Epstein Secrets

onsider twin particles separated by a long distance. Physicists call this ‘space like separation. All this means is one particle is measured on, say, Earth and the other on Mars, so relativity is significant in the experiment. This may be impractical today but there is no reason the experiment could not

n to our classical certainty? What is the state of the cat before I - a sentient observer — open the box? Was the result of the decay measured by the Geiger counter, the cat, or are we waiting for someone to open the box and observe the result? The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics — named a

to reach for a gun every time he hears mention of it. The thought experiment works like this. A cat is put in a box with a radioactive substance, a Geiger counter and a vial of poison. If the counter detects a radioactive decay it breaks the bottle and the cat dies, if no decay is detected the cat lives

jects obscure that they are actually attracted to the earth's surface at the same rate; and Darwin's epic realization that the diversity of life on Earth could arise from a single progenitor by the simple process of natural selection. None of these connections was all that obvious, at first. However,

But even closer to home, relativistic time dilation has an impact. We on Earth are all bombarded every day by cosmic rays from space. If you had a Geiger counter and stood out in a field, the counter would click at a regular rate every few seconds, as it recorded the impact of high-energy particles c

rtainty principle, as the energy it can carry is so small that no visible violation of the conservation of en- ergy will occur. Thus, an electron on Earth can emit a virtual photon that could travel to Alpha Centauri, four light-years away, and that pho- ton can still produce a force on an electron the

en- tored him throughout the rest of his career. Bothe was spectacularly lucky to be mentored by Planck and, shortly thereafter, by Hans Geiger, of Geiger counter fame. Geiger, in my mind, is one of the most talented experimental physicists to have been over- looked for a Nobel Prize. Geiger had begun