WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.892 align:middle line:90% [SQUEAKING] 00:00:02.892 --> 00:00:04.338 align:middle line:90% [RUSTLING] 00:00:04.338 --> 00:00:06.748 align:middle line:90% [CLICKING] 00:00:06.748 --> 00:00:11.942 align:middle line:90% 00:00:11.942 --> 00:00:12.650 align:middle line:90% DAVID KAISER: OK. 00:00:12.650 --> 00:00:17.840 align:middle line:84% So for today, it's kind of fortuitous given, again, 00:00:17.840 --> 00:00:22.550 align:middle line:84% all the sources of let's just say swirling uncertainty 00:00:22.550 --> 00:00:24.140 align:middle line:90% in the wider world. 00:00:24.140 --> 00:00:27.830 align:middle line:84% Maybe it's a lucky timing that the lecture for today 00:00:27.830 --> 00:00:30.620 align:middle line:84% is on maybe a little bit lighter material. 00:00:30.620 --> 00:00:36.110 align:middle line:84% So we can wrap up our unit on physics, and the state, 00:00:36.110 --> 00:00:39.170 align:middle line:84% and the bomb, but ending in a very different place than some 00:00:39.170 --> 00:00:41.060 align:middle line:84% of the pretty heavy material we were looking 00:00:41.060 --> 00:00:43.820 align:middle line:84% at only a few class sessions ago with Nazis, 00:00:43.820 --> 00:00:46.610 align:middle line:84% and nuclear weapons, and wartime, 00:00:46.610 --> 00:00:49.340 align:middle line:84% and huge Cold War drama after the war. 00:00:49.340 --> 00:00:53.090 align:middle line:84% So today, we're going to be talking about a longer 00:00:53.090 --> 00:00:59.960 align:middle line:84% tale, some of the unanticipated shifts in the field coming 00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:03.290 align:middle line:84% about a quarter century after the end of the Second World 00:01:03.290 --> 00:01:05.540 align:middle line:84% War, when this Cold War system that we looked 00:01:05.540 --> 00:01:07.400 align:middle line:84% at now for a few classes in a row 00:01:07.400 --> 00:01:10.800 align:middle line:84% was really going through some pretty significant changes. 00:01:10.800 --> 00:01:13.620 align:middle line:84% And that will set us up then to launch in, in earnest, 00:01:13.620 --> 00:01:18.067 align:middle line:84% on next week, for a week from today, the last main section 00:01:18.067 --> 00:01:19.650 align:middle line:84% for the course, where we start looking 00:01:19.650 --> 00:01:23.790 align:middle line:84% at post-war developments in high energy physics, astrophysics, 00:01:23.790 --> 00:01:24.510 align:middle line:90% and cosmology. 00:01:24.510 --> 00:01:26.280 align:middle line:84% So for today, we're going to wrap up 00:01:26.280 --> 00:01:31.505 align:middle line:84% this middle unit for the class on, as I say, a bit of a, 00:01:31.505 --> 00:01:35.730 align:middle line:84% I think, more fun or more lighthearted set of themes, 00:01:35.730 --> 00:01:37.620 align:middle line:90% perfect for the timing. 00:01:37.620 --> 00:01:40.500 align:middle line:84% So what we're going to be talking about 00:01:40.500 --> 00:01:45.000 align:middle line:84% is under the general topic of counterculture and physics. 00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:47.640 align:middle line:84% And for this talk, for this lecture 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:52.050 align:middle line:84% I have some more colorful than average sets of slides. 00:01:52.050 --> 00:01:53.880 align:middle line:84% The material is drawn mostly from a book 00:01:53.880 --> 00:01:57.900 align:middle line:84% I wrote a few years ago called How the Hippies Saved Physics, 00:01:57.900 --> 00:02:01.410 align:middle line:84% and then worked on with some friends 00:02:01.410 --> 00:02:04.590 align:middle line:84% and colleagues expanding upon that in this book 00:02:04.590 --> 00:02:05.580 align:middle line:90% called Groovy Science. 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:06.955 align:middle line:84% And one of the readings for today 00:02:06.955 --> 00:02:10.680 align:middle line:84% was by a different colleague of mine, Cyrus Mody from this more 00:02:10.680 --> 00:02:12.450 align:middle line:90% recent collection. 00:02:12.450 --> 00:02:16.260 align:middle line:84% And so today, as usual, we have three main topics, 00:02:16.260 --> 00:02:19.145 align:middle line:84% three main sections for the discussion. 00:02:19.145 --> 00:02:21.270 align:middle line:84% We're going to look at some of the shifting topics. 00:02:21.270 --> 00:02:26.310 align:middle line:84% What counted as relevant topics to study by whom, and where, 00:02:26.310 --> 00:02:28.600 align:middle line:90% and to what ends in physics? 00:02:28.600 --> 00:02:31.300 align:middle line:84% And then how was this newer work being supported? 00:02:31.300 --> 00:02:34.530 align:middle line:84% So we've seen a lot, especially in the previous class session, 00:02:34.530 --> 00:02:39.060 align:middle line:84% on some of these quintessential Cold War formats for supporting 00:02:39.060 --> 00:02:41.520 align:middle line:84% research in the physical sciences-- huge emphasis 00:02:41.520 --> 00:02:43.620 align:middle line:84% on military funding, on a huge expansion 00:02:43.620 --> 00:02:46.053 align:middle line:84% of the university system for training young physicists. 00:02:46.053 --> 00:02:47.970 align:middle line:84% Today, we're going to look at some of the ways 00:02:47.970 --> 00:02:54.780 align:middle line:84% that system came in for a readjustment during the 1970s-- 00:02:54.780 --> 00:02:56.160 align:middle line:90% late '60s, early '70s. 00:02:56.160 --> 00:02:58.685 align:middle line:84% And then lastly, for the third part, 00:02:58.685 --> 00:03:00.060 align:middle line:84% we're going to be looking at what 00:03:00.060 --> 00:03:04.290 align:middle line:84% were some of the ideas that wound up having 00:03:04.290 --> 00:03:06.523 align:middle line:90% a longer than expected legacy-- 00:03:06.523 --> 00:03:08.940 align:middle line:84% some of them reaching really literally right up to today-- 00:03:08.940 --> 00:03:12.635 align:middle line:84% that came from this moment of real uncertainty in the way 00:03:12.635 --> 00:03:14.010 align:middle line:84% that some people were approaching 00:03:14.010 --> 00:03:16.547 align:middle line:84% the study of physics and particularly 00:03:16.547 --> 00:03:17.380 align:middle line:90% questions within it. 00:03:17.380 --> 00:03:20.120 align:middle line:90% So that's our path for today. 00:03:20.120 --> 00:03:22.540 align:middle line:84% So I began working on this project that 00:03:22.540 --> 00:03:25.450 align:middle line:84% became that book that I mentioned 00:03:25.450 --> 00:03:28.780 align:middle line:84% by trying to understand how we've all 00:03:28.780 --> 00:03:33.070 align:middle line:84% come to live in a world in which really exciting, very 00:03:33.070 --> 00:03:36.670 align:middle line:84% significant new topics were bubbling 00:03:36.670 --> 00:03:40.240 align:middle line:84% up all over the place in a field that's now often called quantum 00:03:40.240 --> 00:03:42.130 align:middle line:90% information science or QIS. 00:03:42.130 --> 00:03:45.100 align:middle line:84% And that includes topics you probably have heard about-- 00:03:45.100 --> 00:03:46.960 align:middle line:84% maybe you've been taking courses in by now-- 00:03:46.960 --> 00:03:49.810 align:middle line:84% topics like quantum encryption, quantum computing, 00:03:49.810 --> 00:03:52.000 align:middle line:84% and then related areas, and basically 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.850 align:middle line:84% putting some of the strange features of quantum theory 00:03:54.850 --> 00:03:57.340 align:middle line:84% that we have looked at together, even if briefly 00:03:57.340 --> 00:04:00.820 align:middle line:84% over this semester-- putting those to work in real world 00:04:00.820 --> 00:04:03.070 align:middle line:84% engineering scenarios and not only thinking 00:04:03.070 --> 00:04:07.450 align:middle line:84% about strange features of quantum theory in the abstract. 00:04:07.450 --> 00:04:10.060 align:middle line:84% And some of the most dramatic examples of that 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:13.300 align:middle line:84% are already being rolled out in real world implementations, 00:04:13.300 --> 00:04:19.360 align:middle line:84% not only on chalkboards or planning. 00:04:19.360 --> 00:04:22.480 align:middle line:84% I think the furthest ahead among this collection of topics 00:04:22.480 --> 00:04:25.180 align:middle line:84% is quantum encryption, or quantum cryptography. 00:04:25.180 --> 00:04:29.080 align:middle line:84% Already now 16 years ago-- it's quite a long way-- 00:04:29.080 --> 00:04:31.750 align:middle line:84% there were already these real world beta 00:04:31.750 --> 00:04:35.270 align:middle line:84% tests being conducted in many parts of the world. 00:04:35.270 --> 00:04:38.140 align:middle line:84% So I have these headlines here, press releases. 00:04:38.140 --> 00:04:41.380 align:middle line:84% One of them, from Vienna in April 2004, 00:04:41.380 --> 00:04:45.280 align:middle line:84% was the first successful use of quantum encryption 00:04:45.280 --> 00:04:47.770 align:middle line:84% to conduct basically a wire transfer, a money 00:04:47.770 --> 00:04:49.600 align:middle line:90% transfer in the city of Vienna. 00:04:49.600 --> 00:04:53.090 align:middle line:84% And what they did is both the mayor of the city 00:04:53.090 --> 00:04:55.690 align:middle line:84% and one of the leading banks collaborated 00:04:55.690 --> 00:04:59.140 align:middle line:84% with local physicists, led by Anton Zeilinger and his group, 00:04:59.140 --> 00:05:01.990 align:middle line:84% to use this new form of encryption 00:05:01.990 --> 00:05:05.470 align:middle line:84% to protect the electronic message going 00:05:05.470 --> 00:05:09.008 align:middle line:84% between City Hall and the bank to wire some money from one 00:05:09.008 --> 00:05:09.550 align:middle line:90% to the other. 00:05:09.550 --> 00:05:14.380 align:middle line:84% And the signal was encrypted not in the way most of our signals 00:05:14.380 --> 00:05:20.090 align:middle line:84% even to this day are encrypted, by using fancy algorithms 00:05:20.090 --> 00:05:23.570 align:middle line:84% to manipulate very large numbers that are much easier 00:05:23.570 --> 00:05:25.190 align:middle line:90% to multiply than to factorize. 00:05:25.190 --> 00:05:27.440 align:middle line:84% So our ordinary computers take a long time 00:05:27.440 --> 00:05:28.910 align:middle line:90% to break these secret codes. 00:05:28.910 --> 00:05:31.100 align:middle line:84% Instead, this the quantum encryption, 00:05:31.100 --> 00:05:33.320 align:middle line:84% or quantum cryptography, exploits 00:05:33.320 --> 00:05:35.660 align:middle line:90% features of quantum theory-- 00:05:35.660 --> 00:05:39.380 align:middle line:84% of quantum theory itself, including, most principally, 00:05:39.380 --> 00:05:42.260 align:middle line:84% things like quantum entanglement to create 00:05:42.260 --> 00:05:45.120 align:middle line:84% signals that should be protected by the very laws of physics. 00:05:45.120 --> 00:05:47.840 align:middle line:84% These are signals that aren't protected 00:05:47.840 --> 00:05:51.170 align:middle line:84% by the practicalities of current day computing algorithms, 00:05:51.170 --> 00:05:54.140 align:middle line:84% but actually by very fundamental laws like quantum entanglement, 00:05:54.140 --> 00:05:55.920 align:middle line:84% like the uncertainty principle, and so on. 00:05:55.920 --> 00:05:59.720 align:middle line:84% And this was demonstrated in a real world test 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:02.180 align:middle line:84% with fiber optic cables strung through the sewers, 00:06:02.180 --> 00:06:03.730 align:middle line:84% the underground sewers of Vienna. 00:06:03.730 --> 00:06:05.480 align:middle line:84% I always joke that's why you actually need 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:07.230 align:middle line:84% graduate students, to get under the ground 00:06:07.230 --> 00:06:09.530 align:middle line:84% and sling this stuff through the muck. 00:06:09.530 --> 00:06:11.120 align:middle line:84% And it was a highly successful test. 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:13.830 align:middle line:84% Right around the same time, a few months later, 00:06:13.830 --> 00:06:15.410 align:middle line:84% there was a similar demonstration 00:06:15.410 --> 00:06:19.550 align:middle line:84% of the same basic kind of technology in Geneva, 00:06:19.550 --> 00:06:23.030 align:middle line:84% in Switzerland in this case, to protect electronic voting. 00:06:23.030 --> 00:06:25.490 align:middle line:84% So there were regional or cantonal elections 00:06:25.490 --> 00:06:27.170 align:middle line:90% throughout Switzerland. 00:06:27.170 --> 00:06:31.580 align:middle line:84% And to transmit the results of those local elections, 00:06:31.580 --> 00:06:34.910 align:middle line:84% again, government officials worked closely 00:06:34.910 --> 00:06:37.640 align:middle line:84% with a different team of quantum physicists, Nicolas Gisin 00:06:37.640 --> 00:06:43.700 align:middle line:84% and his group, to demonstrate that the electronic signal 00:06:43.700 --> 00:06:46.340 align:middle line:84% could be transmitted successfully and encrypted 00:06:46.340 --> 00:06:49.100 align:middle line:84% with encryption protected by the very laws of physics. 00:06:49.100 --> 00:06:49.950 align:middle line:90% So very exciting. 00:06:49.950 --> 00:06:52.280 align:middle line:84% These are already now quite old examples. 00:06:52.280 --> 00:06:54.770 align:middle line:84% What I wanted to figure out, when 00:06:54.770 --> 00:06:56.240 align:middle line:84% I was launching into this project, 00:06:56.240 --> 00:06:58.580 align:middle line:84% is how do we get into a world like that, where 00:06:58.580 --> 00:07:02.960 align:middle line:84% bankers and politicians entrust their most 00:07:02.960 --> 00:07:05.180 align:middle line:84% sensitive information to quantum physicists, 00:07:05.180 --> 00:07:09.230 align:middle line:84% where quantum physicists could be harnessing some what appear 00:07:09.230 --> 00:07:12.020 align:middle line:84% to be basic laws of nature in these increasingly 00:07:12.020 --> 00:07:14.580 align:middle line:90% practical engineering contexts. 00:07:14.580 --> 00:07:17.750 align:middle line:84% And so as I dug in a bit more, it took me back to this plot 00:07:17.750 --> 00:07:20.240 align:middle line:84% that we looked at together in the previous class session, 00:07:20.240 --> 00:07:22.910 align:middle line:84% how that new field-- this now flourishing 00:07:22.910 --> 00:07:26.390 align:middle line:84% multi-billion-dollar field, which is being pursued 00:07:26.390 --> 00:07:30.120 align:middle line:84% in earnest by physicists and engineers in many, 00:07:30.120 --> 00:07:32.370 align:middle line:84% many parts of the world, both in universities, 00:07:32.370 --> 00:07:34.370 align:middle line:84% and in private sectors, and in government labs-- 00:07:34.370 --> 00:07:38.210 align:middle line:84% to understand how we got there we collectively got there. 00:07:38.210 --> 00:07:41.360 align:middle line:84% We come back to this plot with this really dramatic series 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:44.660 align:middle line:84% of changes coming out of the Second World War, 00:07:44.660 --> 00:07:47.000 align:middle line:84% a second immediate Cold War response 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:50.240 align:middle line:84% around the time of the launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union, 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:52.670 align:middle line:84% and then this really precipitous collapse. 00:07:52.670 --> 00:07:55.430 align:middle line:84% And we looked a little bit at this collapse, 00:07:55.430 --> 00:07:58.490 align:middle line:84% the downward turn in the previous class 00:07:58.490 --> 00:08:01.040 align:middle line:84% as well, this constellation of forces 00:08:01.040 --> 00:08:03.860 align:middle line:84% that really shook what had come to seem 00:08:03.860 --> 00:08:07.190 align:middle line:84% like a very straightforward Cold War response in the years 00:08:07.190 --> 00:08:09.080 align:middle line:90% after the Second World War. 00:08:09.080 --> 00:08:13.100 align:middle line:84% And we captured that in these really extraordinary job 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:16.500 align:middle line:84% placement statistics so that by the early 1970s-- pardon me, 00:08:16.500 --> 00:08:20.830 align:middle line:84% early 1970s, there were 20 times more young physicists applying 00:08:20.830 --> 00:08:22.820 align:middle line:90% for jobs than jobs available. 00:08:22.820 --> 00:08:24.880 align:middle line:84% If you look at this entry from 1971, 00:08:24.880 --> 00:08:28.780 align:middle line:84% the gap had widened to just an extraordinary degree. 00:08:28.780 --> 00:08:31.750 align:middle line:84% And that counts not just academic positions, 00:08:31.750 --> 00:08:36.070 align:middle line:84% but positions advertised for PhD physicists in industrial labs 00:08:36.070 --> 00:08:38.799 align:middle line:84% and in government labs as well, just a complete collapse 00:08:38.799 --> 00:08:42.730 align:middle line:84% of the kind of job market or employment 00:08:42.730 --> 00:08:44.980 align:middle line:84% path for young physicists in this country, 00:08:44.980 --> 00:08:47.480 align:middle line:84% very similar trends in many other parts of the world. 00:08:47.480 --> 00:08:50.650 align:middle line:84% And so last time we saw this is like a speculative bubble. 00:08:50.650 --> 00:08:52.640 align:middle line:90% It's like a stock market crash. 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:55.990 align:middle line:84% You have this remarkably rapid exponential rise 00:08:55.990 --> 00:08:58.460 align:middle line:84% that is self-evidently not sustainable, 00:08:58.460 --> 00:09:00.100 align:middle line:90% that can't keep rising forever. 00:09:00.100 --> 00:09:04.000 align:middle line:84% And there's an equally sudden, equally dramatic adjustment. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:08.390 align:middle line:84% Rather than noodling around some equilibrium, 00:09:08.390 --> 00:09:11.350 align:middle line:84% you have this unstable rise and fall. 00:09:11.350 --> 00:09:14.950 align:middle line:84% And it turns out that transition in the field, 00:09:14.950 --> 00:09:17.860 align:middle line:84% in the realities of trying to become a young physicist 00:09:17.860 --> 00:09:20.690 align:middle line:84% in the United States and in many other parts of the world-- 00:09:20.690 --> 00:09:23.360 align:middle line:84% that really is critical to help us understand 00:09:23.360 --> 00:09:26.570 align:middle line:84% what would become this now flourishing field of quantum 00:09:26.570 --> 00:09:28.400 align:middle line:90% information science. 00:09:28.400 --> 00:09:30.680 align:middle line:84% And so to dig in, to try to understand 00:09:30.680 --> 00:09:32.240 align:middle line:84% what was it like to try to become 00:09:32.240 --> 00:09:34.460 align:middle line:84% a young physicist during that moment of pretty 00:09:34.460 --> 00:09:39.620 align:middle line:84% dramatic shifts in the expectations for career 00:09:39.620 --> 00:09:42.440 align:middle line:84% paths or job opportunities in the field-- 00:09:42.440 --> 00:09:44.297 align:middle line:84% to make sense of those shifts, I wound up 00:09:44.297 --> 00:09:46.130 align:middle line:84% looking at this group that called themselves 00:09:46.130 --> 00:09:47.510 align:middle line:90% the Fundamental Fysiks Group. 00:09:47.510 --> 00:09:49.480 align:middle line:84% I always joke that, then as now, physicists 00:09:49.480 --> 00:09:50.480 align:middle line:90% don't know how to spell. 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:52.688 align:middle line:84% They spelled physics with an F. They're actually just 00:09:52.688 --> 00:09:53.600 align:middle line:90% being very playful. 00:09:53.600 --> 00:09:57.950 align:middle line:84% It was a group founded in Berkeley, California in 1975. 00:09:57.950 --> 00:10:00.920 align:middle line:90% It had roughly 10 core members. 00:10:00.920 --> 00:10:05.150 align:middle line:84% And then they would hold weekly informal discussion sessions, 00:10:05.150 --> 00:10:08.180 align:middle line:84% some of which would swell to have 40 or 50 members 00:10:08.180 --> 00:10:09.020 align:middle line:90% for a given session. 00:10:09.020 --> 00:10:12.310 align:middle line:84% Other times, it would be more of the 10 to 12 00:10:12.310 --> 00:10:15.450 align:middle line:90% or 15 core members. 00:10:15.450 --> 00:10:17.960 align:middle line:84% The people who founded the group, who really kept it going 00:10:17.960 --> 00:10:21.650 align:middle line:84% for several years throughout the '70s, had almost all of them 00:10:21.650 --> 00:10:23.900 align:middle line:84% had earned their PhDs in physics already. 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:26.000 align:middle line:84% Some were still grad students at the time. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:29.300 align:middle line:84% But they were being trained in some of the most elite physics 00:10:29.300 --> 00:10:30.620 align:middle line:90% programs in the country. 00:10:30.620 --> 00:10:33.680 align:middle line:84% They'd earned PhDs from places like Columbia, and Stanford, 00:10:33.680 --> 00:10:36.920 align:middle line:84% and UCLA, and University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 00:10:36.920 --> 00:10:38.150 align:middle line:90% and so on. 00:10:38.150 --> 00:10:40.550 align:middle line:84% They were exceptionally well-trained. 00:10:40.550 --> 00:10:43.970 align:middle line:84% They had entered the field during that post-Sputnik boom 00:10:43.970 --> 00:10:46.850 align:middle line:84% when fellowships were plentiful, when it looked like the sky was 00:10:46.850 --> 00:10:49.490 align:middle line:84% the limit, during that extraordinary ramp up 00:10:49.490 --> 00:10:53.510 align:middle line:84% in the field that we did look at again a bit more directly 00:10:53.510 --> 00:10:55.430 align:middle line:84% at last time, when the enrollments were really 00:10:55.430 --> 00:10:57.470 align:middle line:90% booming. 00:10:57.470 --> 00:10:59.900 align:middle line:84% They entered their graduate study in the years 00:10:59.900 --> 00:11:01.550 align:middle line:90% after Sputnik. 00:11:01.550 --> 00:11:03.590 align:middle line:84% And then their main miscalculation 00:11:03.590 --> 00:11:06.470 align:middle line:84% was completing their PhDs just when the bottom fell out, 00:11:06.470 --> 00:11:08.820 align:middle line:84% which, of course, no one really saw coming. 00:11:08.820 --> 00:11:11.540 align:middle line:84% So they were entering very elite programs, doing very well, 00:11:11.540 --> 00:11:14.420 align:middle line:84% publishing articles in mainstream journals. 00:11:14.420 --> 00:11:17.833 align:middle line:84% And then unfortunately for them, by the time 00:11:17.833 --> 00:11:19.250 align:middle line:84% they were going on the job market, 00:11:19.250 --> 00:11:21.300 align:middle line:84% there were hardly any jobs available. 00:11:21.300 --> 00:11:25.100 align:middle line:84% So they were caught right up in that boom and bust cycle. 00:11:25.100 --> 00:11:27.140 align:middle line:84% One of the founders is this person here, 00:11:27.140 --> 00:11:28.010 align:middle line:90% Elizabeth Rauscher. 00:11:28.010 --> 00:11:32.480 align:middle line:84% She was at the time still pursuing her PhD at Berkeley. 00:11:32.480 --> 00:11:34.910 align:middle line:84% This is a photograph of her in the control room for one 00:11:34.910 --> 00:11:36.590 align:middle line:84% of those huge particle accelerators. 00:11:36.590 --> 00:11:39.140 align:middle line:84% I think it was the Bevatron, one of the huge accelerators 00:11:39.140 --> 00:11:41.220 align:middle line:90% at the laboratory. 00:11:41.220 --> 00:11:44.150 align:middle line:84% So folks like Elizabeth, and like the others who joined her 00:11:44.150 --> 00:11:46.250 align:middle line:84% in forming this group, they were trained 00:11:46.250 --> 00:11:48.320 align:middle line:84% in that era of what we looked at last time, 00:11:48.320 --> 00:11:49.880 align:middle line:84% the so-called shut up and calculate, 00:11:49.880 --> 00:11:52.760 align:middle line:84% where the emphasis had phonon away very abruptly 00:11:52.760 --> 00:11:57.290 align:middle line:84% from the philosophical, or interpretive, or open-ended 00:11:57.290 --> 00:12:00.140 align:middle line:84% investigation of, say, the mysteries of quantum theory, 00:12:00.140 --> 00:12:01.460 align:middle line:90% the meaning of quantum theory. 00:12:01.460 --> 00:12:03.950 align:middle line:84% And instead, they were taught during this period 00:12:03.950 --> 00:12:05.750 align:middle line:84% of exponential growth in the enrollments 00:12:05.750 --> 00:12:07.880 align:middle line:84% and a kind of narrowing of what counted 00:12:07.880 --> 00:12:11.150 align:middle line:84% as pedagogically of ways to deal with quantum theory. 00:12:11.150 --> 00:12:14.690 align:middle line:84% They were taught how to calculate, but not really 00:12:14.690 --> 00:12:18.380 align:middle line:84% to entertain these bigger questions of the sort that 00:12:18.380 --> 00:12:21.200 align:middle line:84% kept people up the generation or two 00:12:21.200 --> 00:12:24.680 align:middle line:84% before, the kinds of debates about Schrodinger's cat, 00:12:24.680 --> 00:12:27.770 align:middle line:84% about superposition, about entanglement or EPR. 00:12:27.770 --> 00:12:29.510 align:middle line:84% Those things that had really bothered 00:12:29.510 --> 00:12:31.430 align:middle line:84% people like Albert Einstein, and Niels Bohr, 00:12:31.430 --> 00:12:34.910 align:middle line:84% and the young Werner Heisenberg, for this generation trained 00:12:34.910 --> 00:12:36.680 align:middle line:84% after the war, those questions were 00:12:36.680 --> 00:12:38.930 align:middle line:84% deemed really just on the sideline 00:12:38.930 --> 00:12:40.040 align:middle line:90% and really not relevant. 00:12:40.040 --> 00:12:42.230 align:middle line:84% We saw that shift in the pedagogic materials. 00:12:42.230 --> 00:12:44.070 align:middle line:84% We talked a bit about that last time. 00:12:44.070 --> 00:12:47.150 align:middle line:84% So this group that wound up forming the Fundamental Fysiks 00:12:47.150 --> 00:12:49.070 align:middle line:84% group, they had entered the field 00:12:49.070 --> 00:12:51.770 align:middle line:84% because they were really enchanted by these big what 00:12:51.770 --> 00:12:53.150 align:middle line:90% does it all mean questions. 00:12:53.150 --> 00:12:54.737 align:middle line:84% And yet, in their formal training 00:12:54.737 --> 00:12:56.570 align:middle line:84% during that period of the exponential growth 00:12:56.570 --> 00:12:58.370 align:middle line:84% of enrollments, that was really not 00:12:58.370 --> 00:13:01.710 align:middle line:84% what their training was focusing them on. 00:13:01.710 --> 00:13:03.470 align:middle line:84% And so Elizabeth said, many years later 00:13:03.470 --> 00:13:05.220 align:middle line:84% when I wound up talking with her about it, 00:13:05.220 --> 00:13:07.700 align:middle line:84% what was her motivation for joining this-- for founding 00:13:07.700 --> 00:13:09.782 align:middle line:90% this informal discussion group? 00:13:09.782 --> 00:13:11.240 align:middle line:84% She said, it would be easy to learn 00:13:11.240 --> 00:13:13.580 align:middle line:84% about all this material, which was not being covered 00:13:13.580 --> 00:13:16.250 align:middle line:84% in the textbooks or problem sets by that time, 00:13:16.250 --> 00:13:18.822 align:middle line:84% if we got together for informal discussions and lectures. 00:13:18.822 --> 00:13:20.280 align:middle line:84% And that's what they set out to do. 00:13:20.280 --> 00:13:22.800 align:middle line:84% So Elizabeth was still a full-time grad student. 00:13:22.800 --> 00:13:25.770 align:middle line:84% She was entitled to reserve space, 00:13:25.770 --> 00:13:28.050 align:middle line:84% to just reserve a room on Friday afternoons 00:13:28.050 --> 00:13:30.090 align:middle line:84% at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, 00:13:30.090 --> 00:13:32.220 align:middle line:84% where she was doing a bunch of her research. 00:13:32.220 --> 00:13:35.310 align:middle line:84% And so she basically signed up a room that was available. 00:13:35.310 --> 00:13:38.430 align:middle line:84% And she and her friends began putting out flyers and saying, 00:13:38.430 --> 00:13:40.410 align:middle line:84% open to anyone, come, let's discuss 00:13:40.410 --> 00:13:41.940 align:middle line:84% the big questions in quantum theory, 00:13:41.940 --> 00:13:44.520 align:middle line:84% and modern physics more generally, Friday afternoons. 00:13:44.520 --> 00:13:45.990 align:middle line:90% And it began in 1975. 00:13:45.990 --> 00:13:49.230 align:middle line:84% And it ran virtually every week for about four years, 00:13:49.230 --> 00:13:51.450 align:middle line:90% a long stretch of time. 00:13:51.450 --> 00:13:53.820 align:middle line:84% We have records of the topics that they 00:13:53.820 --> 00:13:56.790 align:middle line:84% talked about informally virtually every week. 00:13:56.790 --> 00:13:59.410 align:middle line:84% We have pretty good paperwork from that time. 00:13:59.410 --> 00:14:03.060 align:middle line:84% And we can see then that the one topic that totally dominated 00:14:03.060 --> 00:14:06.360 align:middle line:84% their discussions was something we looked 00:14:06.360 --> 00:14:09.270 align:middle line:84% at together in this class a few sessions ago, 00:14:09.270 --> 00:14:13.950 align:middle line:84% quantum entanglement, as crystallized by that work 00:14:13.950 --> 00:14:15.120 align:middle line:90% by John Bell. 00:14:15.120 --> 00:14:18.390 align:middle line:84% So you may remember, Bell published this work 00:14:18.390 --> 00:14:21.420 align:middle line:84% that we now call Bell's theorem, related to Bell's inequality. 00:14:21.420 --> 00:14:23.590 align:middle line:84% We had some optional lecture notes on this. 00:14:23.590 --> 00:14:27.240 align:middle line:84% We had we looked a bit at this some class sessions ago. 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:31.155 align:middle line:84% Bell's really famous paper was published in 1964. 00:14:31.155 --> 00:14:33.030 align:middle line:84% This group was getting together just a little 00:14:33.030 --> 00:14:34.620 align:middle line:90% over a decade after that. 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:39.600 align:middle line:84% So they were really, really just mesmerized by Bell's inequality 00:14:39.600 --> 00:14:41.610 align:middle line:84% and what Einstein had called, as we saw, 00:14:41.610 --> 00:14:43.410 align:middle line:90% spooky action at a distance. 00:14:43.410 --> 00:14:45.810 align:middle line:84% As a cartoon reminder, entanglement 00:14:45.810 --> 00:14:48.240 align:middle line:84% concerns systems where there's some source that 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:49.860 align:middle line:90% emits pairs of particles. 00:14:49.860 --> 00:14:53.810 align:middle line:84% Their properties are correlated because 00:14:53.810 --> 00:14:57.080 align:middle line:84% of the nature of how the pair of particles were produced. 00:14:57.080 --> 00:14:59.295 align:middle line:84% And then we can subject each particle separately 00:14:59.295 --> 00:14:59.920 align:middle line:90% to measurement. 00:14:59.920 --> 00:15:02.320 align:middle line:84% We can choose to measure various properties 00:15:02.320 --> 00:15:04.030 align:middle line:90% of one particle or the other. 00:15:04.030 --> 00:15:06.520 align:middle line:84% And then as Bell demonstrated they must-- 00:15:06.520 --> 00:15:09.700 align:middle line:84% according to quantum theory, the outcomes of those measurements 00:15:09.700 --> 00:15:12.430 align:middle line:84% are more strongly correlated than anything 00:15:12.430 --> 00:15:15.790 align:middle line:84% like an Einstein-like explanation would ever allow 00:15:15.790 --> 00:15:17.260 align:middle line:90% or could ever account for. 00:15:17.260 --> 00:15:20.020 align:middle line:84% So you could really say that entanglement truly 00:15:20.020 --> 00:15:21.820 align:middle line:84% is the case in which the whole system-- 00:15:21.820 --> 00:15:24.190 align:middle line:90% the system particles A plus B-- 00:15:24.190 --> 00:15:25.990 align:middle line:84% is literally more-- in fact, it's 00:15:25.990 --> 00:15:28.240 align:middle line:84% infinitely more than the sum of its parts. 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:31.210 align:middle line:84% Knowing everything we could about this system A and B 00:15:31.210 --> 00:15:33.040 align:middle line:84% is completely insufficient to tell us 00:15:33.040 --> 00:15:36.800 align:middle line:84% anything definite about particle A on its own and vice versa. 00:15:36.800 --> 00:15:39.722 align:middle line:84% So there's this really strange quintessentially quantum 00:15:39.722 --> 00:15:41.680 align:middle line:84% mechanical behavior of these entangled systems. 00:15:41.680 --> 00:15:43.347 align:middle line:84% And the Fundamental Fysiks Group thought 00:15:43.347 --> 00:15:45.947 align:middle line:84% this was just extraordinary and the kind of thing 00:15:45.947 --> 00:15:47.530 align:middle line:84% they wanted to spend Friday afternoons 00:15:47.530 --> 00:15:49.390 align:middle line:84% talking about together because it was not 00:15:49.390 --> 00:15:51.910 align:middle line:84% being emphasized in their main coursework, 00:15:51.910 --> 00:15:54.070 align:middle line:90% even in grad school. 00:15:54.070 --> 00:15:57.000 align:middle line:84% So today, Bell's theorem, that 1964 article, 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:58.500 align:middle line:90% is literally renowned. 00:15:58.500 --> 00:16:01.950 align:middle line:84% Renowned is a technical term to high-energy physicists. 00:16:01.950 --> 00:16:03.360 align:middle line:90% Some of you might know this. 00:16:03.360 --> 00:16:07.800 align:middle line:84% Physicists relentlessly count our citations. 00:16:07.800 --> 00:16:09.100 align:middle line:90% My wife is a psychologist. 00:16:09.100 --> 00:16:10.600 align:middle line:84% She has all kinds of theories of why 00:16:10.600 --> 00:16:12.810 align:middle line:84% we're so obsessed with this form of measurement. 00:16:12.810 --> 00:16:14.940 align:middle line:84% Anyway, for a long, long time, it's 00:16:14.940 --> 00:16:19.200 align:middle line:84% been routine to count up the number of citations 00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:21.630 align:middle line:84% in the scientific literature that a given article receives 00:16:21.630 --> 00:16:24.420 align:middle line:84% and use that, fairly or unfairly, appropriately 00:16:24.420 --> 00:16:28.200 align:middle line:84% or otherwise, as a kind of proxy for influence or importance. 00:16:28.200 --> 00:16:30.462 align:middle line:84% There's all kinds of caveats to be had there. 00:16:30.462 --> 00:16:31.920 align:middle line:84% People are a bit more sophisticated 00:16:31.920 --> 00:16:35.790 align:middle line:84% now about that citation counting than we used to be. 00:16:35.790 --> 00:16:38.910 align:middle line:84% Nonetheless, we have this machinery 00:16:38.910 --> 00:16:40.680 align:middle line:90% for counting up citations. 00:16:40.680 --> 00:16:43.350 align:middle line:84% So if you do that exercise, then today, 00:16:43.350 --> 00:16:46.950 align:middle line:84% that 1964 article by John Bell is among the most 00:16:46.950 --> 00:16:49.350 align:middle line:84% cited articles in all of physics in the history 00:16:49.350 --> 00:16:51.700 align:middle line:84% of the universe-- not just in 20th century physics, 00:16:51.700 --> 00:16:53.070 align:middle line:90% not just in quantum physics. 00:16:53.070 --> 00:16:56.320 align:middle line:84% Take any subfield and go back to the time of Isaac Newton 00:16:56.320 --> 00:16:58.870 align:middle line:84% or Aristotle if you'd like, and it's very, very 00:16:58.870 --> 00:17:00.970 align:middle line:84% hard to find a single article that 00:17:00.970 --> 00:17:03.760 align:middle line:84% has been cited more often in the scientific literature 00:17:03.760 --> 00:17:05.710 align:middle line:90% than Bell's 1964 article. 00:17:05.710 --> 00:17:08.290 align:middle line:84% It is literally renowned, which is the highest category, 00:17:08.290 --> 00:17:10.480 align:middle line:84% the label for the most cited papers 00:17:10.480 --> 00:17:12.490 align:middle line:84% when physicists do this kind of chopping up 00:17:12.490 --> 00:17:14.300 align:middle line:90% exercise of citation counts. 00:17:14.300 --> 00:17:17.950 align:middle line:84% So this is really, really today recognized 00:17:17.950 --> 00:17:22.750 align:middle line:84% as an extraordinarily well-known and influential article. 00:17:22.750 --> 00:17:24.829 align:middle line:84% And yet, it took a long time to get there. 00:17:24.829 --> 00:17:29.380 align:middle line:84% So if we look at the citation counts to Bell's 1964 paper 00:17:29.380 --> 00:17:32.500 align:middle line:84% over the first 15 or so years after it was published-- 00:17:32.500 --> 00:17:35.120 align:middle line:84% not the half century or more since then, 00:17:35.120 --> 00:17:37.760 align:middle line:84% but in the first period of more than a decade, 00:17:37.760 --> 00:17:41.290 align:middle line:84% it was really, really not lighting the field on fire 00:17:41.290 --> 00:17:41.890 align:middle line:90% at all. 00:17:41.890 --> 00:17:44.990 align:middle line:84% It was published in 1964, very late in 1964. 00:17:44.990 --> 00:17:47.140 align:middle line:84% There were no other citations to it in that year. 00:17:47.140 --> 00:17:50.650 align:middle line:84% There were no citation to it in all of 1965 00:17:50.650 --> 00:17:52.250 align:middle line:90% in the worldwide literature. 00:17:52.250 --> 00:17:55.570 align:middle line:84% There was one citation to the article in 1966 00:17:55.570 --> 00:17:57.220 align:middle line:84% that was actually a self-citation. 00:17:57.220 --> 00:17:59.560 align:middle line:84% It was a follow-up article by John Bell himself. 00:17:59.560 --> 00:18:01.040 align:middle line:90% We might take that one away. 00:18:01.040 --> 00:18:04.150 align:middle line:84% So it was really only in the mid-1970s, mid 00:18:04.150 --> 00:18:06.430 align:middle line:84% to late-1970s that we see anything 00:18:06.430 --> 00:18:08.500 align:middle line:84% like a kind of sustained attention, at least 00:18:08.500 --> 00:18:11.620 align:middle line:84% by this proxy measure, by citation counts, anything 00:18:11.620 --> 00:18:14.710 align:middle line:84% like any kind of sustained if still rather modest attention 00:18:14.710 --> 00:18:18.250 align:middle line:84% to a topic that today is considered literally renowned. 00:18:18.250 --> 00:18:21.040 align:middle line:84% If you do a little more careful looking-- 00:18:21.040 --> 00:18:24.430 align:middle line:84% don't just count things, but see who is writing the articles 00:18:24.430 --> 00:18:27.352 align:middle line:84% that were doing that citing, who was actually 00:18:27.352 --> 00:18:29.560 align:middle line:84% engaging with Bell's theorem and quantum entanglement 00:18:29.560 --> 00:18:30.820 align:middle line:90% during this period-- 00:18:30.820 --> 00:18:33.700 align:middle line:84% it turns out that about almost 3/4 00:18:33.700 --> 00:18:36.400 align:middle line:84% of all the articles that make up this blue area 00:18:36.400 --> 00:18:37.480 align:middle line:90% under the curve-- 00:18:37.480 --> 00:18:40.090 align:middle line:84% of all those that were written by physicists based 00:18:40.090 --> 00:18:42.340 align:middle line:84% in the US, which was already itself the largest 00:18:42.340 --> 00:18:47.290 align:middle line:84% fraction of these, 3/4 of that US-based body of work 00:18:47.290 --> 00:18:49.300 align:middle line:84% that was citing Bell's theorem came 00:18:49.300 --> 00:18:52.290 align:middle line:84% from members of this very strange little ragtag study 00:18:52.290 --> 00:18:54.040 align:middle line:84% group called the Fundamental Fysiks Group, 00:18:54.040 --> 00:18:57.370 align:middle line:84% the group that was founded by Elizabeth Rauscher at Berkeley 00:18:57.370 --> 00:18:58.600 align:middle line:90% in '75. 00:18:58.600 --> 00:19:01.000 align:middle line:84% So that helps us at least make sense of why citations 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:02.260 align:middle line:90% aren't picking up around here. 00:19:02.260 --> 00:19:03.677 align:middle line:84% This is the period when that group 00:19:03.677 --> 00:19:06.520 align:middle line:84% itself was founded and reinforcing this topic 00:19:06.520 --> 00:19:08.050 align:middle line:90% as really interesting. 00:19:08.050 --> 00:19:10.390 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, if you don't just look at the authorship 00:19:10.390 --> 00:19:13.390 align:middle line:84% but actually read the articles, which is kind of fun, 00:19:13.390 --> 00:19:15.190 align:middle line:84% you can see that actually the proportion 00:19:15.190 --> 00:19:21.760 align:middle line:84% rises to be almost 90%, about 86% of that US-based proportion 00:19:21.760 --> 00:19:24.790 align:middle line:84% here, if you include people who either wrote the articles 00:19:24.790 --> 00:19:27.770 align:middle line:84% or thanked members of that first group, the Fundamental Fysiks 00:19:27.770 --> 00:19:29.020 align:middle line:90% group, in the acknowledgments. 00:19:29.020 --> 00:19:31.790 align:middle line:84% This group was really what we would call the early adopters, 00:19:31.790 --> 00:19:35.050 align:middle line:84% these people who mostly got their PhDs, graduated 00:19:35.050 --> 00:19:36.520 align:middle line:84% from graduate school, couldn't get 00:19:36.520 --> 00:19:40.720 align:middle line:84% a typical job in the field because of these larger scale 00:19:40.720 --> 00:19:43.210 align:middle line:90% shifts later in the Cold War. 00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:45.460 align:middle line:84% They met each week to talk about quantum entanglement. 00:19:45.460 --> 00:19:48.130 align:middle line:84% And they were just mesmerized by Bell's inequality. 00:19:48.130 --> 00:19:51.490 align:middle line:84% And they were really helping to get at least some sustained 00:19:51.490 --> 00:19:53.950 align:middle line:84% attention to this topic at a time when it was still 00:19:53.950 --> 00:19:55.690 align:middle line:90% otherwise quite marginal. 00:19:55.690 --> 00:19:57.940 align:middle line:84% They weren't only talking about it. 00:19:57.940 --> 00:19:59.920 align:middle line:84% A core member of the group shown here, 00:19:59.920 --> 00:20:02.920 align:middle line:84% John Clauser in his lab at Berkeley-- at this point, 00:20:02.920 --> 00:20:06.430 align:middle line:84% he was a postdoc at the Berkeley Laboratory. 00:20:06.430 --> 00:20:09.190 align:middle line:84% And he and then graduate student Stuart Freedman 00:20:09.190 --> 00:20:11.770 align:middle line:84% conducted the world's first laboratory test 00:20:11.770 --> 00:20:12.700 align:middle line:90% of Bell's inequality. 00:20:12.700 --> 00:20:14.950 align:middle line:84% This was the first laboratory test 00:20:14.950 --> 00:20:18.400 align:middle line:84% to try to confirm or to check whether the measurements 00:20:18.400 --> 00:20:20.110 align:middle line:84% on these pairs of entangled particles 00:20:20.110 --> 00:20:23.140 align:middle line:84% really show this spooky correlation beyond what 00:20:23.140 --> 00:20:25.810 align:middle line:84% an Einstein-like theory could ever account for. 00:20:25.810 --> 00:20:29.680 align:middle line:84% This was published in Physical Review Letters in 1972. 00:20:29.680 --> 00:20:33.550 align:middle line:84% The next year, Clauser was told by multiple department heads 00:20:33.550 --> 00:20:36.840 align:middle line:84% where he'd applied for jobs that he not only would not be hired, 00:20:36.840 --> 00:20:38.590 align:middle line:84% but that several department heads wrote in 00:20:38.590 --> 00:20:40.923 align:middle line:84% to say they didn't think this was actually real physics. 00:20:40.923 --> 00:20:42.820 align:middle line:84% So he and Stuart Freedman had conducted 00:20:42.820 --> 00:20:46.090 align:middle line:84% the world's first laboratory test of Bell's inequality, 00:20:46.090 --> 00:20:48.222 align:middle line:84% found results squarely in keeping 00:20:48.222 --> 00:20:49.930 align:middle line:84% with the predictions from quantum theory, 00:20:49.930 --> 00:20:54.287 align:middle line:84% squarely in conflict with Einstein's own careful view 00:20:54.287 --> 00:20:55.620 align:middle line:90% about how the world should work. 00:20:55.620 --> 00:20:57.390 align:middle line:84% And he was told that this was literally 00:20:57.390 --> 00:20:58.890 align:middle line:90% not even proper physics. 00:20:58.890 --> 00:21:01.970 align:middle line:84% He actually never was offered an academic position, 00:21:01.970 --> 00:21:03.990 align:middle line:84% though that had been his ambition, certainly 00:21:03.990 --> 00:21:05.410 align:middle line:90% for that stage of his career. 00:21:05.410 --> 00:21:08.580 align:middle line:84% So this work was really, really still marginal. 00:21:08.580 --> 00:21:11.040 align:middle line:84% And yet, this little study group, the Fundamental Fysiks 00:21:11.040 --> 00:21:12.690 align:middle line:84% Group, included people like Clauser 00:21:12.690 --> 00:21:15.120 align:middle line:84% who were at the world's cutting edge 00:21:15.120 --> 00:21:18.360 align:middle line:84% for trying to explore the topic experimentally. 00:21:18.360 --> 00:21:20.460 align:middle line:84% So it turns out this study group had 00:21:20.460 --> 00:21:23.470 align:middle line:90% some broad-ranging interests. 00:21:23.470 --> 00:21:26.100 align:middle line:84% So the members, not all-- some members of the group some 00:21:26.100 --> 00:21:27.810 align:middle line:84% of the core founding members of the group 00:21:27.810 --> 00:21:29.890 align:middle line:84% were really curious about quantum theory 00:21:29.890 --> 00:21:32.940 align:middle line:84% and, it turns out, a wider range of topics. 00:21:32.940 --> 00:21:39.060 align:middle line:84% And for some members, the stew of curious topics 00:21:39.060 --> 00:21:40.272 align:middle line:90% bled together. 00:21:40.272 --> 00:21:41.730 align:middle line:84% So some of the members of the group 00:21:41.730 --> 00:21:45.330 align:middle line:84% actually hoped they could use quantum mechanics, especially 00:21:45.330 --> 00:21:48.330 align:middle line:84% quantum entanglement or so-called nonlocality, 00:21:48.330 --> 00:21:51.150 align:middle line:84% to make sense of other strange features of the world. 00:21:51.150 --> 00:21:53.220 align:middle line:84% And they were especially interested in something 00:21:53.220 --> 00:21:56.330 align:middle line:84% called parapsychology or psi phenomena. 00:21:56.330 --> 00:21:57.330 align:middle line:90% So it's very convenient. 00:21:57.330 --> 00:21:59.610 align:middle line:84% As we know, in quantum physics, we 00:21:59.610 --> 00:22:02.520 align:middle line:84% use the Greek letter psi to represent Schrodinger's wave 00:22:02.520 --> 00:22:03.270 align:middle line:90% function. 00:22:03.270 --> 00:22:08.190 align:middle line:84% And the field, or the pseudo-field 00:22:08.190 --> 00:22:10.620 align:middle line:84% of parapsychology, its own practitioners 00:22:10.620 --> 00:22:14.550 align:middle line:84% often referred to it as psi phenomena, the same letter. 00:22:14.550 --> 00:22:15.870 align:middle line:90% So what's parapsychology? 00:22:15.870 --> 00:22:17.730 align:middle line:84% You might know it by other terms. 00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:19.600 align:middle line:84% It includes things like mind reading. 00:22:19.600 --> 00:22:21.610 align:middle line:84% Let's say alleged mind reading, or ESP, 00:22:21.610 --> 00:22:25.480 align:middle line:84% extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, 00:22:25.480 --> 00:22:28.360 align:middle line:84% which is a fancy word for saying having visions of the future 00:22:28.360 --> 00:22:30.670 align:middle line:84% like clairvoyance, remote viewing, 00:22:30.670 --> 00:22:33.280 align:middle line:84% a particular kind of telepathy we'll talk about in a moment-- 00:22:33.280 --> 00:22:34.900 align:middle line:90% again, alleged telepathy-- 00:22:34.900 --> 00:22:37.750 align:middle line:84% psychokinesis-- could you move matter 00:22:37.750 --> 00:22:39.880 align:middle line:84% with the power of your mind alone? 00:22:39.880 --> 00:22:41.990 align:middle line:90% Pretty out there sounding stuff. 00:22:41.990 --> 00:22:45.310 align:middle line:84% So this is where the fact that this group was getting together 00:22:45.310 --> 00:22:49.060 align:middle line:84% in the San Francisco Bay area in the mid 1970s 00:22:49.060 --> 00:22:50.830 align:middle line:90% matters a great deal. 00:22:50.830 --> 00:22:53.920 align:middle line:84% These are hardly typical phenomena 00:22:53.920 --> 00:22:55.860 align:middle line:84% studied in academic settings today, 00:22:55.860 --> 00:22:57.700 align:middle line:84% though there are some exceptions. 00:22:57.700 --> 00:22:59.890 align:middle line:84% And yet, this group was kind of on the margins. 00:22:59.890 --> 00:23:02.590 align:middle line:84% And some members, not all, were especially 00:23:02.590 --> 00:23:05.500 align:middle line:84% eager to explore all kinds of questions that were marginal. 00:23:05.500 --> 00:23:07.510 align:middle line:84% Bell's inequality was very marginal 00:23:07.510 --> 00:23:09.370 align:middle line:84% compared to mainstream physics at the time, 00:23:09.370 --> 00:23:11.500 align:middle line:84% as were some of these questions about basically 00:23:11.500 --> 00:23:14.050 align:middle line:90% mind reading or ESP. 00:23:14.050 --> 00:23:17.620 align:middle line:84% They were especially excited when this gentleman shown here, 00:23:17.620 --> 00:23:21.190 align:middle line:84% Uri Geller, came to visit the San Francisco area, again, 00:23:21.190 --> 00:23:25.120 align:middle line:84% in around 1972, '73, just before the group really 00:23:25.120 --> 00:23:26.980 align:middle line:90% started meeting more formally. 00:23:26.980 --> 00:23:30.670 align:middle line:84% Geller was originally Israeli, from Tel Aviv. 00:23:30.670 --> 00:23:33.652 align:middle line:84% He had made an early career as a stage magician. 00:23:33.652 --> 00:23:35.110 align:middle line:84% He literally said, I am a magician. 00:23:35.110 --> 00:23:36.730 align:middle line:90% I can do sleight of hand tricks. 00:23:36.730 --> 00:23:38.440 align:middle line:84% And then somewhere along the way, 00:23:38.440 --> 00:23:40.330 align:middle line:84% he started proclaiming that he could actually 00:23:40.330 --> 00:23:45.840 align:middle line:84% perform not just clever sleight of hand, but actual ESP. 00:23:45.840 --> 00:23:49.450 align:middle line:84% He claimed he had paranormal abilities, not only 00:23:49.450 --> 00:23:53.200 align:middle line:84% exceptionally good kind of magic trick skills. 00:23:53.200 --> 00:23:55.960 align:middle line:84% He was whisked to the United States, subjected 00:23:55.960 --> 00:24:00.580 align:middle line:84% to hours and hours of seemingly controlled scientific study 00:24:00.580 --> 00:24:02.710 align:middle line:84% at this place called the Stanford Research 00:24:02.710 --> 00:24:04.570 align:middle line:90% Institute, or SRI. 00:24:04.570 --> 00:24:08.380 align:middle line:84% SRI was, until that time, a defense-oriented laboratory 00:24:08.380 --> 00:24:10.660 align:middle line:84% affiliated with Stanford University, very much 00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:13.600 align:middle line:84% like Draper Lab or Lincoln Lab at MIT. 00:24:13.600 --> 00:24:18.850 align:middle line:84% The lab was funded, through the late '60s, almost exclusively 00:24:18.850 --> 00:24:21.900 align:middle line:90% by military contracts. 00:24:21.900 --> 00:24:25.380 align:middle line:84% But as we saw, there was this collapse in the physics bubble 00:24:25.380 --> 00:24:27.040 align:middle line:90% right around 1970. 00:24:27.040 --> 00:24:29.070 align:middle line:84% And the Stanford Research Institute 00:24:29.070 --> 00:24:32.430 align:middle line:84% was spun off as its own independent institute separate 00:24:32.430 --> 00:24:35.640 align:middle line:84% from Stanford, in part over Vietnam War protests. 00:24:35.640 --> 00:24:37.170 align:middle line:84% And then they were under-capacity 00:24:37.170 --> 00:24:38.750 align:middle line:84% because, like most of physics, they 00:24:38.750 --> 00:24:41.250 align:middle line:84% were not getting the kind of grants that they had once done. 00:24:41.250 --> 00:24:45.870 align:middle line:84% So some laser physicists, very well-trained laser physicists 00:24:45.870 --> 00:24:49.103 align:middle line:84% Harold Puthoff and Russell Targ, wondered 00:24:49.103 --> 00:24:51.270 align:middle line:84% if they could spend some of their free time studying 00:24:51.270 --> 00:24:53.790 align:middle line:90% basically things like ESP. 00:24:53.790 --> 00:24:56.400 align:middle line:84% They wound up doing hours and hours, dozens 00:24:56.400 --> 00:25:00.120 align:middle line:84% of hours of filmed seemingly laboratory control 00:25:00.120 --> 00:25:02.730 align:middle line:84% tests on Geller himself at the laboratory. 00:25:02.730 --> 00:25:05.700 align:middle line:84% They were able to publish their findings in journals 00:25:05.700 --> 00:25:07.980 align:middle line:84% like Nature, a peer reviewed journal 00:25:07.980 --> 00:25:11.460 align:middle line:84% among the most elite scientific journals on the planet. 00:25:11.460 --> 00:25:13.428 align:middle line:84% Likewise in the proceedings of the IEEE 00:25:13.428 --> 00:25:14.970 align:middle line:84% for the electric engineers, they were 00:25:14.970 --> 00:25:18.570 align:middle line:84% finding what they considered scientifically sound, robust, 00:25:18.570 --> 00:25:22.120 align:middle line:84% statistically significant evidence that Geller seemed 00:25:22.120 --> 00:25:24.490 align:middle line:90% to have ESP-like abilities. 00:25:24.490 --> 00:25:27.310 align:middle line:84% Now, this wasn't uniformly accepted, as you might expect. 00:25:27.310 --> 00:25:31.153 align:middle line:84% There were some efforts at debate or rebuttal. 00:25:31.153 --> 00:25:33.070 align:middle line:84% Among the most entertaining were actually done 00:25:33.070 --> 00:25:35.530 align:middle line:84% by a real magician named James Randy. 00:25:35.530 --> 00:25:36.970 align:middle line:90% He went by The Amazing Randy. 00:25:36.970 --> 00:25:40.690 align:middle line:84% In fact, he just passed away in his 90s or near age 100 00:25:40.690 --> 00:25:42.500 align:middle line:90% just a few weeks ago. 00:25:42.500 --> 00:25:46.060 align:middle line:84% So James Randy would then find ways 00:25:46.060 --> 00:25:48.280 align:middle line:84% to give more conventional explanations 00:25:48.280 --> 00:25:50.530 align:middle line:84% based on his own quite extraordinary sleight of hand 00:25:50.530 --> 00:25:50.770 align:middle line:90% skill. 00:25:50.770 --> 00:25:53.375 align:middle line:84% He said, well, Geller might have been able to do this or that. 00:25:53.375 --> 00:25:55.000 align:middle line:84% But I could reproduce the same effects. 00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:56.560 align:middle line:84% And I'll tell you I don't have ESP. 00:25:56.560 --> 00:25:58.660 align:middle line:84% Randy would say, I just am a skilled magician. 00:25:58.660 --> 00:26:03.245 align:middle line:84% So this went on and on and on, a circus of back and forth. 00:26:03.245 --> 00:26:05.620 align:middle line:84% The point is this was happening in the San Francisco area 00:26:05.620 --> 00:26:08.320 align:middle line:84% and getting a ton of attention in the newspapers, 00:26:08.320 --> 00:26:11.080 align:middle line:90% and magazines, and television. 00:26:11.080 --> 00:26:12.760 align:middle line:84% Geller went on to become enormously 00:26:12.760 --> 00:26:13.990 align:middle line:90% famous and well-known. 00:26:13.990 --> 00:26:15.490 align:middle line:84% And this was the earliest stages, 00:26:15.490 --> 00:26:18.380 align:middle line:84% literally right in the backyard for this Fundamental Fysiks 00:26:18.380 --> 00:26:18.880 align:middle line:90% Group. 00:26:18.880 --> 00:26:20.470 align:middle line:84% Some members of the group were then 00:26:20.470 --> 00:26:23.770 align:middle line:84% hired at Stanford Research Institute, at the SRI, 00:26:23.770 --> 00:26:25.930 align:middle line:84% to serve as in-house consultants, 00:26:25.930 --> 00:26:29.200 align:middle line:84% to be house theorists to make sense of these and related 00:26:29.200 --> 00:26:33.070 align:middle line:84% studies in ESP, and to try to puzzle through, 00:26:33.070 --> 00:26:36.490 align:middle line:84% could these strange phenomena, like quantum entanglement, 00:26:36.490 --> 00:26:39.190 align:middle line:84% maybe make sense of or account for what 00:26:39.190 --> 00:26:42.170 align:middle line:84% seemed to be magical effects otherwise? 00:26:42.170 --> 00:26:44.890 align:middle line:84% And so one core member of the Fundamental Fysiks Group 00:26:44.890 --> 00:26:48.160 align:middle line:84% named Jack Sarfatti began releasing these press 00:26:48.160 --> 00:26:51.370 align:middle line:84% releases downstream from Geller's original visit 00:26:51.370 --> 00:26:53.200 align:middle line:84% saying things like this top quote, 00:26:53.200 --> 00:26:55.780 align:middle line:84% "The ambiguity in the interpretation of quantum 00:26:55.780 --> 00:26:58.540 align:middle line:84% mechanics leaves ample room for the possibility 00:26:58.540 --> 00:27:00.730 align:middle line:84% of psychokinetic and telepathic effects." 00:27:00.730 --> 00:27:03.900 align:middle line:84% Basically, Bell's inequalities start sounding like telepathy 00:27:03.900 --> 00:27:04.400 align:middle line:90% already. 00:27:04.400 --> 00:27:07.150 align:middle line:84% That's why Einstein thought it was so, so strange. 00:27:07.150 --> 00:27:08.260 align:middle line:90% He called it spooky. 00:27:08.260 --> 00:27:12.430 align:middle line:84% "If the events could remain correlated across arbitrary 00:27:12.430 --> 00:27:14.260 align:middle line:84% distance," so they began to argue, 00:27:14.260 --> 00:27:18.010 align:middle line:84% "maybe there's some correlation between a quantum particle 00:27:18.010 --> 00:27:20.740 align:middle line:84% that lodges in Geller's mind, or brain, 00:27:20.740 --> 00:27:23.950 align:middle line:84% and some correlated particle that lodges somewhere else. 00:27:23.950 --> 00:27:25.750 align:middle line:84% Is that at least consistent with this kind 00:27:25.750 --> 00:27:26.980 align:middle line:90% of action at a distance?" 00:27:26.980 --> 00:27:29.560 align:middle line:84% Jack goes on to write a follow-up press release. 00:27:29.560 --> 00:27:31.510 align:middle line:84% "My personal professional judgment 00:27:31.510 --> 00:27:34.930 align:middle line:84% as a PhD physicist," which we now all have to reevaluate 00:27:34.930 --> 00:27:36.460 align:middle line:90% what that's good for-- 00:27:36.460 --> 00:27:38.590 align:middle line:84% "my professional judgment is that Uri Geller 00:27:38.590 --> 00:27:41.140 align:middle line:84% demonstrated genuine psychoenergetic ability. 00:27:41.140 --> 00:27:45.040 align:middle line:84% Now, cast your minds back to mid-1970s San Francisco Bay 00:27:45.040 --> 00:27:47.720 align:middle line:90% Area or imagine it if you can. 00:27:47.720 --> 00:27:50.980 align:middle line:84% And if you have a bunch of PhD physicists working 00:27:50.980 --> 00:27:55.120 align:middle line:84% with seemingly a very upstanding scientific research institute 00:27:55.120 --> 00:27:58.330 align:middle line:84% finding what looked to be robust evidence of mind 00:27:58.330 --> 00:28:01.900 align:middle line:84% reading and ESP, that's going to be pretty exciting news. 00:28:01.900 --> 00:28:04.090 align:middle line:84% So here's a picture of some of the core members 00:28:04.090 --> 00:28:05.500 align:middle line:84% of that Fundamental Fysiks Group. 00:28:05.500 --> 00:28:07.840 align:middle line:84% This one here in the saffron robe 00:28:07.840 --> 00:28:10.270 align:middle line:84% is Jack Sarfatti, who just gave those press releases 00:28:10.270 --> 00:28:11.200 align:middle line:90% I quoted from. 00:28:11.200 --> 00:28:12.790 align:middle line:90% Here is Saul-Paul Sirag. 00:28:12.790 --> 00:28:14.808 align:middle line:84% I would literally kill for that hair. 00:28:14.808 --> 00:28:15.350 align:middle line:90% Look at that. 00:28:15.350 --> 00:28:16.450 align:middle line:90% That is just fantastic. 00:28:16.450 --> 00:28:18.400 align:middle line:90% Nick Herbert and Fred Alan Wolf. 00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:19.870 align:middle line:84% So they were just clowning around. 00:28:19.870 --> 00:28:21.430 align:middle line:84% They were having a lot of fun mostly, 00:28:21.430 --> 00:28:22.990 align:middle line:90% because they were out of work. 00:28:22.990 --> 00:28:25.720 align:middle line:84% Nick Herbert had finished his PhD in physics at Stanford 00:28:25.720 --> 00:28:27.370 align:middle line:84% and at this point was on welfare. 00:28:27.370 --> 00:28:28.912 align:middle line:84% He was literally on public assistance 00:28:28.912 --> 00:28:30.350 align:middle line:90% because he couldn't get a job. 00:28:30.350 --> 00:28:33.400 align:middle line:84% That's how bad the system had contracted. 00:28:33.400 --> 00:28:35.780 align:middle line:84% So these young, highly trained physicists 00:28:35.780 --> 00:28:39.430 align:middle line:84% were having an awfully good time wondering about deep quantum 00:28:39.430 --> 00:28:41.090 align:middle line:90% mysteries and beyond. 00:28:41.090 --> 00:28:44.120 align:middle line:84% And so they were highlighted in San Francisco area magazines. 00:28:44.120 --> 00:28:48.310 align:middle line:84% There was a big photo spread on the group in a local magazine 00:28:48.310 --> 00:28:51.970 align:middle line:84% in '75, which highlighted these folks were going into trances, 00:28:51.970 --> 00:28:54.940 align:middle line:84% working at telepathy, and dipping into their subconscious 00:28:54.940 --> 00:28:58.030 align:middle line:84% and experiments towards psychic mobility, which is literally 00:28:58.030 --> 00:28:58.720 align:middle line:90% groovy man. 00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:01.240 align:middle line:84% I mean, this was like totally in-step with the times. 00:29:01.240 --> 00:29:06.070 align:middle line:84% And they became really just multimedia darlings. 00:29:06.070 --> 00:29:07.510 align:middle line:84% And it wasn't only San Francisco. 00:29:07.510 --> 00:29:12.250 align:middle line:84% There were similar stories picked up by the news wires, 00:29:12.250 --> 00:29:15.040 align:middle line:84% by the Associated Press, and United Press International. 00:29:15.040 --> 00:29:17.590 align:middle line:84% There was a cover article in Time Magazine. 00:29:17.590 --> 00:29:20.430 align:middle line:84% It was covered in other publications 00:29:20.430 --> 00:29:22.530 align:middle line:84% like Oui Magazine, which I always 00:29:22.530 --> 00:29:24.880 align:middle line:84% say was not a publication of the French embassy. 00:29:24.880 --> 00:29:26.340 align:middle line:90% It's actually a porno mag. 00:29:26.340 --> 00:29:29.370 align:middle line:84% Oui Magazine was Playboy's answer to Penthouse. 00:29:29.370 --> 00:29:34.320 align:middle line:84% In 1979, if you wanted to read a detailed article about quantum 00:29:34.320 --> 00:29:37.080 align:middle line:84% entanglement, you could find actually 00:29:37.080 --> 00:29:40.050 align:middle line:84% a very competent popular science treatment in Oui Magazine, 00:29:40.050 --> 00:29:41.970 align:middle line:84% because it was deemed so interesting, 00:29:41.970 --> 00:29:45.180 align:middle line:90% but not in many other venues. 00:29:45.180 --> 00:29:48.090 align:middle line:84% So the group starts getting lots and lots of attention 00:29:48.090 --> 00:29:50.910 align:middle line:84% because there was this strange coagulation 00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:54.702 align:middle line:84% of well-trained physicists not just dabbling 00:29:54.702 --> 00:29:56.910 align:middle line:84% with strange topics, but claiming they could actually 00:29:56.910 --> 00:29:58.577 align:middle line:84% explain it, that quantum mechanics might 00:29:58.577 --> 00:30:00.550 align:middle line:90% unlock the power of mind. 00:30:00.550 --> 00:30:01.050 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:30:01.050 --> 00:30:03.853 align:middle line:84% Let me pause there for some questions. 00:30:03.853 --> 00:30:05.520 align:middle line:84% And then we'll move on to the next part. 00:30:05.520 --> 00:30:07.450 align:middle line:90% Any questions on that? 00:30:07.450 --> 00:30:10.180 align:middle line:84% So Alex asks, how much LSD were these people using? 00:30:10.180 --> 00:30:12.340 align:middle line:84% That's actually, literally a fair question. 00:30:12.340 --> 00:30:13.600 align:middle line:90% One thing to keep in mind-- 00:30:13.600 --> 00:30:16.180 align:middle line:84% I write about this in the book a little bit-- 00:30:16.180 --> 00:30:18.430 align:middle line:84% LSD, until right around this time, 00:30:18.430 --> 00:30:21.550 align:middle line:84% was actually not considered illegal. 00:30:21.550 --> 00:30:24.827 align:middle line:84% It was reclassified first as use of it was a misdemeanor 00:30:24.827 --> 00:30:27.160 align:middle line:84% and later made, of course, a more serious felony charge, 00:30:27.160 --> 00:30:28.420 align:middle line:90% but only a bit later. 00:30:28.420 --> 00:30:31.690 align:middle line:84% In fact, LSD was considered a very interesting research 00:30:31.690 --> 00:30:35.050 align:middle line:84% substance on which there was a lot of research being done 00:30:35.050 --> 00:30:37.300 align:middle line:84% at the time at Stanford Medical School, 00:30:37.300 --> 00:30:40.340 align:middle line:84% at many university hospitals, and biology departments, 00:30:40.340 --> 00:30:42.250 align:middle line:90% and psychology departments. 00:30:42.250 --> 00:30:46.570 align:middle line:84% And so it does seem that not all members of the group, 00:30:46.570 --> 00:30:48.850 align:middle line:84% but some members claimed at least 00:30:48.850 --> 00:30:51.132 align:middle line:84% they were having a lot of fun with recreational drugs. 00:30:51.132 --> 00:30:52.840 align:middle line:84% Others said they never touched the stuff. 00:30:52.840 --> 00:30:53.980 align:middle line:90% It wasn't the whole group. 00:30:53.980 --> 00:30:56.620 align:middle line:84% But what's interesting is that the associations 00:30:56.620 --> 00:30:58.870 align:middle line:84% around such psychedelic drug use were 00:30:58.870 --> 00:31:02.750 align:middle line:84% quite different than what would become more common later on. 00:31:02.750 --> 00:31:04.748 align:middle line:84% And so Alex also asked about MKULTRA. 00:31:04.748 --> 00:31:05.290 align:middle line:90% That's right. 00:31:05.290 --> 00:31:08.510 align:middle line:84% So that was, at the time, still quite top secret. 00:31:08.510 --> 00:31:15.230 align:middle line:84% That was a program subsidized at least in part by the US Central 00:31:15.230 --> 00:31:17.630 align:middle line:84% Intelligence Agency, top secret at the time, 00:31:17.630 --> 00:31:20.360 align:middle line:84% to see if psychedelic drugs like LSD 00:31:20.360 --> 00:31:22.670 align:middle line:84% might have some role as a kind of truth serum. 00:31:22.670 --> 00:31:25.100 align:middle line:84% Could these have a role in national security 00:31:25.100 --> 00:31:26.313 align:middle line:90% or national defense? 00:31:26.313 --> 00:31:27.980 align:middle line:84% The results for which seem to be-- let's 00:31:27.980 --> 00:31:29.360 align:middle line:90% just say inconclusive. 00:31:29.360 --> 00:31:32.930 align:middle line:84% But it did lead to some pretty sensational experiments 00:31:32.930 --> 00:31:34.790 align:middle line:84% that were revealed only years later 00:31:34.790 --> 00:31:36.312 align:middle line:90% when the secrecy was broken. 00:31:36.312 --> 00:31:38.270 align:middle line:84% So these folks weren't directly involved in it. 00:31:38.270 --> 00:31:40.130 align:middle line:84% But that's another indication of the time. 00:31:40.130 --> 00:31:43.910 align:middle line:84% It's still a relevant topic because many people-- research 00:31:43.910 --> 00:31:49.610 align:middle line:84% psychologists, defense experts, and others-- 00:31:49.610 --> 00:31:51.350 align:middle line:84% thought that these psychedelics might 00:31:51.350 --> 00:31:55.820 align:middle line:84% unlock the true meaning and role of consciousness and so on. 00:31:55.820 --> 00:31:59.750 align:middle line:84% It, later on, was come to be seen 00:31:59.750 --> 00:32:02.960 align:middle line:84% as more dangerous or illicit with corresponding criminal 00:32:02.960 --> 00:32:04.850 align:middle line:90% charges against it. 00:32:04.850 --> 00:32:06.770 align:middle line:84% But one of the men I mentioned, Nick Herbert, 00:32:06.770 --> 00:32:09.890 align:middle line:84% remembers participating in a Stanford University study 00:32:09.890 --> 00:32:11.990 align:middle line:90% where he was a willing subject. 00:32:11.990 --> 00:32:14.810 align:middle line:84% He was asked to participate in a psychology experiment, 00:32:14.810 --> 00:32:17.450 align:middle line:84% took several doses of LSD under close supervision, 00:32:17.450 --> 00:32:19.160 align:middle line:84% and was asked to describe the experience. 00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:21.710 align:middle line:84% It was still seen as an on-campus thing 00:32:21.710 --> 00:32:24.260 align:middle line:90% through the early and mid-60s. 00:32:24.260 --> 00:32:28.340 align:middle line:84% Any other questions about the setup here-- the group, 00:32:28.340 --> 00:32:29.600 align:middle line:90% the times, anything like that? 00:32:29.600 --> 00:32:34.660 align:middle line:90% 00:32:34.660 --> 00:32:35.320 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:32:35.320 --> 00:32:37.240 align:middle line:84% Well, if questions come to you, we'll 00:32:37.240 --> 00:32:39.850 align:middle line:84% have another chance to discuss them. 00:32:39.850 --> 00:32:41.930 align:middle line:90% But let me press on a bit. 00:32:41.930 --> 00:32:44.170 align:middle line:84% So I wanted to let us know about what 00:32:44.170 --> 00:32:46.840 align:middle line:84% were some of the topics these folks were focusing on. 00:32:46.840 --> 00:32:48.460 align:middle line:84% Let's ask, how are they doing it? 00:32:48.460 --> 00:32:51.460 align:middle line:84% Remember, this was a time when the conventional career 00:32:51.460 --> 00:32:54.760 align:middle line:84% paths for many, many physicists in the United States 00:32:54.760 --> 00:32:56.980 align:middle line:90% had really been interrupted. 00:32:56.980 --> 00:32:59.438 align:middle line:84% So they weren't just getting positions 00:32:59.438 --> 00:33:01.105 align:middle line:84% as assistant professors at universities, 00:33:01.105 --> 00:33:03.740 align:middle line:84% though that was what most of them had been aiming for. 00:33:03.740 --> 00:33:05.510 align:middle line:84% So how do they support their work? 00:33:05.510 --> 00:33:07.030 align:middle line:90% How did they conduct research? 00:33:07.030 --> 00:33:08.980 align:middle line:84% How did they share their findings and so on 00:33:08.980 --> 00:33:12.670 align:middle line:84% if they weren't in a typical research environment that 00:33:12.670 --> 00:33:15.550 align:middle line:84% had at least come to seem typical for the generation 00:33:15.550 --> 00:33:16.460 align:middle line:90% before? 00:33:16.460 --> 00:33:18.152 align:middle line:84% So again, we start asking questions 00:33:18.152 --> 00:33:20.110 align:middle line:84% much like we asked about in the previous class. 00:33:20.110 --> 00:33:21.310 align:middle line:90% Who's paying for the work? 00:33:21.310 --> 00:33:22.240 align:middle line:90% Who's supporting it? 00:33:22.240 --> 00:33:24.460 align:middle line:84% What's the kind of funding structure? 00:33:24.460 --> 00:33:27.940 align:middle line:84% And what are the institutions in which the work will be pursued? 00:33:27.940 --> 00:33:29.140 align:middle line:90% Let's ask about money first. 00:33:29.140 --> 00:33:30.490 align:middle line:90% Let's talk about funding. 00:33:30.490 --> 00:33:32.380 align:middle line:84% So on the one hand, there was actually 00:33:32.380 --> 00:33:35.390 align:middle line:84% a kind of continuity with the Cold War stuff 00:33:35.390 --> 00:33:37.910 align:middle line:84% we looked at in the previous session. 00:33:37.910 --> 00:33:40.033 align:middle line:84% A fair amount of the work-- of the funding 00:33:40.033 --> 00:33:41.450 align:middle line:84% to support this work actually came 00:33:41.450 --> 00:33:46.547 align:middle line:84% from the US federal government in the part of both the CIA, 00:33:46.547 --> 00:33:48.380 align:middle line:84% that I mentioned briefly, and also something 00:33:48.380 --> 00:33:51.620 align:middle line:84% called the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, 00:33:51.620 --> 00:33:55.250 align:middle line:84% which is, as its name implies, a kind of CIA, 00:33:55.250 --> 00:33:56.420 align:middle line:90% but within the Pentagon. 00:33:56.420 --> 00:33:58.003 align:middle line:84% So they're actually separate agencies, 00:33:58.003 --> 00:34:00.990 align:middle line:84% though they have similar kind of roles to play. 00:34:00.990 --> 00:34:02.723 align:middle line:84% Here's an example of one of their reports 00:34:02.723 --> 00:34:03.890 align:middle line:90% that was later declassified. 00:34:03.890 --> 00:34:05.570 align:middle line:84% It was originally a classified report. 00:34:05.570 --> 00:34:07.278 align:middle line:84% Now, you can download it on the internet. 00:34:07.278 --> 00:34:11.420 align:middle line:84% It was declassified in response to a Freedom of Information Act 00:34:11.420 --> 00:34:12.260 align:middle line:90% request. 00:34:12.260 --> 00:34:14.960 align:middle line:84% Originally finished in July of 1972, 00:34:14.960 --> 00:34:16.909 align:middle line:84% it has this kind of innocuous sounding 00:34:16.909 --> 00:34:21.170 align:middle line:84% title called "Controlled Offensive Behavior USSR." 00:34:21.170 --> 00:34:24.020 align:middle line:84% What it's really about was an investigation 00:34:24.020 --> 00:34:27.741 align:middle line:84% into whether the Soviet Union was how-- 00:34:27.741 --> 00:34:29.449 align:middle line:84% put it this way, how far ahead the Soviet 00:34:29.449 --> 00:34:32.989 align:middle line:84% Union was in basically weaponizing mind reading 00:34:32.989 --> 00:34:33.830 align:middle line:90% and mind control. 00:34:33.830 --> 00:34:35.705 align:middle line:84% Think about if you've ever heard of the movie 00:34:35.705 --> 00:34:38.630 align:middle line:84% The Manchurian Candidate or so-called brainwashing. 00:34:38.630 --> 00:34:41.600 align:middle line:84% The concern from the Pentagon Intelligence Agency 00:34:41.600 --> 00:34:43.370 align:middle line:84% here, the Defense Intelligence Agency, 00:34:43.370 --> 00:34:47.120 align:middle line:84% was that the Soviets weren't just pursuing 00:34:47.120 --> 00:34:49.639 align:middle line:84% advanced efforts in mind reading and mind control, 00:34:49.639 --> 00:34:51.630 align:middle line:84% but were actually excelling at it. 00:34:51.630 --> 00:34:54.620 align:middle line:84% And therefore, the United States faced, so they estimated, 00:34:54.620 --> 00:34:56.750 align:middle line:84% a gap, much as there had purportedly 00:34:56.750 --> 00:34:58.520 align:middle line:84% been a so-called scientific manpower 00:34:58.520 --> 00:35:00.860 align:middle line:84% gap that we looked at last time, or a so-called missile 00:35:00.860 --> 00:35:03.090 align:middle line:84% gap, which also turns out wasn't actually there. 00:35:03.090 --> 00:35:04.790 align:middle line:84% So this was a concern that the Soviets 00:35:04.790 --> 00:35:10.550 align:middle line:84% were way ahead in a kind of parapsychology program. 00:35:10.550 --> 00:35:13.670 align:middle line:84% And so that unleashed lots of funding, or at least 00:35:13.670 --> 00:35:16.070 align:middle line:84% some surprisingly generous funding, 00:35:16.070 --> 00:35:19.220 align:middle line:84% within US settings to try to catch up 00:35:19.220 --> 00:35:23.780 align:middle line:84% to the supposed Soviet advances in things like parapsychology. 00:35:23.780 --> 00:35:27.320 align:middle line:84% So between the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency, 00:35:27.320 --> 00:35:30.530 align:middle line:84% funding began for what came to be called ESPionage, which is 00:35:30.530 --> 00:35:33.050 align:middle line:90% using ESP to conduct espionage. 00:35:33.050 --> 00:35:37.100 align:middle line:84% Wouldn't it be great if it were possible to spy on the Soviet 00:35:37.100 --> 00:35:40.250 align:middle line:84% Union from the comfort of Langley, or CIA headquarters, 00:35:40.250 --> 00:35:42.900 align:middle line:84% or some Air Force base in California? 00:35:42.900 --> 00:35:45.720 align:middle line:84% So if minds could become entangled, 00:35:45.720 --> 00:35:48.170 align:middle line:84% which it seemed people like Uri Geller seemed to suggest 00:35:48.170 --> 00:35:50.150 align:middle line:84% could be happening, then could that 00:35:50.150 --> 00:35:52.970 align:middle line:84% be harnessed to protect the nation? 00:35:52.970 --> 00:35:55.623 align:middle line:84% And both the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency 00:35:55.623 --> 00:35:57.290 align:middle line:84% said, well, if so, we'd better find out. 00:35:57.290 --> 00:36:00.500 align:middle line:84% So they began funding research at places like the Stanford 00:36:00.500 --> 00:36:03.050 align:middle line:84% Research Institute, that spin-off defense lab 00:36:03.050 --> 00:36:06.940 align:middle line:84% I mentioned in the Bay area and at defense labs 00:36:06.940 --> 00:36:08.690 align:middle line:84% actually around the country, a fair amount 00:36:08.690 --> 00:36:10.970 align:middle line:84% spent at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland. 00:36:10.970 --> 00:36:15.110 align:middle line:84% And many other of these once highly classified replication 00:36:15.110 --> 00:36:16.520 align:middle line:90% studies were being conducted. 00:36:16.520 --> 00:36:19.340 align:middle line:84% And again, with the help of Freedom of Information Act, 00:36:19.340 --> 00:36:22.010 align:middle line:84% one can begin to learn how much of this kind of dark money 00:36:22.010 --> 00:36:25.910 align:middle line:84% was channeled to these once highly classified defense 00:36:25.910 --> 00:36:28.010 align:middle line:84% efforts to basically try to figure out 00:36:28.010 --> 00:36:30.377 align:middle line:84% mind reading and maybe even mind control. 00:36:30.377 --> 00:36:32.210 align:middle line:84% Some of you might have seen the movie called 00:36:32.210 --> 00:36:33.350 align:middle line:90% The Men Who Stare at Goats. 00:36:33.350 --> 00:36:34.940 align:middle line:84% It was originally a bestselling paperback, 00:36:34.940 --> 00:36:36.380 align:middle line:84% and then made into a movie a number of years ago 00:36:36.380 --> 00:36:38.090 align:middle line:90% with George Clooney and others. 00:36:38.090 --> 00:36:41.060 align:middle line:84% That's actually based on the true story 00:36:41.060 --> 00:36:45.862 align:middle line:84% of some of these military efforts to figure out ESP. 00:36:45.862 --> 00:36:48.320 align:middle line:84% Other investigative journalists, and historians, and others 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:49.737 align:middle line:84% have pieced together at least some 00:36:49.737 --> 00:36:52.190 align:middle line:84% of the spending, which was once highly classified. 00:36:52.190 --> 00:36:53.690 align:middle line:90% This was discretionary spending. 00:36:53.690 --> 00:36:55.880 align:middle line:84% It wasn't disclosed to Congress directly. 00:36:55.880 --> 00:36:58.310 align:middle line:84% But later Freedom of Information Act 00:36:58.310 --> 00:37:00.980 align:middle line:84% requests revealed that often millions, sometimes many 00:37:00.980 --> 00:37:05.210 align:middle line:84% millions of per year being invested in these efforts. 00:37:05.210 --> 00:37:08.810 align:middle line:84% The program was supposedly canceled in 1995. 00:37:08.810 --> 00:37:11.620 align:middle line:84% Some people say maybe we started again after 9/11. 00:37:11.620 --> 00:37:13.820 align:middle line:90% I've seen no evidence of that. 00:37:13.820 --> 00:37:17.090 align:middle line:84% Anyway, this is one way to perpetuate research 00:37:17.090 --> 00:37:21.097 align:middle line:84% in parapsychology, was you convince the US 00:37:21.097 --> 00:37:23.180 align:middle line:84% federal government that the Soviets were doing it. 00:37:23.180 --> 00:37:25.850 align:middle line:84% And that unleashes lots of money because there was a Cold War 00:37:25.850 --> 00:37:26.370 align:middle line:90% rivalry. 00:37:26.370 --> 00:37:27.890 align:middle line:90% It was still a Cold War rivalry. 00:37:27.890 --> 00:37:29.450 align:middle line:90% I find that pretty astonishing. 00:37:29.450 --> 00:37:31.850 align:middle line:84% So several members of that Fundamental Fysiks Group, 00:37:31.850 --> 00:37:34.070 align:middle line:84% including Elizabeth Rauscher and George Weissmann-- together, 00:37:34.070 --> 00:37:35.300 align:middle line:90% they had founded the group-- 00:37:35.300 --> 00:37:37.610 align:middle line:84% Jack Sarfatti I showed you, Saul-Paul Sirag-- 00:37:37.610 --> 00:37:40.100 align:middle line:84% he was one of the great hair-- they actually began 00:37:40.100 --> 00:37:42.740 align:middle line:84% conducting their own unclassified replication 00:37:42.740 --> 00:37:46.790 align:middle line:84% efforts as well, some of it partly underwritten by some 00:37:46.790 --> 00:37:49.520 align:middle line:90% of this defense money. 00:37:49.520 --> 00:37:50.952 align:middle line:90% So they would do the following. 00:37:50.952 --> 00:37:52.910 align:middle line:84% They actually published in the open literature, 00:37:52.910 --> 00:37:54.550 align:middle line:84% in the open parapsychology literature. 00:37:54.550 --> 00:37:55.550 align:middle line:90% So it wasn't classified. 00:37:55.550 --> 00:37:57.423 align:middle line:84% It also wasn't in mainstream journals. 00:37:57.423 --> 00:37:58.840 align:middle line:84% So they would do things like this, 00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:01.070 align:middle line:84% is what became known as so-called remote viewing. 00:38:01.070 --> 00:38:02.690 align:middle line:84% They would try to find people who 00:38:02.690 --> 00:38:06.590 align:middle line:84% seemed to be particularly sensitive to these shared 00:38:06.590 --> 00:38:08.642 align:middle line:84% sensations, like Uri Geller seemed to be. 00:38:08.642 --> 00:38:11.225 align:middle line:84% And they found others who seemed to have comparable abilities, 00:38:11.225 --> 00:38:13.160 align:middle line:90% at least to their estimation. 00:38:13.160 --> 00:38:15.860 align:middle line:84% And they would basically have that person 00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:20.780 align:middle line:84% sit in a dark room with very few external stimuli-- 00:38:20.780 --> 00:38:22.400 align:middle line:84% no bright lights, no loud music-- 00:38:22.400 --> 00:38:26.120 align:middle line:84% have them sit there while someone else traveled 00:38:26.120 --> 00:38:30.650 align:middle line:84% to a randomly selected location in the San Francisco area. 00:38:30.650 --> 00:38:32.580 align:middle line:84% There would be a series of targets. 00:38:32.580 --> 00:38:35.013 align:middle line:84% But they wouldn't know which target. 00:38:35.013 --> 00:38:36.680 align:middle line:84% They would try to shield the information 00:38:36.680 --> 00:38:39.410 align:middle line:84% from the sensitive person back at home base. 00:38:39.410 --> 00:38:42.500 align:middle line:84% And that person who's outside would just 00:38:42.500 --> 00:38:46.670 align:middle line:84% go to some landmark location and stare at it very, very hard, 00:38:46.670 --> 00:38:51.020 align:middle line:84% like places on Stanford's campus, or Berkeley's campus, 00:38:51.020 --> 00:38:53.280 align:middle line:90% or Golden Gate park, and so on. 00:38:53.280 --> 00:38:56.840 align:middle line:84% And then the person who's trying to receive these seemingly 00:38:56.840 --> 00:38:59.060 align:middle line:84% entangled signals would just start 00:38:59.060 --> 00:39:04.250 align:middle line:84% either sketching or verbally speaking what they seemed to-- 00:39:04.250 --> 00:39:06.680 align:middle line:84% the pictures that would form in their minds. 00:39:06.680 --> 00:39:09.710 align:middle line:84% And the argument was, as Rauscher, 00:39:09.710 --> 00:39:13.130 align:middle line:84% and Weissmann, Sarfatti, and Sirag eventually concluded, 00:39:13.130 --> 00:39:16.370 align:middle line:84% was that there was actually no better than chance 00:39:16.370 --> 00:39:18.200 align:middle line:84% in matching between the descriptions 00:39:18.200 --> 00:39:20.780 align:middle line:90% and the targets statistically. 00:39:20.780 --> 00:39:22.850 align:middle line:90% It was about even. 00:39:22.850 --> 00:39:25.190 align:middle line:84% However, there was what they considered 00:39:25.190 --> 00:39:27.177 align:middle line:90% remarkable precognitive effects. 00:39:27.177 --> 00:39:29.510 align:middle line:84% So in fact, what the sensitive people seemed to be doing 00:39:29.510 --> 00:39:32.570 align:middle line:84% was sketching the next target in line. 00:39:32.570 --> 00:39:35.287 align:middle line:84% Or if you relaxed the criteria for matching, 00:39:35.287 --> 00:39:36.870 align:middle line:84% they found lots of matches afterwards. 00:39:36.870 --> 00:39:40.370 align:middle line:84% So naturally, we leave it up to you about how robust 00:39:40.370 --> 00:39:41.510 align:middle line:90% that effect seemed to be. 00:39:41.510 --> 00:39:43.052 align:middle line:84% The point is that's the kind of thing 00:39:43.052 --> 00:39:45.600 align:middle line:84% they spent a fair amount of time trying to pursue. 00:39:45.600 --> 00:39:48.170 align:middle line:84% Turns out again, as we know from Freedom of Information Act 00:39:48.170 --> 00:39:51.140 align:middle line:84% declassifications, there were very significant efforts 00:39:51.140 --> 00:39:53.875 align:middle line:84% at this at multiple defense laboratories 00:39:53.875 --> 00:39:55.250 align:middle line:84% across the country, some of which 00:39:55.250 --> 00:40:01.610 align:middle line:84% claimed success, although independent audits usually came 00:40:01.610 --> 00:40:05.120 align:middle line:90% down to statistical chance. 00:40:05.120 --> 00:40:06.260 align:middle line:90% Anyway, that's one thing. 00:40:06.260 --> 00:40:08.927 align:middle line:84% That was one way this work was supported. 00:40:08.927 --> 00:40:10.760 align:middle line:84% Basically, go back to the Defense Department 00:40:10.760 --> 00:40:12.135 align:middle line:84% and say the Soviets are doing it. 00:40:12.135 --> 00:40:13.460 align:middle line:90% We should do it, too. 00:40:13.460 --> 00:40:16.520 align:middle line:84% The folks I was focusing on got even more creative, 00:40:16.520 --> 00:40:20.090 align:middle line:84% a little more entrepreneurial in how to support their work. 00:40:20.090 --> 00:40:23.060 align:middle line:84% And that was not only to appeal to the Defense Department, 00:40:23.060 --> 00:40:26.450 align:middle line:84% but also to some of these quintessential California 00:40:26.450 --> 00:40:30.650 align:middle line:84% self-made millionaires in what came 00:40:30.650 --> 00:40:35.390 align:middle line:84% to be called the California Human Potential Movement. 00:40:35.390 --> 00:40:37.490 align:middle line:84% It was very, very much in the rage, 00:40:37.490 --> 00:40:41.120 align:middle line:84% starting in the late '60s throughout over the 1970s 00:40:41.120 --> 00:40:42.145 align:middle line:90% and beyond. 00:40:42.145 --> 00:40:43.520 align:middle line:84% There are a number of these folks 00:40:43.520 --> 00:40:46.280 align:middle line:84% who became really nationwide or even international 00:40:46.280 --> 00:40:50.330 align:middle line:84% celebrities for, again, either claiming 00:40:50.330 --> 00:40:52.640 align:middle line:84% to have unlock the secrets of human consciousness 00:40:52.640 --> 00:40:55.730 align:middle line:84% and therefore human potential or at least investing heavily 00:40:55.730 --> 00:40:57.530 align:middle line:90% in the efforts to do so. 00:40:57.530 --> 00:41:00.800 align:middle line:84% One of them was named-- took on the name Werner Erhard. 00:41:00.800 --> 00:41:02.510 align:middle line:84% He was actually born Jack Rosenberg 00:41:02.510 --> 00:41:03.770 align:middle line:90% and grew up in Philadelphia. 00:41:03.770 --> 00:41:05.570 align:middle line:84% But through a whole series of events, 00:41:05.570 --> 00:41:08.900 align:middle line:84% he wound up moving to the West Coast, 00:41:08.900 --> 00:41:10.250 align:middle line:90% adopting this assumed name. 00:41:10.250 --> 00:41:12.320 align:middle line:84% He called himself Werner, not "Verner." 00:41:12.320 --> 00:41:14.528 align:middle line:84% Although, he borrowed the name from Werner Heisenberg 00:41:14.528 --> 00:41:16.362 align:middle line:84% because, as a kid, he'd been very interested 00:41:16.362 --> 00:41:18.120 align:middle line:84% in modern physics and used to read some 00:41:18.120 --> 00:41:19.370 align:middle line:90% of Heisenberg's popular books. 00:41:19.370 --> 00:41:22.190 align:middle line:84% So he thought "Verner" or Werner would be kind 00:41:22.190 --> 00:41:24.810 align:middle line:90% of a serious sounding name. 00:41:24.810 --> 00:41:27.998 align:middle line:84% So he adopted this pseudonym, Werner Erhard. 00:41:27.998 --> 00:41:29.540 align:middle line:84% Erhard introduced something that came 00:41:29.540 --> 00:41:32.450 align:middle line:84% to be called Erhard Seminars Training or EST. 00:41:32.450 --> 00:41:36.517 align:middle line:84% And if you ask your parents, they will almost certainly 00:41:36.517 --> 00:41:38.350 align:middle line:84% have heard of this, at least if they grew up 00:41:38.350 --> 00:41:40.180 align:middle line:84% in the United States or even many parts of Europe. 00:41:40.180 --> 00:41:42.190 align:middle line:84% It became really an international sensation-- 00:41:42.190 --> 00:41:44.740 align:middle line:84% EST, E-S-T, for Erhard Seminars Training. 00:41:44.740 --> 00:41:49.150 align:middle line:84% This was in the mainstream news regularly, 00:41:49.150 --> 00:41:51.910 align:middle line:84% relentlessly over the course of the 1970s. 00:41:51.910 --> 00:41:56.830 align:middle line:84% The EST movement could eventually claim devotees among 00:41:56.830 --> 00:41:59.320 align:middle line:84% gold medal-winning Olympic athletes, 00:41:59.320 --> 00:42:02.440 align:middle line:84% among people pretty close to political leaders-- 00:42:02.440 --> 00:42:05.950 align:middle line:84% sons, daughters, cousins of presidents and senators-- 00:42:05.950 --> 00:42:08.800 align:middle line:90% that kind of thing, media stars. 00:42:08.800 --> 00:42:13.580 align:middle line:84% It became really, very, very pervasive. 00:42:13.580 --> 00:42:16.780 align:middle line:84% I think they claimed something like 800,000 00:42:16.780 --> 00:42:19.780 align:middle line:84% paying alumni had gone through these intense-- 00:42:19.780 --> 00:42:23.290 align:middle line:84% hotel ballroom intense kind of sessions. 00:42:23.290 --> 00:42:26.710 align:middle line:90% So Erhard met up with-- 00:42:26.710 --> 00:42:28.870 align:middle line:84% he was, by this point, based in San Francisco. 00:42:28.870 --> 00:42:31.870 align:middle line:84% He met up by chance with members of that Fundamental Fysiks 00:42:31.870 --> 00:42:34.070 align:middle line:84% Group in a way that I talk about the book. 00:42:34.070 --> 00:42:37.580 align:middle line:84% And he basically was convinced that this quantum entanglement 00:42:37.580 --> 00:42:40.652 align:middle line:84% stuff really would be the key to unlock powers of consciousness. 00:42:40.652 --> 00:42:42.110 align:middle line:84% So he actually helped-- his lawyers 00:42:42.110 --> 00:42:46.400 align:middle line:84% help set up a not-for-profit corporation, 00:42:46.400 --> 00:42:49.640 align:middle line:84% a way that they could actually collect and spend money, much 00:42:49.640 --> 00:42:53.420 align:middle line:84% of it coming from Erhard's own generosity. 00:42:53.420 --> 00:42:55.820 align:middle line:84% They call themselves the Physics Consciousness Research 00:42:55.820 --> 00:42:58.580 align:middle line:84% Group that actually filed for incorporation 00:42:58.580 --> 00:42:59.940 align:middle line:90% in the state of California. 00:42:59.940 --> 00:43:02.540 align:middle line:84% And this was, again, a kind of structure 00:43:02.540 --> 00:43:06.500 align:middle line:84% to enable the group to raise funds from private donors 00:43:06.500 --> 00:43:07.910 align:middle line:90% and to spend funds. 00:43:07.910 --> 00:43:10.460 align:middle line:84% And Erhard was among the most generous early donors 00:43:10.460 --> 00:43:12.320 align:middle line:90% to get that started. 00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:14.630 align:middle line:84% Erhard went on to become quite controversial. 00:43:14.630 --> 00:43:18.950 align:middle line:84% E-S-T, or EST, also kind of eventually faded from view. 00:43:18.950 --> 00:43:22.580 align:middle line:84% There was a huge series of very high profile scandals 00:43:22.580 --> 00:43:25.340 align:middle line:84% and counter-scandals and claims and counterclaims, again, 00:43:25.340 --> 00:43:29.660 align:middle line:84% that tails off through the '80s and into the '90s. 00:43:29.660 --> 00:43:32.300 align:middle line:84% For some time, Erhard was outside the country. 00:43:32.300 --> 00:43:34.050 align:middle line:84% Then he actually wound up winning 00:43:34.050 --> 00:43:36.750 align:middle line:84% a bunch of cases that had been brought against him. 00:43:36.750 --> 00:43:39.490 align:middle line:84% So he is back in the country, and so on. 00:43:39.490 --> 00:43:41.520 align:middle line:84% Anyway, it became a big, big to-do. 00:43:41.520 --> 00:43:45.180 align:middle line:84% But over the '70s, Erhard was a kind 00:43:45.180 --> 00:43:48.510 align:middle line:84% of almost household name and one of the earliest 00:43:48.510 --> 00:43:49.720 align:middle line:90% supporters of this work. 00:43:49.720 --> 00:43:52.140 align:middle line:84% So now, you have the group not only getting some support 00:43:52.140 --> 00:43:54.150 align:middle line:84% from the CIA and the Defense Department, 00:43:54.150 --> 00:43:58.050 align:middle line:84% but also from some of these self-made California 00:43:58.050 --> 00:44:01.650 align:middle line:84% gurus of this counterculture scene, like Werner Erhard. 00:44:01.650 --> 00:44:04.380 align:middle line:84% It turns out before we say, oh Erhard, that stuff 00:44:04.380 --> 00:44:06.270 align:middle line:90% sounds a little flaky. 00:44:06.270 --> 00:44:08.580 align:middle line:84% At almost the exact same time, Erhard 00:44:08.580 --> 00:44:10.830 align:middle line:84% was also starting up another series 00:44:10.830 --> 00:44:15.210 align:middle line:84% in physics that ran for 13 years and was 00:44:15.210 --> 00:44:18.360 align:middle line:84% run by one of my own colleagues here at MIT, Roman 00:44:18.360 --> 00:44:22.020 align:middle line:84% Jackiw, and my physics PhD advisor, one of my advisors 00:44:22.020 --> 00:44:23.340 align:middle line:90% Sidney Coleman. 00:44:23.340 --> 00:44:24.810 align:middle line:84% And their meetings attracted people 00:44:24.810 --> 00:44:27.810 align:middle line:84% like Stephen Hawking, and John Wheeler, 00:44:27.810 --> 00:44:29.362 align:middle line:90% and a number of Nobel Laureates. 00:44:29.362 --> 00:44:31.320 align:middle line:84% Gerard 't Hooft's in this photograph somewhere. 00:44:31.320 --> 00:44:34.380 align:middle line:90% So at the same time that-- 00:44:34.380 --> 00:44:35.910 align:middle line:84% or basically around the same time 00:44:35.910 --> 00:44:38.490 align:middle line:84% that Erhard was funding this Physics Consciousness Research 00:44:38.490 --> 00:44:40.830 align:middle line:84% Group from the Fundamental Physics Group and digging 00:44:40.830 --> 00:44:44.280 align:middle line:84% into things like ESP and quantum entanglement, other physicists 00:44:44.280 --> 00:44:49.770 align:middle line:84% at leading institutions, who had pursued more typical careers 00:44:49.770 --> 00:44:52.920 align:middle line:84% in the field, academic careers, were also getting support 00:44:52.920 --> 00:44:55.080 align:middle line:84% from that same source and hosting what turned out 00:44:55.080 --> 00:44:59.010 align:middle line:84% to be a pretty successful series of informal conferences held 00:44:59.010 --> 00:45:02.430 align:middle line:84% often in Erhard's personal house-- 00:45:02.430 --> 00:45:04.740 align:middle line:84% a big, huge mansion that he bought in San Francisco. 00:45:04.740 --> 00:45:07.740 align:middle line:84% So the source of patronage was not 00:45:07.740 --> 00:45:10.830 align:middle line:90% a kind of one way or the other. 00:45:10.830 --> 00:45:14.370 align:middle line:84% I take that as a further sign of just how much that Cold War set 00:45:14.370 --> 00:45:17.760 align:middle line:84% of assumptions had really been disrupted 00:45:17.760 --> 00:45:20.790 align:middle line:84% by the early and mid-1970s, where even Harvard, 00:45:20.790 --> 00:45:23.220 align:middle line:84% MIT physicists, even Nobel Laureates, 00:45:23.220 --> 00:45:27.720 align:middle line:84% were at least sometimes in need of this untraditional patronage 00:45:27.720 --> 00:45:30.790 align:middle line:84% because the usual sources were really in short supply. 00:45:30.790 --> 00:45:31.290 align:middle line:90% OK. 00:45:31.290 --> 00:45:33.043 align:middle line:90% So it wasn't only Werner Erhard. 00:45:33.043 --> 00:45:34.710 align:middle line:84% The group, the Fundamental Fysiks Group, 00:45:34.710 --> 00:45:38.130 align:middle line:84% also got considerable support from another kind 00:45:38.130 --> 00:45:43.530 align:middle line:84% of California counterculture maven named Michael Murphy. 00:45:43.530 --> 00:45:45.870 align:middle line:84% Murphy, much like Werner Erhard, had 00:45:45.870 --> 00:45:49.410 align:middle line:84% been really enamored by quantum physics as a younger person. 00:45:49.410 --> 00:45:51.802 align:middle line:84% He actually studied physics briefly at Stanford 00:45:51.802 --> 00:45:53.010 align:middle line:90% before he switched his major. 00:45:53.010 --> 00:45:55.080 align:middle line:84% But he was really fascinated by this. 00:45:55.080 --> 00:45:57.660 align:middle line:84% And then soon after graduating, he 00:45:57.660 --> 00:45:59.850 align:middle line:84% founded this place called the Esalen Institute 00:45:59.850 --> 00:46:04.440 align:middle line:84% in Big Sur, California, down the coast about 150 miles South 00:46:04.440 --> 00:46:06.630 align:middle line:84% of San Francisco, nestled, as you 00:46:06.630 --> 00:46:09.900 align:middle line:84% can see, in this extraordinary location on the Pacific Coast. 00:46:09.900 --> 00:46:14.820 align:middle line:84% So Esalen became, over the '60s and '70s, ground zero 00:46:14.820 --> 00:46:17.040 align:middle line:84% for the hippie world, for the counterculture world. 00:46:17.040 --> 00:46:19.680 align:middle line:84% This is where people would go to talk about things 00:46:19.680 --> 00:46:23.340 align:middle line:84% like vegetarianism, which once seemed incredibly 00:46:23.340 --> 00:46:24.930 align:middle line:90% strange in the United States. 00:46:24.930 --> 00:46:26.520 align:middle line:84% It's where they would go to explore 00:46:26.520 --> 00:46:28.590 align:middle line:84% psychedelic drugs, both before and even a bit 00:46:28.590 --> 00:46:31.470 align:middle line:84% after they'd become illegal, where people would explore 00:46:31.470 --> 00:46:34.440 align:middle line:84% this newer set of ideas about human consciousness 00:46:34.440 --> 00:46:36.860 align:middle line:84% and human potential and, it turns out, 00:46:36.860 --> 00:46:39.330 align:middle line:84% where they would go to explore quantum entanglement. 00:46:39.330 --> 00:46:40.880 align:middle line:84% So as I mentioned, Murphy himself 00:46:40.880 --> 00:46:42.440 align:middle line:84% was fascinated by quantum physics. 00:46:42.440 --> 00:46:45.620 align:middle line:84% He invited this group, this Berkeley-based group, 00:46:45.620 --> 00:46:49.910 align:middle line:84% to come down and host a month long workshop underwritten 00:46:49.910 --> 00:46:51.440 align:middle line:90% entirely by Murphy-- 00:46:51.440 --> 00:46:53.930 align:middle line:84% host a month long workshop at Esalen 00:46:53.930 --> 00:46:56.780 align:middle line:84% for a bunch of their friends and colleagues. 00:46:56.780 --> 00:47:00.470 align:middle line:84% And then other people could pay a modest entrance fee 00:47:00.470 --> 00:47:05.930 align:middle line:84% to attend the workshop and have naked hot spring baths, 00:47:05.930 --> 00:47:07.200 align:middle line:90% massages, and all the rest. 00:47:07.200 --> 00:47:10.520 align:middle line:84% So they advertised this workshop that perhaps a new kind 00:47:10.520 --> 00:47:12.740 align:middle line:84% of inspired physicist experienced 00:47:12.740 --> 00:47:15.020 align:middle line:84% in the yogic modes of perception must 00:47:15.020 --> 00:47:17.630 align:middle line:84% emerge to comprehend the further reaches of matter, space, 00:47:17.630 --> 00:47:18.540 align:middle line:90% and time. 00:47:18.540 --> 00:47:20.570 align:middle line:84% And when it came to yogic modes of perception, 00:47:20.570 --> 00:47:22.100 align:middle line:90% Esalen had the market cornered. 00:47:22.100 --> 00:47:24.783 align:middle line:84% That's literally what they became known for. 00:47:24.783 --> 00:47:27.200 align:middle line:84% Some of you might have heard of the book The Dancing Wu Li 00:47:27.200 --> 00:47:27.710 align:middle line:90% Masters. 00:47:27.710 --> 00:47:29.780 align:middle line:84% It actually won the National Book Award-- 00:47:29.780 --> 00:47:31.610 align:middle line:84% excuse me, the American Book Award. 00:47:31.610 --> 00:47:35.430 align:middle line:84% It's sold something like 20 million copies worldwide, 00:47:35.430 --> 00:47:36.430 align:middle line:90% many, many translations. 00:47:36.430 --> 00:47:38.470 align:middle line:84% It became a publishing sensation. 00:47:38.470 --> 00:47:40.210 align:middle line:84% The author of the book, Gary Zuka, 00:47:40.210 --> 00:47:42.940 align:middle line:84% was, at the time, the roommate of Jack Sarfatti, one 00:47:42.940 --> 00:47:44.440 align:middle line:84% of those members I mentioned before, 00:47:44.440 --> 00:47:46.210 align:middle line:84% the one who'd been in that saffron robe. 00:47:46.210 --> 00:47:48.850 align:middle line:84% So Jack invited his friend Gary to come along. 00:47:48.850 --> 00:47:51.340 align:middle line:84% And the whole book is basically trying 00:47:51.340 --> 00:47:53.500 align:middle line:84% to capture the nature of these discussions 00:47:53.500 --> 00:47:57.370 align:middle line:84% at this month-long quantum physics workshop at Esalen 00:47:57.370 --> 00:47:58.720 align:middle line:90% in January of 1976. 00:47:58.720 --> 00:48:00.340 align:middle line:84% In fact, the very first chapter is 00:48:00.340 --> 00:48:03.970 align:middle line:84% called Big Thoughts in Big Sur, named for Big Sur, California. 00:48:03.970 --> 00:48:08.350 align:middle line:84% So you have this kind of broader circulation 00:48:08.350 --> 00:48:10.750 align:middle line:84% of some of these ideas well beyond the Pacific Coast 00:48:10.750 --> 00:48:12.040 align:middle line:90% itself. 00:48:12.040 --> 00:48:15.700 align:middle line:84% And in fact, much like those Erhard-funded workshops, 00:48:15.700 --> 00:48:17.350 align:middle line:90% there wasn't only a one-off. 00:48:17.350 --> 00:48:22.890 align:middle line:84% There were 13 years worth of annual, week-long sessions that 00:48:22.890 --> 00:48:25.330 align:middle line:84% were follows-up after the month-long one that 00:48:25.330 --> 00:48:28.000 align:middle line:84% became known as the Bell's Theorem Study Group held 00:48:28.000 --> 00:48:30.405 align:middle line:84% every year at Esalen with members 00:48:30.405 --> 00:48:31.780 align:middle line:84% of the Fundamental Physics Group, 00:48:31.780 --> 00:48:34.490 align:middle line:84% like Henry Stapp shown here coming down 00:48:34.490 --> 00:48:38.390 align:middle line:84% the coast for the week-long retreats every week. 00:48:38.390 --> 00:48:40.880 align:middle line:84% And in fact, it became the longest running-- 00:48:40.880 --> 00:48:44.030 align:middle line:84% longest running workshop in Esalen's history. 00:48:44.030 --> 00:48:49.790 align:middle line:84% So Esalen is known for hippie counterculture stuff-- 00:48:49.790 --> 00:48:52.640 align:middle line:84% psychedelics, nature consciousness, vegetarianism, 00:48:52.640 --> 00:48:54.380 align:middle line:84% Eastern mysticism and spiritualism. 00:48:54.380 --> 00:48:56.570 align:middle line:84% And yet, the longest running workshop, 00:48:56.570 --> 00:48:58.460 align:middle line:84% the longest continuously running workshop 00:48:58.460 --> 00:49:01.140 align:middle line:84% was actually on quantum entanglement. 00:49:01.140 --> 00:49:03.590 align:middle line:84% So you can see the group's getting funds and also 00:49:03.590 --> 00:49:05.630 align:middle line:84% something like a kind of institutional base 00:49:05.630 --> 00:49:08.520 align:middle line:84% from which to try to pursue their work. 00:49:08.520 --> 00:49:12.590 align:middle line:84% So how do you spread the word beyond just the hot spring 00:49:12.590 --> 00:49:16.040 align:middle line:84% baths or the conference room at the Berkeley Laboratory? 00:49:16.040 --> 00:49:18.300 align:middle line:84% That actually was not so straightforward. 00:49:18.300 --> 00:49:21.200 align:middle line:84% It turns out, at the time, the long-running editor 00:49:21.200 --> 00:49:24.350 align:middle line:84% of the Physical Review actually banned articles 00:49:24.350 --> 00:49:26.570 align:middle line:84% on the philosophy or interpretation 00:49:26.570 --> 00:49:27.860 align:middle line:90% of quantum mechanics. 00:49:27.860 --> 00:49:30.710 align:middle line:84% In fact, he even went so far as to draw up a special sheet 00:49:30.710 --> 00:49:32.800 align:middle line:90% of instructions for referees. 00:49:32.800 --> 00:49:35.300 align:middle line:84% And the instructions were, if this summation to the journal, 00:49:35.300 --> 00:49:37.100 align:middle line:84% to the mainstream research journal, 00:49:37.100 --> 00:49:40.040 align:middle line:84% looks like it's only on the so-called philosophy 00:49:40.040 --> 00:49:41.720 align:middle line:84% or interpretation of quantum theory, 00:49:41.720 --> 00:49:43.190 align:middle line:90% then don't bother reviewing it. 00:49:43.190 --> 00:49:44.093 align:middle line:90% Just check this box. 00:49:44.093 --> 00:49:45.510 align:middle line:84% And we'll automatically reject it. 00:49:45.510 --> 00:49:50.480 align:middle line:84% It was really a high barrier in the US journal scene. 00:49:50.480 --> 00:49:54.740 align:middle line:84% So high, in fact, that a number of follow-up articles by John 00:49:54.740 --> 00:49:57.500 align:middle line:84% Bell himself on Bell's theorem wound up 00:49:57.500 --> 00:50:00.420 align:middle line:84% appearing in these very strange out of the way places. 00:50:00.420 --> 00:50:02.960 align:middle line:84% So some of John Bell's own work was 00:50:02.960 --> 00:50:04.820 align:middle line:84% shunted out of the mainstream journals 00:50:04.820 --> 00:50:07.640 align:middle line:84% like the Physical Review and into these hand-typed 00:50:07.640 --> 00:50:10.910 align:middle line:84% mimeographed newsletters from, in this case, a little group 00:50:10.910 --> 00:50:14.870 align:middle line:84% in, I think, Geneva or somewhere in Switzerland 00:50:14.870 --> 00:50:18.870 align:middle line:84% and circulated as a kind of clubhouse newsletter. 00:50:18.870 --> 00:50:20.190 align:middle line:90% So it wasn't peer reviewed. 00:50:20.190 --> 00:50:21.620 align:middle line:90% It wasn't sent to libraries. 00:50:21.620 --> 00:50:24.350 align:middle line:84% It was basically you sent in a postcard saying, please send me 00:50:24.350 --> 00:50:26.240 align:middle line:90% the next month installment. 00:50:26.240 --> 00:50:28.700 align:middle line:84% And so this was a kind of underground newsletter 00:50:28.700 --> 00:50:30.560 align:middle line:90% called Epistemological Letters. 00:50:30.560 --> 00:50:32.990 align:middle line:84% And literally, some of the work that would later 00:50:32.990 --> 00:50:35.563 align:middle line:84% come to be recognized as remarkably 00:50:35.563 --> 00:50:36.980 align:middle line:84% important for understanding things 00:50:36.980 --> 00:50:39.020 align:middle line:84% like quantum entanglement, this follow-up work, 00:50:39.020 --> 00:50:42.170 align:middle line:84% was shunted into these non-traditional circulation 00:50:42.170 --> 00:50:43.130 align:middle line:90% mechanisms. 00:50:43.130 --> 00:50:45.770 align:middle line:84% Even more untraditional was the following. 00:50:45.770 --> 00:50:47.810 align:middle line:84% It became to be known as The Unicorn-- 00:50:47.810 --> 00:50:49.850 align:middle line:90% A Unicorn Preprint Service. 00:50:49.850 --> 00:50:53.060 align:middle line:84% The Unicorn was a little joke based on the last name 00:50:53.060 --> 00:50:54.830 align:middle line:90% of this gentleman, Ira Einhorn. 00:50:54.830 --> 00:50:57.050 align:middle line:84% So as you might know, in German, Einhorn 00:50:57.050 --> 00:50:59.630 align:middle line:90% means one horn, a unicorn. 00:50:59.630 --> 00:51:03.590 align:middle line:84% Einhorn had also been enamored of physics as a younger person. 00:51:03.590 --> 00:51:05.300 align:middle line:84% He actually briefly did a double-- 00:51:05.300 --> 00:51:08.487 align:middle line:84% he briefly pursued a double major in physics and English 00:51:08.487 --> 00:51:09.320 align:middle line:90% as an undergraduate. 00:51:09.320 --> 00:51:11.870 align:middle line:84% He dropped physics and just was an English major in the end. 00:51:11.870 --> 00:51:14.420 align:middle line:84% And then he got really swept up with some 00:51:14.420 --> 00:51:17.630 align:middle line:84% of these pretty big dramatic changes in the US 00:51:17.630 --> 00:51:18.620 align:middle line:90% by the late '60s. 00:51:18.620 --> 00:51:21.710 align:middle line:84% He became an anti-war activist and even something of a kind 00:51:21.710 --> 00:51:25.670 align:middle line:84% of anti-war, iconic leader, showing up 00:51:25.670 --> 00:51:28.070 align:middle line:84% at a lot of the famous protests with people like Abby 00:51:28.070 --> 00:51:29.510 align:middle line:90% Hoffman and Jerry Rubin. 00:51:29.510 --> 00:51:33.170 align:middle line:84% He actually helped to emcee the nation's first Earth Day 00:51:33.170 --> 00:51:36.470 align:middle line:84% Raleigh in his native Philadelphia in 1970. 00:51:36.470 --> 00:51:39.620 align:middle line:84% At around that same time, he became an unusual kind 00:51:39.620 --> 00:51:42.770 align:middle line:84% of management consultant to the Pennsylvania branch 00:51:42.770 --> 00:51:43.910 align:middle line:90% of Bell Telephone. 00:51:43.910 --> 00:51:46.850 align:middle line:84% So Bell Telephone executives, based in Philadelphia 00:51:46.850 --> 00:51:49.388 align:middle line:84% where Einhorn was from, were worried 00:51:49.388 --> 00:51:50.930 align:middle line:84% that they were kind of falling behind 00:51:50.930 --> 00:51:53.660 align:middle line:84% with what the youth culture was all about, which 00:51:53.660 --> 00:51:54.950 align:middle line:90% was almost certainly correct. 00:51:54.950 --> 00:51:59.780 align:middle line:84% So a bunch of the executive types in Pennsylvania Bell 00:51:59.780 --> 00:52:02.390 align:middle line:84% wanted to get a sense for what the young people 00:52:02.390 --> 00:52:04.850 align:middle line:84% of the day, the hippie counterculture scene, 00:52:04.850 --> 00:52:05.640 align:middle line:90% was all about. 00:52:05.640 --> 00:52:08.360 align:middle line:84% So they hired Einhorn, who at this point 00:52:08.360 --> 00:52:10.340 align:middle line:84% had become really well-known in Philadelphia, 00:52:10.340 --> 00:52:13.850 align:middle line:84% to come and be their channel to what the youth of the day 00:52:13.850 --> 00:52:15.260 align:middle line:90% were into. 00:52:15.260 --> 00:52:18.480 align:middle line:84% Einhorn refused any traditional payment. 00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:21.800 align:middle line:84% But instead of being paid in cash for his consulting 00:52:21.800 --> 00:52:25.220 align:middle line:84% services, he made a deal with the executives at Pennsylvania 00:52:25.220 --> 00:52:27.830 align:middle line:84% Bell that he would send to them regularly-- 00:52:27.830 --> 00:52:30.680 align:middle line:84% sometimes once a week, sometimes every two weeks-- 00:52:30.680 --> 00:52:33.830 align:middle line:84% a big stack of materials-- newspapers clippings, 00:52:33.830 --> 00:52:36.990 align:middle line:84% unpublished physics preprints, just a mash of stuff. 00:52:36.990 --> 00:52:39.240 align:middle line:84% This is, remember, well before the internet. 00:52:39.240 --> 00:52:41.750 align:middle line:84% And so the executives at Bell would 00:52:41.750 --> 00:52:44.150 align:middle line:84% have their administrative assistants Xerox 00:52:44.150 --> 00:52:47.840 align:middle line:84% for free all these things, make 300 copies of these packets, 00:52:47.840 --> 00:52:49.880 align:middle line:84% and then pay the postage to mail it 00:52:49.880 --> 00:52:53.990 align:middle line:84% to 300 hand-picked recipients on Einhorn's list. 00:52:53.990 --> 00:52:57.350 align:middle line:84% And the recipients were really international, some of them 00:52:57.350 --> 00:53:01.190 align:middle line:84% even behind the so-called Iron Curtain in the Soviet Union 00:53:01.190 --> 00:53:05.000 align:middle line:84% or at least Soviet-aligned countries in Eastern Europe. 00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:06.920 align:middle line:84% It was also, even within the United States, 00:53:06.920 --> 00:53:10.010 align:middle line:84% a mixture of people that included renowned physicists 00:53:10.010 --> 00:53:12.410 align:middle line:84% like Freeman Dyson and John Wheeler, 00:53:12.410 --> 00:53:15.050 align:middle line:84% Gerald Feinberg, at the time, was the physics department head 00:53:15.050 --> 00:53:16.280 align:middle line:90% at Columbia University. 00:53:16.280 --> 00:53:20.420 align:middle line:84% So these really very prestigious physicists 00:53:20.420 --> 00:53:23.910 align:middle line:84% in the US and abroad, as well as people 00:53:23.910 --> 00:53:28.130 align:middle line:84% like the handler of Uri Geller, Andrija Puharich, 00:53:28.130 --> 00:53:30.920 align:middle line:84% other people who were well-known at the same time for being 00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:33.980 align:middle line:84% really into the ESP parapsychology scene. 00:53:33.980 --> 00:53:36.320 align:middle line:84% Here's Nick Herbert, remember, of the Fundamental Fysiks 00:53:36.320 --> 00:53:36.820 align:middle line:90% group. 00:53:36.820 --> 00:53:39.640 align:middle line:84% So Einhorn would concatenate, would collect stuff 00:53:39.640 --> 00:53:41.915 align:middle line:84% that he thought these 300 people just had to have, 00:53:41.915 --> 00:53:44.040 align:middle line:84% things that he thought were especially interesting. 00:53:44.040 --> 00:53:46.890 align:middle line:84% And it was usually about quantum theory and the nature 00:53:46.890 --> 00:53:47.800 align:middle line:90% of consciousness. 00:53:47.800 --> 00:53:51.720 align:middle line:84% And so he was really instrumental in circulating 00:53:51.720 --> 00:53:55.278 align:middle line:84% unpublished or barely published versions of these latest 00:53:55.278 --> 00:53:57.570 align:middle line:84% physics investigations by the Fundamental Fysiks Group, 00:53:57.570 --> 00:54:00.000 align:middle line:84% including, for example, this preprint by Jack Sarfatti 00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.200 align:middle line:84% and Fred Alan Wolf that was sent to Ira and then 00:54:04.200 --> 00:54:06.205 align:middle line:84% from Ira sent, thanks to Bell Telephone, 00:54:06.205 --> 00:54:07.330 align:middle line:90% literally around the world. 00:54:07.330 --> 00:54:10.470 align:middle line:84% So they're doing an end run around the ordinary peer review 00:54:10.470 --> 00:54:12.550 align:middle line:84% journals, like the Physical Review. 00:54:12.550 --> 00:54:15.940 align:middle line:84% This worked really, really effectively until the very end 00:54:15.940 --> 00:54:17.540 align:middle line:90% of 1979. 00:54:17.540 --> 00:54:19.240 align:middle line:84% He was doing this for about a decade. 00:54:19.240 --> 00:54:23.050 align:middle line:84% What happened in 1979 is that while Einhorn was actually 00:54:23.050 --> 00:54:29.050 align:middle line:84% at Harvard as a short-term invited scholar at Harvard, 00:54:29.050 --> 00:54:32.530 align:middle line:84% at I think the Kennedy School, to talk about leadership, 00:54:32.530 --> 00:54:35.950 align:middle line:84% the rotting remains of his, it turns out, 00:54:35.950 --> 00:54:38.960 align:middle line:84% murdered girlfriend were found in a trunk in his apartment. 00:54:38.960 --> 00:54:44.590 align:middle line:84% He was suspected of having been foul play when his girlfriend 00:54:44.590 --> 00:54:46.120 align:middle line:90% Holly Maddux disappeared. 00:54:46.120 --> 00:54:49.450 align:middle line:84% And yet, Einhorn, this peace-loving hippie favorite 00:54:49.450 --> 00:54:52.420 align:middle line:84% person of Philadelphia, was never seriously investigated 00:54:52.420 --> 00:54:55.600 align:middle line:84% for 18 months until finally retired 00:54:55.600 --> 00:54:59.220 align:middle line:84% FBI agent hired by Holly's family 00:54:59.220 --> 00:55:03.750 align:middle line:84% followed the clues that indeed led investigators to Holly. 00:55:03.750 --> 00:55:05.230 align:middle line:90% Einhorn was charged with murder. 00:55:05.230 --> 00:55:05.970 align:middle line:90% He was eventually convicted. 00:55:05.970 --> 00:55:06.970 align:middle line:90% It's a whole long story. 00:55:06.970 --> 00:55:09.430 align:middle line:84% Anyway, as you can imagine, as soon as he was charged, 00:55:09.430 --> 00:55:13.260 align:middle line:84% the Bell Telephone folks stopped their circulation service. 00:55:13.260 --> 00:55:16.440 align:middle line:84% So this Einhorn Unicorn Preprint Service 00:55:16.440 --> 00:55:19.710 align:middle line:84% worked remarkably effectively for nearly 10 years, 00:55:19.710 --> 00:55:22.680 align:middle line:84% until it stopped one day with no warning 00:55:22.680 --> 00:55:25.860 align:middle line:84% when the situation had changed so dramatically. 00:55:25.860 --> 00:55:27.930 align:middle line:84% Long before the arrest, long before Holly Maddux 00:55:27.930 --> 00:55:31.110 align:middle line:84% had disappeared, Einhorn had had a second career 00:55:31.110 --> 00:55:33.672 align:middle line:90% as a free-form literary agent. 00:55:33.672 --> 00:55:35.880 align:middle line:84% He was actually connecting some of these new authors, 00:55:35.880 --> 00:55:37.650 align:middle line:84% many from the Fundamental Fysiks Group, 00:55:37.650 --> 00:55:41.400 align:middle line:84% to big commercial publishing houses in New York City, which, 00:55:41.400 --> 00:55:44.040 align:middle line:84% again, were really eager to tap into this youth hippie 00:55:44.040 --> 00:55:45.520 align:middle line:90% counterculture market. 00:55:45.520 --> 00:55:49.680 align:middle line:84% And so a second way that the group got their word out, 00:55:49.680 --> 00:55:51.720 align:middle line:84% rather than publishing in the Physical Review, 00:55:51.720 --> 00:55:55.620 align:middle line:84% was actually in some genuinely commercially successful, very 00:55:55.620 --> 00:55:58.757 align:middle line:84% widely circulating popular books, books like The Dancing 00:55:58.757 --> 00:56:00.590 align:middle line:84% Wu Li masters that I mentioned and, in fact, 00:56:00.590 --> 00:56:03.820 align:middle line:84% a number of related or knockoff books, some of which 00:56:03.820 --> 00:56:06.340 align:middle line:84% became really quite well known in their day, many of which 00:56:06.340 --> 00:56:08.770 align:middle line:84% were kind of shepherded into print thanks 00:56:08.770 --> 00:56:12.150 align:middle line:90% to Einhorn and his connections. 00:56:12.150 --> 00:56:14.240 align:middle line:84% So one of the books that came out of that 00:56:14.240 --> 00:56:15.980 align:middle line:84% was the topic of the other reading 00:56:15.980 --> 00:56:19.370 align:middle line:84% you had for today, my short little piece on Fritjof Copra's 00:56:19.370 --> 00:56:20.840 align:middle line:90% book, The Tao of Physics. 00:56:20.840 --> 00:56:22.400 align:middle line:84% Copra was, again, one of the founding 00:56:22.400 --> 00:56:24.410 align:middle line:84% members of this Fundamental Fysiks Group. 00:56:24.410 --> 00:56:27.920 align:middle line:84% He was originally from Vienna, as you read, but had come over 00:56:27.920 --> 00:56:31.580 align:middle line:84% to California as a postdoc, and then went back 00:56:31.580 --> 00:56:33.390 align:middle line:84% to London when his visa expired and so on. 00:56:33.390 --> 00:56:34.550 align:middle line:90% But he stayed in touch. 00:56:34.550 --> 00:56:37.140 align:middle line:84% He came back, once again, to California after that. 00:56:37.140 --> 00:56:40.010 align:middle line:84% So he wrote this book originally to try to write 00:56:40.010 --> 00:56:41.930 align:middle line:90% a textbook on modern physics. 00:56:41.930 --> 00:56:45.860 align:middle line:84% He thought this would help him get an academic teaching 00:56:45.860 --> 00:56:48.950 align:middle line:84% job, which is the kind of position he'd been longing for. 00:56:48.950 --> 00:56:51.830 align:middle line:84% He was sharing drafts of particular chapters 00:56:51.830 --> 00:56:55.670 align:middle line:84% with renowned physicists like Vicki Weisskopf and John 00:56:55.670 --> 00:56:58.310 align:middle line:84% Wheeler and getting advice how to sharpen his discussions 00:56:58.310 --> 00:57:02.330 align:middle line:84% and so on, and then finally was told that you're not 00:57:02.330 --> 00:57:03.960 align:middle line:90% going to get a job. 00:57:03.960 --> 00:57:05.960 align:middle line:84% You're not going to get rich to support yourself 00:57:05.960 --> 00:57:07.460 align:middle line:90% on the royalties of a textbook. 00:57:07.460 --> 00:57:09.350 align:middle line:84% Why don't you combine these two interests 00:57:09.350 --> 00:57:11.760 align:middle line:84% that he'd been otherwise enamored 00:57:11.760 --> 00:57:15.280 align:middle line:84% of, modern physics and Eastern spirituality? 00:57:15.280 --> 00:57:17.520 align:middle line:84% And so he rewrote the drafts to become 00:57:17.520 --> 00:57:19.410 align:middle line:84% what became known as The Tao of Physics, 00:57:19.410 --> 00:57:22.110 align:middle line:84% became an international bestseller. 00:57:22.110 --> 00:57:24.210 align:middle line:84% Now, it turns out this book was not 00:57:24.210 --> 00:57:29.070 align:middle line:84% only popular with the new age counterculture set. 00:57:29.070 --> 00:57:33.060 align:middle line:84% It got really quite warm and enthusiastic reviews in places 00:57:33.060 --> 00:57:34.770 align:middle line:90% like Physics Today. 00:57:34.770 --> 00:57:36.540 align:middle line:84% A reviewer, a Cornell astrophysicist, 00:57:36.540 --> 00:57:38.790 align:middle line:84% reviewed the book for Physics Today and said, 00:57:38.790 --> 00:57:40.230 align:middle line:90% the physics is basically right. 00:57:40.230 --> 00:57:42.720 align:middle line:84% After all, Copra had done a PhD, and two postdocs, 00:57:42.720 --> 00:57:46.620 align:middle line:84% and had really, really senior physicists reading over drafts. 00:57:46.620 --> 00:57:48.960 align:middle line:84% It was reasonable, accessible discussion 00:57:48.960 --> 00:57:51.030 align:middle line:84% of things like the uncertainty principle. 00:57:51.030 --> 00:57:53.190 align:middle line:84% Moreover, the reviewer emphasized, 00:57:53.190 --> 00:57:54.990 align:middle line:84% it couches this physics in, quote, 00:57:54.990 --> 00:57:57.660 align:middle line:84% "the immediate feeling-oriented vision of the Mystics 00:57:57.660 --> 00:57:59.820 align:middle line:84% so attractive to many of our best students." 00:57:59.820 --> 00:58:03.210 align:middle line:84% Again, this was a time when the enrollments had crashed, 00:58:03.210 --> 00:58:06.180 align:middle line:84% when physics classrooms were emptying out 00:58:06.180 --> 00:58:07.870 align:middle line:90% faster than any other field. 00:58:07.870 --> 00:58:10.980 align:middle line:84% And this was seen as a vehicle to try 00:58:10.980 --> 00:58:13.280 align:middle line:84% to recapture the invagination of some 00:58:13.280 --> 00:58:15.623 align:middle line:84% of the disaffected young college students who 00:58:15.623 --> 00:58:17.540 align:middle line:84% were no longer flocking to physics classrooms. 00:58:17.540 --> 00:58:21.170 align:middle line:84% It was seen as reasonable in the physics and a great kind of PR 00:58:21.170 --> 00:58:23.490 align:middle line:90% tool if nothing else. 00:58:23.490 --> 00:58:25.760 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, there broke out almost 00:58:25.760 --> 00:58:29.270 align:middle line:84% like a Cold War competition in another very prominent journal, 00:58:29.270 --> 00:58:31.980 align:middle line:84% the American Journal of Physics, which, as you probably know, 00:58:31.980 --> 00:58:32.720 align:middle line:90% is devoted-- 00:58:32.720 --> 00:58:34.730 align:middle line:84% has been devoted since its founding 00:58:34.730 --> 00:58:36.540 align:middle line:84% to improving the teaching of physics. 00:58:36.540 --> 00:58:38.900 align:middle line:84% So it's not really a research journal, per se. 00:58:38.900 --> 00:58:42.230 align:middle line:84% But it's research on how to improve the teaching of physics 00:58:42.230 --> 00:58:45.170 align:middle line:84% from high school level through undergraduate and beyond. 00:58:45.170 --> 00:58:48.090 align:middle line:90% 00:58:48.090 --> 00:58:51.320 align:middle line:84% And so you can trace through, in the pages of the American 00:58:51.320 --> 00:58:56.420 align:middle line:84% Journal of Physics, again this kind of playful gamesmanship 00:58:56.420 --> 00:58:58.520 align:middle line:84% not whether physicists should use books 00:58:58.520 --> 00:59:01.280 align:middle line:84% like The Tao of Physics in their classrooms, but how best to. 00:59:01.280 --> 00:59:03.620 align:middle line:84% They all agreed you should because it 00:59:03.620 --> 00:59:05.960 align:middle line:84% was pretty clear on the physics and also seemed 00:59:05.960 --> 00:59:09.240 align:middle line:84% to have this special appeal to the youth culture of the day. 00:59:09.240 --> 00:59:11.810 align:middle line:84% And so you have these dueling lesson plans 00:59:11.810 --> 00:59:14.120 align:middle line:84% and whole semester-long courses being 00:59:14.120 --> 00:59:17.210 align:middle line:84% paraded through the American Journal of Physics 00:59:17.210 --> 00:59:20.120 align:middle line:84% because it looked like this book was too good to pass up. 00:59:20.120 --> 00:59:22.130 align:middle line:84% And it turns out other books by members 00:59:22.130 --> 00:59:24.770 align:middle line:84% of the Fundamental Fysiks Group played a similar role 00:59:24.770 --> 00:59:25.560 align:middle line:90% a few years later. 00:59:25.560 --> 00:59:28.610 align:middle line:84% They were published a little bit downstream from Capra's book. 00:59:28.610 --> 00:59:32.540 align:middle line:84% And they also were picked up as quasi-textbooks, as well as 00:59:32.540 --> 00:59:35.210 align:middle line:90% often best selling paperbacks. 00:59:35.210 --> 00:59:36.590 align:middle line:90% Let me pause there. 00:59:36.590 --> 00:59:39.920 align:middle line:84% So that unit was really on this question about institutions, 00:59:39.920 --> 00:59:41.510 align:middle line:84% funding, how do you get the word out, 00:59:41.510 --> 00:59:44.300 align:middle line:84% how do you get a stable platform on which 00:59:44.300 --> 00:59:49.070 align:middle line:84% to pursue this work if the folks were not going to be pursuing 00:59:49.070 --> 00:59:51.470 align:middle line:90% university-type careers. 00:59:51.470 --> 00:59:52.520 align:middle line:90% Any questions on that? 00:59:52.520 --> 00:59:56.390 align:middle line:90% 00:59:56.390 --> 01:00:00.050 align:middle line:84% Einhorn was often credited, even while he was in jail, 01:00:00.050 --> 01:00:02.127 align:middle line:84% with having invented the idea of the internet 01:00:02.127 --> 01:00:02.960 align:middle line:90% before the internet. 01:00:02.960 --> 01:00:04.850 align:middle line:84% You can see this preprint service was 01:00:04.850 --> 01:00:07.880 align:middle line:84% like a kind of-- not quite Reddit, but some kind 01:00:07.880 --> 01:00:10.340 align:middle line:84% of likeminded group, where you go there 01:00:10.340 --> 01:00:12.230 align:middle line:84% and find out an eclectic group of people 01:00:12.230 --> 01:00:14.005 align:middle line:84% from all over the world who might 01:00:14.005 --> 01:00:16.130 align:middle line:84% share some niche interests that can find each other 01:00:16.130 --> 01:00:16.940 align:middle line:90% and communicate. 01:00:16.940 --> 01:00:19.790 align:middle line:84% And that's the kind of connectivity model 01:00:19.790 --> 01:00:23.490 align:middle line:84% that Einhorn was trying to build with Xerox machines and postage 01:00:23.490 --> 01:00:23.990 align:middle line:90% stamps. 01:00:23.990 --> 01:00:26.420 align:middle line:84% It was technologically quite old school. 01:00:26.420 --> 01:00:29.330 align:middle line:84% But the notion of trying to get niche communities 01:00:29.330 --> 01:00:31.668 align:middle line:84% to be able to communicate that was maybe 01:00:31.668 --> 01:00:32.960 align:middle line:90% a little bit ahead of its time. 01:00:32.960 --> 01:00:38.810 align:middle line:90% 01:00:38.810 --> 01:00:39.730 align:middle line:90% Any questions on that? 01:00:39.730 --> 01:00:41.710 align:middle line:90% You're stunned into silence? 01:00:41.710 --> 01:00:44.380 align:middle line:90% That's OK. 01:00:44.380 --> 01:00:46.060 align:middle line:84% Is it worth reading some of these books? 01:00:46.060 --> 01:00:46.950 align:middle line:90% That's a good question. 01:00:46.950 --> 01:00:47.908 align:middle line:90% Let me put it this way. 01:00:47.908 --> 01:00:50.690 align:middle line:84% When I was a grad student at Harvard some many, 01:00:50.690 --> 01:00:54.760 align:middle line:84% many years ago, I was a teaching assistant for a physics course. 01:00:54.760 --> 01:00:56.710 align:middle line:84% And we still listed Nick Herbert's book, 01:00:56.710 --> 01:01:00.160 align:middle line:84% Quantum Reality, on the syllabus as a worthwhile supplemental 01:01:00.160 --> 01:01:01.090 align:middle line:90% reading. 01:01:01.090 --> 01:01:04.060 align:middle line:84% And I still think it's a good book, Nick's book. 01:01:04.060 --> 01:01:05.560 align:middle line:84% I personally read The Tau of Physics 01:01:05.560 --> 01:01:06.602 align:middle line:90% as a high school student. 01:01:06.602 --> 01:01:08.620 align:middle line:84% It was still widely in circulation. 01:01:08.620 --> 01:01:11.290 align:middle line:84% And I just stumbled on it, like in a used bookstore. 01:01:11.290 --> 01:01:16.390 align:middle line:84% And my personal assessment is that I found the physics parts 01:01:16.390 --> 01:01:19.570 align:middle line:84% really well-described and really fun for me 01:01:19.570 --> 01:01:21.430 align:middle line:84% as a high school kid who was taking physics 01:01:21.430 --> 01:01:24.460 align:middle line:90% but not yet in college. 01:01:24.460 --> 01:01:27.327 align:middle line:84% And the descriptions of Eastern kind of spiritualism 01:01:27.327 --> 01:01:28.660 align:middle line:90% just didn't really do it for me. 01:01:28.660 --> 01:01:31.900 align:middle line:90% But that was just me. 01:01:31.900 --> 01:01:35.380 align:middle line:84% Those books, I think, were more careful with the physics 01:01:35.380 --> 01:01:37.690 align:middle line:84% than others like The Dancing Wu Li Masters, which 01:01:37.690 --> 01:01:41.470 align:middle line:84% I will say without hesitation is not very good on the physics. 01:01:41.470 --> 01:01:44.350 align:middle line:84% The author had no training in physics himself. 01:01:44.350 --> 01:01:47.710 align:middle line:84% And it was rushed into print and sold more copies than many 01:01:47.710 --> 01:01:48.890 align:middle line:90% of the others put together. 01:01:48.890 --> 01:01:50.830 align:middle line:84% So not all these books are worth reading. 01:01:50.830 --> 01:01:52.930 align:middle line:84% I mean, maybe I should make that clear. 01:01:52.930 --> 01:01:57.370 align:middle line:84% But I think that Nick's book reflects the earnest efforts 01:01:57.370 --> 01:02:00.370 align:middle line:84% to make sense of these strange quantum entanglement phenomena. 01:02:00.370 --> 01:02:02.920 align:middle line:84% And it's a popular book with no equations. 01:02:02.920 --> 01:02:08.290 align:middle line:84% But it's a well-received example of the genre. 01:02:08.290 --> 01:02:11.500 align:middle line:84% And The Tau of Physics, for me, runs hot and cold. 01:02:11.500 --> 01:02:14.740 align:middle line:84% But that's because it's doing two different missions at once, 01:02:14.740 --> 01:02:17.560 align:middle line:84% whereas Nick Herbert's book is maybe a more straightforward 01:02:17.560 --> 01:02:18.580 align:middle line:90% physics popularization. 01:02:18.580 --> 01:02:20.913 align:middle line:84% It's like, let me try to explain some cool physics ideas 01:02:20.913 --> 01:02:22.930 align:middle line:90% and just march forward. 01:02:22.930 --> 01:02:25.858 align:middle line:84% And I think other books that maybe do that better 01:02:25.858 --> 01:02:26.900 align:middle line:90% have come out since then. 01:02:26.900 --> 01:02:28.810 align:middle line:84% But that book came out in like 1985. 01:02:28.810 --> 01:02:30.890 align:middle line:84% It was pretty early in the genre. 01:02:30.890 --> 01:02:35.500 align:middle line:84% And I think it was a pretty admirable job in its time. 01:02:35.500 --> 01:02:36.790 align:middle line:90% And again, it's not just me. 01:02:36.790 --> 01:02:39.058 align:middle line:84% I remember there were books, physics textbooks, 01:02:39.058 --> 01:02:40.600 align:middle line:84% aimed at both undergraduates and even 01:02:40.600 --> 01:02:42.970 align:middle line:84% graduate level textbooks on quantum mechanics 01:02:42.970 --> 01:02:45.170 align:middle line:84% before topics like Bell's inequality 01:02:45.170 --> 01:02:47.600 align:middle line:84% had really percolated into the mainstream textbooks. 01:02:47.600 --> 01:02:50.420 align:middle line:84% It was a long delay until they entered the main textbooks 01:02:50.420 --> 01:02:51.440 align:middle line:90% in the '90s. 01:02:51.440 --> 01:02:55.730 align:middle line:84% So in the '80s, one could still find published textbooks 01:02:55.730 --> 01:02:58.760 align:middle line:84% recommending both Nick Herbert's book and some 01:02:58.760 --> 01:03:02.960 align:middle line:84% of them recommending the physics as helpful supplemental 01:03:02.960 --> 01:03:04.520 align:middle line:90% reading. 01:03:04.520 --> 01:03:06.300 align:middle line:84% So you don't have to take my word for it. 01:03:06.300 --> 01:03:07.550 align:middle line:90% We all have our tastes. 01:03:07.550 --> 01:03:09.500 align:middle line:90% And they can rightly vary. 01:03:09.500 --> 01:03:13.400 align:middle line:84% But these were seen as serious enough to be helpful 01:03:13.400 --> 01:03:13.925 align:middle line:90% supplements. 01:03:13.925 --> 01:03:15.050 align:middle line:90% And I think that's a fair-- 01:03:15.050 --> 01:03:16.425 align:middle line:84% I think that's a fair assessment. 01:03:16.425 --> 01:03:19.370 align:middle line:84% They really were showing up on syllabi and in textbooks really 01:03:19.370 --> 01:03:23.460 align:middle line:84% across the US and Canada for a long time. 01:03:23.460 --> 01:03:25.380 align:middle line:84% I think there are some better books out now. 01:03:25.380 --> 01:03:27.570 align:middle line:84% But that's true of any popular science topic. 01:03:27.570 --> 01:03:30.630 align:middle line:84% I mean, a lot's changed since the '70s and '80s. 01:03:30.630 --> 01:03:36.540 align:middle line:84% But in their day, I think they were quite reasonable, careful 01:03:36.540 --> 01:03:37.200 align:middle line:90% descriptions. 01:03:37.200 --> 01:03:39.190 align:middle line:90% So Alex says, like what books? 01:03:39.190 --> 01:03:41.503 align:middle line:84% So I mean, maybe I'll talk more about that later. 01:03:41.503 --> 01:03:43.170 align:middle line:84% I have my own personal set of favorites. 01:03:43.170 --> 01:03:46.950 align:middle line:84% And a bunch of my friends have written them by now. 01:03:46.950 --> 01:03:49.710 align:middle line:84% But I think, as I say, for the earlier period 01:03:49.710 --> 01:03:52.602 align:middle line:84% when this was not yet such a common thing 01:03:52.602 --> 01:03:54.060 align:middle line:84% for other scientists to do, I think 01:03:54.060 --> 01:03:58.403 align:middle line:84% these were quite successful and respectable efforts. 01:03:58.403 --> 01:03:59.070 align:middle line:90% Let me press on. 01:03:59.070 --> 01:04:02.320 align:middle line:84% I've got one more section here for today's class. 01:04:02.320 --> 01:04:06.270 align:middle line:84% And then I'd be glad to come back for more chatting here. 01:04:06.270 --> 01:04:08.430 align:middle line:84% Let's look briefly at that third part 01:04:08.430 --> 01:04:10.830 align:middle line:84% for today, which is why am I telling you 01:04:10.830 --> 01:04:12.150 align:middle line:90% about all this crazy stuff. 01:04:12.150 --> 01:04:15.630 align:middle line:84% Why on Earth are we hearing about this Fundamental Fysiks 01:04:15.630 --> 01:04:16.320 align:middle line:90% Group today? 01:04:16.320 --> 01:04:18.480 align:middle line:84% And that's because, again, what I stumbled on 01:04:18.480 --> 01:04:20.190 align:middle line:84% without knowing about it ahead of time 01:04:20.190 --> 01:04:22.880 align:middle line:84% was some pretty surprising connections, 01:04:22.880 --> 01:04:24.730 align:middle line:84% one might even say entanglements, 01:04:24.730 --> 01:04:29.320 align:middle line:84% between this very strange Wu Li tie-dyed counterculture scene 01:04:29.320 --> 01:04:32.800 align:middle line:84% and some recent developments like quantum cryptography 01:04:32.800 --> 01:04:35.560 align:middle line:84% today, which is now really, really considered 01:04:35.560 --> 01:04:37.150 align:middle line:90% pretty serious stuff. 01:04:37.150 --> 01:04:40.300 align:middle line:84% So what were some of the ideas and legacies 01:04:40.300 --> 01:04:43.370 align:middle line:84% that this group helped really nurse and put forward? 01:04:43.370 --> 01:04:45.910 align:middle line:84% As I mentioned, they were totally obsessed or fascinated 01:04:45.910 --> 01:04:47.110 align:middle line:90% by quantum entanglement. 01:04:47.110 --> 01:04:48.700 align:middle line:84% And they really wanted to push on it. 01:04:48.700 --> 01:04:50.620 align:middle line:84% One of the things they wanted to do was see, 01:04:50.620 --> 01:04:52.750 align:middle line:84% could you use quantum entanglement 01:04:52.750 --> 01:04:54.460 align:middle line:90% to basically break relativity? 01:04:54.460 --> 01:04:55.810 align:middle line:90% Are they headed for a showdown? 01:04:55.810 --> 01:04:58.240 align:middle line:84% Which is a pretty significant question to ask. 01:04:58.240 --> 01:05:00.550 align:middle line:84% These are the two main pillars of modern physics. 01:05:00.550 --> 01:05:03.280 align:middle line:84% And it looks, on the face of it, like they're not compatible. 01:05:03.280 --> 01:05:04.900 align:middle line:84% That's what upset Einstein so much. 01:05:04.900 --> 01:05:07.480 align:middle line:84% That's what Einstein called it spooky action at a distance 01:05:07.480 --> 01:05:10.063 align:middle line:84% because Einstein was convinced that anything like entanglement 01:05:10.063 --> 01:05:12.550 align:middle line:84% seemed to violate a kind of local causes 01:05:12.550 --> 01:05:14.560 align:middle line:90% yield only local effects. 01:05:14.560 --> 01:05:17.092 align:middle line:84% And that question with the same kind of intellectual stakes 01:05:17.092 --> 01:05:19.300 align:middle line:84% really drove a lot of this Fundamental Fysiks Group's 01:05:19.300 --> 01:05:20.660 align:middle line:90% discussions as well. 01:05:20.660 --> 01:05:23.230 align:middle line:84% So one very clever idea came from Jack Sarfatti, 01:05:23.230 --> 01:05:25.870 align:middle line:84% that same guy from the saffron robes. 01:05:25.870 --> 01:05:30.430 align:middle line:84% He actually filed for a patent disclosure, the first step 01:05:30.430 --> 01:05:32.190 align:middle line:84% toward trying to retain a patent-- 01:05:32.190 --> 01:05:33.565 align:middle line:84% and again, you can see he sent it 01:05:33.565 --> 01:05:35.530 align:middle line:84% to Ira Einhorn, which is partly why it wound up 01:05:35.530 --> 01:05:38.800 align:middle line:84% in the archival collections of many physicists 01:05:38.800 --> 01:05:40.540 align:middle line:90% back in the spring of '78. 01:05:40.540 --> 01:05:43.390 align:middle line:84% The idea was to use the exact same source of entangled 01:05:43.390 --> 01:05:45.970 align:middle line:84% photons that his fellow Fundamental Fysiks Group 01:05:45.970 --> 01:05:51.400 align:middle line:84% member, John Clauser, had literally been using 01:05:51.400 --> 01:05:53.420 align:middle line:84% in the laboratory, using the exact same source-- 01:05:53.420 --> 01:05:55.780 align:middle line:84% they were getting tours of John's lab at the time-- 01:05:55.780 --> 01:05:58.780 align:middle line:84% a certain down conversion in excited calcium atoms. 01:05:58.780 --> 01:06:01.180 align:middle line:84% You emit these entangled photons, 01:06:01.180 --> 01:06:03.460 align:middle line:84% send them both towards double slits. 01:06:03.460 --> 01:06:06.700 align:middle line:84% So now, we get to think about the double slit experiment, as 01:06:06.700 --> 01:06:09.040 align:middle line:84% well as collecting screens in the back, 01:06:09.040 --> 01:06:12.250 align:middle line:84% and have this variable efficiency slit detector. 01:06:12.250 --> 01:06:15.460 align:middle line:90% That's pretty clever actually. 01:06:15.460 --> 01:06:17.110 align:middle line:84% You'd have a kind of potentiometer 01:06:17.110 --> 01:06:18.850 align:middle line:84% on here, a little dial, where you 01:06:18.850 --> 01:06:22.150 align:middle line:84% could tune this to either always determine exactly 01:06:22.150 --> 01:06:24.770 align:middle line:84% which slit a given photon went through or never 01:06:24.770 --> 01:06:27.170 align:middle line:84% and have a continuous range in between. 01:06:27.170 --> 01:06:30.137 align:middle line:84% So you could adjust the accuracy with which this slit 01:06:30.137 --> 01:06:31.720 align:middle line:84% detector could determine through which 01:06:31.720 --> 01:06:34.030 align:middle line:90% slit a given photon passed. 01:06:34.030 --> 01:06:37.420 align:middle line:84% So you have a varying sharpness of the resulting interference 01:06:37.420 --> 01:06:38.230 align:middle line:90% pattern. 01:06:38.230 --> 01:06:40.210 align:middle line:84% This goes back to that wave particle duality 01:06:40.210 --> 01:06:42.250 align:middle line:84% we looked at in class some time ago. 01:06:42.250 --> 01:06:45.520 align:middle line:84% The idea was then the varying interference pattern here, 01:06:45.520 --> 01:06:48.790 align:middle line:84% as you tune up or down the sharpness with which you 01:06:48.790 --> 01:06:52.000 align:middle line:84% can tell which slit information, that, Jack argued, 01:06:52.000 --> 01:06:54.430 align:middle line:84% should then be instantaneously correlated 01:06:54.430 --> 01:06:58.330 align:middle line:84% with a varying sharpness of an interference pattern over here. 01:06:58.330 --> 01:07:00.190 align:middle line:84% Then he says, hook it up to a speaker. 01:07:00.190 --> 01:07:04.120 align:middle line:84% So now, you could basically be encoding like voice messages 01:07:04.120 --> 01:07:06.370 align:middle line:84% instantaneously across arbitrary distance. 01:07:06.370 --> 01:07:08.710 align:middle line:84% That can be pretty handy to be able to do. 01:07:08.710 --> 01:07:12.100 align:middle line:84% So you harness the variable sharpness of an interference 01:07:12.100 --> 01:07:13.960 align:middle line:84% pattern from double slit, and then 01:07:13.960 --> 01:07:15.940 align:middle line:84% harness the instantaneous connectedness 01:07:15.940 --> 01:07:17.140 align:middle line:90% from quantum entanglement. 01:07:17.140 --> 01:07:20.110 align:middle line:84% And now, you should be able to send varying interference 01:07:20.110 --> 01:07:22.690 align:middle line:84% patterns instantly across arbitrary distances. 01:07:22.690 --> 01:07:24.730 align:middle line:84% That was at least the claim, which 01:07:24.730 --> 01:07:27.400 align:middle line:84% was the basis for this patent disclosure. 01:07:27.400 --> 01:07:29.170 align:middle line:84% He goes on to say, this isn't just cool. 01:07:29.170 --> 01:07:30.150 align:middle line:90% We could really use it. 01:07:30.150 --> 01:07:32.482 align:middle line:84% Remember the discussions he's immersed in. 01:07:32.482 --> 01:07:34.690 align:middle line:84% He says, "The device could give instant communication 01:07:34.690 --> 01:07:38.980 align:middle line:84% between an intelligence agent, a spy, and his headquarters. 01:07:38.980 --> 01:07:41.710 align:middle line:84% In this case, we would use correlated psychoactive 01:07:41.710 --> 01:07:44.720 align:middle line:84% molecules, such as LSD, affecting neurotransmitter 01:07:44.720 --> 01:07:45.220 align:middle line:90% chemistry." 01:07:45.220 --> 01:07:47.680 align:middle line:84% Let me just back up and say, what he's proposing here 01:07:47.680 --> 01:07:51.430 align:middle line:84% is this will really work if you get both the CIA field 01:07:51.430 --> 01:07:54.850 align:middle line:84% agent and the CIA Handler hopped up on LSD, 01:07:54.850 --> 01:07:57.880 align:middle line:84% send the field agent into, say, Novosibirsk in the Soviet 01:07:57.880 --> 01:07:58.450 align:middle line:90% Union. 01:07:58.450 --> 01:08:00.160 align:middle line:84% And then the field agent's brainwaves 01:08:00.160 --> 01:08:03.400 align:middle line:84% would be instantly connected to those of the handler. 01:08:03.400 --> 01:08:05.980 align:middle line:90% The patent was not granted. 01:08:05.980 --> 01:08:07.990 align:middle line:84% Part of the reason the patent wasn't granted 01:08:07.990 --> 01:08:10.120 align:middle line:84% was actually because it fell apart because 01:08:10.120 --> 01:08:11.480 align:middle line:90% of fully local discussion. 01:08:11.480 --> 01:08:14.140 align:middle line:84% So around the same discussion table in Berkeley 01:08:14.140 --> 01:08:16.510 align:middle line:84% was another core member of the group, Felipe Eberhard, 01:08:16.510 --> 01:08:19.149 align:middle line:84% who was originally a European scientist. 01:08:19.149 --> 01:08:21.040 align:middle line:84% But he spent his career as a staff scientist 01:08:21.040 --> 01:08:22.240 align:middle line:90% at the Berkeley Lab. 01:08:22.240 --> 01:08:25.920 align:middle line:84% And he also had the taste for these fundamental questions 01:08:25.920 --> 01:08:27.000 align:middle line:90% in quantum theory. 01:08:27.000 --> 01:08:31.290 align:middle line:84% And he introduced what has become the textbook reason why 01:08:31.290 --> 01:08:34.200 align:middle line:84% we all now know with some confidence that entanglement 01:08:34.200 --> 01:08:36.750 align:middle line:84% cannot be used to send signals faster than light. 01:08:36.750 --> 01:08:38.670 align:middle line:84% We know that because these people debated it 01:08:38.670 --> 01:08:42.420 align:middle line:84% around a conference table every Friday afternoon in the '70s. 01:08:42.420 --> 01:08:45.333 align:middle line:84% So Eberhard got wind of Jack's cool idea 01:08:45.333 --> 01:08:47.250 align:middle line:84% because they were talking about it every week. 01:08:47.250 --> 01:08:49.170 align:middle line:84% And Eberhard said, that shouldn't work. 01:08:49.170 --> 01:08:52.823 align:middle line:84% And it was actually Eberhard who cracked it, [INAUDIBLE].. 01:08:52.823 --> 01:08:54.240 align:middle line:84% And it goes like this, if you only 01:08:54.240 --> 01:08:58.979 align:middle line:84% have access to one side of a measuring device, one 01:08:58.979 --> 01:09:02.160 align:middle line:84% side of a Bell-type test, then all you 01:09:02.160 --> 01:09:05.620 align:middle line:84% have access to is the series of measurements that you perform, 01:09:05.620 --> 01:09:08.500 align:middle line:84% that you measure, say, polarization in orientation 1 01:09:08.500 --> 01:09:09.000 align:middle line:90% or 2. 01:09:09.000 --> 01:09:11.250 align:middle line:90% Remember, we get to choose that. 01:09:11.250 --> 01:09:13.319 align:middle line:84% And the outcomes-- was it spin up? 01:09:13.319 --> 01:09:16.968 align:middle line:84% In which case, the green light flashes or spin down, 01:09:16.968 --> 01:09:18.510 align:middle line:84% in which case, the red light flashes. 01:09:18.510 --> 01:09:21.240 align:middle line:84% We know detector settings and measurement outcomes 01:09:21.240 --> 01:09:23.859 align:middle line:84% from one box only, if we only have access 01:09:23.859 --> 01:09:25.750 align:middle line:90% to a local information. 01:09:25.750 --> 01:09:28.120 align:middle line:84% If you only have access to this side, 01:09:28.120 --> 01:09:31.533 align:middle line:84% then you don't know that the red and green flashes actually 01:09:31.533 --> 01:09:32.950 align:middle line:84% were correlated with what happened 01:09:32.950 --> 01:09:34.000 align:middle line:90% all the way over there. 01:09:34.000 --> 01:09:36.430 align:middle line:84% We only recognize the correlations 01:09:36.430 --> 01:09:38.770 align:middle line:84% inherent in Bell's inequality when 01:09:38.770 --> 01:09:41.229 align:middle line:84% we can bring information from both detectors 01:09:41.229 --> 01:09:44.050 align:middle line:84% together and compare the log books. 01:09:44.050 --> 01:09:46.810 align:middle line:84% When we can compare the sequence of detector settings 01:09:46.810 --> 01:09:49.279 align:middle line:84% and measurement outcomes from both sides, 01:09:49.279 --> 01:09:51.430 align:middle line:84% then we can go through the data and say, oh look, 01:09:51.430 --> 01:09:54.430 align:middle line:84% there were these remarkable correlations in the outcomes. 01:09:54.430 --> 01:09:57.010 align:middle line:84% If you only have access to one box, all you see 01:09:57.010 --> 01:10:01.090 align:middle line:84% is what looks to be a thoroughly random series of plus 1's 01:10:01.090 --> 01:10:03.515 align:middle line:84% and minus 1's, green flashes and red flashes. 01:10:03.515 --> 01:10:05.140 align:middle line:84% And I actually put that in the very end 01:10:05.140 --> 01:10:08.500 align:middle line:84% of the optional lecture notes from a few class sessions 01:10:08.500 --> 01:10:10.130 align:middle line:90% ago on Bell's inequality. 01:10:10.130 --> 01:10:12.343 align:middle line:90% So that's easy to summarize now. 01:10:12.343 --> 01:10:14.260 align:middle line:84% Now, we can all say, oh, of course, of course. 01:10:14.260 --> 01:10:15.160 align:middle line:90% No one knew that. 01:10:15.160 --> 01:10:18.010 align:middle line:84% John Bell didn't realize that in 1964. 01:10:18.010 --> 01:10:20.950 align:middle line:84% In fact, Bell himself thought that entanglement 01:10:20.950 --> 01:10:22.870 align:middle line:84% was on a collision course with relativity. 01:10:22.870 --> 01:10:24.860 align:middle line:90% This was pretty subtle stuff. 01:10:24.860 --> 01:10:27.290 align:middle line:84% And we all know that as a community, 01:10:27.290 --> 01:10:29.390 align:middle line:84% in part because it was being debated over 01:10:29.390 --> 01:10:32.688 align:middle line:84% in a very friendly, very kind of fun, ongoing debate 01:10:32.688 --> 01:10:34.980 align:middle line:84% by members of the Fundamental Fysiks Group in Berkeley, 01:10:34.980 --> 01:10:36.620 align:middle line:90% California in the late '70s. 01:10:36.620 --> 01:10:38.600 align:middle line:84% This became the standard response 01:10:38.600 --> 01:10:40.970 align:middle line:84% that was packaged up with another one of these very 01:10:40.970 --> 01:10:44.150 align:middle line:84% lovely, widely circulating popular books by another person 01:10:44.150 --> 01:10:46.497 align:middle line:84% on Ira Einhorn's distribution list, Heinz Pagels. 01:10:46.497 --> 01:10:48.080 align:middle line:84% That's also a lovely book, by the way. 01:10:48.080 --> 01:10:49.700 align:middle line:90% I recommend that one. 01:10:49.700 --> 01:10:51.290 align:middle line:84% And Eberhard's own proof-- you see, 01:10:51.290 --> 01:10:53.480 align:middle line:84% he had to publish it in one of the Italian journals, 01:10:53.480 --> 01:10:56.930 align:middle line:84% not in the Physical Review because of that kind of ban. 01:10:56.930 --> 01:10:59.840 align:middle line:84% And he says and the conclusions that, "Don't be discouraged. 01:10:59.840 --> 01:11:02.180 align:middle line:84% Just because this argument fails doesn't 01:11:02.180 --> 01:11:03.990 align:middle line:84% mean we should stop asking that question." 01:11:03.990 --> 01:11:05.960 align:middle line:84% So he says, "Don't discourage the work being performed 01:11:05.960 --> 01:11:07.760 align:middle line:84% by groups like the Fundamental Fysiks Group 01:11:07.760 --> 01:11:09.802 align:middle line:84% because these are really important questions that 01:11:09.802 --> 01:11:11.630 align:middle line:84% are not getting sufficient attention." 01:11:11.630 --> 01:11:14.780 align:middle line:84% So Jack's main patent effort did not go anywhere. 01:11:14.780 --> 01:11:17.870 align:middle line:84% But that only upped the ante for another core member, named 01:11:17.870 --> 01:11:20.420 align:middle line:84% Nick Herbert, who then introduced the following 01:11:20.420 --> 01:11:21.320 align:middle line:90% a few years later. 01:11:21.320 --> 01:11:23.250 align:middle line:84% There's again a kind of cat and mouse game 01:11:23.250 --> 01:11:27.830 align:middle line:84% on unspooling here with the discussions in Berkeley. 01:11:27.830 --> 01:11:29.330 align:middle line:84% So Nick Herbert introduced something 01:11:29.330 --> 01:11:32.900 align:middle line:84% he called FLASH, which was a playful acronym that 01:11:32.900 --> 01:11:36.380 align:middle line:84% stood for first laser-amplified superluminal hookup. 01:11:36.380 --> 01:11:37.880 align:middle line:84% He also writes physics limericks. 01:11:37.880 --> 01:11:39.480 align:middle line:90% He's very playful. 01:11:39.480 --> 01:11:40.790 align:middle line:90% So the idea was the following. 01:11:40.790 --> 01:11:42.890 align:middle line:84% He considered, again, a system that 01:11:42.890 --> 01:11:46.520 align:middle line:84% would emit pairs of entangled photons, just like his friend 01:11:46.520 --> 01:11:50.330 align:middle line:84% John Clauser was really doing in a laboratory at Berkeley. 01:11:50.330 --> 01:11:52.520 align:middle line:84% And he put in a little extra machinery here. 01:11:52.520 --> 01:11:55.400 align:middle line:84% Let's go through this one step at a time. 01:11:55.400 --> 01:11:58.130 align:middle line:84% Both for classical Maxwellian waves, 01:11:58.130 --> 01:12:00.650 align:middle line:84% for regular light waves, and even for individual quantum 01:12:00.650 --> 01:12:03.860 align:middle line:84% photons, we can characterize the polarization 01:12:03.860 --> 01:12:06.440 align:middle line:84% in several different ways, several equivalent ways. 01:12:06.440 --> 01:12:10.550 align:middle line:84% If we choose to measure the so-called circular polarization 01:12:10.550 --> 01:12:13.460 align:middle line:84% using a certain combination of wave plates, 01:12:13.460 --> 01:12:16.100 align:middle line:84% then we can measure the photon as either 01:12:16.100 --> 01:12:18.830 align:middle line:84% being right-handed, right circular-polarized, 01:12:18.830 --> 01:12:19.620 align:middle line:90% or left-handed. 01:12:19.620 --> 01:12:21.080 align:middle line:84% It has to do with the orientation 01:12:21.080 --> 01:12:23.330 align:middle line:84% of the spinning electric and magnetic fields 01:12:23.330 --> 01:12:27.130 align:middle line:84% with respect to its direction of the photons trapped. 01:12:27.130 --> 01:12:30.070 align:middle line:84% So we have a complete basis for polarization 01:12:30.070 --> 01:12:31.870 align:middle line:90% called circular right/left. 01:12:31.870 --> 01:12:34.780 align:middle line:84% If we choose to measure polarization actually 01:12:34.780 --> 01:12:36.640 align:middle line:90% with a linear filter-- 01:12:36.640 --> 01:12:38.740 align:middle line:84% think about the usual kind of picket fence picture 01:12:38.740 --> 01:12:40.420 align:middle line:90% of a polarization filter-- 01:12:40.420 --> 01:12:43.453 align:middle line:84% then we have one of two opposite outcomes. 01:12:43.453 --> 01:12:45.370 align:middle line:84% It's either going to be horizontal or vertical 01:12:45.370 --> 01:12:47.810 align:middle line:84% with respect to some orientation in space. 01:12:47.810 --> 01:12:51.070 align:middle line:84% So we have two complete bases with which we can characterize 01:12:51.070 --> 01:12:52.060 align:middle line:90% light's polarization. 01:12:52.060 --> 01:12:54.550 align:middle line:84% In fact, we can do any linear combination-- half/whole 01:12:54.550 --> 01:12:55.900 align:middle line:90% elliptically polarized states. 01:12:55.900 --> 01:12:59.290 align:middle line:84% But it's enough to consider circular right/left and plane 01:12:59.290 --> 01:13:01.130 align:middle line:84% polarization horizontal/vertical. 01:13:01.130 --> 01:13:03.460 align:middle line:84% And in fact, at the quantum mechanical level, 01:13:03.460 --> 01:13:05.860 align:middle line:84% people long ago long since worked out 01:13:05.860 --> 01:13:08.290 align:middle line:84% that you can write one state as a superposition 01:13:08.290 --> 01:13:09.500 align:middle line:90% position of the other. 01:13:09.500 --> 01:13:11.000 align:middle line:90% They're two complete bases. 01:13:11.000 --> 01:13:13.850 align:middle line:84% We can always rewrite one in terms of the other. 01:13:13.850 --> 01:13:15.740 align:middle line:84% So at a quantum mechanical level, 01:13:15.740 --> 01:13:19.270 align:middle line:84% the quantum state of right circularly-polarized photon 01:13:19.270 --> 01:13:22.480 align:middle line:84% could be written as an equal superposition 01:13:22.480 --> 01:13:25.270 align:middle line:84% with a particular phase between horizontal and vertical. 01:13:25.270 --> 01:13:31.430 align:middle line:84% Left is a different superposition and vice versa. 01:13:31.430 --> 01:13:35.140 align:middle line:84% So now, Nick says, well, from this source, 01:13:35.140 --> 01:13:37.090 align:middle line:84% prepare exactly the entangled states 01:13:37.090 --> 01:13:39.940 align:middle line:84% that John Clauser and Stuart Freedman really were. 01:13:39.940 --> 01:13:42.190 align:middle line:84% Prepare these maximally entangled states 01:13:42.190 --> 01:13:44.110 align:middle line:84% where if we choose to measure photon 01:13:44.110 --> 01:13:46.510 align:middle line:90% A in the horizontal basis-- 01:13:46.510 --> 01:13:49.870 align:middle line:84% excuse me, in the linear, in the plane polarization basis, 01:13:49.870 --> 01:13:52.630 align:middle line:84% we have a 50/50 chance of finding photon A to be 01:13:52.630 --> 01:13:54.820 align:middle line:90% either horizontal or vertical. 01:13:54.820 --> 01:13:57.310 align:middle line:84% If we find photon A in horizontal, 01:13:57.310 --> 01:13:59.440 align:middle line:84% then photon B must be in vertical. 01:13:59.440 --> 01:14:03.130 align:middle line:84% If we find photon A in vertical, photon B must be in horizontal. 01:14:03.130 --> 01:14:04.363 align:middle line:90% These maximally entangled. 01:14:04.363 --> 01:14:06.280 align:middle line:84% If one is basically the equivalent of spin up, 01:14:06.280 --> 01:14:09.100 align:middle line:84% the other must be spin down-- spin down, spin up. 01:14:09.100 --> 01:14:12.220 align:middle line:84% That exact same entanglement implies 01:14:12.220 --> 01:14:13.660 align:middle line:84% that if we happen to have measured 01:14:13.660 --> 01:14:16.300 align:middle line:90% photon A in a circular basis-- 01:14:16.300 --> 01:14:18.370 align:middle line:84% let's say we happen to find right-handed-- 01:14:18.370 --> 01:14:20.740 align:middle line:84% then photon B must be found to be left-handed 01:14:20.740 --> 01:14:22.930 align:middle line:84% when measured in circular basis and vice versa. 01:14:22.930 --> 01:14:24.580 align:middle line:84% That's actually just an exact rewriting 01:14:24.580 --> 01:14:29.060 align:middle line:84% because these two bases are so easily relatable. 01:14:29.060 --> 01:14:31.910 align:middle line:84% So now, Nick gets a little more creative. 01:14:31.910 --> 01:14:34.560 align:middle line:84% We subject photon A to some measurement. 01:14:34.560 --> 01:14:36.860 align:middle line:84% And again, as usual the physicist over here 01:14:36.860 --> 01:14:39.180 align:middle line:84% gets to choose, can choose at the last moment, 01:14:39.180 --> 01:14:41.540 align:middle line:84% well after they're emitted, which basis 01:14:41.540 --> 01:14:43.010 align:middle line:90% to choose for her measurement. 01:14:43.010 --> 01:14:46.700 align:middle line:84% She can choose to measure either in the HV basis 01:14:46.700 --> 01:14:49.370 align:middle line:84% or in the RL basis, by choosing by choosing whether or not 01:14:49.370 --> 01:14:51.290 align:middle line:90% to put in a waveplate. 01:14:51.290 --> 01:14:52.640 align:middle line:90% She makes that choice. 01:14:52.640 --> 01:14:55.790 align:middle line:84% Whatever choice she makes, she finds a particular outcome 01:14:55.790 --> 01:14:57.140 align:middle line:90% with 50/50 odds. 01:14:57.140 --> 01:15:00.360 align:middle line:84% Let's say she happens to measure plane polarization 01:15:00.360 --> 01:15:03.080 align:middle line:84% and happens to get a horizontal photon. 01:15:03.080 --> 01:15:07.010 align:middle line:84% Then photon B, at that moment, gets put into the quantum state 01:15:07.010 --> 01:15:12.170 align:middle line:84% V. It must be in the matching pair, the correlated state. 01:15:12.170 --> 01:15:14.690 align:middle line:84% So after its state is determined but long 01:15:14.690 --> 01:15:17.060 align:middle line:84% before it gets to its detector station, 01:15:17.060 --> 01:15:19.580 align:middle line:84% it enters this magical thing called a laser gain 01:15:19.580 --> 01:15:22.730 align:middle line:84% tube, which, at that point, was about 20 years old. 01:15:22.730 --> 01:15:25.070 align:middle line:84% There really were working lasers by then. 01:15:25.070 --> 01:15:27.330 align:middle line:84% A laser gain tube makes lots and lots 01:15:27.330 --> 01:15:29.430 align:middle line:84% of copies of the signal that enters it. 01:15:29.430 --> 01:15:32.910 align:middle line:84% So Nick says, well, we'll just send photon B into a laser gain 01:15:32.910 --> 01:15:36.270 align:middle line:84% tube, which emits many, many copies of the incoming photon. 01:15:36.270 --> 01:15:40.170 align:middle line:84% If the incoming photon was put into quantum state V, then 01:15:40.170 --> 01:15:43.170 align:middle line:84% now you have a bunch of copies of photon V coming out, 01:15:43.170 --> 01:15:46.740 align:middle line:84% photons in the state vertical polarization. 01:15:46.740 --> 01:15:48.160 align:middle line:90% Send those to a beam splitter. 01:15:48.160 --> 01:15:50.930 align:middle line:84% So now, half of the output goes to station 1. 01:15:50.930 --> 01:15:53.340 align:middle line:84% Half the output goes to station 2. 01:15:53.340 --> 01:15:55.530 align:middle line:84% Measure those in the distinct bases. 01:15:55.530 --> 01:15:59.940 align:middle line:84% One station is measured in circular, right or left. 01:15:59.940 --> 01:16:03.040 align:middle line:84% The other station is measured in plane, horizontal/vertical. 01:16:03.040 --> 01:16:06.540 align:middle line:84% And now, you have a series of possibilities. 01:16:06.540 --> 01:16:10.560 align:middle line:84% If you chose to measure photon A in the circular basis, 01:16:10.560 --> 01:16:12.660 align:middle line:84% you have a 50/50 chance of finding right or left. 01:16:12.660 --> 01:16:14.160 align:middle line:90% Let's say you find left. 01:16:14.160 --> 01:16:18.240 align:middle line:84% Then photon B must have been put into state right, right-handed. 01:16:18.240 --> 01:16:19.410 align:middle line:90% Then you magnify. 01:16:19.410 --> 01:16:20.115 align:middle line:90% You amplify. 01:16:20.115 --> 01:16:21.930 align:middle line:84% You make lots and lots of copies. 01:16:21.930 --> 01:16:24.960 align:middle line:84% So if the detector station is only measuring circular, 01:16:24.960 --> 01:16:27.660 align:middle line:84% you should find them all in the right detector, 01:16:27.660 --> 01:16:29.190 align:middle line:90% right-handed detector. 01:16:29.190 --> 01:16:32.460 align:middle line:84% And they should be equally split because of this property here, 01:16:32.460 --> 01:16:34.260 align:middle line:84% equally split in the other station 01:16:34.260 --> 01:16:36.420 align:middle line:90% between horizontal and vertical. 01:16:36.420 --> 01:16:39.450 align:middle line:84% If physicist A happened to measure photon A 01:16:39.450 --> 01:16:41.940 align:middle line:84% in the horizontal/vertical basis, 01:16:41.940 --> 01:16:43.950 align:middle line:84% they should get the opposite set of outcomes. 01:16:43.950 --> 01:16:46.933 align:middle line:84% All of photon B copies that are measured in that same basis 01:16:46.933 --> 01:16:47.850 align:middle line:90% should go to vertical. 01:16:47.850 --> 01:16:50.940 align:middle line:90% If A was H, B had to be V. 01:16:50.940 --> 01:16:52.680 align:middle line:84% Meanwhile, you should have a 50/50 split 01:16:52.680 --> 01:16:53.790 align:middle line:90% at the other station. 01:16:53.790 --> 01:16:57.570 align:middle line:84% So now, you can signal instantaneously, or arbitrarily 01:16:57.570 --> 01:17:00.420 align:middle line:84% quickly, by choosing here-- it's like you 01:17:00.420 --> 01:17:04.080 align:middle line:84% can make Morse code by whether you choose a detector station 01:17:04.080 --> 01:17:07.890 align:middle line:84% A to measure in circular or plane polarization. 01:17:07.890 --> 01:17:09.990 align:middle line:90% That's pretty awesome, right? 01:17:09.990 --> 01:17:13.350 align:middle line:84% Nick wrote it up in a preprint that was circulated 01:17:13.350 --> 01:17:15.000 align:middle line:90% in part thanks to Ira Einhorn. 01:17:15.000 --> 01:17:16.770 align:middle line:84% This is what the cover looked like because he was really 01:17:16.770 --> 01:17:18.330 align:middle line:84% into Eastern mysticism at the time. 01:17:18.330 --> 01:17:21.000 align:middle line:84% This was released by the Notional Science Foundation. 01:17:21.000 --> 01:17:21.810 align:middle line:90% That's not a typo. 01:17:21.810 --> 01:17:22.590 align:middle line:90% He had no support. 01:17:22.590 --> 01:17:24.030 align:middle line:90% He was on welfare. 01:17:24.030 --> 01:17:26.313 align:middle line:84% This was his joke for like consciousness studies, 01:17:26.313 --> 01:17:28.230 align:middle line:84% as opposed to the National Science Foundation. 01:17:28.230 --> 01:17:30.300 align:middle line:84% And he worked out of a post office box. 01:17:30.300 --> 01:17:33.158 align:middle line:84% This was submitted to another out of the way journal that 01:17:33.158 --> 01:17:35.700 align:middle line:84% had only recently been founded called Foundations of Physics, 01:17:35.700 --> 01:17:36.970 align:middle line:90% not the Physical Review. 01:17:36.970 --> 01:17:39.600 align:middle line:84% I was able to track down many of the referee reports. 01:17:39.600 --> 01:17:42.830 align:middle line:84% The referees were mostly split and stumped. 01:17:42.830 --> 01:17:44.580 align:middle line:84% They said, this shouldn't be able to work. 01:17:44.580 --> 01:17:46.140 align:middle line:90% It seems to violate relativity. 01:17:46.140 --> 01:17:50.160 align:middle line:84% And yet, they couldn't find the loophole. 01:17:50.160 --> 01:17:53.370 align:middle line:84% The paper begins-- the preprint begins an even wider journey. 01:17:53.370 --> 01:17:55.500 align:middle line:84% So it's sent by the journal to be refereed 01:17:55.500 --> 01:17:58.650 align:middle line:90% by Giancarlo Ghirardi in Italy. 01:17:58.650 --> 01:18:00.330 align:middle line:84% He writes back right away saying, 01:18:00.330 --> 01:18:01.470 align:middle line:90% reject it and here's why. 01:18:01.470 --> 01:18:03.300 align:middle line:84% He wrote a one paragraph referee report, 01:18:03.300 --> 01:18:06.060 align:middle line:90% which Giancarlo shared with me. 01:18:06.060 --> 01:18:09.330 align:middle line:84% In the meantime, unbeknownst to Giancarlo, 01:18:09.330 --> 01:18:10.980 align:middle line:84% the preprint was also circulating 01:18:10.980 --> 01:18:14.503 align:middle line:84% due to the remnants of that Einhorn network. 01:18:14.503 --> 01:18:16.170 align:middle line:84% And it gets to people like John Wheeler. 01:18:16.170 --> 01:18:18.370 align:middle line:84% And Wheeler passes it on to his students, 01:18:18.370 --> 01:18:20.670 align:middle line:84% including Wojciech Zurek, who then gave me copies 01:18:20.670 --> 01:18:22.200 align:middle line:90% of his notebook to look at. 01:18:22.200 --> 01:18:24.330 align:middle line:84% They're grappling with this challenge. 01:18:24.330 --> 01:18:26.580 align:middle line:84% And then independently of each other, 01:18:26.580 --> 01:18:29.300 align:middle line:90% both Wheeler's students-- 01:18:29.300 --> 01:18:31.857 align:middle line:84% Bill Wootters and Zurek, and then separately 01:18:31.857 --> 01:18:33.440 align:middle line:84% Dennis Dieks in the Netherlands, who'd 01:18:33.440 --> 01:18:35.840 align:middle line:84% gotten the paper again through the underground network-- 01:18:35.840 --> 01:18:37.852 align:middle line:84% all find the reason why this won't work. 01:18:37.852 --> 01:18:39.560 align:middle line:84% It turns out the same reason that Girardi 01:18:39.560 --> 01:18:41.018 align:middle line:84% had found a year and a 1/2 earlier, 01:18:41.018 --> 01:18:43.460 align:middle line:84% but had never published, that Nick Herbert had 01:18:43.460 --> 01:18:47.210 align:middle line:84% missed something very subtle, as had most of the referees. 01:18:47.210 --> 01:18:49.850 align:middle line:84% Yes, we can write the right-handed circular photon 01:18:49.850 --> 01:18:52.220 align:middle line:90% as an equal parts superposition. 01:18:52.220 --> 01:18:56.120 align:middle line:84% But what the laser does is it doesn't make n copies 01:18:56.120 --> 01:18:57.500 align:middle line:90% of a single particle state. 01:18:57.500 --> 01:19:01.083 align:middle line:84% That would violate the linear behavior, the linear nature 01:19:01.083 --> 01:19:02.250 align:middle line:90% of the Schrodinger equation. 01:19:02.250 --> 01:19:04.970 align:middle line:84% You can't go from one to many because Schrodinger's equation 01:19:04.970 --> 01:19:06.380 align:middle line:90% is a linear equation. 01:19:06.380 --> 01:19:09.140 align:middle line:84% What happens in the laser gain tube 01:19:09.140 --> 01:19:12.470 align:middle line:84% is that you make one multi-particle state, instead 01:19:12.470 --> 01:19:14.120 align:middle line:90% of many single particle states. 01:19:14.120 --> 01:19:15.560 align:middle line:90% That's really subtle. 01:19:15.560 --> 01:19:18.260 align:middle line:84% If that went too fast, you're in exceptionally good company. 01:19:18.260 --> 01:19:20.510 align:middle line:84% Wojciech Zurek told me that he stumped Richard Feynman 01:19:20.510 --> 01:19:21.920 align:middle line:90% with this, which I believe. 01:19:21.920 --> 01:19:23.753 align:middle line:84% This was really hard to puzzle through. 01:19:23.753 --> 01:19:24.920 align:middle line:90% This was not at all obvious. 01:19:24.920 --> 01:19:26.640 align:middle line:90% Now, we can take it for granted. 01:19:26.640 --> 01:19:30.270 align:middle line:84% This became known as the no cloning theorem, which 01:19:30.270 --> 01:19:33.090 align:middle line:84% is to say you can't make arbitrary many copies 01:19:33.090 --> 01:19:35.640 align:middle line:84% of an unknown quantum state because that 01:19:35.640 --> 01:19:37.080 align:middle line:90% would violate linearity. 01:19:37.080 --> 01:19:40.020 align:middle line:84% This is as central as the uncertainty principle today. 01:19:40.020 --> 01:19:42.120 align:middle line:84% It's in the opening pages of most of our textbooks 01:19:42.120 --> 01:19:43.412 align:middle line:90% on quantum information science. 01:19:43.412 --> 01:19:45.420 align:middle line:84% We, as a community, know this because people 01:19:45.420 --> 01:19:48.540 align:middle line:84% were beating their heads against this really clever challenge 01:19:48.540 --> 01:19:50.730 align:middle line:84% from a member of the Fundamental Fysiks Group. 01:19:50.730 --> 01:19:53.430 align:middle line:84% That last bit, the fact that you can't 01:19:53.430 --> 01:19:56.370 align:middle line:84% make copies of an unknown quantum state, 01:19:56.370 --> 01:19:58.710 align:middle line:84% is what was the last missing piece needed 01:19:58.710 --> 01:19:59.790 align:middle line:90% for quantum encryption. 01:19:59.790 --> 01:20:01.890 align:middle line:84% That's why encryption systems can work. 01:20:01.890 --> 01:20:04.590 align:middle line:84% If any eavesdropper tried to grab 01:20:04.590 --> 01:20:09.060 align:middle line:84% onto one member of an entangled pair and make many copies of it 01:20:09.060 --> 01:20:11.940 align:middle line:84% to then do exactly what Nick Herbert had in mind to reverse 01:20:11.940 --> 01:20:16.180 align:middle line:84% engineer that secret signal, it will destroy the entanglement 01:20:16.180 --> 01:20:19.410 align:middle line:84% so that neither the eavesdropper nor the intended recipients 01:20:19.410 --> 01:20:21.120 align:middle line:84% will get the intended information. 01:20:21.120 --> 01:20:24.570 align:middle line:84% So encryption works because you can't make copies of a quantum 01:20:24.570 --> 01:20:26.680 align:middle line:84% state without basically breaking the encryption 01:20:26.680 --> 01:20:29.140 align:middle line:84% and destroying the original state. 01:20:29.140 --> 01:20:32.170 align:middle line:84% That's what leads, with very rapid order, 01:20:32.170 --> 01:20:34.690 align:middle line:84% to the very first protocol for quantum encryption, 01:20:34.690 --> 01:20:37.360 align:middle line:84% as I wrote about more in the book and I could say more. 01:20:37.360 --> 01:20:38.350 align:middle line:90% So let me wrap up. 01:20:38.350 --> 01:20:39.350 align:middle line:90% We're almost done. 01:20:39.350 --> 01:20:42.970 align:middle line:84% So the Nobel Laureate Roy Glauber 01:20:42.970 --> 01:20:45.340 align:middle line:84% gave credit to Nick Herbert for really 01:20:45.340 --> 01:20:50.260 align:middle line:84% pushing on this seemingly weak joint between quantum theory 01:20:50.260 --> 01:20:51.310 align:middle line:90% and relativity. 01:20:51.310 --> 01:20:52.690 align:middle line:90% He said, yes, it was wrong. 01:20:52.690 --> 01:20:54.310 align:middle line:84% But it was remarkably productive. 01:20:54.310 --> 01:20:57.220 align:middle line:84% We had to learn through that mistake as a community. 01:20:57.220 --> 01:20:59.470 align:middle line:84% And that was a worthwhile exercise. 01:20:59.470 --> 01:21:01.300 align:middle line:84% So he's not saying Nick Herbert was right. 01:21:01.300 --> 01:21:03.537 align:middle line:84% We all know why Nick Herbert wasn't right now. 01:21:03.537 --> 01:21:05.870 align:middle line:84% But he's saying, we learned that because of the process, 01:21:05.870 --> 01:21:08.230 align:middle line:84% because some people took the question seriously. 01:21:08.230 --> 01:21:10.150 align:middle line:84% Very similarly, Asher Peres, another leader 01:21:10.150 --> 01:21:12.670 align:middle line:84% in the field who just passed away a few years ago, 01:21:12.670 --> 01:21:14.260 align:middle line:84% actually turned out to have been one 01:21:14.260 --> 01:21:16.870 align:middle line:84% of the referees of the paper who admitted many years later 01:21:16.870 --> 01:21:20.200 align:middle line:84% he couldn't crack it and therefore urged the journal 01:21:20.200 --> 01:21:22.330 align:middle line:84% to publish it because he said, this must be wrong. 01:21:22.330 --> 01:21:23.890 align:middle line:90% But I can't figure out why. 01:21:23.890 --> 01:21:25.750 align:middle line:84% We need to crowdsource this, so we all 01:21:25.750 --> 01:21:28.960 align:middle line:84% learn, because this is pointing to something very, very deep. 01:21:28.960 --> 01:21:31.060 align:middle line:84% So I find that a productive mistake. 01:21:31.060 --> 01:21:32.230 align:middle line:90% So let me close here. 01:21:32.230 --> 01:21:34.570 align:middle line:84% This very unusual sounding group, 01:21:34.570 --> 01:21:36.070 align:middle line:84% called the Fundamental Fysiks Group, 01:21:36.070 --> 01:21:38.920 align:middle line:84% actually left their mark in modern physics 01:21:38.920 --> 01:21:42.470 align:middle line:84% in ways that can be a little surprising or counterintuitive. 01:21:42.470 --> 01:21:44.690 align:middle line:84% Members like John Clauser conducted 01:21:44.690 --> 01:21:47.510 align:middle line:84% the world's first experimental test of Bell's inequality. 01:21:47.510 --> 01:21:50.840 align:middle line:84% It was through these really playful, but earnest efforts 01:21:50.840 --> 01:21:53.270 align:middle line:84% to understand things like faster than light communication 01:21:53.270 --> 01:21:56.060 align:middle line:84% devices that the entire community learned 01:21:56.060 --> 01:21:58.400 align:middle line:84% just exactly how to keep quantum theory 01:21:58.400 --> 01:22:00.830 align:middle line:90% compatible with relativity. 01:22:00.830 --> 01:22:02.705 align:middle line:84% It led to new understanding of how amplifiers 01:22:02.705 --> 01:22:04.913 align:middle line:84% work at the quantum mechanical level, which had never 01:22:04.913 --> 01:22:05.870 align:middle line:90% been clarified before. 01:22:05.870 --> 01:22:07.520 align:middle line:84% A huge area of quantum optics begins 01:22:07.520 --> 01:22:09.530 align:middle line:90% to get a boost from that. 01:22:09.530 --> 01:22:11.690 align:middle line:84% These are the first kind of publications 01:22:11.690 --> 01:22:14.690 align:middle line:84% that are bringing pretty grounded information 01:22:14.690 --> 01:22:18.530 align:middle line:84% about quantum entanglement even into classrooms 01:22:18.530 --> 01:22:20.150 align:middle line:84% and whole lesson plans being built 01:22:20.150 --> 01:22:22.920 align:middle line:84% around that for undergraduate instruction in physics. 01:22:22.920 --> 01:22:25.260 align:middle line:84% So this work with all of its clear successes, 01:22:25.260 --> 01:22:26.990 align:middle line:84% which are things otherwise I personally 01:22:26.990 --> 01:22:29.570 align:middle line:84% don't endorse or believe in, nonetheless 01:22:29.570 --> 01:22:31.880 align:middle line:84% was active in a very unusual time 01:22:31.880 --> 01:22:34.245 align:middle line:84% to bring some of these really important topics, topics 01:22:34.245 --> 01:22:36.620 align:middle line:84% that we all now, I think, can agree are really important, 01:22:36.620 --> 01:22:38.750 align:middle line:84% like entanglement and relativity, 01:22:38.750 --> 01:22:40.460 align:middle line:90% back into US classrooms. 01:22:40.460 --> 01:22:41.790 align:middle line:90% So I'll stop there. 01:22:41.790 --> 01:22:43.610 align:middle line:84% Again, I apologize for running a bit long. 01:22:43.610 --> 01:22:45.620 align:middle line:84% If people have questions, I'd be glad to stay on longer. 01:22:45.620 --> 01:22:47.662 align:middle line:84% But of course, I know if people have to head off, 01:22:47.662 --> 01:22:48.838 align:middle line:90% please don't be shy. 01:22:48.838 --> 01:22:49.880 align:middle line:90% Any questions about that? 01:22:49.880 --> 01:22:58.150 align:middle line:90% 01:22:58.150 --> 01:22:59.050 align:middle line:90% Stay well, everyone. 01:22:59.050 --> 01:23:00.380 align:middle line:90% Remember, no class Wednesday. 01:23:00.380 --> 01:23:02.220 align:middle line:90% See you next week. 01:23:02.220 --> 01:23:26.000 align:middle line:90%