Today the announced the winner of the annual of a colossal Ā£1 million ($1.4 million), the largest annual prize in the world.
This year it goes to French physicist and philosopher of science Bernard dāEspagnat for his āstudies into the concept of realityā. DāEspagnat, 87, is a professor emeritus of theoretical physics at the University of Paris-Sud, and is known for his work on quantum mechanics. The award will be presented to him by the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace on 5 May.
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DāEspagnat boasts an impressive scientific pedigree, having worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. was his thesis advisor; he served as a research assistant to ; and he worked at CERN when it was still in Copenhagen under the direction of . He also served as a visiting professor at the University of Texas, Austin, at the invitation of the legendary physicist John Wheeler. But what has he done thatās worth Ā£1 million?
The thrust of dāEspagnatās work was on experimental tests of . The theorem states that either quantum mechanics is a complete description of the world or that if there is some reality beneath quantum mechanics, it must be nonlocal ā that is, things can influence one another instantaneously regardless of how much space stretches between them, violating Einsteinās insistence that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.
But what dāEspagnat was really interested in was what all of this meant for discerning the true nature of ultimate reality. Unlike most of his contemporaries, dāEspagnat was one of the brave ones unafraid to tackle the thorny and profound philosophical questions posed by quantum physics.
Third view
Unlike classical physics, dāEspagnat explained, quantum mechanics cannot describe the world as it really is, it can merely make predictions for the outcomes of our observations. If we want to believe, as Einstein did, that there is a reality independent of our observations, then this reality can either be knowable, unknowable or veiled. DāEspagnat subscribes to the third view. Through science, he says, we can glimpse some basic structures of the reality beneath the veil, but much of it remains an infinite, eternal mystery.
Looking back at dāEspagnatās work, I couldnāt help but wonder what the Templeton Foundation ā an organisation dedicated to reconciling science and religion ā saw in it that they thought was worth a Ā£1 million. Then, scanning the press release, I found it:
āThere must exist, beyond mere appearances ā¦ a āveiled realityā that science does not describe but only glimpses uncertainly. In turn, contrary to those who claim that matter is the only reality, the possibility that other means, including spirituality, may also provide a window on ultimate reality cannot be ruled out, even by cogent scientific arguments.ā
But even if there is a partially unknowable reality beneath reality, Iām not sure how that implies that spirituality is a viable means to access it. I have a suspicion that this still comes down to good old-fashioned faith.
Unconventional āGodā
So what is it, really, that is veiled? At times dāEspagnat calls it a Being or Independent Reality or even āa great, hypercosmic Godā. It is a holistic, non-material realm that lies outside of space and time, but upon which we impose the categories of space and time and localisation via the mysterious categories of our minds.
āIndependent Reality plays, in a way, the role of God ā or āSubstanceā ā of Spinoza,ā dāEspagnat writes. Einstein believed in Spinozaās God, which he equated with nature itself, but he always held this āGodā to be entirely knowable. DāEspagnatās veiled God, on the other hand, is partially ā but still fundamentally ā unknowable. And for precisely this reason, it would be nonsensical to paint it with the figure of a personal God or attribute to it specific concerns or commandments.
The āveiled realityā, then, can in no way help Christians or Muslims or Jews or anyone else rationalise their specific beliefs. The Templeton Foundation ā despite being headed up by John Templeton Jr, an evangelical Christian ā claims to afford no bias to any particular religion, and by awarding their prize to dāEspagnat, I think theyāve proven that to be true.
I happen to believe that drawing any spiritual conclusions from quantum mechanics is an unfounded leap in logic ā but if someone out there in the world is willing to pay someone Ā£1 million for pondering the nature of reality, thatās a world Iām happy to live in.
