Three physicists receive the Bell Award 2017

The John Stewart Bell Award, the premier international award in the field of quantum mechanics, has just named three scientists this year, including Ronald Hanson (Delft University of Technology, Netherlands), Sae-Woo Male (National Institute of Standards & Technology, USA) and Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna, Austria). These are the people who challenged Albert Einstein by proving the non-native nature of quantum entanglement.

In 2015, the aforementioned three scientists conducted experiments that showed that the two microscopic particles were so far apart that there were no signals, including signals with fast transmission speeds like light, can connect them together, there can still be an invisible and instant correlation between them.

Micro world is very strange. Micro particles can tangle in pairs in such a way that between them there exists a correlation regardless of how far apart they are: if you measure the properties of a particle of the tangled pair, then you immediately know exactly the properties of the other particle. Einstein did not believe in the bizarre thing: in the 1930s, he called it "demonic impact irresponsibly".

Professor Aephraim Steinberg, quantum physicist of Quantum Control and Quantum Information Center, University of Toronto, Canada, one of Bell's founders, said: 'There are many experiments that are very close to proving the existence of quantum entanglement, but these three honored scientists have overcome all previous loopholes'. For example, previous experiments have encountered difficulties in ensuring that no signal can pass between the detectors and the fact that too many photons are lost (due to steaming). pass or scatter by the surrounding environment) during the experiment.

'In a consensus, they removed all reasonable doubts about the non-locality of quantum puppet. So they also open the door to exciting new technologies, including ultra-secure communications and the ability to perform some types of calculations much faster (exponentially faster) than any machine. any classic ' , Steinberg said.

This year's Bell award will be handed out on Thursday, August 31, at Fields Academy, Toronto, Canada. Award recipients will have short speeches at the awards ceremony.

John Stewart Bell (1928-1990).

John Stewart Bell and the deepest discovery since Copernicus

John Stewart Bell (1928-1990) was a Northern Irish physicist, who in 1964 led to an important inequality (later known as Bell inequality ), the most profound discovery since Copernicus. He died suddenly in 1990 in Geneva, Switzerland, for brain hemorrhage, when he did not know that he was nominated for the Nobel Prize for physics that year!

The award bears his name for studies of fundamental issues in quantum mechanics and applications, which were born in 2009 and were given in odd years for the first significant contributions to be published in round six years ago. This award honors major advances in the field of quantum mechanics and application, including quantum information theory, quantum computing, quantum foundations, quantum cryptography, quantum control and the Other related issues. This is not a 'Lifetime Achievement' award, but aims to highlight the rapid progress of research in these areas as well as the dynamic interaction between basic research and applications. potential use.

The Bell Award is funded and managed by the Quantum Information and Quantum Control Center of the University of Toronto, Canada, but the selection of awards will be conducted by an international selection committee, cyclically. period of four years.

'Improving the understanding of quantum mechanics along with its technological applications is something worthy of recognition worldwide. We hope that, in some cases, the Bell Prize will soon predict the Nobel Prize for Physics, ' said Daniel James, director of the Quantum Information and Quantum Control Center.

Awarding history

In 2009, the Bell Award was awarded to Nicolas Gisin (University of Geneva, Switzerland) by theoretical and empirical studies of the foundation and application of quantum physics, in particular quantum non-locality, Quantum cryptography and quantum teleportation. With single photon sources and telecom-wavelength entangled photons, he realized these quantum effects on fiber-optic networks between distances of 10 to 100 km.

In 2011, the Bell Award was awarded to Sandu Popescu (Bristol University, UK) by discoveries of special quantum correlation and the application of quantum theory to thermodynamics.

In 2013, the Bell Award was awarded to Michel Devoret and Robert Schoelkopf (Yale University, USA) for their fundamental experimental advances and pioneering in creating confusion between superconducting and microwave photons, and applications. of them in processing quantum information.

In 2015, the Bell Award was awarded to Rainer Blatt (University of Innsbruck, Austria) by pioneering studies of quantum information processing with trapped ions, more specifically, thanks to recent demonstrations of simulation. analog quantum and numerical quantum simulation as well as simulation of quantum logic gates on a topology-coded qubit.