MIT uses 10,000 ultracold atoms to settle 98-year debate between Einstein and Bohr

Interesting Engineering ^ | July 28, 2025 | Mrigakshi Dixit

[SunkenCiv]

• Coherent and Incoherent Light Scattering by Single-Atom Wave Packets | Vitaly Fedoseev, Hanzhen Lin (林翰桢), Yu-Kun Lu, Yoo Kyung Lee, Jiahao Lyu, and Wolfgang Ketterle | 22 July, 2025 | Physical Review Letters 135, 043601

---

In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, everything is described by a wave-function. But according to Bohmian mechanics, quantum mechanics actually describes point-like particles that follow a guiding wave. In a recent paper, physicists ruled out Bohmian mechanics, settling a 70 years long debate. Let's take a look. 

New Experiment Rules out Bohmian Mechanics. It's Serious. | 7:12 
Sabine Hossenfelder | 1.71M subscribers | 286,780 views | July 20, 2025 | Members first on July 18, 2025

• Energy–speed relationship of quantum particles challenges Bohmian mechanics | Violetta Sharoglazova, Marius Puplauskis, Charlie Mattschas, Chris Toebes & Jan Klaers | 02 July 2025 | Nature volume 643, pages67–72

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for the link!

---

---

· List topics · post a topic · subscribe · Google ·

---

[Telepathic Intruder]

A quantum particle exists only as a mathematical probability, whose location is impossible to predict by any other means until after it is detected. This is something Einstein had a problem with.

[Doctor Congo]

Spoiler alert: Bohr is correct.

[Getready]

Experiment points out that quantum reality is counterintuitive!

Is that the end of math and logic when thinking about very small “under the surface” phenomena?

[Waverunner]

Can we then quickly call it Nielsism? Or just Bohring light?

[tired&retired]

So that’s why placebos work!

[Blennos]

So then G-d does indeed “play dice with the universe?”

I don’t think we have seen the end of this issue quite yet.

[Bobalu]

Great article. Thanks for posting...

[linMcHlp]

I remember years of observing what was depicted: The electron circling the neucleus.

Then “professors” began to get quantum-ly excited - they could not wait to bash that model, and wreck its simplicity.

PS. Related hint/tip: We see, that which emits light.

[linMcHlp]

I also remember when I correctly spelled “nucleus”?

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

“light exists as both a particle and a wave”

I’m no Einstein on physics like self proclaimed climate change expert AOC, but I don’t see the problem here. It’s a particle that travels through space in a wave. So what’s the issue? Are they saying particles are not suppose to travel in waves? I don’t get it.

[Rockingham]

The point that Bohr made was that the uncertainty principle is fundamental and not just a limitation on our measurement of wave and particle behavior. Or, to put it another way, at the quantum level, there are no waves or particles until we observe the behavior conjured out of the possibilities offered at the quantum level.

One might think of the effect as being if a teacher in a ceramics class were to assign his students to make either a cup or a saucer in that day's session. At the end of day, an observer can count the numbers of cups and saucers made, giving tangible reality to the exercise. Yet before the teacher gives his instructions and they are carried out, there are no cups or saucers waiting off stage, only the idea and intention in the mind of the teacher that cups and saucers be made that day in class.

I think that the deeper philosophical point is that all things material are willed into existence by a creative force, with us adding our small part.

[Jonty30]

Bohr always being correct is Bohring.

[Jonty30]

Scientists dont like uncertainty, but uncertainty is how light travels. They want to nail down when it travels in photons and when it travels in waves

It could be important in computer science as chips get smaller. Should the day come when he have to abandon material altogether as chips get smaller, being able to control light with enough precision to decide whether it will be a wave or a particle will result in the fastest possible computers.

[sipow]

It’s not that the particle travels in a wave. It is that the particle is a wave.

If you had a stream of particles traveling in a wave hitting a wall with two slits and those slits were separated by less than wavelength, it is easy to imagine a portion of the particles going through one slit and a portion going through the other.

However, if you sent one particle, travelling in a wave it could would go through one slit or the other, depending on where it was in the wave when it hit the wall.

The weird thing about light is that the single photon can go through both slits. It can even cause and interfere pattern with itself on the other side. So long as you don’t attempt to observe it before it goes through the slits. If you observe the photon prior to it reaching the slits then it will go through one or the other but not both.

[equaviator]

There’s nothing like quantum reality to bring you down to earth.

[FreedomPoster]

FWLIW at team trivia last Thursday, we won the tie breaker for 3rd place (among four teams tied there) with “string theory”. I don’t remember the exact question, it was rather long-winded. The cool thing is that 3/6 of the people on our team (including me) had the answer, and none of the other teams got it.

[equaviator]

Are you nucleous? /s

[one guy in new jersey]

Waves involve a medium, or stuff, with particles of the stuff moving back and forth laterally, or perpendicular to the axial direction of travel, also described as transverse movement, but little to no axial movement of such particles.

Whereas particles said to be travelling axially are axial beams that don’t involve or form transverse waves.