Was Einstein Right? What Actually Happens to the Second Particle When We Measure the First / Science and Space / iXBT Live

Quantum physics has contained an internal contradiction since its inception, known as the measurement problem. As long as a quantum system is isolated from external influence, its behavior obeys the Schrödinger equation. This mathematical equation possesses important properties: it is continuous, linear, and strictly deterministic. Knowing the parameters of the system at an initial moment in time, a physicist can absolutely precisely calculate its state at any subsequent moment. However, at the moment when an experimenter turns on a recording device to record a physical characteristic of a particle, the smooth calculation is interrupted. Instead of a smooth evolution, the physicist observes a jump: the system randomly transitions into one definite state out of many potentially possible ones. Quantum…