Can New Bitcoin Coding Reduce Its Outrageous Mining Energy Consumption?

 

                          Bitcoin mining operation using exorbitant electric energy

The recent article (Code changes could drastically reduce bitcoin’s enormous electricity requirements) in Physics Today (APRIL, p. 26)  -  suggesting use of different coding as a means to control energy consumption of Bitcoin mining - was worthy of attention. As the piece notes, the Energy Information Administration  (EIA) :

"estimated in February that cryptocurrency mining accounts for anywhere from 0.6% to 2.3% of US electricity consumption."   

That is a lot and is having a major impact on our environment especially fueling climate change.

Bitcoin is by far the largest of the world’s more than 10 000 cryptocurrencies, and to generate new bitcoins, mining companies must solve cryptographic puzzles that require vast computational resources.  This has led to the rapid growth in electricity demand and an additional CO2 input that is approaching intolerable levels. According to the PT piece: "Worldwide, bitcoin mining used more energy in 2020–21 than all but 26 countries, according to an October 2023 report by an academic arm of the United Nations. It emitted carbon dioxide equivalent to burning 38 billion kg of coal." (As Physics Today went to press, bitcoin was trading at an all-time high price of around $73 000. Bitcoin mining—and its energy consumption—rises in parallel with the price.)

For the uninitiated in the esoteric realm of cryptocurrency, "mining" is a loose metaphor for what is going on. There is no actual mining as in extraction of precious ores - like gold - to make bitcoin.  It is instead based on the continuous use of powerful computers to keep solving numerical - math problems and conundrums, in 10 minute stretches, to create the basis for generating bitcoin.  According to the website "Investopedia":

"Bitcoin mining is the process by which new bitcoins are entered into circulation, but it is also a critical component of the maintenance and development of the blockchain ledger. It is performed using very sophisticated computers that solve extremely complex computational math problems. Cryptocurrency mining is painstaking, costly, and only sporadically rewarding. Nonetheless, mining has a magnetic appeal for many investors interested in cryptocurrency because of the fact that miners are rewarded for their work with crypto tokens."

The abstruse mathematics underlying cryptography enable bitcoin to exist in the first place and is what drives computer energy consumption.  The applicable coding needs to follow that arc which allows most expeditious solution.  Especially as the Mathematics may entail solutions to the peculiar functions known as elliptic curves, i.e.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2016/12/peculiarities-of-elliptic-curves-and.html

Thus, for example, bitcoin uses elliptic curve technology - a type of public key cryptography is needed to ensure the validity of transactions. I.e. that the bitcoin you are using is every bit as valid as the one I am using.  You can learn more here: about elliptic curve cryptography.

While this would pose a humongous problem for any virtual currency,  Bitcoin attempts to solve it using what's called  "blockchain".  Basically, this is a registry of all the Bitcoin transactions to date, and which all users can see.  It includes: when the Bitcoins were created and the dates for transactions between individuals.   The problem then becomes ensuring the blockchain is accurate. This is accomplished using powerful, number crunching computers that basically solve fearsome elliptical equations that help in verifying the Bitcoin transactions, dates, and hence the blockchain is accurate. If not, then it would be possible to steal or duplicate the currency.  Specifically, the amount of power consumed  by this number crunching is equivalent to all of that consumed by Finland in one year, or 5.1 gigawatts.  For comparison, the current largest bitcoin mining plant (in Texas) has a capacity of 700 MW and will soon be followed by a 1 GW plant. (The typical nuclear reactor produces about 1 GW of power).

Miners completing a new block are currently rewarded with 6.25 new bitcoins. As the mining network has grown over time, the computing power necessary to create new blocks has increased, since the code automatically adjusts the difficulty to keep the time required for completion of a block steady at around 10 minutes.

Nor is this likely to mark the limit of consumption. This is because bitcoin's energy intensive validation process - known as "proof of work"- is only likely to get more intense with time.  This will arrive as more and more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are incorporated and added to the blockchain. Clearly then, there must be a means or method to limit energy consumption and the greenhouse gases churned out.

Thankfully, environmental groups -  including Greenpeace and the Environmental Working Group  - have urged bitcoin to change its code to a far lower energy-intensive process called "proof of stake". Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, switched in 2022 to proof of stake, where large holders of the cryptocurrency offer some of their own holdings as collateral to validate new blocks and transactions in exchange for a chance to receive rewards. That change lowered the Ethereum network’s energy consumption by 99.9%, to an annualized 7.5 GWh.  Alas, large holders of bitcoin have opposed change. One (BMC) says the energy is required in order to provide network security and tie the cryptocurrency’s value to the physical world.  (The BMC claims that 60% of the energy consumed by the global bitcoin mining industry is supplied from sustainable, non-CO₂-emitting sources—more green energy than is used by almost any other industry sector.)

Nonetheless, a 2022 report by the Sierra Club and Earthjustice accused some companies of “greenwashing” by locating their plants in proximity to wind or solar farms. But unless a company has a power purchase agreement or a direct connection to a renewable supplier, the proportion of renewables they use will be the same as that of the grid from which they draw. Apart from a few publicly traded bitcoin mining companies, few self-report their energy consumption source.

 All of this amounts to a giant spin production on behalf of the bitcoin miners, and in service of a cryptocurrency whose value to the greater economy remains dubious.  (Look no further than the continuing fallout from Sam Bankman-Fried's crypto malarkey).

What is needed is not "proof of work" right now but proof of energy use and that it is truly green-emphasized, not quasi green, or "green washed". A first step is a change in coding to generate bitcoin.

See Also:

Bitcoin Mining Threatens Not Only Financial System

And:

Can A 'Verification Of Work' Change Slow The Bitcoin Speculative Frenzy And Conserve Energy?

"The Great Burning" - Is It Scientific Fact Or Pseudoscientific Baloney?

"Burning Earth" may well be in humanity's future

Profile of climate tipping point

As noted in my June 10, 2021 post, tipping points arise from sudden fluctuations of climate but which can lead to permanent conditions determining a new, more hostile equilibrium. From Atmospheric physicist Gunther Weller's models we expect a series of tipping points for which the control parameters (e.g. CO2 concentration) alter radically at every point. Two key points are noteworthy in this discussion:

1) Tipping point transitions  are governed by a potential V(x,c) with c the control parameter and described by a point x Î R ⁿ    that minimizes the potential. Changing external conditions - say pumping out more CO2 into the atmosphere- changes the control parameter c and that changes the shape of the potential V(x,c).  

As the shape of the potential V(x,c) changes the original global minimum becomes metastable or even disappears.   I believe we are at such a metastable point now with the concentration having jumped by >   5.1 ppm in just 2 years.   

The danger then is the global climate system being knocked into instability  (at a tipping point) and in its wake a new permanent equilibrium state (at some new potential V(x’, c’) for which humans face an existential crisis (heat waves lasting months, instead of weeks). How soon might this occur given a current value for CO2 concentration of 420 ppm? Professor Weller proposed 600 ppm as the threshold value for the runaway greenhouse effect, which would basically initiate a planetary state leading to Earth being uninhabitable after 100-200 yrs. No amount of “adaptation” would be feasible, especially if power grids collapsed from overuse in the frenzy to stay cool. 

2)    The pre-existing CO2 burden only adds to (1).   While about half of that carbon dioxide is currently absorbed by the world’s forests and oceans, the other half stays in the atmosphere, where it lingers for thousands of years, steadily warming the planet. Even if all CO2 emissions halted it would not make a dent in the long term accumulations already in the atmosphere. 

The process may be described like a series with terms being added, viz: to describe the CO2 content now in the atmosphere, we must initiate the series with n= 1 (for 1924), viz.  CO2( 2024) =   x  ₁  + x  ₂ +  x  ₃ +   x  ₄ +.............+  x  _{1 00} 

Terminating at the last term 100 years later. Here each ‘x’ denotes the CO2 burden added for each year in succession.

Thus, the CO2 effect for a given year is not just for that year, but rather inclusive of the cumulative additions for all the years - starting up to 100 years before.

Adding it up along with a recent report in The Washington Post (April 19). According to that report, "the historic heat wave that besieged Mali and other parts of West Africa earlier this month — which scientists said would have been “virtually impossible” in a world without human-caused climate change- is just the latest manifestation of a sudden and worrying surge in global temperatures. "  

More worrisome:  "The scale and intensity of this hot streak is extraordinary even considering the unprecedented amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, researchers say. Scientists are still struggling to explain how the planet could have exceeded previous temperature records by as much as half a degree Celsius (0.9 degrees Fahrenheit) last fall."

We must also factor in earlier  reported work showing humanity is in the process of changing the planet in ways that any future climatologist  (or geologist) would find obvious and undeniable. Also that we are headed for a hellish future defined by a number of major climate tipping points, defined by "the great Burning".

So, it’s probably best to think of the approaching geological and climatological moment epoch like a global conflagration—rather than a durable new regime (geological epochs tend to be several million years in duration).  So assuming there are humans around 10,000 or even a million years from now (dubious at best), they will be able to discern  the GHG residue from the 20th and 21st centuries .

The generations to come will inhabit a different world indeed. Earth’s new regime, once it has stabilized, will surely be classifiable as a new geological epoch.  But why “The Great Burning” in particular? The most plausible hypothesis is that of atmospheric scientist Gunther Weller: the onset of a catastrophic climate tipping point.  Prof. Weller had forecast such a tipping point as early as the mid -1980s while at the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks, AK.  That was based on his then studies of the significant increase in Arctic temperatures (from ice core analysis)and the accompanying melting. We also saw this first hand while visiting Alaska in March of 2005, in particular the difficulty taking a dog sled over melting snow just outside Fairbanks, e.g.

As well as observing two ice towers crashing down during the Fairbanks Ice Art Festival owing to melting permafrost. All of this in conjunction with the current research discloses we may be entering SSP5-8.5 the high emissions scenario for greenhouse gases (GHG).   In an SSP5 -8.5 scenario we will see an increase of 5.7 C  by 2100,  which the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists noted two years ago that IPCC climate report understated the threat. Do the math, given the CO2 concentration is increasing at 2.5 ppm/ yr.    The "Great Burning" is indeed soon upon us.  See Also: Is There A Climate Emergency? All The Indicators Point To A Serious Crisis Nearing Emergency 

 current 

What happens in the next few months, said Gavin Schmidt, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, could indicate whether Earth’s climate has undergone a fundamental shift — a quantum leap in warming that is confounding climate models and stoking ever more dangerous weather extremes.

But even if the world returns to a more predictable warming trajectory, it will only be a temporary reprieve from the conditions that humanity must soon confront,

More Voters Have Joined Repub Party Since Insurrection? Are They Mad, Ignorant Or Just Plain Stupid?

                                                                   

                                       The version of white women flocking to GOP?                                        

                         The version of pro-GOP white males we know already

  

“The quality of our leaders is deteriorating, and we're so used to it that it's not alarming to us anymore." - Peggy Noonan, 'Bad Leadership Is A National Security Threat', WSJ, 4/20

"One of the most consequential facets of the 2024 election is how Americans have warmed to Trump’s first term. Call it “amnesia” or anything else, but it’s a significant factor. To the extent people continue to remember the grass being greener, that’s likely to weigh significantly on who wins in November.”- Aaron Blake, WP, ‘Trump’s Increasingly Charged Criminal Trial'

"Trump has millions of ignorant fools who will do anything for him. I hope he makes a big batch of Jim Jones Kool Aid and they drink it all."-  Commenter on Washington Post yesterday                                                                        

The recent news (NY Times, April 11, 'More Voters Join Republican Party, Closing Gap With Democrats') that more voters have "shifted to the Republican Party" had me gobsmacked with astonishment, while Janice just said: "I told you so!" Meaning that her interpretation of most American voters as "a pack of idiots" still holds.  But you can't make this shit up, especially as it comes right out of the detail-oriented Pew Research Center.  

As the piece noted:

 "In the runup to the 2020 election more voters identified as Democrats than Republicans.  But four years into Joe Biden's presidency that gap has shrunk as more voters have shifted to Republicans."

What was even more disturbing, at least to me not to Janice, is that more "independents" have actually revealed themselves as Reepo partisans. Thus, as Pew points out, this sorry lot "tend to behave like partisans even if they eschew the label."  This stealth misidentification could also explain why recent polls of independents disclose only 1 in 3 believe Trump is actually guilty in the current "hush money" trial - which is really an election interference trial.  See e.g.

Donald Trump

Don’t Call It the “Hush Money” Case

by Robert Reich | April 12, 2024 - 6:38am | permalink

— from Robert Reich's Substack

According to Carroll Doherty, director of political research at Pew:

"The Democratic and Republican parties have always been very different demographically, but now they are more different than ever."

The reason? According to the piece and the Pew Research findings:

The Reepo voter surge is mainly due to: "significant gains among voters without a college degree, rural voters and white evangelical voters."

The first is easily explained given those voters likely lack critical thinking and basic reasoning skills and hence are more likely to tune into FOX where they get thoroughly brainwashed.  So logically they will be inclined to join a party replete with traitors (insurrectionists), liars (like Trump) and obstructionist clowns - like the current GOP House blocking aid to Ukraine, and conducting a clown show  sham "impeachment" of Homeland Secretary Alejandro Majorkas. (which the Dem Senate properly quashed.)   

The rural voters are also understandable, given their likely low level of reading and gullibility (look at the guy above who believes a Trump "dictatorship" is needed).  Only a semi-educated rube would believe such bull pocky as the constitution is trumped by a dictatorship, or that Trump is "anointed by God" e.g.

Rural WI Voters Are Convinced Trump Is "Anointed"

The white evangelical lot are also easily explainable given they are convinced Trump is a manifestation of "God's plan" never mind he's a traitor and rapist. They believe this orange slimeball represents their best chance to impose a religious autocracy using the vehicle of Christian Nationalism, e.g.

Religious Authoritarians Have To Understand Their Agenda Is Doomed To Fail. Why? Because We're On To Them

and:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/06/inside-the-cult-of-trump-his-rallies-are-church-and-he-is-the-gospel

   What is less clear - and far more disturbing -  is that the Reeps are "making large gains among white women."   And presumably suburban white women. Though we ought to note that in the 2016 election a majority  (52%) came out to vote Trump even after seeing the  “Access Hollywood” tape and the orange fungus bragging about pussy grabbing.  But with a national abortion ban looming - if Trump is re-elected -one wonders how happy these white women will be if their fifteen year old daughter gets pregnant (and no abortion is allowed in their red state.)   

Pew claims the Republican party of traitors, liars, obstructionists and pregnancy slavers of women now "holds a ten point partisan advantage" over Democrats in the white female demographic.  Which means either: a) these white females believe neither they or their daughters will ever get pregnant from a rape, or b) they will find a way to abort the unwanted seed, or c) they are incapable of thinking that far ahead in terms of consequences, e.g. if a Reepo majority takes over House, Senate and presidency. 

We will see how it plays out in November, especially after Trump's trysts with Stormy Daniels are exposed during his trial, particularly having sex with her while his wife was caring for their newborn infant Barron. Or maybe these white women don't really care about sexual morals, fidelity or the fact that Reeps are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. (Consult - i.e. Google, research- the background of one Matt Gaetz) 

As for those voters - especially rural, and women- who now believe this cult of a party has their interests at heart, they need to think again.  Not when Trump vows universal ten percent tariffs on all goods, from all countries across the board. Also, how the hell can they support a  butt-joke of a bunch, in the House of Representatives, that stands out for the lowest level of laws passed since the Great Depression (WSJ two days ago).  Oh, and that supports Russian aggression in eastern Europe given it refuses to allow any $$  to Ukraine.  

They need to think of who and what they are actually voting for, and meanwhile (especially for the women and more intelligent males) try to get rid of the Trump amnesia!  More importantly, they need to cease voting for dirtbag criminals and rapist, traitor reprobates whose stain defiles our nation and its constitutional fabric.

See Also:

Donald Trump

Donald Trump Turns the GOP Into a Protection Racket — and Demands Republican Candidates Pay Up

by Amanda Marcotte | April 20, 2024 - 6:45am | permalink

— from Salon

For someone who frequently proclaims his innocence, Donald Trump sure loves to act like a two-bit gangster. The perpetual defendant should be focused on staying out of prison and running for president as the first of his four criminal trials kicks off. Instead, he is still focused on his lifelong obsession with making money while avoiding honest work. And the latest marks for this elderly grifter are other Republican candidates running in state or local races.

And:

Republicans

Want to Die Young? Bathe Yourself in Right-Wing Media and Vote Republican

by Thom Hartmann | April 20, 2024 - 6:00am | permalink

— from The Hartmann Report

Want to die young? Immerse yourself in conservative media and vote Republican. Seriously.

We should have known, but, still, the science is shocking: when conservatives run governments, suicides and homicides go up; when liberals run governments, suicides and homicides go down.

We got the first clue back in 2002, when, in a 100-year longitudinal study published that year in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, Australian researchers found that the suicide rate in that country and the UK increased throughout the 20th century whenever a Conservative government (similar to Republicans here in the U.S.) was in power and declined measurably when the liberal Labour Party was in charge.

And:

Why Are So Many Millions Still Mesmerized By A Loser Traitor Like Donald Trump?

And:

Donald Trump

Trump’s Right To Fear Stormy Daniels — She Could Be a Devastating Witness

by Amanda Marcotte | April 16, 2024 - 7:08am | permalink

— from Salon

As a lifelong lover of the English language, I'm being slowly driven mad by one word that haunts the news coverage these days: "affair." It's the favorite word that journalists and pundits use to describe the interaction between adult film actress Stormy Daniels and Donald Trump, a onetime meeting that led to a series of alleged crimes aimed at covering up what happened between them at a Nevada golf resort in 2006. Journalists like the word "affair" because it manages to be both tawdry and discreet. It invokes a sexual relationship without getting into the unseemly and — considering the alleged butt-and-ketchup stank of the defendant in this case — stomach-turning details.

But the word "affair" is misleading. Yes, an affair is illicit by definition, and quite likely a bad idea. But an affair is also exciting, erotic, possibly even romantic. An affair suggests two people who can't keep their hands off each other, despite knowing it's wrong. None of this comes close to describing the nauseating single encounter that Daniels has described, whether to journalists or in her memoir. She has insisted, repeatedly, that she did not want to have sex with Trump and gave in because it seemed easier than resisting his advances.

And:

Donald Trump

Trump v. Stormy: Not Our First Rodeo

by Jaime O’Neill | April 17, 2024 - 6:51am | permalink

And:

Economic Policy

Raging Against White Rural Rage

by Les Leopold | April 18, 2024 - 5:39am | permalink

Yes, Einstein Was Proven Wrong: How The E-P-R Paradox Was Exposed As A Non-Paradox

 The EPR Paradox

In 1935, Einstein along with two colleagues, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, devised a thought experiment.[1]  This has since been called the EPR experiment based on the first initials of their names.  Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (E-P-R) imagined a quantum system (helium atom A) which could be ruptured such that two electrons were dispatched to two differing measurement devices, X1 and X2. 

X1  (+ ½ ) <-----(A)------>(- ½ ) X2

Each electron would carry a property called 'spin'. Since the helium atom itself had zero spin (the 2 electrons canceling each other out), this meant one would have spin (+ 1/2), the other (-1/2). 

 Thus, we manage to skirt the Indeterminacy Principle, and obtain both spins simultaneously without one measurement disturbing the other. We gain completeness, but at a staggering cost. Because this simultaneous knowledge of the spins implied  that information would have had to propagate from one spin measuring device (on the left side) to the other (on the right side) instantaneously!  This was interpreted to mean faster-than-light communication, which violates special relativity. 

In effect, a 'paradox' ensues: quantum theory attains completeness only at the expense of another fundamental physical theory - relativity. By this point, Einstein believed he finally had Bohr by the throat. Figuring Bohr might come up with some trick or sly explanation up his sleeve, Einstein went one better at the 6th Solvay Conference held in 1930, actually designing a thought experiment device that he was convinced would have Bohr in tears trying to find a solution:

                                           Einstein’s Thought Experiment Device

 

According to reports, it very nearly did, and a number of participants insisted "Neils was in a state of  shock".   Einstein wasn't a meanie, he merely wanted to put to rest once and for all the notion that quantum mechanics was complete, or was in any way a proper science. The device contrived by Einstein was designed as a counter-example to the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle for energy and time which states:

ΔE Δ t ³  h/2π

                                                       

The "device" featured a spring-based weight scale is located and one can see it when a door (front of box) opens, with the door controlled by a clock timer. Whenever the door flaps open, even for a split second, one photon escapes and the weight difference (between original box and after) can be computed using Einstein's mass-energy equation, e.g.: m = E/ c². Thus, the difference is taken as follows:

Weight(before door opens) - weight (after)

(E.g.  with 1 photon of mass m = E/ c²   gone)

Since the time for brief opening is known (Δ t) and the photon's mass can be deduced from the above weight difference, Einstein argued that one can in principle  find both the photon's energy and time of passage to any level of accuracy without any need for the energy-time uncertainty principle.

 In other words, the result could be found on a totally deterministic basis!      Bohr for his part nearly went crazy when he studied the device, and for hours worried there was no solution and maybe the wily determinist was correct after all. When Bohr did finally come upon the solution, he realized he'd hoisted the master on his own petard.

The thing Einstein overlooked was that his very act of weighing the box translated to observing its displacement (say, dr = r2 - r1) within the Earth's gravitational field. But according to Einstein's general theory of relativity, clocks actually do run slower in gravitational fields (a phenomenon called 'gravitational time dilation') In this case, for the Earth, one would have the fractional difference in proper time, as a fraction of time passage t:

dt/ t » GM(1/r1 - 1/r2) » g(dr)/ c²

where G is the Newtonian gravitational constant, M is the Earth's mass, and g is the acceleration of gravity (g = 980 cm/ sec² in cgs) and c = 3 x 10¹⁰ cm/sec.

Let us say the box deflection (r2 - r1)was 0.001 mm = 0.0001cm, then:

dt/t ~ (980 cm/s²)(10^-4 cm)/ (3 x 10¹⁰ cm/sec )²

dt/t »  10^-22

and for an interval say t = 0.01 sec, 

dt = (10^-22 )(0.01 sec) = 10^-24 sec

     In other words, the observation would actually generate a time uncertainty of 10^-24  sec- and hence an uncertainty dE in the energy of the photon. In other words, after the displacement (r2 - r1) arising from the measurement, the clock is in a gravitational field different from the original one. (The Energy uncertainty can meanwhile be computed from the Heisenberg energy -time relation to be dE  » 10^-10 J)

Quantum theory prevails again!

Decades later, to actually test the original E-P-R quantum system (used in the EPR thought experiment), Alain Aspect and his colleagues at the University of Paris, set up an arrangement as sketched below.  (In the original EPR set up both spins could be identified - with the sole assumption that both were in definite states from the instant of their parent atom's disruption.)

In the Aspect experiments this was not the case, the spins - or rather polarizations-  had to be detected and determined. The detection of the polarizations of photons was the key. These were observed with the photons emanating from a Krypton-Dye laser and arriving at two different analyzers, e.g.

 

P1 ¯| <------------[]-------------> |­ P2

        A1                  D                         A2

 

Here, the laser device is D, the analyzers (polarization detectors) are A1 and A2 and two representative polarizations are given at each, for two photons P1 and P2. The results of these remarkable experiments disclosed apparent and instantaneous connections between the photons at A1 and A2. In the case shown, a photon (P1) in the minimum (0) intensity polarization mode, is anti-correlated with one in the maximum intensity (1) mode.

 Say, twenty successive detections are made then one obtains at the respective analyzers (where a ‘1’ denotes spin  +1/2 detection and ‘0’ spin  (-1/ 2):

A1:   1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0

A2:   0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1

 On inspection, there is found to be a 100% anti-correlation (i.e. 100% negative correlation) between the two and an apparent nonlocal connection. In practice, the experiment was set out so that four (not two - as shown) different orientation 'sets' were obtained for the analyzers. These might be denoted: (A1,A2)I, (A1,A2)II, (A1,A2,)III, and (A1,A2)IV.  Each result is expressed as a mathematical (statistical) quantity known as a 'correlation coefficient'.[3] The results from each orientation were then added to yield a sum S:

S = (A1,A2)I + (A1,A2)II + (A1,A2,)III + (A1,A2)IV

 In his (1982) experiments, Aspect determined the sum with its attendant indeterminacy to be:   S = 2.70 ±  0.05 and in so doing experimentally validated Bell’s Inequality and in the process reduced the EPR Paradox to a simple misunderstanding of quantum mechanics in the authors' minds.

 Einstein's challenges to Bohr in the aftermath were all kind of half-hearted and had nowhere near the intensity of his clock-door device work of art. Rather than join happily with other QM theorists at the last Solvay Conference in 1933 Einstein - the perpetual determinist- remained on the sidelines "feeling the same uneasiness as he had before".

 He went to work separately, on a "unified field theory" while the quantum theory edifice was formulated to its present maturity without him.    In the orthodox Copenhagen (and most conservative) interpretation of quantum theory, there can be no separation of observed (e.g. spin) state until an observation or measurement is made. Until that instant (of detection) the states are in a superposition, as described above.

     More importantly, the fact of superposition imposes on all quantum phenomena an inescapable ‘black box’. In other words, no information other than statistical can be extracted before observation.

---

    [1] Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen.:1935, Physical  Review, 777.

[2] More technically, this is what is referred to as ‘the z-component of electron spin’, since the electron is visualized as a spinning top, with z-axis (i.e. component) in the axial or z-direction.

3] For example, if a set of data: 1, 1, 1, 1 is correlated with another set: 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, 0.5, the correlation coefficient is 1.0. The range is between 0 (no correlation) and 1.0 (perfect correlation).

.

SEE ALSO:   

Three Physicists Share Nobel For Bold "Nonlocality" Experiments That Paved The Path to Quantum Computing