The Conscious Universe

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-ix

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2. Introduction

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 1-9

3. Two Small Clouds: The Emergence of a New Physics

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 10-32

4. The Strange New World of the Quantum: Wave-Particle Dualism

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 33-55

5. Confronting a New Fact of Nature: Bell’s Theorem and the Aspect and Gisin Experiments

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 56-71

6. Changing the Rules: A New Epistemology of Science

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 72-89

7. The Logic of Nature: Complementarity and the New Biology

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 90-104

8. Ancient Whispers:The Expanding Universe

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 105-118

9. The Emergence of a New Vision: The Unfolding Universe

   • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

   Pages 119-133

10. Quantum Ontologies: Metaphysics in Modern Physics

    • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

    Pages 134-142

11. The Ceremony of Innocence: Physics, Metaphysics, and the Dialog between Science and Religion

    • Menas Kafatos, Robert Nadeau

    Pages 143-161

12. Back Matter

    Pages 162-183

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Imagine that two people have been chosen to be observers in a scien­ tific experiment involving two photons, or quanta of light. These pho­ tons originate from a single source and travel in opposite directions an equal distance halfway across the known universe to points where each will be measured or observed. Now suppose that before the pho­ tons are released, one observer is magically transported to a point of observation halfway across the known universe and the second ob­ server is magically transported to another point an equal distance in the opposite direction. ·The task of the observers is to record or meas­ ure a certain property of each photon with detectors located at the two points so that the data gathered at each can later be compared. Even though the photons are traveling from the source at the speed of light, each observer would have to wait billions of years for one of the photons to arrive at his observation point. Suppose, how­ ever, that the observers are willing to endure this wait because they hope to test the predictions of a mathematical theorem. This theorem not only allows for the prospect that there could be a correlation be­ tween the observed properties of the two photons but also indicates that this correlation could occur instantly, or in no time, in spite of the fact that the distance between the observers and their measuring instruments is billions of light years.

• Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen experiment
• Experiment
• Universe
• philosophy of physics
• quantum mechanics
• relativity
• science

• Department of Physics, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA

  Menas Kafatos

• Department of English, George Mason University, Fairfax, USA

  Robert Nadeau