In 1935 Einstein and two other physicists in the United States, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, analyzed a thought experiment to measure position and momentum in a pair of interacting systems. Employing conventional quantum mechanics, they obtained some startling results, which led them to conclude that the theory does not give a complete description of physical reality. Their results, which are so peculiar as to seem paradoxical, are based on impeccable reasoning, but their conclusion that the theory is incomplete does not necessarily follow. Bohm simplified their experiment while retaining the central point of their reasoning; this discussion follows his account.

The proton, like the electron, has spin 1/2; thus, no matter what direction is chosen for measuring the component of its spin angular momentum, the values are always +ℏ/2 or −ℏ/2. (The present discussion relates only to spin angular momentum, and the word spin is omitted from now on.) It is possible to obtain a system consisting of a pair of protons in close proximity and with total angular momentum equal to zero. Thus, if the value of one of the components of angular momentum for one of the protons is +ℏ/2 along any selected direction, the value for the component in the same direction for the other particle must be −ℏ/2. Suppose the two protons move in opposite directions until they are far apart. The total angular momentum of the system remains zero, and if the component of angular momentum along the same direction for each of the two particles is measured, the result is a pair of equal and opposite values. Therefore, after the quantity is measured for one of the protons, it can be predicted for the other proton; the second measurement is unnecessary. As previously noted, measuring a quantity changes the state of the system. Thus, if measuring S_x (the x-component of angular momentum) for proton 1 produces the value +ℏ/2, the state of proton 1 after measurement corresponds to S_x = +ℏ/2, and the state of proton 2 corresponds to S_x = −ℏ/2. Any direction, however, can be chosen for measuring the component of angular momentum. Whichever direction is selected, the state of proton 1 after measurement corresponds to a definite component of angular momentum about that direction. Furthermore, since proton 2 must have the opposite value for the same component, it follows that the measurement on proton 1 results in a definite state for proton 2 relative to the chosen direction, notwithstanding the fact that the two particles may be millions of kilometres apart and are not interacting with each other at the time. Einstein and his two collaborators thought that this conclusion was so obviously false that the quantum mechanical theory on which it was based must be incomplete. They concluded that the correct theory would contain some hidden variable feature that would restore the determinism of classical physics.

A comparison of how quantum theory and classical theory describe angular momentum for particle pairs illustrates the essential difference between the two outlooks. In both theories, if a system of two particles has a total angular momentum of zero, then the angular momenta of the two particles are equal and opposite. If the components of angular momentum are measured along the same direction, the two values are numerically equal, one positive and the other negative. Thus, if one component is measured, the other can be predicted. The crucial difference between the two theories is that, in classical physics, the system under investigation is assumed to have possessed the quantity being measured beforehand. The measurement does not disturb the system; it merely reveals the preexisting state. It may be noted that, if a particle were actually to possess components of angular momentum prior to measurement, such quantities would constitute hidden variables.

1 of 2

2 of 2

Does nature behave as quantum mechanics predicts? The answer comes from measuring the components of angular momenta for the two protons along different directions with an angle θ between them. A measurement on one proton can give only the result +ℏ/2 or −ℏ/2. The experiment consists of measuring correlations between the plus and minus values for pairs of protons with a fixed value of θ, and then repeating the measurements for different values of θ, as in Figure 6. The interpretation of the results rests on an important theorem by the Irish-born physicist John Stewart Bell. Bell began by assuming the existence of some form of hidden variable with a value that would determine whether the measured angular momentum gives a plus or minus result. He further assumed locality—namely, that measurement on one proton (i.e., the choice of the measurement direction) cannot affect the result of the measurement on the other proton. Both these assumptions agree with classical, commonsense ideas. He then showed quite generally that these two assumptions lead to a certain relationship, now known as Bell’s inequality, for the correlation values mentioned above. Experiments have been conducted at several laboratories with photons instead of protons (the analysis is similar), and the results show fairly conclusively that Bell’s inequality is violated. That is to say, the observed results agree with those of quantum mechanics and cannot be accounted for by a hidden variable (or deterministic) theory based on the concept of locality. One is forced to conclude that the two protons are a correlated pair and that a measurement on one affects the state of both, no matter how far apart they are. This may strike one as highly peculiar, but such is the way nature appears to be.

It may be noted that the effect on the state of proton 2 following a measurement on proton 1 is believed to be instantaneous; the effect happens before a light signal initiated by the measuring event at proton 1 reaches proton 2. Alain Aspect and his coworkers in Paris demonstrated this result in 1982 with an ingenious experiment in which the correlation between the two angular momenta was measured, within a very short time interval, by a high-frequency switching device. The interval was less than the time taken for a light signal to travel from one particle to the other at the two measurement positions. Einstein’s special theory of relativity states that no message can travel with a speed greater than that of light. Thus, there is no way that the information concerning the direction of the measurement on the first proton could reach the second proton before the measurement was made on it.

Measurement in quantum mechanics

The way quantum mechanics treats the process of measurement has caused considerable debate. Schrödinger’s time-dependent wave equation (equation [8]) is an exact recipe for determining the way the wave function varies with time for a given physical system in a given physical environment. According to the Schrödinger equation, the wave function varies in a strictly determinate way. On the other hand, in the axiomatic approach to quantum mechanics described above, a measurement changes the wave function abruptly and discontinuously. Before the measurement is made, the wave function Ψ is a mixture of the ψs as indicated in equation (10). The measurement changes Ψ from a mixture of ψs to a single ψ. This change, brought about by the process of measurement, is termed the collapse or reduction of the wave function. The collapse is a discontinuous change in Ψ; it is also unpredictable, because, starting with the same Ψ represented by the right-hand side of equation (10), the end result can be any one of the individual ψs.

The Schrödinger equation, which gives a smooth and predictable variation of Ψ, applies between the measurements. The measurement process itself, however, cannot be described by the Schrödinger equation; it is somehow a thing apart. This appears unsatisfactory, inasmuch as a measurement is a physical process and ought to be the subject of the Schrödinger equation just like any other physical process.

The difficulty is related to the fact that quantum mechanics applies to microscopic systems containing one (or a few) electrons, protons, or photons. Measurements, however, are made with large-scale objects (e.g., detectors, amplifiers, and meters) in the macroscopic world, which obeys the laws of classical physics. Thus, another way of formulating the question of what happens in a measurement is to ask how the microscopic quantum world relates and interacts with the macroscopic classical world. More narrowly, it can be asked how and at what point in the measurement process does the wave function collapse? So far, there are no satisfactory answers to these questions, although there are several schools of thought.

One approach stresses the role of a conscious observer in the measurement process and suggests that the wave function collapses when the observer reads the measuring instrument. Bringing the conscious mind into the measurement problem seems to raise more questions than it answers, however.

As discussed above, the Copenhagen interpretation of the measurement process is essentially pragmatic. It distinguishes between microscopic quantum systems and macroscopic measuring instruments. The initial object or event—e.g., the passage of an electron, photon, or atom—triggers the classical measuring device into giving a reading; somewhere along the chain of events, the result of the measurement becomes fixed (i.e., the wave function collapses). This does not answer the basic question but says, in effect, not to worry about it. This is probably the view of most practicing physicists.

A third school of thought notes that an essential feature of the measuring process is irreversibility. This contrasts with the behaviour of the wave function when it varies according to the Schrödinger equation; in principle, any such variation in the wave function can be reversed by an appropriate experimental arrangement. However, once a classical measuring instrument has given a reading, the process is not reversible. It is possible that the key to the nature of the measurement process lies somewhere here. The Schrödinger equation is known to apply only to relatively simple systems. It is an enormous extrapolation to assume that the same equation applies to the large and complex system of a classical measuring device. It may be that the appropriate equation for such a system has features that produce irreversible effects (e.g., wave-function collapse) which differ in kind from those for a simple system.

One may also mention the so-called many-worlds interpretation, proposed by Hugh Everett III in 1957, which suggests that, when a measurement is made for a system in which the wave function is a mixture of states, the universe branches into a number of noninteracting universes. Each of the possible outcomes of the measurement occurs, but in a different universe. Thus, if S_x = 1/2 is the result of a Stern-Gerlach measurement on a silver atom (see above Incompatible observables), there is another universe identical to ours in every way (including clones of people), except that the result of the measurement is S_x = −1/2. Although this fanciful model solves some measurement problems, it has few adherents among physicists.

Because the various ways of looking at the measurement process lead to the same experimental consequences, trying to distinguish between them on scientific grounds may be fruitless. One or another may be preferred on the grounds of plausibility, elegance, or economy of hypotheses, but these are matters of individual taste. Whether one day a satisfactory quantum theory of measurement will emerge, distinguished from the others by its verifiable predictions, remains an open question.