Entangled

He proved Einstein wrong. Then he started building.

In 1935, Albert Einstein dismissed quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance" — a flaw in the theory, not a fact about reality. For eighty years, nobody could prove him wrong beyond all doubt.

Then a Dutch physicist in a laboratory in Delft closed every loophole at once.

Entangled is the story of Ronald Hanson, who settled one of the deepest arguments in the history of science — and then, instead of stopping at the proof, set out to build something with it: a network where the laws of physics, not mathematics, guarantee that no message can be intercepted.

This is a story about diamonds used as quantum processors, about a country of seventeen million people betting six hundred and fifteen million euros on a technology that had never produced a commercial product, and about the quiet cluster of companies now growing around a single university campus in the Netherlands.

It is also a story about what happens when a scientist refuses to treat the laboratory as the finish line.

In this book:

How a defect in a diamond became one of the most promising platforms in quantum computing The 1.3-kilometre experiment that ended an eighty-year debate — and the 220 hours of night-time measurements it took Why the Netherlands bet its technological future on quantum, and who convinced it to The first quantum link between two cities, running through ordinary telecom fibre The retraction scandal that shook the institute — and how it responded What a quantum internet actually does that todays internet cannot

Entangled is the third book in the European Success Stories series — short, accessible books about European researchers and founders whose work created industries that did not exist before. Each book stands alone.

Also in the series: Mining Gold from Data (Wil van der Aalst and the rise of Celonis) and Robot Hands (Raimondo Cau and the rise of Microsure).

Written for the curious, not the specialist. No physics background required.