Einstein’s hidden variables tests two ways, closing both loopholes. From the Economist:
To save physics from the spooky, Einstein invoked what he called hidden variables (though others might describe them as fiddle factors) that would convey information without breaking the universal speed limit.
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By now, most physicists reckon the hidden-variable idea is flawed. But no test had closed both loopholes simultaneously—until this week, that is.
Ronald Hanson of the University of Delft and his colleagues, writing in Nature, describe an experiment that starts with two electrons in laboratories separated by more than a kilometre. Each emits a photon that travels down a fibre to a third lab, where the two photons are entangled. That, in turn, entangles the electrons that generated the photons. The consequence is easily measured particles (the electrons) separated by a distance that precludes any shifty hidden-variable signalling.
Over 18 days, the team measured how correlated the electron measurements were. Perhaps expectedly, yet also oddly, they were far more so than chance would allow—proving quantum mechanics is as spooky as Einstein had feared. More.
Unless, the Economist suggests, every single event in the universe was predicted in advance from outside. Of course, that’s unfalsifiable.
Quantum mechanics is spooky, but contrary to some hopes, it doesn;t add up to something from nothing.
One wishes people would research the history of such ideas before buying in. See “The universe as Ponzi scheme.”
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