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Physics

What does quantum theory really tell us about the nature of reality?

For 100 years, quantum theory has painted the subatomic world as strange beyond words. But bold new interpretations and experiments may help us to finally grasp its true meaning

By Daniel Cossins

15 April 2025

ÐÔÊӽ紫ý. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

The problem with quantum mechanics, or at least the reason even physicists don’t understand it, isn’t that it paints an unfamiliar picture of reality. It isn’t difficult to accept that the world of fundamental particles, of which we have no direct experience, is radically different to the world we perceive.

The problem is instead that it doesn’t portray the hinterlands between these two worlds, offering no clear outline of how one emerges from the other. As a result, a century after it was committed to canvas, we still don’t know what this scientific masterpiece means for our understanding of reality.…

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