The Japan Times - The Nobel winners who helped prove quantum 'spooky action'

EUR -
AED 3.823403
AFN 79.112634
ALL 98.10997
AMD 415.0708
ANG 1.876424
AOA 950.914404
ARS 1090.13111
AUD 1.659265
AWG 1.876324
AZN 1.780543
BAM 1.949902
BBD 2.102152
BDT 126.965967
BGN 1.955843
BHD 0.392336
BIF 3034.387996
BMD 1.040956
BND 1.408845
BOB 7.194067
BRL 6.185046
BSD 1.041156
BTN 90.014168
BWP 14.400374
BYN 3.407211
BYR 20402.746043
BZD 2.091384
CAD 1.498212
CDF 2961.52069
CHF 0.943445
CLF 0.037397
CLP 1031.910761
CNY 7.570149
CNH 7.580276
COP 4435.515352
CRC 523.618731
CUC 1.040956
CUP 27.585345
CVE 110.670924
CZK 25.141905
DJF 184.998195
DKK 7.460743
DOP 63.925349
DZD 140.627973
EGP 52.378434
ERN 15.614346
ETB 131.212813
FJD 2.408562
FKP 0.857318
GBP 0.845132
GEL 2.976774
GGP 0.857318
GHS 15.832297
GIP 0.857318
GMD 75.989901
GNF 9010.518536
GTQ 8.047658
GYD 217.718333
HKD 8.106452
HNL 26.542023
HRK 7.681788
HTG 135.959418
HUF 410.896542
IDR 16942.710963
ILS 3.675877
IMP 0.857318
INR 90.014678
IQD 1363.652924
IRR 43824.26542
ISK 146.118712
JEP 0.857318
JMD 163.365869
JOD 0.738454
JPY 162.744156
KES 134.803819
KGS 91.031653
KHR 4196.095255
KMF 491.962147
KPW 936.860903
KRW 1496.551746
KWD 0.320917
KYD 0.867671
KZT 542.362128
LAK 22692.850134
LBP 93196.569507
LKR 310.911084
LRD 202.934565
LSL 19.247218
LTL 3.073674
LVL 0.629664
LYD 5.11628
MAD 10.40592
MDL 19.417176
MGA 4913.314063
MKD 61.532474
MMK 3380.985882
MNT 3537.170063
MOP 8.351798
MRU 41.513457
MUR 48.352199
MVR 16.041213
MWK 1807.618576
MXN 21.341379
MYR 4.624455
MZN 66.527331
NAD 19.247084
NGN 1620.768943
NIO 38.306805
NOK 11.742457
NPR 144.023067
NZD 1.8376
OMR 0.400687
PAB 1.041156
PEN 3.870797
PGK 4.166168
PHP 60.73249
PKR 290.062382
PLN 4.224599
PYG 8235.091411
QAR 3.79012
RON 4.975877
RSD 117.153392
RUB 103.312946
RWF 1449.011352
SAR 3.903939
SBD 8.821823
SCR 14.836374
SDG 625.615326
SEK 11.461935
SGD 1.410709
SHP 0.857318
SLE 23.62895
SLL 21828.335792
SOS 594.901562
SRD 36.51657
STD 21545.696434
SVC 9.110444
SYP 13534.515498
SZL 19.247678
THB 35.29727
TJS 11.39496
TMT 3.653757
TND 3.326376
TOP 2.438027
TRY 37.109758
TTD 7.072641
TWD 34.026804
TZS 2628.415263
UAH 43.728335
UGX 3831.429522
USD 1.040956
UYU 45.562189
UZS 13537.638308
VES 57.972478
VND 26117.596848
VUV 123.584438
WST 2.915539
XAF 653.982049
XAG 0.033826
XAU 0.000378
XCD 2.813236
XDR 0.802178
XOF 654.229378
XPF 119.331742
YER 259.250465
ZAR 19.26425
ZMK 9369.860898
ZMW 29.021522
ZWL 335.187546
  • BCC

    -1.2000

    127.92

    -0.94%

  • JRI

    -0.0400

    12.53

    -0.32%

  • BCE

    -0.2400

    23.15

    -1.04%

  • RBGPF

    0.1600

    62.36

    +0.26%

  • NGG

    -1.5400

    60.05

    -2.56%

  • GSK

    -0.3500

    33.43

    -1.05%

  • CMSD

    -0.0400

    23.96

    -0.17%

  • RIO

    -0.6100

    61.12

    -1%

  • SCS

    -0.2200

    11.58

    -1.9%

  • AZN

    0.2400

    68.2

    +0.35%

  • CMSC

    -0.0600

    23.49

    -0.26%

  • RELX

    -0.2900

    49.26

    -0.59%

  • RYCEF

    0.1500

    7.42

    +2.02%

  • VOD

    -0.1700

    8.38

    -2.03%

  • BTI

    -0.1600

    36.57

    -0.44%

  • BP

    -0.3900

    31.13

    -1.25%

The Nobel winners who helped prove quantum 'spooky action'
The Nobel winners who helped prove quantum 'spooky action' / Photo: Jonathan NACKSTRAND - AFP

The Nobel winners who helped prove quantum 'spooky action'

Physicists Alain Aspect, John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger developed experimental tools that helped prove quantum entanglement -- a phenomenon Albert Einstein famously dismissed as "spooky action at a distance" -- is real, paving the way for its use in powerful computers.

Text size:

Here are mini biographies of the three scientists.

- John Clauser -

Born in 1942, John Francis Clauser's earliest memories were of gaping in wonder at the equipment in the lab of his father, who created the aeronautics department for Johns Hopkins, he told the American Institute of Physics in a 2002 oral history.

An electronics buff who built some of the first computer-driven video games at high school, Clauser opted for physics at college.

In the mid-1960s, he grew interested in the ideas of quantum mechanics pioneer John Bell, who strove to better understand entanglement -- when two particles behave as one and can affect each other, even at vast distances.

"I thought this is one of the most amazing papers I've ever read in my own life, and I kept wondering, gee, where's the experimental evidence?" Clauser told PBS in 2018.

Clauser believed he could test Bell's ideas in a laboratory, but was met with widespread scorn by leading physicists of the time.

He proposed the test independently of his thesis work on radio astronomy, and carried it out with collaborators in 1972 while at UC Berkeley.

By shining lasers at calcium atoms to emit entangled photons and measuring their properties, he was able to prove with hard data that what had defied the imagination even of the great Einstein -- was true.

- Alain Aspect -

Like Clauser, Frenchman Alain Aspect was seduced by the "limpid clarity" of Bell's theorem.

"Quantum strangeness has dominated my whole life as a physicist," he told AFP in a 2010 interview.

As a doctoral student, Aspect built on the work of Clauser, refining the experiment to eliminate possible loopholes in its design -- publishing his work in 1982.

The son of a teacher, Aspect was born in 1947 in a village in Gascony, and is currently a professor at Institut d'Optique Graduate School (Augustin Fresnel chair), in University Paris-Saclay, and at Ecole Polytechnique.

But his interest in the quantum realm stemmed from a period in his life spent away from academia -- he had gone to Cameroon to complete three years of voluntary service as a teacher.

During his free time, he came across a book written by Claude Cohen-Tannoudji on the subject (Cohen-Tannoudji won the Nobel in 1997), which in turn led him to Bell.

In a phone interview with the Nobel Foundation on Tuesday, Aspect emphasized the international makeup of his co-winners -- an American and an Austrian -- was an important signal in the face of rising nationalism around the world.

"It's important that scientists keep their international community at a time when... nationalism is taking over in many countries," he said.

- Anton Zeilinger -

Nicknamed the "quantum pope", the physicist Anton Zeilinger, born in 1945 in Ried im Innkreis in Austria, became one of the most famous scientists in his country by succeeding for the first time in 1997 in quantum teleportation of light particles.

A success quickly compared to the "teleportation" of the television series "Star Trek."

Using the properties of quantum entanglement for cryptography, Professor Zeilinger encrypted the first banking transaction by this means in Vienna in 2004.

In 2007, his team created entangled pairs of photons and fired one of each pair over 144 kilometers (89 miles) between the Canary Islands La Palma and Tenerife, to generate a quantum cryptographic key.

His fame comes in part from his tireless didactic talents: always keen to popularize his knowledge to the general public, he even initiated the Dalai Lama in 2012 with infectious enthusiasm.

Attached to the University of Vienna, Zeilinger corresponds in all respects to the image of the scientist: gray hair, a full beard, and small round glasses.

He had already received countless awards and did not really believe that he would one day win the Nobel. "There are so many other candidates," he said a few years ago to the Austria Press Agency

T.Shimizu--JT