Boris Podolsky Memorabilia

Hello.
I am Robert Podolsky, son and heir to the famous physicist, Boris Podolsky. I have written this page because I am offering for sale a collection of historical items that belonged to my father. Linked Above, you will find a catalog of the books, manuscripts, certificates, letters, desk items, and personal effects that I am making available, together with Podolsky's abbreviated biography and a list of his technical papers and publications.

But first, I want to say a few words about why Podolsky is famous. In 1935, together with Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen, Podolsky wrote a technical paper called, "Can Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?" This modest document predicted that, if a certain experiment were performed, the result would prove the physical possibility of something that came to be known as "action at a distance" — a term that implies simply that a causal event that takes place at one place in space-time could have an instantaneous effect at another place in space-time — no matter how distantly the two locations might be separated. This prediction contradicted the common understanding among physicists of that day that the effect of a causal event could propagate, or travel, no faster than the speed of light.

Unfortunately, in 1935 the technology necessary to perform the experiment described in the above paper was not available. So for many years the prediction was known as the "Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) Paradox". It wasn't until 1964 that solid experimental evidence began to appear that the EPR prediction was correct. Although the experiments of Bell and Aspect are not yet totally conclusive, they are persuasive enough that the former "paradox" is now generally referred to as the "EPR Effect"; and the possibility of "action at a distance" regarded by most physicists as highly likely. The Effect also strongly suggests that the universe is encompassed by more than the four dimensions that are generally seen as characteristic of space-time — or that "hidden variables" are present everywhere. The latest theories of cosmology support this possibility.

So what? What makes this important? Since Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity appeared in 1905, science fiction has been replete with stories involving faster-than-light (interstellar) travel, faster-than-light ("subspace") communication, interstellar "worm-holes", telepathy, teleportation, parallel universes, time travel, and other similarly "unlikely" phenomena. The EPR Effect has direct bearing on all of these possibilities. It is even relevant to the concept of a Holographic Universe (in which all points in space are instantaneously connected with all other points in space), and to the nature of human creativity via the quantum mechanical properties of the human brain. It is for these reasons, among others, that Podolsky is still famous today.

For inquiries concerning the possible acquisition of the Podolsky Memorabilia
Collection, or any portion thereof,
contact Robert Podolsky at borisheir@yahoo.com.