What does it mean to be ‘quantum’? A physicist explains the basics behind Einstein’s spooky actions at a distance

By Aldo Romero, Professor of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia University

Imagine shining a flashlight across a dark room. You can predict exactly what the light will do: travel in a straight line from one point to another. That seems obvious, because in the world we see around us, light appears to follow a single, clear path.

Quantum mechanics paints a far stranger picture.

If you zoom in to the atomic scale, light does not behave as though it follows only one straight route. Instead, a particle of light explores every path available to it at once. One path may indeed be the straight line across the room. But others could involve the light bouncing…

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