Discussion of Experimental Proof for the Paradox of Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky

A brief review of the physical significance of the paradox of Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky is given, and it is shown that it involves a kind of correlation of the properties of distant noninteracting systems, which is quite different from previously known kinds of correlation. An illustrative hypothesis is considered, which would avoid the paradox, and which would still be consistent with all experimental results that have been analyzed to date. It is shown, however, that there already is an experiment whose significance with regard to this problem has not yet been explicitly brought out, but which is able to prove that this suggested resolution of the paradox (as well as a very wide class of such resolutions) is not tenable. Thus, this experiment may be regarded as the first clear empirical proof that the aspects of the quantum theory discussed by Einstein, Rosen, and Podolsky represent real properties of matter.