Among the many brain-twisting surprises in quantum mechanics, entanglement and nonlocality rank at the top. In a familiar entanglement scenario, a spin-one particle can decay into two spin-one-half particles. Even as they fly apart in space, these particles are eerily connected—a measurement on one will correspond to a measurement on the other. Some believe that this is the result of hidden variables operating under the hood of quantum physics, but actual lab studies of such correlations point to nonlocality—the notion that things don’t need to be in physical proximity to influence one another. Entanglement is on many researchers’ minds owing to the potential for building powerful quantum computers, but precisely how are entanglement and nonlocality related?
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