From 'Bell's Theorem' to experiments in quantum entanglement, the renowned experimental physicist Nicolas Gisin provides a solid understanding of one of the most fascinating areas of contemporary physics. The Foreword to the book is written by Alain Aspect, whose pioneering experiments helped to confirm quantum nonlocality.
Quantum physics offers an explanation of the world on the smallest scale and has fundamental implications that pose a serious challenge to ordinary logic. Particularly counterintuitive is the notion of entanglement, which has been explored for the past 30 years and posits an ubiquitous randomness capable of manifesting itself simultaneously in more than one place.
This amazing 'non-locality' is more than just an abstract curiosity or paradox: it has entirely down-to-earth applications in cryptography, serving for example to protect financial information. It also has enabled the demonstration of 'quantum teleportation,' whose infinite possibilities even science-fiction writers can scarcely imagine.
Gisin comments, “Had you lived at the time of the Newtonian revolution, would you have wished to understand what was going on? Today, quantum physics gives us the opportunity to live through a conceptual revolution of similar importance. My book aims to help understand what is happening, without mathematics, but also without trying to conceal the conceptual difficulties. For what is interesting in physics is not the mathematics but the concepts. So my purpose here is not to manipulate equations, but to understand.”
Nicolas Gisin is an internationally renowned expert in quantum physics and recognized worldwide for his work in quantum communication. He is head of the applied physics group at the University of Geneva and cofounder of ID Quantique. In 2009 he received the first John S. Bell award for the demonstrations of long-distance entanglement and quantum teleportation, together with his numerous contributions to the theory of Bell inequalities.
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