'Spooky' quantum entanglement discovered inside individual protons for 1st time ever
By Ben Turner published 14 hours ago
Physicists have long-suspected that the building blocks of protons experienced quantum entanglement. Now, researchers have the first direct evidence — after using a trick to infer subatomic particles' entr
To test how important imaginary numbers were in describing reality, the researchers used an updated version of the Bell test, an experiment which relies on quantum entanglement.
An artist's illustration of quantum entanglement. (Image credit: Jurik Peter via Shutterstock)
Scientists have peered inside protons and discovered that quarks and gluons, their fundamental building blocks, experience quantum entanglement.
Entangled particles are connected to each other, so that a change to one instantaneously causes a change to the other, even if they are separated by vast distances. Albert Einstein famously dismissed the idea as "spooky action at a distance," but later experiments proved that the bizarre, locality-breaking effect is real.
Physicists have observed entanglement between quarks before but had never found evidence that they exist in a quantumly connected state inside protons.
Now, a team of researchers has discovered entanglement between quarks and gluons inside protons over a distance of one quadrillionth of a meter — allowing the particles to share information across the proton. The researchers published their findings Dec. 2, 2024 in the journal Reports on Progress in Physics.
More:
https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/particle-physics/physicists-discover-spooky-action-at-a-distance-within-individual-protons