Quantum mechanics - simultaneously physics's most successful and most baffling theory - may be in for an upgrade.
It faces a challenge from a modified version that would solve a largely ignored puzzle at the heart of the theory: why do subatomic particles never let us catch them in the act of being in many places at once but instead "collapse" into a single position as soon as we observe them?
Unlike most attempts at modification, this latest upgrade is generating special excitement as it meshes with another pillar of physics, Einstein's special relativity.
It also comes at the same time as a proposed test for such modifications - and a recent plea from a Nobel laureate to stop ignoring the collapse problem.
"Like many physicists, I have used quantum mechanics throughout my working life, cheerfully ignoring the deep questions about its meaning, but with a nagging feeling that this is something I ought to understand," says Steven Weinberg of the University of Texas at Austin, who recently posted a blueprint for devising such modifications online.
If the recent refinement holds true, much of the "spookiness" that still surrounds quantum theory would melt away.
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