--- title: What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light description: A new study confirms a theory that the great man of physics never much liked canonical: https://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/ author: Jeffrey Kluger article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-10-22T20:06:37.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:41.536Z article:section: Science og:title: What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light og:description: A new study confirms a theory that the great man of physics never much liked og:url: https://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdde2d9f80e4c1387/698869742dce011af79e6242/einstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5350 og:image:height: 3009 og:image:alt: I'm...what? Wrong? og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light twitter:description: A new study confirms a theory that the great man of physics never much liked twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdde2d9f80e4c1387/698869742dce011af79e6242/einstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. 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It reaches 40,000 subscribers with a 34.2% open rate and a 2.1% click rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I follow the energy transition as a business story? Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: These Are the Elements of a Comet [Watch (HLS stream): These Are the Elements of a Comet](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/zIq2B3Xf.m3u8) (0:50)  _Published 2015-10-23. These Are the Elements of a Comet_  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 22, 2015 8:06 PM UTC  I'm...what? Wrong? I'm...what? Wrong? MPI; Getty Images  by [Jeffrey Kluger](https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/)  ## Jeffrey Kluger Editor at Large Oct 22, 2015 8:06 PM UTC If you want to play in the quantum sandbox, you have to accept some bizarre rules. You have to accept that a single thing can exist in two states at once—alive and dead, black and white—until it’s observed or measured in some way, at which point it instantly takes on one quality or the other. You have to accept that two particles at opposite ends of the universe can be entangled in such a way that anything you do to one instantly affects the other. And you have to accept that the strictest, no-exceptions rule in all of physics—that nothing can move faster than the speed of light—may have some exceptions after all. Einstein hated the quantum sandbox, especially the part about entanglement. It’s not at all hard to believe that two particles separated by great distances can indeed influence one another via some field or wave, but that information can travel no faster than light speed. If the particles are one billion light years apart, it should take one billion years for something you do to one to have an impact on the other. The idea that that could happen with no time lag at all was something Einsten dismissed as “spooky action at a distance”—and he wanted no part of it. But now, an experiment at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands suggests that the great man’s objections notwithstanding, spooky action at a distance is real. And with that, the entire field of quantum physics gets a big boost. ### The Day Albert Einstein Died: A Photographer's Story  Albert Einstein's office - just as the Nobel Prize-winning physicist left it - taken mere hours after Einstein died, Princeton, New Jersey, April 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Albert Einstein's papers, pipe, ashtray and other personal belongings in his Princeton office, April 18, 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Albert Einstein's casket, moved for a short time from the Princeton Hospital to a funeral home, Princeton, New Jersey, April 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. From left: Frida S. Bucky; Albert Einstein's son, Hans Albert (in light suit); unidentified woman; Einstein's longtime secretary, Helen Dukas (in light coat); and friend Dr. Gustav Bucky (partially hidden behind Dukas) arriving at the Ewing Crematorium, Trenton, New Jersey, April 18, 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Mourners walk into the service for Albert Einstein, passing the hearse that carried his casket from Princeton, April 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Friends and family make their way to their cars after the funeral service for Albert Einstein, Trenton, April 1955\. The ceremony was brief: Einstein's friend Otton Nathan, an economist at Princeton and co-executor of the Einstein estate, read some lines by the great German poet, Goethe. Immediately after the service, Einstein's remains were cremated. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. An unidentified man holds a car door open for Albert Einstein's secretary, Helen Dukas, following Einstein's cremation, April 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Family and friends return to Einstein's home at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, where he lived for 20 years, after his funeral, April 18, 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images  Not published in LIFE. Dr. Thomas Harvey (1912 - 2007) was the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Einstein at Princeton Hospital in 1955. Ralph Morse—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images The principle that was supposed to make quantum entanglement impossible is known as local-realism, which conforms to Einsteinian physics by establishing that any signal from any sender to any receiver must obey the light-speed limit (that’s the local part) and that outcomes are fixed and determined before an object is observed, not as a result of the observation (that’s the realism part). In 1964, physicist John Bell of CERN (The European Organization for Nuclear Research), developed the equations that freed quantum physics from the strictures of local-realism, defining mathematically how particles can be entangled in such a way that they are both part of what is known as a single wave function—instead of each particle being defined by its own wave function. Start by thinking of the particles as identical twins with the same DNA; then think of those same twins sort of sharing the same body—and sort of not. OK, that second part requires a bit of a leap, but never mind, the math adds up. Even Bell, though, didn’t pretend that he had nailed the quantum case down completely. His equations still contained two loopholes: the locality loophole (the possibility that the particles are communicating across a small enough space through an efficient enough mechanism that they are indeed not violating light speed); and the detection loophole (that your equipment may be in some way flawed, so that the particles either weren’t properly entangled in the first place, or that you’re inaccurately analyzing the influence they have on each other). To close those loopholes, a team led by physicists Bas Hensen and Ronald Hanson placed two instruments about 1.3 kilometers (0.8 mi.) apart in labs at opposite ends of the Delft campus. Each lab contained an instrument with a diamond trap designed to hold an electron fast, so that it could be hit with microwave and laser bursts. Those jolts of energy caused both electrons in both labs to emit photons that traveled down optical fibers to a third instrument in a lab equidistant between them. The convergence of those photons caused the entanglement of the two electrons that had produced them. Once that quantum union had taken place, the rest of the entanglement process played out—with observations or measurements of the spin rate of one electron instantly affecting the other one. And in this case instantly means exactly what it is supposed to mean—which is even faster than it would have taken light to travel the 1.3 km distance. What’s more, the experiment didn’t work just once. Henson and Hanson ran 245 trials across 220 hours of testing sessions over 18 days, yielding results that were consistent and reliable enough to beat the statistical distance opened by Bell’s two loopholes—effectively closing them both. “Our experiment realizes the first Bell test that simultaneously addresses both the locality loophole and the detection loophole,” the researchers wrote. “Being free of the experimental loopholes, the set-up tests local-realist theories without introducing extra assumptions.” In other words, on this score Einstein was wrong and Bell was even righter than he believed. None of this means that any of the theories Einstein did develop about classical physics were in error, anymore than it would mean that the findings of the world’s greatest bacteriologist were incorrect because they didn’t include anything about viruses—especially if the bacterial work was done before medical science knew viruses exist at all. Physics could never have gotten to the quantum without working through the classical first. And while Einstein picked the right word when he called quantum entanglement spooky, the Delft study now shows that it’s very real too. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/"},"headline":"What Einstein Got Wrong About the Speed of Light","datePublished":"2015-10-22T20:06:37.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:41.536Z","description":"A new study confirms a theory that the great man of physics never much liked","url":"https://time.com/4083823/einstein-entanglement-quantum/","keywords":["Physics","Einstein"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdde2d9f80e4c1387/698869742dce011af79e6242/einstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jeffrey Kluger","jobTitle":"Editor at Large","url":"https://time.com/author/jeffrey-kluger/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltdde2d9f80e4c1387/698869742dce011af79e6242/einstein.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"I'm...what? 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