London: Over 1,00,000 people from laboratories around the world for the first time have conducted a unique global experiment that verified the laws of quantum physics, thus refuting Albert Einstein’s understanding of the microscopic world. Twelve laboratories from around the world came together to put in motion the BIG Bell Test.
The experiment — coordinated by ICFO-The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Spain — powered by human randomness is aimed to demonstrate that the microscopic world is in fact as strange as quantum physics predicts.
Predictions such as particles behaving in a random way, determining their properties only when we look at them; strange instantaneous interactions at a distance — were all questioned by Einstein, who rejected them completely.
During the 48 hours in which it was November 30th at different place on the planet, participants contributed to the initiative, generating sequences of zeros and ones as random as possible through a video game.
Each of these bits was used to control in real-time the experimental conditions of the labs.
They moved mirrors, polarising filters, waveplates — elements located on optical tables and that affect the type of measurements that are made on the different quantum systems in each lab.
Together all the participants provided scientists with millions of unpredictable, independent decisions which were used to measure their particles.
This independence is a crucial feature for the conclusions of the Bell tests to be valid. By early afternoon, some of the labs had been able to obtain preliminary results, confirming violations of Bell’s inequality, and thus refuting Einstein, giving their complete support to the predictions of quantum physics.
