confirmation biases. And, yet, you explained such technical information in a very accessible way for those of us with limited knowledge of the subject. Much appreciation!

I have never heard anyone explain things in such an understandable way. I need to watch more of your videos.

I work with fluorescence anisotropy looking at proteins binding DNA so I really appreciated your polarizer demo- very cool! I wonder if you have made a video on double slit experiment and it's many variations esp. quantum eraser and delayed choice?

I can confirm this with my daily observations. I can place an object on my table, countertop etc. It appears stable and should not fall over. The moment I turn my back, at a random interval of its choosing, the object will fall over, or end up on the floor. Initially, I believed it to be poltergeists, but I'm now convinced it's Matthew McConaughey

Incredibly well verbalize and explained.
Tho for me personally, the logic part, agree disagree, has hit a weakness (relative to your own strenght at explaining so well). You've been able to explain to me what 99% of people wouldn't have been able to make me understand.
Thanks for this video, thank you.

Maybe in another multi-verse I understand, but in this one the concept went right over my head. I will revisit this again in some other time and place.

This was a great video, thank you! A very interesting follow on from a video I just watched with Deepak Chopra talking about similar things from a spiritual angle, and the understanding that in the present moment we are the conscious unfolding of the universe. I know nothing about physics, so this could be nonsense, but could it be that particles are linked through time, and thus through space? Almost as though particles have always been predestined to remain connected as one whole. The universe is ‘alive’ in that sense I think, infinitely connected, and our consciousness is only a tiny expression of that, although we can sense it through deep meditation/psychedelic drugs and we are slowly uncovering it with science too.

I mostly like this video by Dr Ben Miles on Bell's Theorem and the recently awarded Nobel Prize concerting it. One positive is that he does emphasize that there are (at least) two issues at play here - Realism and Locality - and that the Realdm part is the harder of the two to wrap your head around. He also mentions the CHSH formulation (i.e., variant) of Bell's paper, which is a little bit cleaner, using photon polarization, whereas Bell's original example is a bit more difficult to follow (although functionally equivalent as a proof).
I also like that he mentions the actual Clauser and Freedman paper "Experimental Test of Local Hidden-Variabe Theories" in Vol 28 Num 14 of Physical Review Letters. Furthermore, he points out that the graph in Fig 3 of that paper is sinusoidal, not a linear triangle curve, which is the essence of the paper, or if you will, the crux of the biscuit.
Two things I can fault in his exposition, though. First, he starts out by making the all-too-common assertion that "Einstein has been proven wrong!" This mistake is made by almost all expositors on the topic, so I guess we can let it slide maybe. But I'll tackle that issue a bit in a later paragraph, below.
My other beef is a sin of omission, also made by virtually all expositors on the topic, even by premier physicists in best-selling books. Specifically, the failure to mention that Bell's proof is a proof-by-contradiction - that is to say, a reductio ad absurdum. What that means is that all Bell really proves is that one of his (multiple) assumptions is incorrect. It gives you no information as to which of those assumptions is the guilty one. It could be that the Locality assumption is incorrect (in other words, Quantum Mechanics is inherently non-local); or it could be that the Realism assumption is incorrect (or as some would say, Einstein was wrong-headed to want Realism in his QM theory; or it could be that Bell had made some unknown/unwritten hidden assumption that he himself was not even aware of, and that was the invalid assumption proven wrong by the reductio ad absurdum. We don't know for sure what the situation is. As an aside, what the experimental confirmations by many such as Clauser, Aspect, Zeilinger and others adds to the picture is that it shows agreement between Physical Reality and Quantum Mechanics, and by so doing demonstrates that there was no error in John Bell's reductio-ad-absurdum proof. That is, the proof of Bell's Theorem stands supported by reality - and it really does end up in a contradiction that needs explanation. But these experiments offer up no clue as to which of Bell's proof assumptions "was the actual wrong one." That is still as open to interpretation as is always was.
However, later in the video it was mentioned that with near certainty we think that there is no faster-than-light communication allowed in Physics, so it is doubtful that Bell's Locality assumption was the one at fault. A lot of people would then cast aspersions on the Realism assumption as the obvious next candidate (and since Einstein preferred some flavor of Realism in his Quantum Mechanics Tea, that is what leads to the widespread (but mistaken, in my opinion) claims that "See, Einstein was proven wrong!"
I believe that, in some sense of the phrase, "the wrong assumption" in Bell's proof was "a hidden assumption on Bell's part." Let's look deeper after a brief diversion into terminology.
Elsewhere in these comments, some (probably validly) complain about the term Realism or Realist in the context of the so-called Realism assumption (that was ostensibly proven wrong by the absurdum arrived-at in Bell's reductio-ad-absurdum proof). There definitely are muddied waters via prior art for the terms among Philosophers and others. One commenter suggests Determinism as a better term. I will add a suggestion that the term Measurable or Measurement deserves to be in the definition somewhere. Specifically, I'd offer up something on the order of "Measurably Deterministic Realism" or maybe "Deterministically Measurable Realism."
What's the point of my above semantic gyrations? I suggest (but cannot possibly know for sure) that the "wrong" Bell assumption (in his proof) was made when Bell "chose" a Realistic assumption intended to represent what Einstein's Realistic leanings meant in practice. Bell chose a Realism assumption that might be more accurately described as a Measurably Deterministic Realism assumption or a Deterministically Measurable Realism assumption. The "hidden assumption" by Bell was that his choice of particular explicit Realism assumption was both potentially (at least) compatible with Quantum Mechanics and also adequately embodied Einstein's Realist-leaning sentiments.
In reality, neither was true. First of all, Einstein's thoughts were more along the line of "maybe Quantum Mechanics is incomplete." Now it's true that prior Newtonian Physics theories were very much Realistic and Measurable and Deterministic in nature. But Einstein never argued to go back to Newtonian Physics. He was partially credited with inventing Quantum Mechanics, after all. Einstein first and foremost suggested that "we really don't understand QM as well as we might be able to someday." The Deterministically Measurable Realism assumption that Bell landed on as a token representation of the "Quantum Mechanics is Maybe Incomplete" style of Realism that one might associate with Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, was a bad choice of Realism assumption since it is indeed incompatible with Quantum Mechanics, as Bell's Proof shows, and is also incompatible with Reality, as experiments by Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger show. The exact same problems shows up in the results of the recently-awarded Nobel experiments as what shows up as a contradiction in the Bell (who didn't get a Nobel since you have to be alive to receive the award) proof-by-contradiction.
So you can look at it one of two ways, that in the end are equivalent. (1) You can say that Bell's assumption of Deterministically Measurable Realism is the "bad" assumption that leads to the contradiction in the reductio-ad-absurdum proof. Or, (2) you can say that Bell made an extra hidden assumption that the only assumption worth entertaining as a possible Realism assumption is the Deterministically Measurable Realism. Either way, wrong assumption! (1) is wrong, because as Bell's proof shows, when you add a working assumption of Quantum Mechanics being true, it leads to a contradiction, and the experiments by Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger establish that the real world is in agreement with QM, thereby agreeing with Bell's theoretical proof that there is a contradiction that needs to be resolved. (2) is false in the sense that Bell bet on the wrong type of Realism assumption. Other flavors of potential Realism assumptions might exist, and (at least some of) these alternate Realism assumptions might not be in contradiction to Quantum Mechanics as we know it today. To give the flavor of what such a flavor of Realism might look like, consider a Realism that is Real in the sense that objects have concrete numerical values for certain quantum properties, so in a sort-of sense are Real, yet these properties are never (or at least seldom) exactly measurable per se and also not deterministic. Rather, any time a quantum measurement event is instigated on said quantum object, the (so-called) Realist property is merely a number that is pumped into the dynamic creation of a probability distribution, and the actual measured value is randomly chosen from that probability distribution. If the latter sounds at all familiar to you, that is because that is pretty much a high-level description of how the quantum measurement process works in practice. Therefore it is compatible with Quantum Mechanics since it is Quantum Mechanics. That alternative Realism assumption (if indeed such a viable alternative Realism exists), would have not led to a contradiction in Bell's Theorem. It would have led to essentially the same sinusoidal graph as Clauser got in his Figure 3. So in that case (if a viable alternative Realism assumption could be formulated and if Bell had assumed such) there would be no contradiction, and Bell would not have had any proof of anything.
In other words, Bell or no Bell, Clauser/Aspect/Zeilinger or no Clauser/Aspect/Zeilinger, it has not yet been established whether or not some sort-of flavor of Realism (that is at least non-deterministic Realism and not-fully-measurable Realism) exists that would be fully compatible with Quantum Mechanics. If such could be discovered, it would demonstrate that Einstein was correct in his gut feel that maybe there was some deeper explanation of how Quantum Mechanics works, but we just don't know it yet. So you see, Bell et al does not even come close to proving Einstein wrong. Rather, it shows two things: (a) the jury is still out as to whether some day we might find a deeper theory that has extra explanatory power over the current Quantum Mechanics theory; and (b) in his proof, John Bell made a bad choice in picking a fundamentally wrong (that is to say, both incompatible with Quantum Mechanics and incompatible with the reality of the universe) flavor of Realism to stand-in for Einstein-like preferences for a pseudo-realist Quantum Mechanics. This bad choice resulted in a contradiction, and thus a proof that said bad choice of a Realism was indeed a bad choice of Realism. So sadly, Bell's proof reduces to a Truism in the end. Yet I am still very greatful for the work of Bell, Clauser, Aspect, Zeilinger and others since as a result of that work we already have a better understanding of Quantum Mechanics, and we have launched the field of Quantum Computing.

You know it was well explained when you're left with more questions. 👏👏👍

I couldn't imagine a bigger flex than having gotten the Nobel Prize for keepin' it real.

Quantum mechanics is just like: in terms of a game, your players x and y axis on the map when located. Your character always exists, even when logged out, just because you can't see someone's character making progress it doesn't mean it doesn't. Quantum mechanics may lead to new technologies or steps towards knowing what the universe is but it really doesn't matter. It is just a measurement of randomness, like it is always there just not in a fixed position.

What if you could build a Quantum computer with entangled particles but instead of keeping them in one computer , split each pair and build 2 computers , couldn't those talk to each other ?

Quantum entanglement of two particles could be defined by time. One moving forward through time and the other moving backwards through time. This would give absolute duality in all things and give the illusion of being connected. The further the distance between two particles could, counterintuitively, mean the duality becomes stronger the further away they are from each other because distance = time. I'd also guess that these entangled particles emerged into the universe at the same time in the same place. Created in pairs. Or what if it's only one particle, and it is simply being observed by us from two different points in time, giving us the illusion of two particles acting in duality.

Hi, Ben!
A few questions if you would be so kind.
Does this mean that quantum entanglement means that 2 "entangled" particels act the same or the opposite?
Do we have the capability to create entanglement between 2 particles?
Do we have to capability to manipulate these entangled particles?
Cheers!

Love his comment on the metaphysics of cause and effect that one should expect after performing a Schrodinger's Cat Experiment.... Obviously more of a cat fan than I. Still, a good way to weed out the lower level psychopaths before teaching them how one might collapse the relative field around Sol or some other similarly dangerous trick..

They way I had "understood" so far, was that according to quantum physics, the property of a particle is random until it is measured. However, if I am getting this right, whenever we measure again the same particles, the value of the property will change again, to a previously unknown value (so that it's value sometimes is or isn't 180-Δθ) . If that is the case, the value of the particles' property could be changing randomly all the time and we just get a snapshot of it's value at the precise moment that we measured it.

It doesn't necessarily break locality if both objects are always next to each other because an object that small can be in 2 places at once. So the object that is moving to the right doesn't just exist to the right, but it also exist at least at the starting point, if not also at every measured interval when it started moving.

Wouldn't be possible to create two computers that can talk to each other through huge distances?

I wonder if hidden dimensions would explain how particles can just appear and disappear randomly. Has any physicist written a paper on this?

Question - from the moment the photon is split until BOB or JILL take the reading can there not be interference from other forces? How would you know both photons were initially connected?

It's nice to meet you, friend. That is awesome and I really appreciate your sharing this information with all of us. I am very fascinated by this. I wish you the best of continued success and happiness.

Great! So, next time I'm faced with a situation I don't want to deal with in life I can say it's not real and run away! Thanks Quantum Physics!

This is the kind of situation that occurs when someone starts overthinking a subject and becoming so lost within it, that they are no longer able to recognize reality…

What if the universe is a sort of conscience that saves energy by not "rendering" a particles properties until other particles interact with those properties.

This is great. I’m glad someone finally proved the Universe isn’t real, and that one day my computer might be faster. I’ll go back to my job now.

Wouldn't the polarization results also be explained by the polarizing film nudging the angle of polarization of light passing through by a few degrees?

There are definitely different laws of observation out there. Things act differently when they aren't observed almost like a simulation buffing before it's observed

As someone who pays attention to quantum theories, my feeling is that the universe has infinitely more details and twists the more we look. It’s basically making details up the more we look, keeping up with what we’re capable of measuring.

so just a random thought. Could this then explain "synchronicity" ? I am thinking more in the sense where two people at opposite ends of the planet come up with he same idea and invent the same thing with out knowing each other or having ever "spoken" to each other? I know I have lots of spiritual types speak on this subject and it would seem that this could potentially play a role of some sort, you said there was no way to do communication but perhaps it does exist. Again just my random thought...

Since the way of observing/measuring a particle in the double-slit experiment determines what said particle will be (a particle or a wave), what would we get, if we had a way of observing/measuring, which would not influence the final state of a particle?
Is such a way of observing/measuring possible?

The confusing part, might be the natural language- the polarizer, in this case- as the medium. Aren’t the media, both the natural languages and the polarizations real locally? Isn’t locality the variable, neither hidden nor measured?

I like how he explained the movement of photons they either move vertical horizontally or somewhere in between 🤔 🤔 is that like your either alive dead or somewhere in between?And how do we know there is nothing faster than light or is there nothing faster that we know of?

Excellent explanation. Thanks for putting complex concepts available to “normal” people. I am an engineer and I like these topics, but it is really hard to find someone who can explain with simplicity and with beauty like this video did.

I suppose this would be a great way to preserve processing power in a simulated universe. I mean, why compute anything if nothing is around to observe it? It would be better to have those resources available to be used for something else if the need should arise.

Higher rate of coincidence should lead to a graph that is similar to graph of a square root function. However, we see a sine curve. So, either the experiment results seem to be flawed, or we didn't get the gist right. Can someone explain and clarify this?

2:50 here is my problem. We imagine the particle breaks into two ,then when one moves to the right "we know" that the other moves to the left. So we start imagining things but then we apply known laws of physics. This makes no sense as if I can imagine it to spontaneously break into two , I can also imagine that they will start dancing the polka.
They probably do, until we look and then they will behave differently :)

There is so much we don't know, we like to measure everything so it fits into our reality box, I think that we haven't a clue to what's really out there, we're limited to what our eyes tell us, I know there's much we don't know.

There are great implications to non-locality, e.g. I can now suspect that my dreams have some reality to it.

it's crazy how life on Earth is so precious and yet here we are, so much drama except for the few who are enjoying life to the max while others suffers to the max.

Man Alice and Bob have had a lifetime of stories together.... they should make a scifi tv show at this point jeez lol

So nice of these scientists (aka figures inside my imagination) to come up with this!

When I was a shop mechanic, 10mm sockets would repeatedly go to another dimension and then reappear after using the 10mm box end to tighten the faster. I don't lose tools, never been that type of mechanic; everything has its place in the box and is accounted for before the machine is rolled out. It's really the only logical reason why my 10mm sockets would vanish and then reappear later. Or maybe it was Mathew 🤯

I also have this thought of the universe where it reacts dynamically base on the observers like for example if I am not looking at something (like it is outside my peripherals and Im not thinking about it) does it really exist? or it will only manifest itself if I become aware of it?

If one could encode information during particle entanglement then FTL communication would be possible.

Great vids and channel. Just found you. So glad I did. Great job.

Really well explained.
I found this easier to follow than the PBS spacetime episode 👍

There is a nice photo of Michael Horne in his obituary. He loved to teach non-physics students physics!

Yes there is a randomnes, but we can modify the odds and predict tendencies. We may not be able to have FTL communication, but if we send the signal not once but a lot of times, the probability will come very close the a desired result.
I would want to know what would happen if we dropped one quantum entangled particle inside a black hole?

When one measures a quantum particle & it is (say) a wave; would that particle be the same if it is measured 1 second before or 1 second after? Likewise, if 30 seconds before or after?

There was a young man called Bright - who could travel faster than light. He set off one day, in a relative way, and returned the previous night!

Love the new new, keep expanding and keep an open mind.

I started reading quantum physics books when i was too young to understand them, about 1982 13 years old, now I'm 53 years old, and still feel i don't understand it much, but this video made me feel like i learned something over 40 years, because some of this was familiar. I have always been drawn to this, even though I'm mostly a trained engineer, and now an old man hanging out in a home mancave building a humanoid robot at a slow pace. Cool video, thanks.

Would it be possible that we are all occupying the same space and the distance isn't as far as it seems? It's just through human understanding, at this point in time, that we think the universe is so big.

Seems like common sense that particles are related, especially when there is a split. If we were able to create proper equipment I’m sure we could make family trees for particles

How do they measure spin? I've asked and asked and asked

By changing the entangled photons on one side, which will change the photons on the other side, and then designing the computing necessary to interpret that change into the information intended to be transfer, could be a way to accomplish the impossible :)

Thank you ya Quantum physic is the way ! That is why we need fundamental research We need all the Sheldon we can have :) Just Imagine how Copernic feeling was when star gazing

In fairness, I’m not very smart. But I’ve tried so many times to understand quantum entanglement and you single-handedly explained it to me in just a few simple sentences.
I am eternally grateful. I can finally impress my grandmother.

I became more confused than I was before watching after hearing you try to explain something based off “one particle spontaneously splitting into two”

whoever does the visual presentation for this video deserves an award or a mug or something.

what would be the limit on local causality anyway - well its the speed of light and it takes time to travel any distance to affect anything- Ive always had a problem with the idea of simultaneous measurement on the separated photons - but anyways the result points to spacetime not being fundamental being an artifact of our construction

The universe is real by the word "photon". Quantum computer exists. It's amazing 👏 😍

Please do try to answer, or do make more videos about this, cuz I feel close to understanding something but we aren’t nailing it yet.
How does this connect to the latest Nobel in physics, i did not learn anything clear at all with what they proved or what’s the point here? So was quantum entanglement proved or not? Has it been verified that entangled particles “answer” each other faster than light?
Also what do quantum computers actually do so far?
I enjoyed your video learnt a few things but it feels SO Nebulous! I feel I learnt something but it’s like I can’t really say what… and I can’t say I got a clue about what the latest Nobel prize was for.
I highly appreciate your video and all the examples you gave and it’s fun.. but please please keep working at it.. I feel like when I was learning to do math and the teacher helped me with 2 problems but then class was over and I didn’t “get” how to do it by myself though it felt so close…. Please keep making more and clearer content

Thank goodness this had a "So what?" chapter. Whenever I read or watch items concerning quantum theory I often end up wondering if it's significance is "locally real".

Actually, there may be a way forward on faster than light communication using entangled particles (@11:31), and quantum computers may be a part of that solution.
The concept on how it could be accomplished is based on the thought experiment about if you had a room with an infinite number of monkeys typing on typewriters, eventually they would re-produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Questions is, out of all that randomity, how do you separate the Shakespeare from the other stuff?
That's where quantum computing would come in (coupled with AI). If the problem is that entangled particles are random, then a large number of them could create pretty much any message you may want to transfer. It's a matter of sorting out that message from the rest of the randomity. It would be like listening to the static from an old analog television tuned to a channel with no signal and being able to discern patterns in the noise, kind of like how SETI is doing their search for other civilizations.

the more and more they study this, the more i feel like I'm literally an avatar in a made up world

We're getting closer to being able to explain "glitches in the matrix" and "quantum shifting."

Thank you, so all of these weird physical thing is just a hypothetical situation of some theories being push to the limit to show that they are wrong. Also thanks for explaining how quanthum entanglement can be made, most youtuber just skip it and tell us that we magically have 2 particle that are entangled

The reality is different for everyone...(locality). Reality for me is what I have observed

Einstein (Podolsky and Rosen) weren't proven wrong. They proposed a question as a response. It just took a long time for subsequent theoretical physicist to respond. The question was so good it deserved a Nobel prize worthy answer.

I wish I knew enough to understand this - the Universe fascinates me and this kind of informed me but you know you are a non-physicist when even the explanations need an explanation!

If you have a light bulb traveling at light speed and it is turned on, does one side remain dark (like the light is off) while the other side is bright?

The 0/45/90 polarising makes perfect sense. Why do people think this doesn't?

Its interesting how by the end of the video you just switch everything and make the point of the video unsless, well played!

If something like a photon oscillates vertically, horizontally or somewhere in between, that direction is relative to what?

Superbly made. These particular concepts in a strange and inexplicable way, almost seem to make perfect sense. Whether or not something can be categorised as "Locally Real" has always been incredibly important, and I'm honestly impressed with the simplistic yet highly informative explanation given. This is truly exciting!

So for those who've always asked, "if a omniscient God knows everything we're going to do already, do we have any free will," we can answer in the affirmative that, yes, because until we make the decisions and experience the consequences, everything exists as a wave function of possibilities. You could go even further and say that, like in the quantum eraser experiment, the final result of your life that is already known to an omniscient God, is actively influenced by our actions with no respect to time. So the fact that he knows it ahead of time doesn’t matter because time has no bearing on the choices

Most honest thing about space that's ever been made.

I might be grossly misunderstanding both topics. But doesn't quantum entanglement sorta lend to being able to transfer information faster than the speed of light?

So if they are entangled why can you not capture both at both ends like a tin can and string and alternate the rotation of one particle to, through entanglement, rotate the other? This creating a faster than light binary comms channel? Are they believed to only be entangled to determine their properties from superposition and once discovered the entanglement is broken? Doesn't really say much for "entanglement" if after discovery they no long affect each others rotation.

Its too much complex for my normal brain
But I actually wanted to understand and I failed 😞

As an individual who miserably failed Algebra 1 in high school (and still can't do long division) and is effectively math challenged, you did a great job at making this easily digestible, and understandable. 👍👍👍

This property of being non-locally real implies a deeper reality that we have yet to explore, which is very exciting. The inherent uncertainty is what makes the universe so malleable whereas a deterministic view would seem to imply a static universe where no change is possible.😢

The most important information that I got out of this entire video is this, I’m so great that my name is used in an example in it. I feel so special! 🤪

I know that my brain doesn't have pain receptors, but it still hurts after watching this.

In other words, the lights we see up there in the sky every night are older than they appear. If we could see things in real time, many stars would have already gone into supernova or maybe turned into black holes.

That's happened to me on many occasions.strange universe we supposedly live in.

This was so well done, so clear and easy to follow. Thanks!

I never understood the cat in the box example of superposition. Isn’t the cat itself a conscious observer of its own state (if alive)?

The speed of thought travels faster than the speed of light.

It all boils down to the question: can an infinite amount of information occupy a finite space?

This is basically like quantum intangilment. When you look at them, they act different then they would if you weren't.

Couldn’t we develop a theoretical system in which it identifies for example “right spinning” particles as 1’s and “left spinning” as 0’s in a form of quantum binary code? Wouldn’t such a system create zero latency and instantaneous results?

Not a student of physics but I do follow the subject somewhat - I really liked the way Dr Ben Miles explains things - even I could follow something! Thanks Dr Miles

You get a thumbs up for referencing Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
.... And for being a great video.

Would an AI avatar stuck in 3D virtual world be able to measure things in the physical world?

but wasn't it said that acting on entangled particle A immediately affects particle B?