Twin Sister Mind Twister

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Bell was famous for another reason, a theorem that had revolutionized our understanding of quantum physics.

In a nutshell, his theorem said something like this: our naïve expectation of "locality," that every effect has a local cause, independent of what happens elsewhere, is wrong. Two or more particles — and even larger objects — can coexist in states where one affects the other without an exchange of information or a cause.

It is as if twin sisters went to two parties in different countries and their actions were connected. If one sister danced the twist, the other would invariably tango, and vice versa. The sisters would always seem to "know" what to do, even without communicating. It would be as if they were a single unit, not two different people.

Particles in this kind of state are called "entangled." What Bell found was that, for entangled states, the whole is not just larger than the parts; the parts don't even make sense! And the "connection" is independent of the distance between the two particles. Accidentally, quantum physics has discovered some kind of wholeness in Nature.
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    Twin Sister Mind Twister

    Bell was famous for another reason, a theorem that had revolutionized our understanding of quantum physics. In a nutshell, his theorem said something like this: our naïve expectation of "locality," that every effect has a local cause, independent of what happens elsewhere, is wrong. Two or more particles — and even larger objects — can coexist in states where one affects the other without an exchange of information or a cause.