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Nature 438, 743 (8 December 2005) | doi:10.1038/438743a; Published online 7 December 2005

Concept The message of the quantum

Anton Zeilinger1

  1. Anton Zeilinger is at the Institute for Experimental Physics, University of Vienna, Boltzmanngasse 5, A-1090 Vienna, Austria, and at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI), Austrian Academy of Sciences, Boltzmanngasse 3, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
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Einstein challenged physics to describe "the real factual situation". But an understanding of the very concepts that he criticized a century ago may provide the best clues yet about reality 'out there'.

In the first of his papers from 1905, his annus mirabilis, Einstein proposed the idea of particles of light, later called photons. From this paper, a very realistic picture of light particles emerged, as being much like the particles in an ideal gas.

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