Nobel Prize in Physics 2022
Source: Hindu
GS III: Science and Technology
What is discussed under Nobel Prize in Physics 2022?
- About the Experiment
- Significance of the Experiment
Why in News?
Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger share the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2022 for their contributions to quantum mechanics.
About the Experiment
- The award was presented ‘for experiments with entangled photons, proving the violation of Bell inequalities, and pioneering quantum information science’.
- The trio’s research has centred on a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, which Albert Einstein labelled ‘spooky action at a distance’.
Quantum entanglement
- Quantum entanglement means that the characteristics of one particle may be determined by analysing the properties of another even if they are separated by a huge distance.
Image by Florian Pircher from Pixabay - One simple way to visualise this is to imagine being given one of two balls, one white and one black.
- You know the other ball is black if you get a white ball.
- However, the properties of each particle are not fixed until they are examined.
- This is at the core of the “spookiness” – rather than “action” at a distance, the two particles, or balls, appear to be innately linked, without the need for any signal to be delivered between them.
- The balls in the scenario above do not contain hidden instructions about which colour to turn.
Bell’s inequality
- One theory advanced by scientists was that the particles carry some secret information or “hidden variables” that govern their characteristics.
- In the early 1960s, Northern Irish physicist John Stewart Bell argued that it would be feasible to verify this by performing several runs of a certain sort of experiment and seeing how the findings correspond, a notion that gave rise to what is now known as Bell’s inequality.
Significance of the Experiment
- The development of experimental instruments has established the groundwork for a new age of quantum information-based technologies.
- It will aid in the use of the unique features of individual particle systems to develop quantum computers, enhance measurements, construct quantum networks, establish secure quantum encrypted communication (quantum cryptography), and maintain perfect timekeeping like atomic clocks do.
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