An experiment with paired photons ruled out a hidden, orderly universe
Einstein suspected quantum entanglement was an illusion masking hidden properties particles secretly carried all along. John Bell worked out a mathematical test in 1964 that any such hidden-variable theory would have to pass, and in 1982 Alain Aspect's experiment with entangled photons broke that limit. Measuring one particle instantly correlates with its distant partner in a way no local, pre-set explanation can account for — work that won Aspect a share of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics.