Nonlocality

David Albert (Columbia University, Rutgers University)

2014 marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most astonishing discoveries in the entire history of natural science: John Bell's proof that certain of the predictions of quantum mechanics - predictions which have since been verified by experiment - cannot be reproduced by any "local" description of the world.  What's interesting about all this - aside (of course) from the discovery itself - is the persistent difficulty that much of the scientific community has had, even to this day, in fully taking it in. Professor Albert will discuss both.