Portals to a New Reality

An Oxford physicist signposts a new revolution in fundamental physics, and with it a new description of reality

For the last century, physics has been following the paths set out by the same two theories-quantum mechanics and general relativity-and, let's face it, it's getting pretty boring. Despite these great theories being fundamentally in conflict, most scientists are simply chasing decimal points in laboratories. To give the deeper explanation of reality we seek, we need new ways to explore and critique our best ideas of the universe on the smallest and largest scales.

The situation is much like that in 1890, right before Planck, Einstein and Bohr blew the roof off Newtonian physics. As Vlatko Vedral argues in Portals to a New Reality, this suggests we are on the brink of a new revolution.

Vedral first explains the state of the art of our current understanding when it comes to quantum mechanics and general relativity. Then he shows how quantum information theory has opened up radical new avenues, giving us a series of extraordinary experiments that could upend physics. They can sound very strange-one essentially involves entangling a human with Schr dinger's cat-but they lay bare the elements of our theories that are particularly problematic, such as the widespread belief that nothing truly exists unless it is observed.

At present these take the form of fascinating thought experiments, but nothing, save inertia and a lack of ambition, stands in our way. This revolution has been a century in the making-the time has finally arrived to rewrite our understanding of the universe.