"Since the dawn of the quantum era, perhaps no question has loomed larger in the minds of theoretical physicists than just what, exactly, the nature of reality is. Are quantum objects real, with well-defined positions and momenta, even in the absence of an observation or measurement to determine them? Out of all the ways to interpret quantum mechanics - from parallel universes to a collapsing wavefunction to theories of hidden variables - we still don't have any evidence that favors one interpretation over another."
"Nevertheless, despite how slow progress has been in uncovering the full nature of our quantum reality, humanity has taken many important steps since the founding of quantum mechanics. We've uncovered the deeper science of quantum field theory, understanding that not just the particles that compose reality but that even the underlying fields have a quantum nature. Bell's theorem and Bell's inequality have opened up whole new classes of quantum experiments to probe the behavior of our quantum Universe."
Quantum mechanics leaves open whether quantum objects possess definite properties absent measurement. Multiple interpretations exist, including parallel universes, wavefunction collapse, and hidden variables, with no experimental evidence favoring one interpretation. Experiments up to 2026 have ruled out certain deterministic interpretations and disproved quantum state cloning. Quantum field theory established that underlying fields, not just particles, have quantum nature. Bell's theorem and Bell inequality enabled experimental probes that constrained local realistic hidden-variable models. Nobel Prizes have been awarded for advances in quantum foundations, tunneling, and entanglement. The Pusey-Barrett-Rudolph (PBR) theorem, proven in 2012, challenges epistemic views of the quantum state.
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