Real-life experiment shows Niels Bohr was right in a theoretical debate with Einstein
Phys.org••general
Key Points:
- Chinese scientists have experimentally tested an almost century-old thought experiment proposed by Albert Einstein to challenge Niels Bohr's quantum complementarity principle, which states certain particle properties cannot be measured simultaneously.
- The experiment, conducted by Jian-Wei Pan and colleagues, used a single rubidium atom trapped by an optical tweezer as a quantum slit interacting with photons, confirming Bohr's prediction that measuring momentum precisely increases position uncertainty and blurs interference fringes.
- This result supports the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and demonstrates the role of quantum entanglement between the photon and the slit in determining interference visibility.
- The researchers overcame technical challenges such as atom heating by employing scanning Raman spectroscopy to monitor and calibrate the atom's temperature in real time.
- The
