The Quantum Rescue: How quantum mechanics saved free will from Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein was a fierce critic of uncertainty in quantum mechanics famously saying “God does not play dice!”, but why? Uncertainty in the quantum mechanics of photons and electrons is different than uncertainty in what physicists call the “classical” world of ordinary life. It all has to do with the curious case of Bertlmann’s socks.
Professor Bertlmann never wore matching socks, you see. If you saw one sock was green, the other would be red or pink or yellow. It was inevitable. It was as if the good professor has a drawer full of singleton socks, having lost all the matches.
The uncertainty in the color of one sock given the other is an example of classical uncertainty. We assume, based on our Bayesian model, that if one sock is green the other will not be green. Therefore, it reduces our uncertainty of the other color by one. If we know all the possible colors of socks in his drawer, we can give an exact probability for it. For example, if there are six colors and we see that one of his socks is green, then the probability that the other sock will be red is 1/5.
Having seen one sock we can also assume that the other sock has a definite color. Before we look at it, it is an example of a “hidden variable”, something with a definite value that we just don’t…
