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Is the Universe Unreal as per Quantum Mechanics?

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Abstract

The announcement of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics to A. Aspect, J. F. Clauser and A. Zeilinger, with the citation “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell’s inequalities and pioneering quantum information science,” has rekindled an old debate—is the universe real, or is it just our imagination? Social media is exploding with statements like quantum mechanics (QM) has proved that the “universe is not real”, “reality is an illusion”, “it is all our mind’s projection”, “objects exist only in our heads”, “nothing exists out there”, “conscious observer brings the world into existence”, and so on… Anyone who has worked on quantum systems or has taught QM would find such statements superficial, misrepresenting QM and even the process of science. So, what QM advocates in connection to reality is critically examined here.

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Suggested Reading

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Acknowledgement

Jayanth Vyasanakere acknowledges generous support from Azim Premji University through a research grant with project ID: Univ RC00266.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The School of Arts and Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, 562 125, India

    Jayanth Vyasanakere

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  1. Jayanth Vyasanakere
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Correspondence to Jayanth Vyasanakere.

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Jayanth Vyasanakere is a faculty of physics at School of Arts & Sciences, Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. He enjoys posing thought-provoking questions to his students and coming up with creative solutions. His research interests are in quantum mechanics and celestial mechanics.

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Vyasanakere, J. Is the Universe Unreal as per Quantum Mechanics?. Reson 28, 191–197 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-023-1543-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12045-023-1543-2

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