Three physicists whose works each showed that nature is even weirder than Albert Einstein had dared to imagine have been named winners of the 2022 Nobel Prize in physics.
John Clauser, of J.F. Clauser and Associates in Walnut Creek, California; Alain Aspect of the Institut d’Optique in Palaiseau, France; and Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna in Austria, will split a prize of 10 million Swedish kronor ($901,500).
Their independent works explored the foundations of quantum mechanics, the paradoxical rules that govern behavior in the subatomic world. In experiments conducted over the past 50 years, they confirmed the reality of an effect that Einstein had disdained as "spooky action at a distance.” Measuring one of a widely separated pair of particles could instantaneously change the results of measuring the other particle, even if it was light-years away. Today, physicists call this strange effect quantum entanglement, and it is the basis of the burgeoning field of quantum information. When the award winners were announced Tuesday, Eva Olsson, a member of the Nobel Committee for Physics, noted that quantum information science had broad implications in areas like cryptography and quantum computing.