Portals to a New Reality

An Oxford physicist "seeks to shatter complacency" (David Deutsch) in modern physics and show why five revolutionary experiments in quantum physics promise to open the gates separating us from a true understanding of the universe For the last century, physics has been treading along the paths set by the same two theories—quantum theory and general relativity—and, let’s face it, it’s getting pretty boring. Most scientists are simply chasing decimal points in laboratories, unable to explore the theories at large scales, where serious discrepancies could emerge. The situation is a lot like the one physics was in in 1890, right before Planck, Einstein, and Bohr blew the roof off Newtonian physics. As Vlatko Vedral argues in Portals to a New Reality, that means we are on the brink of a revolution. Vedral shows how quantum information theory has opened radically new avenues for experiments that could upend physics. They can sound very strange—one essentially involves entangling a human with Schrödinger’s cat—but they lay bare elements of our theories that are particularly problematic, such as the widespread belief that nothing truly exists unless it is observed. At present these experiments are thought experiments, albeit fascinating ones. But nothing, save inertia and a lack of ambition, stands in our way. Now is the time to rewrite the understanding of the universe.